Actor Growth

That was a longer workshop than expected yesterday. It started about an hour late as the acting coach was asleep apparently at home. The reason being we were told was that the third week of the workshop we were suppose to do a Yoga exercise class of some sort and so he thought he was able to take time off.

As you may know though, we missed last week’s workshop as the instructor went to the US and so this was technically just our second time still. So many of us just practiced our scenes while we waited and I got to mingle around with some of the other actors. When the coach arrived, there were also two other people that came in to audit the class it seemed.

I did perform my scene and got some interesting feedbacks. One thing the coach did was that he mocked me as the scene was supposed to start off with the person waking up in a bed. Keep in mind that this is an audition style class and so all we had was this chair and a big blue studio space. He was saying how it looked like I was in such a lazy esque positioning which made it look like a model posing or something. Hilarious and fun way I thought as a way to get one’s point across.

The other interesting comment was that after I performed my scene he gave me a direction about really thinking about a certain line and to try it again. I then did it with the feedback and he was very enthusiastic saying how he gave me such a very difficult yet complex direction and I managed to pull it off perfectly. That was interesting too I thought.

It was interesting because on the same day there was another lady that did a scene and ended up accidentally crying. I know that sounds odd to many people. Basically what happened was that she was doing a scene and when she said her line it seemed like she accidentally said those words based on her own life experiences which she felt was a bit emotional.

A good example is say you having a loved one pass away in real life and then you performed a scene that dealt with that type of situation. When you speak those lines, you accidentally cross reference it as if you are saying those lines during the day your loved one passed away.

I say it is interesting because like for the direction I received it came down to personal real life experiences too to a certain extent to enable you to get into a particular emotional mood. In the moment it doesn’t feel complicated or difficult at all which is the funny thing despite how it seems to an outside party.

It is going to be interesting next week. Not really sure how this Yoga class thing is going to turn out as I didn’t expect it at all. I was just joking with another fellah too that I guess I will treat it as another day attending a martial arts class. My assumption is that this is done to show you a possible way for you to relax yourself before doing a scene afterwards.

Alright, so Wednesday is going to be the second day of that acting workshop and out of the scripts I was given I chose a scene a few day ago. The only problem is that the character description in terms of his physical presence isn’t exactly in my look range. Example, it says that the character is overweight which I’m definitely not.

So I was thinking of just changing some of the dialogue in the scene to suit me more as I kind of like the scene. However, I remember last time when I tried to make the other small scene my own I ended up mostly reverting to what seems was the original vision of the script.

The class is done in an audition style process and so maybe it is better for me to just keep it as it is. Maybe I’ll just use this as an example on how the coach said if you are called in for a role where you don’t exactly fit the physical description of the character that means they see something in you that may be workable.

I guess that is what I’ll do. The lines aren’t difficult to memorize.

I was asked a question recently about the show The Reaper as apparently I was told that the show was being canceled and a fan asked if I knew anything about it since I worked on it before. I haven’t been called for that show since my last visit and since I wasn’t exactly an actor for it my knowledge of the show’s status is unknown to me personally.

Although, I did notice something interesting which may mean nothing in the long run. Basically, I have been in the North Shore Studios for the past week working on this movie and I noticed there was this large truck there where it was branded as “The Work Bench”. I believe that is the name of the fictional company in the show.

In all honesty, that could just simply mean that the old truck was simply used as a transportation truck for a different show since it is not needed anymore for the Reaper production. On the flip side, it could mean that they were shooting an episode. Again, highly doubt it though as there were no cast or crew from that production on the studio that I noticed. Sorry, that’s all I know Reaper fans.

Well this was an interesting comment that a person told me while on set. Basically, I was doing some simple background work and one person was telling me about the pay and how sometimes it is not enough for him due to the non full time nature of the field. I then commented that I personally don’t do things like background work for money but rather as a way to get more involved in the film business during my downtime as an actor.

He then commented on how at least I was doing it for the right reason which I thought was kind of interesting. I say that because in the end it is just a job I suppose as some people could be doing it for money and others could be doing it for experience. So with that in mind is there ever truly a “right” reason for doing a job such as this?

I mean hey, I even volunteer for various film productions as an actor too where there is no money involved. You definitely need passion though that’s for sure. In some funny and cliché way too these things don’t even feel like a job to me in a traditional sense.

Been working on the same movie set for awhile and am back again today. I had an interesting conversation with a gentlemen on how he got out of the industry for a few years. However, after working on set again he noticed that he still recognized so many people.

He then asked me which film school I went to and his eyes lit up as he mentioned his niece went there too but that I probably wouldn’t know her. Turns out she was actually my classmate. lol. That just kind of shows how small the film community really is here and that word can get around fast if people do good or bad things.

I got a message today from my agent as I got booked for two days of background work for a film. Later on in the day I got a phone call from a friend that wanted to shoot a film. Unfortunately, I had to decline it because I was booked for work.

That is a decision that I debate about many times. For example, even though doing volunteer work means no pay, as long as it helps me in my acting career and at the same time provides me with more film work experience I usually would opt to do that over things like paying background work.

I suppose what helps a lot with that decision is that I am not as needy financially like a lot of other artists and so I can base my decision more on growth and potential. But who knows. Maybe I’ll get a good upgrade opportunity on set too and at minimum I usually get to meet great people.