Actor Growth

There was a little bit of change today as the regular acting coach was working on a project and so one of the other coaches came in as a substitute. It was interesting as right off the bat you can see how they each had their own style which was great as that way you can get feedbacks from a different pair of eyes and perspective.

The scene I was given was about some techy CSI guy that had to gain access to some kind of database without permission. Now for this scene I decided to use some quick props such as a cheque and did my thing. Valuable lesson today as I overlooked a major detail of using that as a prop. Apparently, when I was looking at the cheque I placed it too high in-front of me where due to the camera angle the cheque was covering a large part of my face.

Another thing was eye positioning. Essentially, I was supposed to be looking at a computer monitor. However, again due to the camera angle it looked like I was looking down at the floor all the time. So today this sure was a lot of useful things to be aware of as there was a lot of technical things that I did wrong. Normally on a set people like the director will take care of things like this, but in an audition you have to be so self aware on how you are presenting yourself on that camera.

Another interesting tid bit was that one guy had to do a scene that was about two people getting sexually suggestive to each other where the goal was to get each other in bed. The catch? The actor and the reader were both men. Result, the actor had a very hard time with this as he constantly broke character as a result. The thing is too, even the coach said it is often like this where a guy will read as the girl and so you have to get used to it. Very useful session overall I thought.

While browsing the casting workbook today I noticed a workshop that costs about $350 for a two day event that revolves around getting coached by two acting coaches. Afterwards, you would present your scenes in-front of four different casting directors. If your new and starting out you may think that this is such a great opportunity to get yourself out there, but I can’t help to think how if you had a bad day or are not ready for this level of scrutiny that you can end up looking really bad to some major decision makers in the industry.

It was interesting too as today while working on set I overheard this lady complaining how so many casting directors in town won’t call you in for an audition unless you have taken one of their workshops before. For the record, I don’t think that is really the case from what I have seen. If anything, it just increases your chances of getting called if you did a good job as they will remember you the next time they see you being submitted for a project.

I would personally be cautious about this for any person who is just starting out.

Today we did an audition side for the upcoming film 30 Days of Night: Dark Days. As usual, we got the script the day before and today we acted it. Before we presented the scene the coach asked if we practiced the scene with a partner beforehand. Most people including myself said no. Therefore, he mentioned that we should quickly go over the scene with a partner as it helps a lot.

It was interesting as the first scene partner I did it with thought my take on the scene was good. I then did it with another person and she was saying how it was good but thought that I didn’t need to try and play up certain parts of the scene too much. That actually helped a lot for my preparation.

So, I did the scene after all that. I felt that I did a good job. Now we do perform this in an audition style setting where once we do the scene we are sent back out. The coach’s remark before I left was “That was tight”. Afterwards, we all went in and got our deliberation and feedback.

I was a bit blown away by the feedbacks. Essentially, the coach said that this is the best work he had ever seen from me and that I nailed it. He said beat for beat I hit the mark and parts such as where I was referencing about the character’s memory of his young daughter getting kidnapped was so believable that it was scary.

It was neat too as he commented at first how look wise there is no way I looked like a dad with a young daughter, since I look so young myself, as it just isn’t believable and there is nothing I could really do about that. However, he said he believed every moment of it when I was reflecting about losing a loved one and all.

He then continued on saying to the class how everyone can see where, if we were the casting directors, when someone really nails it you really take notice as it stands out. He then said he was going to show this to a person. I won’t mention who as I was a bit stunned when he said that.

What this day taught me was how having a scene partner really can help a lot. I know some actors do things such as recording their voices of the other characters to try and play out the scene for practice, but it just isn’t the same as reading it with another actor. I guess the drawback is you don’t always have a person that you can call right away to help you with an audition.

At the end, my coach continued to tell me how he was excited that I was going to meet the stylist tomorrow. I swear I am like a human guinea pig at this point. lol.

This might have been a very crucial day in my acting career thus far. During the workshop we did some cold reads which was kind of interesting. At first we were partnered up in pairs being one guy and one girl. With this, we all received the same 5 page script that we practiced together and would then audition for it.

The catch? During the actual audition time we were not allowed to use the partner we have been practicing with. Therefore, all of the scene blocking or interpretation of the scene that we did may be thrown out the window as the person reading for us would be completely different. The pint that this showed is that for an audition you can practice all you want with your friends and all. However, in the actual room you don’ know if the reader is say going to be good or bad to prevent you from doing it the way you intended. Therefore, you have to learn to adapt to it. Overall it went okay.

That wasn’t the main highlight of the day though. Beforehand, I asked the acting coach if he had time to discuss about my career goals and questions after class and indeed he said that was not a problem. Basically what happened was that I discussed about my current growth in the industry and wanting to learn what he felt I could do to improve my mark and presence.

