Actor Growth

While working on set today I was told about a person I knew who apparently landed a role on Stargate Universe as a result of fans creating a campaign of sort to keep a character alive. Upon further research I found a blog post at http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/september-4-2010-bill-y-w-butt-sgus-vince-kwan-answers-your-questions/ which described all about it.

Wow. lol. I have worked with Bill a couple of times mostly on other sets when it came to background work. I have seen him twice I think on Stargate Universe where we were in different scenes. Reading this story was pretty amazing. I was happy to see too that an Asian actually got this opportunity as there is usually very little for people in this category compared to others.

He had a pretty interesting take on why there are so little Asians in the film industry too. Either way, it was pleasant news to hear. The title he has been dubbed with is just so strange though. lol.

I was sleeping in a bit today since I was very tired from yesterday. When I woke up, I noticed that my background agent had tried to call me so many times in the morning. Apparently, Stargate Universe was shooting and they needed me to replace a person. Here was the funny thing……they said that the person I would be replacing was a female black lady. I was just thinking “Okay, where is the resemblance there?”

I was asked how fast I could get there and mentioned about half an hour. It kind of worked out not too bad as the shoot started right in the afternoon and when I got there the group wasn’t called up to set yet. When I got to set I just had to be the same character that I always am on that show. Was kind of funny as I was joking with the makeup artists that they were going to have to try and make me look like the person I was replacing.

There was one really weird moment on the shoot today. Basically, one of the main actors farted. And yeah, it created a smell in the trail he walked. So many of the other cast members were freaking out in a humorous/playful way as some of them even ran out the room while covering their nose. Took awhile to get the pandemonium down as it was like being in a school classroom where when someone let’s one go every reacts so dramatically to it.

There was so much talk about this being the last episode and that continuation will come down to whether or not the show gets picked up for a second season. It was interesting too as we shot variations of the scene and depending on what happens they will show different footages. So if they don’t get picked up then the season will end one way and if it does it will end up a different way to keep the story going.

As a result of being on set I didn’t get to see how that Smallville footage turned out. I also got an e-mail about auditioning for a short film. This day sure shows how you can’t expect a daily routine type of schedule when you are starting out.

Looks like for whatever reason the scheduling on this show is getting jumpy. I never seen the call times get changed so many times too. The shoot even went past 12 hours which is supposed to be extremely rare for this production. It’s almost like they are in a crunch time mentality. Apparently the schedule changes were a result of having to follow some kind of SAG union guideline when it came to a particular talent that was being brought up from the states or something like that.

I believe that the episodes that are being shot this month are the season finale. To my knowledge at the end of this month it is supposed to be a wrap for the first season of shooting. Was definitely an interesting day yesterday as there were so many people with weapons. They were all fake of course. It looks like the next few weeks a few of us are needed for continuity reasons and so we have to keep our schedules flexible in anticipation that we will need to shoot for a couple of days in a row on this show.

I wonder if that will conflict with the feature film I was acting in. Guess everything is up in the air in terms of scheduling as even with that production they seem to be rescheduling everything and I’m not sure when I will be needed for that. Next week was originally the date that I would do the bulk of my dialogue for that film. Just going with the flow at this point in time.

Over the past few weeks I have been having fun reading comments about the new shows and season premieres. In many cases I have seen what happens in the plot through work and it’s just so interesting being on the other side and viewing all these speculations. For example, today Stargate Universe premiered and I must say there are some die hard fans that sure have a creative imagination on what they think is going to happen.

You know what else I have come to realize too? IMDB can sure be a spoiler of sort. For example, in many cases it lists all of the episodes that are going to be shown. As well, it lists which cast is going to appear. Like with the show Smallville it looked like people were wondering if certain characters that died are going to come back. All they had to do is look at the cast list to see if the actor was going to appear again. This made me think how it is kind of hard to keep secrets on shows with the Internet huh?

Another thing that this is teaching me will probably be useful further down the road in my growth. Basically, reading people’s opinions of the shows. It was kind of surprising to see people blast certain actors in a mob mentality kind of way when they don’t enjoy the show overall even if they technically did their job fine.

So I guess an actor when you are at that point in your career things like this can help you where you should really consider say the director and writer’s reputation too as acting in a show or film that is not accepted very well can make you look bad despite your best efforts. Not exactly the same scenario, but I guess Jim Carrey acting in that Cable Guy movie is an example how a film can really drag down your worth as an actor if you view yourself as a commodity of sort.

I went to do some quick work on Stargate Universe today and holy cow was it ever hot. Apparently it was like a record busting day today too. The people on set were talking about how someone fainted due to dehydration on set before and so we should all take the initiative to drink a lot of fluids.

The good thing is that we spent most of our time in the studio which had air conditioning and so overall it wasn’t too bad. Unlike the day on Caprica where I had to stand outside with a full suit getup. Today we had to actually eat during the takes though which is always interesting as you constantly see the crew people refilling plates for each take as they are racing against the clock it seems.

On set I was also talking to a friend and apparently he raised over $40,000 to make a film which was great news. I originally thought he wanted to do acting more but I guess he is going more into the production side instead. Be cool to see the final outcome.

Interesting day this was. I was back on Stargate Universe today as expected as part of a continuity shot from last week. Let’s just say, today involved work that required me to be on the ground a lot which was unexpected. However, another unusual thing happened too where the director was giving me directions as to what to do.

Since I wasn’t exactly doing a principal role on this series, that was very odd to me as from school and all the sets I have been on it is usually a no-no to interact with the director when you are not a principal player as that is up to the assistant directors to do.

So you can imagine my confusion as he was giving me direction and I was a little confused at first. Example, he was telling me to turn and I would turn a little when he actually wanted way more. Funny thing is afterwards he literally grabbed my head and turned it to the position that he wanted for the shot.

Then he looks into the camera view as the cameraman was pointing the camera right at me and he was so happy with that shot that he shouted out to me “I’m going to make you F’n famous!” I didn’t get to see it myself though of course, but this sure was an interesting experience. And no, I don’t think that shot is in anyway going to make me more well known professionally acting wise despite being featured on that shot. Fun for experience though.