Actor Growth

I got an e-mail today that is related to the unadvertised roles post I made a few days back. Turns out, they wanted me to play a part and offered me a role. Now the unique thing about this project was that their intent it seems is to use a couple of actors who will then play two different characters. Essentially, this is more of a challenge for a wardrobe and makeup department to try and make the actors look like two completely different people.

Sounded like fun to me and would be a good experience. From the script breakdown it looks like in one scene I would need to be a villain and in completely different scene I am playing some guy that is being tortured and interrogated by some crazy guy. Sounds pretty intense too as there are supposed to be a lot of things like blood and bruises.

I chuckled a bit in reading it as the character’s name is “Jack” apparently and since I watch 24 I couldn’t help but to think this scene is semi inspired from that show. Doesn’t look like I get to kick anyone’s butt though. lol.

There are a lot of big featured films being released soon where many of them were shot here in Vancouver. As a result, it’s not surprising that many of the films have local actors who have roles in them. I happen to know a few of them too and I think it is so cool to see them get their opportunities for which they have worked years to get. While there is always a chance someone can just get “discovered” and have all the opportunities pour in, for the most part it is one crazy journey. That’s the fun part right?

Okay, so that means next one of you actors out there in cyber land with blogs that I follow need to report right away when you land a big gig too. I want to see more successes.

Happy Remembrance Day everyone. Over the past few days I was thinking how one thing that I need to do is to re-evaluate people’s first impression of me for casting purposes. Essentially, as an actor you are heavily pre-judged by what your headshot looks like as well as your appearance when you walk into the audition room.

I have heard that what some actors do is go up to complete strangers and simply ask them questions such as what kind of profession they are in. For example, some people might label one guy as a lawyer because of the suit they are wearing and another person might be stereotyped as a basketball player because they are so tall.

This is kind of hard to do with your friends and family since they know you quite well and therefore will already have a reservation about what to label you as considering they know your personality. I was thinking, maybe a funny way to do this is to go to like a speed dating event which would get rid of the awkwardness of just asking a complete stranger off the street.

I recently just read that there was supposed to be an event happening here soon where there is like a panel of industry professionals who then discuss about their thoughts about the current film and TV industry. As well, it looks like they accept questions from the audience.

It looks like the panel would consist of people such as casting directors, agents and even actors. I was debating if I should go or not as I never attended anything like this before where it was specifically geared about the film industry here in BC.

As mentioned yesterday, today was the day that I got to see how one would tackle an audition that has character voice overs. Funny enough, what happened at first was that we were told the top section of the sides would be omitted. Afterwards, we did indeed run through the scene with the remaining voiceover dialogue.

Basically, we just had to do the audition as if the thought bubble voice over part was the main scene while ignoring the action where the present form character is in motion. I tell ya, this was super confusing at first for me in trying to determine exactly what was going on logistically.

It was so confusing for me that when I did it the first time around I thought that the two characters were actively in a corridor while having a small argument with each other as they were waiting for a security system to go down. Hence, I was playing it like they were next to each other and that the character was actively looking at the camera in the ceiling while waiting fir it to turn off.

The funny thing? I did the audition very well where in the scene I gave a lot of good reactions while establishing my environment. The thing is though, apparently that whole part was all a bubble memory still and the character was actually all by himself. So, I did the scene again with the coach’s notes. He expressed how I nailed it and that it’s so great that I can easily take direction.

He then suggested that every time I get an audition that I should call him up first so that I can talk it over as it seems like it’s usually just the interpretation of the audition sides that I get confused with at times. But once I know what it is all about I have no problems. I guess again that comes from having studied mostly in a scene study oriented program where you always go through the scenes extensively with the director.

After class I did talk to the coach about my career direction to try and create some goals to advance to the next step. Because at this point it is pretty stagnant professionally speaking. Here was the interesting thing. He was commenting how I have the skills, I can take direction very well where I am easy to work with and that there is this energy about my work where I don’t even need to try too hard to make an impact in a scene. He then said that I just needed someone who can get my foot in the door, so to speak.

Afterwards, he said that he was going to help me with it. Yeah, I was kind of shocked. Basically, he was fully willing to help guide me in my career path, give me advice and doing things such as checking out my demo reel and making sure that my representation is working for me. So, the first thing is that he will be taking a look at my demo reel to see what needs changing and if I should include different scenes.

What a great gesture I thought. It’s like having a mentor and a manager in some ways. Talk about going above and beyond. Looking forward to see what happens next.

Okay, this is interesting. I got the sides for tomorrow’s audition class. The side looks like it is going to be heavily dependent on the actor being able to pull off reactions as well as establishing the surrounding. The tricky thing is that in this scene a large part of it is like when you hear what the characters are thinking in their head.

Hence, it can be like a guy and a girl on a date and while watching the show you hear their thoughts on how they feel so nervous. Now in this case the sides explicitly say that the actor should read the voice overs as well and there is a lot of action in it.

I’m just thinking, how the heck do you pull this off? Like in the dating scene scenario, wouldn’t that look kind of silly in context of what is going on? One thing is for sure, I am glad I am doing this in the audition class as I have never seen a request like this and it is better to make the mistakes in class.