Actor Growth

Alright, looks like things are coming along where I will get to work with O’Keefe. The first mini film is actually interesting as the intent of it is that he wanted to do something where you can clearly see two contrasting personalities. A challenge to see acting range. As well, there will be some choreography work in this.

I’m kind of excited to be trying this out and getting to work with other enthusiastic people in the business. He is actually writing the script himself too and I should be receiving it soon.

One thing that lingered on my mind before participating in the Olympic events was whether or not dedicating myself to it would have made me missed a lot in the acting field.

So I was just looking at the casting breakdowns and it did indeed looked very slow. Basically, for the most part probably only the more established people got work. So, in that sense I am kind of glad about committing to being a part of the events.

I did seek out and did auditions on my own during the midst of this and so I was definitely still keeping my eyes open for opportunities. I am trying to re-contact the people that were interested in making a web series too as I am still definitely interested in getting something going.

We were all tied up during the Olympics and so hopefully now we can get something going.

I noticed that there was a another casting director workshop happening in about two weeks and I decided that I will attend this one. There have been a lot of advertisements lately as well for these types of workshops and what attracted me to this one was that it seemed like it was going to be conducted in a semi audition styled setting.

I read that first you would get trained by an acting coach to prepare a scene and then afterwards you will perform this scene on camera for a real local casting director. This fitted in perfectly with my current direction which was to learn less about the actual acting process on set and to focus more on the auditions as you need to land those roles first and foremost.

As well, I wanted to again avoid those “Paid to get seen” type of workshops as I don’t think those are beneficial at all. Unlike the last casting director workshop I went to, this one insisted that all actors must have previous professional training to enroll. Hopefully that is a good sign that this will be some good stuff too at a higher level.

Art and film is usually one of those very subjective topics where one person could think something is the best in the world while another would say the opposite. Recently I was reading some comments on a short film that I acted in where people commented mostly on the direction and technical editing work.

There was this one critic that sounded like he directed dozens of films and was an authority on the subject. While some would say you should ignore those and critics in general, I think from an acting point of view it is interesting to get feedback about your work regardless if it is negative or positive.

I think the key is ignoring the emotional rant that the person may have but rather really focus on what they are really trying to say. Actually, it’s a lot like doing a good scene where you want to focus on what they really mean and not necessarily the lines they are saying.

I guess it is kind of like networking or meeting new people too. Sometimes people are just complete jerks to you for no reason. In actuality it can end up being that they just don’t know how to approach people and are afraid of rejection. Or a person bragging about their expensive jewelry could really be saying they are poor and need to look rich.

So with that in mind I always try to listen o every type of criticism as even if you feel it helps you in any way artistically it can be useful marketing information if you are trying to target that particular audience.

Some of those short films that I acted in has been published on various online platforms for fun by the producers and it is kind of interesting to see people’s reactions. At the same time, I was just watching some other videos that people have created with some people being Internet celebrities.

The funny thing too was that for these Internet celebrities people asked them how life is like being well known online. Some of them poked fun at themselves on how while people know them online, in the real world virtually no one knows them which means for the most part they can still live a normal life.

That’s kind of interesting I thought and made me wonder if in the future there will be such a thing such as a Web/Internet actor compared to a TV/Film actor. Most of the stories I have read for actors starting out on the Internet is that they get discovered online and eventually go on to do things in the traditional sense. Although, it’s mostly as a result of a web based show that gets a contract to show its work on network TV.

Acting craft wise I don’t see much of a difference though compared to say going from a theatre acting to a film and TV one. Must be interesting though to be successful online yet remain invisible to the mass general public.

Today I participated in that short film and it was a fun experience. It was done in a public area too and of course you always get the stares when people see a camera pointed at you. Now for the most part the group consists of aspiring actors and filmmakers.

After watching the video today I mentioned how it kind of reminded me about this series I saw on Youtube before called “We Need Girlfriends”. From my understanding, it was just a bunch of guys making their own short film series which eventually garnered a lot of attention and got a network television contract.

One person then said that this was the type of thing they have been thinking of doing more seriously for a long time now and that we should all try to plan out something more serious. I fully agreed personally. At this point it seems that equipment is an issue as the films are being shot on a consumer DV cam that produces video at about a 320 x 240 resolution.

Although, the person that is aspiring to be a director is planning to get a more modern day camcorder. For myself I am more into the acting and so it is more about seeing the type of part I could play in a series type of role depending on what the idea ends up being. All about taking initiative for our careers.