Actor Growth

I was reading a post from the Actors Voice today where the advice for actors who still haven’t made yet is to simply get better. Essentially, it is addressing the issue how people say that they have tried everything to get their break and nothing works. The comment seemed pretty blunt too where if you honestly say that you tried everything then maybe that just means that you aren’t good enough to make it and need to get better. You can read the article at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/ that was posted today.

As an actor still working hard myself it’s kind of interesting as I personally didn’t find it “offensive” in anyway which I’m sure it will for a lot of people. I think the bottom line is that it comes down to your attitude as if you are always negative then most likely you won’t get anywhere. At the same time, I suppose for myself I have that business and entrepreneur attitude when it comes to acting.

Like a business, it is up to you to try different things and be persistent if you are not getting the results that you are looking for. Example, you can blame things like the economy for your woes or simply adapt to the situation in order to achieve your desired results.

At the same time, I always remember the general value of a business offering when it comes to getting customers. If you offer something unique then people have to come to you for those services. If you don’t offer something that is unique then you are competing against price and convenience. I believe this holds true as an actor that is looking for work too.

One thing this article didn’t really address too much is your look and presence. You hear stories all the time about people who got the parts based mostly their looks. Or in the more rare incidents, they get discovered off the streets based solely on appearance. So in that sense, since the article focused mostly on your training as an actor I think things like your image portrayal kind of throws a wrench into the mix where there are so many ways to reach your goal.

With that in mind, that got me thinking too….. Is it more about becoming a better “actor” or becoming a better “talent” that gets you those opportunities? Example, there is a MMA (mixed martial arts) oriented movie coming out where there are actual UFC fighters acting in the movie apparently.

Are they better actors than many of the undiscovered film talent that spend thousands of hours training to act in front of the camera? Highly doubt it. Are they better fighters? Probably. So in that case, would training to be a better actor or a more talented fighter be better for your career path assuming those are the types of roles that you want to do? I personally think this is an overlooked aspect for aspiring actors.

So if you are going to spend 10,000 hours to try and master something for the sole purpose of moving your acting career, I believe we really need to sit down and make sure that what we are learning is truly the most logical way to do it.

I know for myself with the martial arts example, if my goal as an actor was to become the greatest film martial artist in the world I would be spending my 10,000 hours training in the Dojo and not necessarily with an acting coach. Why? Cause odds are if I focus in becoming the greatest martial artist all time the opportunities will naturally come to my door.

In my opinion too, everyone acts everyday and I personally consider living life as training to a certain extent. I know an acting coach once said in a workshop where when we, the acting students, choose a scene it is not a fluke that we chose it. Something about it attracted us to it and enables us to perform the scene great. To me, it’s about being able to relate to it based on real life experiences and observations.

While I am not a household name or authority figure when it comes to becoming an established actor as I have yet to make it there myself yet, I do believe that sometimes we tend to focus too much on spending thousands of dollars to train to become a better “actor” when really working on our unique “talent” should be more of the focus I’d say.

Today I was doing some Jiu-Jitsu with a couple of people I have never met before. While I had fun, it was a little on the aggressive side and as a result I got a small cut. Nothing too big, but just an annoyance. As well though, from my regular martial arts class I got some “bloody knuckles” from doing a bit too much a few days ago and it has yet to fully heal.

While these things heal and I don’t care too much personally, this can often be a reason why you can’t do certain physical activities too much if you are involved in film as an actor. I mean, imagine going to an audition where you can’t walk straight and the casting people are wondering whether or not you are physically capable of doing the role.

It might sound dumb, but it’s almost like the cliché of the girl that doesn’t want to break her nails except in this case I am talking about just general stuff for guys too. In some ways it is kind of a bummer as you are holding back to ensure that you will be ready and look physically great for those auditions and roles.

So today while attending my martial arts class for one reason or another it actually crossed my mind that it might be better to find an additional place to train at within a different art that would complement each other. As of now I try to attend the current place I go to as much as possible and it kind of works with my schedule.

