Actor Growth » Film and Television

Production Running Out of Catering Budget

Alan Yu — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:58:18 +0000

This was interesting while on set yesterday as the production lasted well over sixteen hours. Now as you know most productions usually have a catering company to handle all the food and drink items to hopefully keep people hydrated and all. In this case though it lasted so long that the catering company stopped catering to various groups as the show apparently did not budget for it.

I was thinking how people must have eaten a lot as my assumption is that companies usually budget these things according to the headcount. Example, each person is say a $40 a day budget which they then bill the production for. Either that or the company got a bit too fancy in its offerings.

Interesting at how much money a production can go through in a day though the more you think about it.

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Oh Geez What A Surprising Read

Alan Yu — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:57:23 +0000

While working on set today I was told about a person I knew who apparently landed a role on Stargate Universe as a result of fans creating a campaign of sort to keep a character alive. Upon further research I found a blog post at http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/september-4-2010-bill-y-w-butt-sgus-vince-kwan-answers-your-questions/ which described all about it.

Wow. lol. I have worked with Bill a couple of times mostly on other sets when it came to background work. I have seen him twice I think on Stargate Universe where we were in different scenes. Reading this story was pretty amazing. I was happy to see too that an Asian actually got this opportunity as there is usually very little for people in this category compared to others.

He had a pretty interesting take on why there are so little Asians in the film industry too. Either way, it was pleasant news to hear. The title he has been dubbed with is just so strange though. lol.

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So Many Film Footages That Can’t Be Used

Alan Yu — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:40:24 +0000

I got a notice recently that an independent film I volunteered for has been finished editing and that people could pick up a copy to see how it turned out. This just got me thinking about the conversation I had the other day about whether or not you really need a professional demo reel of clips as an actor and if so what scenes you should choose.

The funny thing was I thought is that the conscience so far is that when it comes to professional casting directors if your clips aren’t from say a TV show or movie from one of the big studios that you shouldn’t even have a reel at all. So, this means virtually all of the independent films that I have participated in to this date are not usable in that sense. It was then emphasized that those types of work are more for finding an agent.

That’s kind of too bad as you would think the purpose of a reel is to show what you are about can do regardless of the budget that was attached to the production. I still enjoy volunteering for various films if the projects sound interesting to me. It’s just too bad these types of work aren’t as appreciated I guess you can say when it comes to being a legitimate way to showcase an artist.

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One of Those Before They Were Famous Moments

Alan Yu — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:42:12 +0000

Well something interesting happened today. While I was on set and getting ready around the wardrobe department one of the main actress of the tv series went up to me and asked if I attended a particular high school. Indeed I said yes and she reacted by saying she knew that she recognized me from somewhere. That was so funny I thought because it was bugging me too where I thought I recognized her from school before but figured “it can’t be that person can it?” type of deal. Turns out it is indeed the same person.

That got me curious tonight to just research what she has accomplished and such. It seems like she made it pretty big too with a ton of credits under her belt. It was kind of weird when doing the research too as evidently she is a performer that a gazillion guys go gaga over and reading all those fantasy comments is just weird when it comes to people you know. lol.

This would usually be a good opportunity to learn and share experiences on what others have done and the roads they have taken to get to where they are at. However, she wasn’t exactly in the same grade as I was and all so I never really spoke to her before. So, I thought it would be a little inappropriate to ask too much in regards to acting career stuff. It’s just one of those moments where you just have to solve it or it will bug you forever. So, basically for the most part the day was just treated as a regular work day with surprises.

I guess she is technically the most successful actress that I know in one of those “before they were famous” type of deals. What a funny way that it was discovered though.

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Not Wanting To Seem Demanding

Alan Yu — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 22:09:59 +0000

I guess like any other job, when you are the new guy in the scene you usually want to make the best impression that you can and not wanting to make a big deal about things. Just the other day I was talking to a person who felt that many times there were productions that didn’t credit him appropriately as they simply don’t want to pay the rates of having to upgrade a person to a certain category.

The tricky thing he mentioned was that he is not exactly a big name or anything and so for the most part he just sucks it up as he doesn’t want to be excluded from future projects simply because of the notion that he say asked for an upgrade one time. In contrast to any other job it would be like people hired and paid to be say a cashier yet for some reason they then find themselves having to do merchandising, accounting work, scheduling, etc.

I suppose for myself it is fortunate that I enjoy most aspect of the film industry. So just having the opportunity to be a part of various productions is usually a good reward in itself. Have there been times where I felt that I was taken advantage of like with the example above? Absolutely.

But my hope has always been that I will just continue to do the opportunities that are presented to me to help myself grow as eventually I will either meet the right people or land the right opportunities to enable me to take the steps to move forward. I don’t see too much point in spending so much time and energy trying to get say a production to upgrade you from a small principal actor to a supporting actor if they are reluctant.

Like in that case, if you are still kind of fresh I would think just the fact that you were in the production will give you a lot of new tools and experience to do even greater things.

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Basically Like A Modeling Job

Alan Yu — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:45:38 +0000

The shoot was fun and interesting. For the project I was put into an ice skater outfit as if I was one of the Olympic Athletes in the city for the 2010 Winter games here in Vancouver using our local transportation system. I was paired up with another lady to make an Asian duo pair.

Was I every sparkly too. That clothing item had glitter like I was some person ready for a Disney on ice show. Everyone kept commenting about it and at the same time people couldn’t stop asking if I was a real ice skater. I actually had to wear real ice skates too. All in all it ended pretty quickly.

For the most part it was mainly holding positions as the photographer wanted to get the perfect shots and all. Was kind of painful holding these very awkward positions as that is what was needed to get the good shots. One guy was shocked that I was able to hold it for so long. I’m no Yoga master or anything but that’s what torturing yourself in awkward stretching positions for martial arts can do for you I guess. lol.

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