Actor Growth

Been working on the same movie set for awhile and am back again today. I had an interesting conversation with a gentlemen on how he got out of the industry for a few years. However, after working on set again he noticed that he still recognized so many people.

He then asked me which film school I went to and his eyes lit up as he mentioned his niece went there too but that I probably wouldn’t know her. Turns out she was actually my classmate. lol. That just kind of shows how small the film community really is here and that word can get around fast if people do good or bad things.

It appears that some people that I met on a previous set are trying to make a short film and asked if I could help. I agreed as I am always interested in doing film work regardless if there is pay or not. It was interesting too as this made me think how if you just surround yourself with more like minded people it indirectly creates opportunities.

This concept is very true when it comes to business when it comes to attracting clients and building future opportunities. Should be a no brainer then when it comes to trying to develop and acting career huh? Considering you pretty much have to find a way to get yourself out there.

Alright, so I’m still waiting to meet all of the Asians that are trying to make it into the film business as I’m sure there must be a ton of people that want to try and do some creative things since it appears at this point you have to create your own work to get things going.

Today I got an interesting e-mail as a person that I auditioned for a few months back contacted me and was interesting in having me on his film. While it was a volunteer film and sounded fun, unfortunately I couldn’t accept it in the end as something came up that conflicted with my schedule.

But the thing to take away about this one though was that although I didn’t get the part when I audition for his other film, because I auditioned for it he remembered me for future roles. That can be the case many times too where when you audition for a part that you don’t end up getting it can still open up new opportunities.

The important thing is that you get your name and face out there while portraying yourself professionally so that people remember you for other potential opportunities.

While working on Farewell Atlantis it was very neat to talk to the different types of people who were working on the film as background performers. I was meeting people such as script writers, artists and even real estate agents.

Many people say that background work is a good way to break into the business. I think that notion is true when it comes to networking with others. This is why too I always find it amazing like with that little ruffle that I saw on set as you never know who you could be talking to which should give you more of a reason to be nice to everyone you meet.

Most often too when you see people reading a book or watching something on their laptop, I have found that they would rather be socializing to meet new people. I have personally never met an anti-social person on set before. I have even seen business exchanges happen on set. So if you ever do even simple things like the background work, take the opportunity to meet as many people as possible I’d say.

So I went to the screening yesterday and it was an interesting experience. It’s actually literally the first time I have seen myself on a big screen playing a lead role too which was kind of neat. Indeed I saw a lot of familiar faces.

You know what the funny thing was too? Now obviously we had our difficulties and had to literally shoot the entire film in one day. Turns out, some other teams had to do this as well due to other circumstances. It showed too on the screen in terms of which teams appeared to have had the most time to flesh out their film.

Now there was indeed another action/drama where the story revolved around a girl that had psychic powers or something like that. Seems like they definitely had issues too like us when it came to production as a lot of things seemed very rushed as well.

Another thing that was interesting out of this experience was to hear the live crowd feedback. I happened to have been sitting about two seats away from this lady and there is this moment in the film where I was literally crying.

Unfortunately in terms of usable footage in the final cut during this part where I was distraught you already see the tears all over my face as oppose to it coming out. This made that lady comment “That’s not real”. Perfectly understandable how some people would have though it was fake though as even I would have probably been in the same mindset. Guess that shows too where it doesn’t matter how good your acting is necessarily as there are so many other factors in film that will make or break your performance too.

Overall it was an okay event I thought. That restaurant where the after party was held, Kentizen Fusion Lounge, wasn’t too good food wise I’d say and I definitely wouldn’t go there normally. I guess a nitpicking for the event would be there were way too many comedies. Like literally I’d say almost 90% of the entries were comedies. I guess a big reason is that since the films could only be 9 min long with such a short shooting time that it is probably one of the easier genres to do.

Would have been nice to see a bit more variety since this is a visible minority event of sort where it is the perfect opportunity to see say Asians in roles that you would normally not see too much of. More risk taking I guess. Will I do it again next year? Maybe, we’ll see how it goes. I’d definitely prefer to just do the acting though as intended before.

So today is the gala event for the film screening. The event starts at 6:30pm sharp and I intend to arrive at around 6pm or so. I was looking at the list of films too and the confusing thing was that I thought there was at least one other entry that was in an action/drama genre which doesn’t appear to be the case now. Maybe the titles are just confusing me.

Should be fun though as I’m sure I’ll get to meet some new and familiar faces.