Actor Growth

Interesting day this was. I was back on Stargate Universe today as expected as part of a continuity shot from last week. Let’s just say, today involved work that required me to be on the ground a lot which was unexpected. However, another unusual thing happened too where the director was giving me directions as to what to do.

Since I wasn’t exactly doing a principal role on this series, that was very odd to me as from school and all the sets I have been on it is usually a no-no to interact with the director when you are not a principal player as that is up to the assistant directors to do.

So you can imagine my confusion as he was giving me direction and I was a little confused at first. Example, he was telling me to turn and I would turn a little when he actually wanted way more. Funny thing is afterwards he literally grabbed my head and turned it to the position that he wanted for the shot.

Then he looks into the camera view as the cameraman was pointing the camera right at me and he was so happy with that shot that he shouted out to me “I’m going to make you F’n famous!” I didn’t get to see it myself though of course, but this sure was an interesting experience. And no, I don’t think that shot is in anyway going to make me more well known professionally acting wise despite being featured on that shot. Fun for experience though.

As mentioned before I decided to try out a different acting workshop that promised to focus more on an audition style of training. It is going to take place once a week and currently I am committed to attending it for the next three months.

The only thing that is a little confusing so far is that this looks like there are three acting coaches and depending on which day you signed up for you get a particular coach. I’m not sure if they rotate too as that would be interesting to get different tips and advices from different perspectives.

While on set for the shooting of season 2 of Fringe yesterday I was talking to another local actor that was currently in the midst of seeking for new principal representation. His reasons are pretty straight forward as he knows that there are a lot of auditions that he could be suited for but is not getting called for them.

He then dove a bit about the issue on how if a certain agent has a bad relationship with a specific casting director then most likely you won’t ever get called for potential roles that they may be casting for. I’ve been told many times that it is definitely small network of people that

The interesting thing is I personally can’t think of a non intrusive way to verify if say an agent and casting director hate each other for whatever reason as for the most part you are only going by rumors and hearsay from other people. In reality, if you are semi established with a unique skill then chances are things like this can be just a hurdle. But for up and coming talent this is more crucial as virtually no one knows you and things like this don’t exactly help the situation.

It seems like the only real way to find out is to network with a lot of other actors to get their general experiences where you then compile it to come up with your own conclusion. I know in general an agent can make a big difference though in terms of how much potential work you can get professionally.

Just got a call recently from my agent asking if I wanted to work on the TV show Fringe and I agreed. I always thought this show was shot in the US and so it was kind of surprising to me that it is shooting here in Vancouver.

I must admit, I have no clue what the show is about as I don’t follow the series and just read a bit about it online. Apparently this is the first episode of the second season that they are shooting and I’ll be on set tomorrow for this.

What a surprising day this was. Upon arriving to the bridge studios and heading to the holding area, there was literally only one other person. I figured we must be just darn early as there wasn’t even a wrangler to help us sign in for the day.

As it turned out, there was a very small cast of people today. Not only that, because there were so few people I automatically got a union voucher for working on this show today and it is technically the second one I have ever gotten for doing this line of work. The makeup lady was telling me how it must have been cool to be chosen out of so many other performers to be there that day.

It is cool when you think about it. The day ended pretty fast too and I spent a lot of time just reading about the scene as I was wondering what the two main actors were bickering about story wise. Lol. As well, the person I was partnered up with happened to be in the same agency I was with and we talked a lot about our experiences and goals.

From what I read we are going to have to appear again and so I will probably be back with the same partner next week.

Today was the audition an it went very well I thought overall. I did my thing and as usual they ask you to do the scene with completely different interpretations to see your range. My choice for the first run through was to do it in a compassionate and self realizing way where they commented that is actually how it was intended. Then for the heck of it they asked me to be very angry.

So I used some techniques that I have learned in class such as using the chair as an object other than something you just sit on. For the scene I used it as a tree pole of sort in mind and when I was angry I ended up kicking it down which definitely got reactions. I also did bring in my backpack as a prop since the script mentioned that the character was rummaging through it.

For the embracing part that I was wondering about, it indeed was just the reader, who happened to be the producer, and was sitting far away. Therefore, in the end that action was simply ignored. It went well though and in the end they asked if I had any questions.

I simply asked about their goals for the project and they were describing how this is definitely a serious attempt to create a stunning film that would compete with more high budget films. They are going to be using equipment such as those RED cameras as an example.

The amount of cast seems really high too where they mentioned that they were looking for about 50 people or so. So, it’s a wait and see game now as I know these are those time where when you think you did so well you don’t even get a callback or vice versa when you think you did so bad you do get a callback.

In other news, I got a call from my agent saying that Stargate Universe wanted me back for two days, so I guess taking this audition over that for today didn’t affect too much.