Actor Growth

I have been getting quite a few project notifications recently from a particular film school here which happens to be the largest one in Vancouver. I volunteered to act in a film for them a few weeks back as it was one of the instructors who was requesting for the talent. So, I thought that if an instructor was requesting for the talent that the project would be professional to work on.

Interestingly enough, I guess as a result of this I have been getting audition notices that aren’t being advertised first. Obviously these are student films and not professional acting gigs, but it sure shows me how this is what is like with real casting directors too. Example, once the person works with you they try to use people that they know first.

Today I saw a posting from a fairly established acting school here where next month they are offering this audition workshop for free. It looks like it is fairly new and so I suppose this is a way for them to try and attract more students to it. Even though I am currently enrolled in a weekly workshop I was thinking of checking that one out too to see what it is like. It’s almost like auditing schools again.

In some ways I think I may have been training at the current place for too long maybe too as it has been like 5 months almost. It has helped in a sense in terms of brushing up my skills in impressing a casting director, but it wasn’t exactly a real audition.

So professionally in terms of career advancement you can say I am almost in the same spot. Actually, I am assessing this at the moment too as part of my career goal planning. So maybe auditing this would be a good thing to really make me see if anything needs changing in the training department.

So it’s been almost two months since I last got my haircut due to those Stargate Universe shootings and at the same time the stylist that my acting coach assigned to me wanted to change my look up a bit. The style they were going for is the “messy” look. Length wise it is almost the same as I usually get it though.

This is the first time I had to go into a salon for a cut. Seems like such a high maintenance thing to do. I’m used to just going in and out of a hair cut place for like $20 and this place was like $70 and it took like an hour. Other than that, the whole stylist journey is over as she helped me to get all the clothes and now it’s a matter of going through everything with the acting coach.

I don’t know how much this image change will do. But I guess according to the coach it should help a lot.

I learned some very interesting tidbit just the other day when it came to casting directors here in the Vancouver area and why it seems like it is so hard to break into the scene as an actor while at the same times it’s always the same people that get the auditions all the time. Keep in mind that in many ways it can be hearsay still, but the results kind of match what I see.

Basically there was a person that came from Toronto and he was so shocked to learn that here in Vancouver casting directors actually do a pre-screen where actors would first tape themselves doing a scene so that the casting director can pre-judge them to see if they have the chops or not to come in the room. Normally one would do these types of tapings if you are located in a different city and therefore it’s like a way to save you time.

Then a point came up on how for places like Toronto and even Los Angeles the casting directors there actually see a wide range and large volume of people as they are used to it. So while here you may see like ten people auditioning for a role in other markets there could be like thirty. While I guess you can say population density could have a factor, it’s more of a mentality it seems.

Basically, I was always told that casting directors want to bring in actors that will make them look good. When you think about it the production is hiring them and the more good talent they present to like the director the better they look. At the same time, you can easily see why it’s only the same people that get seen all the time as many are afraid to bring in new talent as they want to play it safe.

I wonder why that’s the case here in Vancouver specifically though. Business sense to me is that the more people you see the more potential you have in discovering new talent. Can you imagine running like a sports team where you refuse to scout for new talent but rather just rely on the same people as the years go by? Must be disastrous if the only time you look for new talent is if say all your existing people are injured or retiring.

I guess as a positive, for here in Vancouver that can show you how once you get your break then chances are you are going to be taken care of better as if the profession is that tight knitted here that means you will get seen more.

So another thing happened yesterday where as mentioned previously the films that were created for last year’s Mighty Asian film competition was shown on cable TV, including the one I was in. You know what was really funny about this? The difference between watching something with a live audience and without can have such a contagious affect as to how you view a film.

Now generally in the theatre everyone was in some way affiliated with a short film or that the attendees knew people who were involved in it personally. As you would expect, people cheered and laughed more than usual I’d say because you tend to be more supportive. That has a trickling affect on others too. For example, if a ton of people in a room give a standing ovation everyone else feels kind of dumb if they don’t stand up too even if they didn’t like something.

So while watching every film again it just made it so much more apparent that Asian filmmakers need to take more risks into film categories that are more, dare I say, rebellious and not the norm when it comes to Asian stereotypes. Cause watching everything on TV and without the audience allowed me to view everything the same as if I was watching say a regular TV show.

It’s like you want to see the characters be super strong, you want to see the ones that are confident and can be portrayed as sexy if need be, etc. But for whatever reason most people shy away from this. Thinking about it, even for every other TV show or movie you want to have these types of characters too where you can root for them.

Although, one thing to be fair is that this competition was under a tight timeframe and it’s obvious that not everyone exactly had the budget and resources to create like a AAA title. Usually in those circumstances people opt to do a comedy too since the time and budget is so tight.

Was a very unique experience I thought seeing everything on TV. Again, technically this was my first ever TV debut where I was acting in a lead role which makes it a milestone. At the end of the show they showed a montage of the behind the scene clips which was also shown at the competition as there was a videographer visiting sets. Except for the TV show they added all these special thanks credit to it.

Interestingly enough, they showed a lot of stuff from the production I was on and they got my facial reactions for the day when all the teams submitted their films. I was kind of hyper in some of those shots. lol.

Here are some clips I recorded of the segment and I just included a small bit of the film I was in (This was actually the part that got the most reaction in the theatre):

Will this help my professional career growth in anyway? Guess only time will tell. But my main goal in entering the festival before was to try and break a stereotype that an Asian actor couldn’t play strong characters with a tough personality kind of way. I think I did do just that. In the end it was a great experience.

Special thanks to everyone that made the event possible. The people that ran the event are super supportive too and so if you are thinking of trying it I would encourage you to do so. I didn’t attend the competition this year, but maybe I will next year if a suitable project and team comes around. I’m game if there is a team that wants to try something gutsy to break stereotypes too.

I got an interesting feedback today that was very enlightening. Today when I first preformed the audition sides the coach commented how everything was great and that what he wanted to see was for me to pick up the pace a bit as he felt it could go a little faster. It was kind of funny as there were only two of us that did the same scene to compare and while my feedback was to do it faster the other guy’s feedback was to do it slower.

So I did the scene again and he mentioned that he felt it was such a small change but it made things so much better. Here was the interesting part. He then said he wanted to try something with me. With that he took over the reader’s job and was now acting as the audition reader for me.

I didn’t really know what to expect but as always what I do when I am acting is that as long as I establish who the character is you can pretty much adapt to anything. What the coach did was that he kind of changed it up a bit such as times where he would do physical gestures implying that he was going to beat me up. As expected, I reacted to it and went with the flow of his new pace where the scene was done a lot faster.

He then commented how it was fantastic that I reacted to all of this. Then e pointed out that I should watch out for that as I really do react off of what the reader gives me. For example, if they are reading it slow the most likely I will respond to it in a slow pace too. He emphasized how that is fantastic as an actor especially when you are on set where you are actually shooting the show.

For an audition though I have to be very careful he mentioned as that means if the reader is very bad they could literally destroy my audition. Therefore, I have to make sure that I can do the scene as intended even if the reader is bad or at least instruct them to try to do it a certain way in order to adapt to the direction I am going for.

That’s kind of funny when you think about it as listening and reacting is a huge component in making a scene believable I’d say and it is also why chemistry is so important in casting actors to do a role. Whereas in an audition you have to be a little more aggressive if the person isn’t giving you the dialogue right.