Actor Growth

I got a call time yesterday and on the breakdown it indicated that I am working in the “Insert Unit” group. I never heard of that terminology before. Usually if you are part of the main filming work of the day you would be classified as part of the “main unit” and secondary units, such as establishing shots, would be a “splinter unit”.

My best bet at this point is that since an insert shot is usually like a reaction of some sort that this is what the shot is going to be about. Example, maybe an action scene where in the final cut you have the main story where two characters are fighting and then at times it cuts to an onlooker cringing at how painful it looks. Or more common it’s like opening a door where they then cut to a shot of a hand on the door knob. That’s just a guess of course.

Guess I’ll find out soon as I am working on this production today.

Today we were challenged with another cold audition session. The interesting thing about this one is that for the role of the guys there was literally only like 4 lines of dialogue and the person before had like 2. However, there were large amounts of pages before this which doesn’t have the character speaking but it did give you an idea of what the story was about.

With that I did the scene. As it turns out, I over analyzed the scene and read a bit too much on it. As usual when you get sides for an audition you are only given the pages that relate to the scene that the casting director wants you to perform. Besides what is on these pages everything such as the back-story and character relations are up to you to figure out. Because of that, people can come up with completely different interpretations on the mood and energy level of a scene.

As a crazy example, let’s pretend your character had one line saying “I am going to fall down that hole” and the other character says “Don’t do it!”. That is literally the entire dialogue on the sides that you were given. Now think about how vague that is. You basically need to figure out what the scene is about by trying to say research the show/film online or read as much as possible into the other pages that were given to you even if they are crossed out.

Think about it. If you interpreted that scene as a guy about to end his life then the delivery will probably be more dramatic/mellow. If you made a choice to say these guys are like playing a video game on this huge projector outside then it will be more fun and anxious. Those are the types of choices that you are forced to make otherwise nothing will really come across when you perform the scene. That’s why it is important to try and find as much about the scene as possible.

Now by over analyzed what I mean is like in that situation I would say things like “These two are best friends where they know it is the end of the world and so one guy doesn’t want to live anymore. One guy is a sports athlete and the other is a ex military guy”. Basically, that results in a “How in the world did you get that out of reading those sides?”

The lesson is that sometimes things can be a lot simpler than necessary. It is kind of contradictory too at times as you need to make strong choices in situations like these and therefore it is more about getting right I’d say.

Over the past few weeks I have been having fun reading comments about the new shows and season premieres. In many cases I have seen what happens in the plot through work and it’s just so interesting being on the other side and viewing all these speculations. For example, today Stargate Universe premiered and I must say there are some die hard fans that sure have a creative imagination on what they think is going to happen.

You know what else I have come to realize too? IMDB can sure be a spoiler of sort. For example, in many cases it lists all of the episodes that are going to be shown. As well, it lists which cast is going to appear. Like with the show Smallville it looked like people were wondering if certain characters that died are going to come back. All they had to do is look at the cast list to see if the actor was going to appear again. This made me think how it is kind of hard to keep secrets on shows with the Internet huh?

Another thing that this is teaching me will probably be useful further down the road in my growth. Basically, reading people’s opinions of the shows. It was kind of surprising to see people blast certain actors in a mob mentality kind of way when they don’t enjoy the show overall even if they technically did their job fine.

So I guess an actor when you are at that point in your career things like this can help you where you should really consider say the director and writer’s reputation too as acting in a show or film that is not accepted very well can make you look bad despite your best efforts. Not exactly the same scenario, but I guess Jim Carrey acting in that Cable Guy movie is an example how a film can really drag down your worth as an actor if you view yourself as a commodity of sort.

There was an interesting comment from an acting teacher saying how as an actor we have to try and be as open minded as possible to experience many things in life in order to be able to act out these emotions in-front of the camera. Example, never been on this crazy amusement park ride? Do it to see how it feels like. Never went out with certain types of people? Do it to know what it is like.

This is a really debatable topic. For example, I personally don’t do drugs or drink alcohol. Therefore, should I start doing so just to see what it is like? Fortunately, I have never encountered a situation where there isn’t some kind of experience I can reflect with to adapt to a scenario in a story. You don’t need to literally eat a piece of you know what to know what it is like to put one in your mouth as an example.