Actor Growth

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.

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.

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.