Cause as you all know, when I attended that casting director workshop I received some very good praises and as well I have that feature film to act in soon. However, even with this I still feel something is holding me back as I have no problems auditioning and landing roles for independents. Getting seen for the bigger work is an extreme challenge though. We went through a lot of details such as reviewing my resume, discussing about my agent representation and so fourth.

While I will need to address a lot of things, here is the super interesting part. The coach with much excitement said he knows exactly what I need to do that will make a huge difference. He says that I need to be more LA like. Persona wise I guess you can say he wants me to look “cooler” and “tougher”. He expressed how obviously in real life I am more conservative and I can be that way still personally. But since this industry is based so much on image and first impressions he feels this will help to raise more awareness. Therefore, he started to phone a friend of his who is a stylist saying how he wanted her to hook up with me to give me a makeover and all.

Even when I showed my headshot, I have one that is like a super smiley shot and another that is more cool looking I guess you can say. Basically, he wants me to be more like that cool guy in terms of look where when I walk into a room that is the perception that people are going to have of me.

He then asked me a question on why I studied martial arts initially. I mentioned how because I have always been a smaller person people always picked on me. So, I decided to learn it to prevent that. Funny enough, I never even told these “bullies” that I began studying martial arts yet everyone suddenly stopped trying to pick a fight with me. The coach then says this is exactly what the makeover is going to do as you don’t even need to do anything afterwards as it will project a completely different attitude and confidence with people.

Even I said this was a little scary. But we’ll see how it goes. And hey, I guess it will be an entertaining read for all of you to see if this has a profound impact or not. There was also some other stuff that he suggested I do which will be interesting too.

So technically after today the next class would be my seventh making this the longest workshop program I have taken so far apart from the full time film acting program I took in the past. I guess that is a good sign thus far if I am continuing to stay this long.

Today I did a scene from the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You”. I never seen it myself, so in that sense it was good as I was able to try and interpret everything on my own first without bias. For those who have seen the movie, it was a bar scene between a character named Alex and Gigi where Alex was talking about how men don’t call women back.

My initial interpretation was that these two only knew each other from the bar where Alex works and Gigi was like a customer. My decision was to play the character as a blunt tough love type of approach where everything was extremely directly when he was giving out his secrets about men in general as if he was talking to a friend.

As I anticipated, this got a lot of laughs since it was so blunt and direct as it is something that you wouldn’t really expect. The coach then wanted me to go in a different direction where instead the Alex character actually liked the character in a potential relationship way which in hence would turn the whole thing to be more sympathetic.

Now what caught my attention was that he mentioned the first way that I chose to go with doesn’t make the audience fall in love with me whereas that would. That was kind of interesting in the sense that in film in general it’s always about connecting with the audience where they care about the character to want to listen to what they have to say or to be rooting for them.

I guess the conflicting thing in my mind was that this was an audition style and so it should have been more about doing it with my interpretation to stand out. However, I took the direction and did it the way the coach suggested. At the end he seemed very happy about it and started to say how that is indeed the type of character people would fall for.

He then made a comment too that anyone could do the scene the way I did it in the first take, but this second approach isn’t the same story and it would definitely stand out. It was all interesting to think about. The funny thing for me I thought afterwards was that serious and dramatic style roles are a lot easier for me than comedy I think.

As well, I guess the new thing that comes to my head is once again that balance. Example, when to use a comedic approach and when to use a serious approach in terms of increasing your chances for success at an audition? Like in this example, I could easily see two different directors having two completely different perspectives/opinions.

Today in the audition workshop it was more or less similar to last week except this week there were a total of three males including myself. The regular acting coach was still on set filming that new movie “The Stranger” that has the former wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin in it. Must be fun I thought. Similar with last week we got the same acting coach though and it is nice to get feedbacks and directions from different people as it is a great way to learn.

One really interesting technique about the whole audition process that I learned today was that you should map out your plan as to how you are going to physically position yourself and the room for the audition. Many times we are so focused in trying to understand the script and our lines where we completely forget about planning the logistics on how to best present it.

The thing is, an audition is not like a movie where all of the camera angles or say set decorations are done for you. For the most part, it is you in this blue room with a chair, a reader, the casting director and a cameraman. So with that you should plan ahead of time on where you are going to sit/stand, the direction you will be facing, how to best use the room as an eye line, etc. This will help to prevent any surprises where you have to completely improvise everything on the spot.

The coach made a comment in the end how I seem to have this really good energy about me and that I will probably land a lot of roles. The first thing that this made me think of was I think for the most part I’m not exactly getting in front of casting directors enough to get my name/face out there effectively as I seem to be doing it all by myself. So maybe when the original coach comes back I can have that sit down with him to receive some business tips about the industry as similar to what I said in my other posts I am seriously contemplating about my representation.