However, recently I felt that I haven’t been really growing/learning as much as I would like skill wise considering I probably go there way more than an average person and feel that I am not being pushed to my potential. Although, I have only been there for one and half months, so maybe I am being a bit too ambitious. Another person that I normally train with privately on the weekends is on a semi-vacation to add to the situation. I definitely don’t learn this for acting purposes like what many would do too when it comes to martial arts and are into the film business.

But essentially, as I mentioned before my schedule can be really spontaneous where one week it’s like I have all the time in the world and the next week I would need to shut myself out to nothing but work. Therefore, everyday I am trying to do much as possible to maximize my time. Of course, I can’t expect any of these martial arts schools to accommodate just for my own unique situation nor would I expect them to, so as a result I am going to start looking again.

One funny thing too is that another school I was debating about before happens to focus more on the glamour style of martial arts and by the looks of it they may have the best fit schedule wise for me where I can easily alternate between the two schools depending on what my day looks like. While I don’t really want to learn something of this nature just for film, I guess the conditioning you go through is beneficial in general.

So, let the hunting begin. I’ll probably contact a few places in the next few days to see what my options are. Who knows, I guess there is a possibility that a new place would enthusiastically want to accommodate to my needs and situation. Would be a good way to equally compare the two to evaluate which one is best overall.

Maybe I’m nuts, but about three days ago during martial arts class the toe nail on my right foot got split in the middle and as a result it started bleeding. Funny thing is though, I didn’t even realize it till I got home. I did go to see the doctor and he mentioned that I should just leave it as it will take time to heal.

Then today I kind of re-aggravated it and it started to bleed a little again. Now I guess the wise thing to do would be to just stop doing anything and let it heal, but even the doctor said that it would take awhile. Especially when it comes to recreation like martial arts, it’s just that with an actor type of schedule I don’t know when I would be called again and sometimes I could be gone for days and weeks.

Hence, for things like this martial arts training my downtime can be while I’m on set as oppose to wasting time when I do have the opportunity to go. One thing is for sure, even as an actor I’m personally inclined to be one of those people who will ant to keep going if I can.

I always hate it in like fight scenes where when someone hits you accidentally they then break character to see if you are alright as oppose to continuing. It’s almost like they hit you for nothing as a result afterwards.

So as planned I got to visit my old school at Capilano today to help out the students who were looking for an actor. One interesting bit was that when I attended the place was a college and now it has been upgraded to a university.

It was a pretty simple 3 minute shoot and it seemed ore like it was a practice film for the production students more so than trying to make a sophisticated film. There was one scene where my character was supposed to get tossed over a balcony. The whole scene was shot on a set that the student built.

At first hey didn’t really know how the person could toss me over this platform without me getting hurt and so they originally suggested that I simply sit on the edge of it and the guy would push me down. Again, they were worried about my safety which is always great to hear.

However, I thought that would be a bit corny and unrealistic and so fortunately with my martial arts background I was able to devise a simple stunt that would make it look like the guy really tossed me over. It was great that I knew how to fall without hurting myself and that is always an important factor when doing these types of acrobatic stunts. In the end, it seemed like it turned out well.

Wasn’t too bad overall as it was about a 2 and a half hour shoot. Had fun visiting the old school again.

So today I dropped by a studio that I was very interested in training in as lately I have been thinking where since I am still young and have a fairly adaptable schedule that I try to do as much as possible. I have been doing martial arts at a twice a week rate normally and lately I thought it might be good to try and do a little bit everyday.

So, I researched a lot of different studios here and believe I have narrowed it down to the one I would like to train in. This is going to be interesting too because with an acting lifestyle you usually have to be very flexible in terms of a schedule which is why 9 to 5 jobs don’t really work that well for aspiring actors.

In this situation, it’s going to be interesting to see if the acting schedule will conflict with my training as usually a set day is over 12 hours which might throw me off track. Let’s see how this goes.