Actor Growth

Well, that’s it for this particular workshop. The day started out in a very unorthodox fashion where we all had to stand in a circle and go through a routine as a way to open ourselves up to each other. The exercise involved things such as blurting out words without vowels to trying and channel your energy to another person.

Besides that, for the most part the day was the same as other days where we performed a scene and got feedbacks. There was one interesting comment of the day that stuck out for me personally. The acting coach was giving feedbacks to another Asian person and he specifically encouraged him to keep at it even though there aren’t many opportunities for him.

That immediately made me think because I am Asian too, of course, and have been prepared since the beginning knowing that my opportunities will be limited and to try and find ways around that as a result. Speaking of which, I was surprised to see many people doing scenes that they wrote themselves. Afterwards, he talked about his new sessions that were taking place in the future and that was the end of this experience.

Was this worth it overall? Again, I base my value on the results I get in getting auditions/roles and so I can’t judge that yet. But overall my feeling about this particular workshop is that it seems to be more beneficial if you are already out there in the industry such as casting directors being aware of you.

I say this because when it comes to the acting work in this workshop it is definitely very thorough. The coach does a lot in trying to get you to do things a certain way while challenging you to go deeper. So if your goal is to become better at your craft of acting then this would definitely be a top choice in the city I’d say.

However, I know most actors take workshops like these to try and find a way to even get that first opportunity to showcase themselves in the first place. So when you think about it, in that sense these types of workshops may not be right as you would want more focus on audition techniques as well as ways to better promote yourself.

Interesting experience overall. For my next journey into various acting workshops, I have chosen a place that seems to specifically focus on audition techniques while the instructors seem to emphasize that they want to see you get work as a result of taking its workshops. This won’t start until next month, but I will be doing an audit of sort next week.

Today I saw that documentary called The Slanted Screen that dealt with Asians in the film business and the type of struggles and stereotypes one has to go through. I saw it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJwAwH93Yhg

While obviously this one focused on Asian talent, it was so interesting to see the type of real politics that happen behind the scene. Example, certain films that wanted to replace actors simply because of their ethnicity to help draw in more acceptability. The comment towards the end too was pretty true where the bottom line it comes down to the money in terms of getting acceptance and more opportunities.

I mentioned before that my experiences have been pretty good so far when it comes to the independent circuit. I believe a big reason for this is that a lot of the younger generation of actors and filmmakers are used to growing up in a multicultural environment. Therefore, it’s more about who has the right skill and look.

Although, I will admit that for bigger budget items it is still hard. But realistically, it’s tough for everyone. Just like a business, the person funding the project wants a return on investment and so that’s just a challenge that you need to adapt with as they simply want to go with what is more likely to generate a return.

Not too long ago I saw that new martial arts movie called Ip Man that starred an actor called Donnie Yen. He is pretty well known as a martial arts star in the East such as Hong Kong. While reading more about the movie since I thought it was very well done production wise and acting, I was reading some online postings from fans wondering why a person like this hasn’t received more attention in Hollywood for the North America crowd to see him.

Apparently he has but apparently he was only being offered roles that he didn’t really think was suitable for him. Therefore, for the most part he has stayed within the Asia film market. Some fans were even saying how it’s better that way as Hollywood would probably destroy the image that he has now and that he doesn’t really need it.

That is kind of interesting as usually most people say LA or Hollywood is the only way to get anywhere if you are serious about an acting career. In many ways it does make sense to just focus becoming established locally though. If you think about it, people will come knocking at your door from all places once you become established enough.

Over the past few days I have been hearing so many people talking about this on how so many roles that are meant to have an Asian male playing the lead along with an Asian lady never seems to end up that way. Instead, the Asian male is replaced with a Caucasian actor and so in most films that have a couple’s role you won’t see an Asian male as the lead.

Conceptually I personally don’t see the problem as you see multicultural relationships all the time in this day in age. Of course, the biggest reason I hear all the time why you never see an Asian lead in these types of situations is because North America in general is not ready or able to relate to or sympathize with an Asian male playing something that doesn’t have some kind of crazy action role in it.

In many ways though I would say the Asian film making community is not doing enough to break these stereotypes and in many ways contribute to it. For example, during my participation in that moviemaking marathon one person told me how he was so disappointed that the character I portrayed didn’t start physically fighting back more and that some people criticized how it seems like I had no form of training when it came to say fighting.

I then looked at him and said “When was the last time you saw two business people say whip out crazy weapons and start fighting each other with high flying martial arts?” Similarly I then made him think more by saying how the story was about a guy that wasn’t a fighter but in the end he used his brain more and ended up fighting very well that way. Then it kind of clicked to him where the film was trying to be more realistic and that everything he saw began to make more sense. Sure enough, he was a person of Asian descent as well.

I even mentioned it before too where one of the roles that I have yet to play is something revolving around a dedicated romance/drama genre and sure enough auditions for these types of roles are virtually nil even from an independent circuit. The ironic thing is that there are a ton of aspiring filmmakers who are Asian here as well and usually when the script does revolve around a couple even the Asian filmmakers write the script to have a mixed couple too. So with that, how can there really be complaints from the Asian community?

It’s mostly just a matter of doing more work and getting our faces out there. Even for myself, since I do a lot of drama roles people often are shocked at that as it is not as usual to see that from an Asian in North America. Just a matter of the filmmakers being open minded at this point I’d say.

One thing that I enjoyed a lot from doing the last film was that people commented to me on how they appreciated that in our production the lead role I played was a strong and stern Asian character that was the protagonist which was definitely something that we don’t see much of. The festival was no different.

That was actually one of the goals before as you all know. I had a lot of fun playing the role too. For those who don’t know, the title of the short film was “Business is Murder”. Here is a small clip from the film:

So I went to the Jeep Compass commercial audition today and there were a few other Asians there as well.  There wasn’t that many people overall though which makes me think that this was a pretty specific call.  For the audition I was suppose to be one of those workers at a store in the seafood areas where they grab the fishes out of the tank if you would like to purchase one.

To do this they had something that resembled a small tank and inside of it was this shiny dolphin doll.  At first when I saw it I thought it was pretty funny considering it had all this glitter on it.  For the scene, I was supposed to pretend that I had extreme trouble trying to get the fish out when a customer asked me for it.

So yeah…..I was basically pretending to struggle and wrestle with this doll and the casting director would give me cues on when I was suppose to change my emotions.  My final moment was that I was supposed to embarrassingly hand the fish over to the person who requested it.  I decided to just go with this dumbfounded expression on my face and the camera guy couldn’t help but to crack up and comment how anyone would be confused carrying a shiny dolphin.

It was short but very fun I thought.  Like always, it’s a wait and see game.