(Semi)-Professional Acting (chance & luck): Film Work.

November 19th, Friday, 2004 New York City.

. . . ah, the benefits of being un/under-employed:

I spend a weekday (Friday) on the set of "Sad Serenade," the name of a few episodes of a very popular South Korean television series being shot in N.Y.C. for a few weeks. It was a paid job, "Background Extra," that came by way of Desiree, a commercial agent who works with non-union actors for non-union jobs: some I have to audition for, some I do not -- this job I did not have to audition for, and it paid $90.00 for the day, minus the 10% commission to the agent.

Call time was 10am, 25 West 40th Street, Bryant Park Grill in Bryant Park, Friday morning, a cool, surprisingly colorful, N.Y.C. fall morning. Bryant Park is a beautiful part of N.Y.C., and interestingly, near the location where I saw my first show one of the first times I was in N.Y.C. 5 years ago -- a small modern dance show, a friend from Illinois, in a small open performance space near 6th Avenue and 42nd street. It was there I first encountered the drive, ambition, and amazing creativity of many of the city's independent artists, people who somehow made work in the middle of the hustle & bustle of one of the world's largest, most complex and expensive of cities. Drive, ambition, and flowering creativity -- it was hard not to fall in love with these people, their work, and the N.Y.C. independent performance art scene they were helping to create.

Today I was on set all day (11 hours), and when I arrived, I and another male extra were upgraded to waiter, purely based on our looks (many actors are waiters, so I must have looked like one). I had no lines but I started 2 or 3 scenes (e.g., seating a couple of the principle actors at the table, etc.). I worked for about an hour, a couple of different scenes, different ways of doing things, different takes from different angles. Being upgraded from a Background Extra to a waiter was a good bit of luck because you're more visible, and you get to do something, and handling these little roles, I've learned, is a specialized skill -- not a difficult one, but there are a few skills I've needed to learn, and paying attention on set being one of the most important.

Usually with these small non-speaking roles, I'm given something to do, e.g., carry beer to a table of customers and then walk out of the shot. I'm surrounded by crew (ADs, 2nd ADs, PDs) and equipment (lights, booms, cords), so it's very easy to get nervous and self-conscious.

What helps to realize is this: this is 'essential' stripped-down acting, i.e., I have no words, but am doing doing a specific action, and in this case, doing exactly what a waiter does. So before the shot, I first simply walked around the set that consisted of tables, other background extras seated at the tables, and I simply noticed who was at which table, what food was there, where the empty tables were, etc.

In short, before the shot, I simply asked myself what would I do if I was just hired to be a waiter (which essentially was what I was hired to do, under extremely controlled conditions), and that helped focus my mind off of the fact that I'm on a set and about to be filmed. Then once the blocking was explained to me by one of the ADs, e.g., carry two beers across the set, place them on a table, and exit the set, I did it as if I was really hired to do exactly that --serve people and take care of customers -- so on "action," I just threaded my way through the tables to bring the beers, but I also turned my head to check out each table to see how the customers where doing and to catch the eye of any customer who might need something -- just what I would do if I was really waiting on tables.

One minor problem arose after I set down the beers during the rehearsal shot -- I clumsily exited the shot, and I realized that it was because I had nothing to do after I set down the beers. Ah, the classic mistake of not being clear about what you're doing during a particular beat of a scene.

This was very simple job/action, but it did have two distinct beats: 1) bring the beers (and check out customers on the way), and 2) after I set down the beers, I need to go somewhere and do something, and thinking "ok, now get off the set" immediately made me feel weird and self-conscious again. So before the next take, I picked a table out of the shot, and thought 'ok, I need to get these beers to these people, then I need to clear and wipe down that other table. Perfect! It give me something specific to do right at the end, and the whole sequence felt natural and easy.

Some of the other shots where a bit clumsy for me because I've never really waited on tables, but we did a few takes, trying different ways of seating people, and I tired, on my own, different and specific ways of doing things that made sense, and things got more natural with each take.

Again, my role was a very small part of the scene, really just the opening shot of a scene or part of a seqway (sp?) to another scene, but I was surprise at how the "rules" of acting applied in order to make my part appear natural and easy. If someone isn't looking for me, I doubt they would even notice me in the shot, but that's a measure of success, really: if I was doing something weird or awkward, it would be distracting, and I wouldn't be doing my job.

What also was a BIG help -- I was an unpaid extra on the set of Hope and a little Sugar, and a woman had been cast as a day player, a dinner waitress, with a couple of lines. She did very well, and much of what I did today I learned by watching her.

However, movie sets are busy-confusing places, and during one shot, she missed "action" and didn't do her entrance after the camera started rolling. No big deal, but a bit embarrassing for her when the director said "Cut -- where's my waitress?" So I wanted to avoid any glitch like that, so I kept my eyes and ears trained on Curtis, the AD on the set, for my visual signal to go -- in fact, I told Curtis ('it's a bit hard to hear, so just give me a signal when to go'). Paying attention on the set -- it's a big help.

Being upgraded from Background to scene work is lucky, and it's actually not the first time I've had luck with this. A month ago, I was a non-paid extra on Searching for Bobby D...: It was another 12 hour day (on a Thursday, I think). I "played" a camera-guy, paparazzi. ). I was given a real working camera by a real photographer who was working on the set, and so all day, between takes, I practiced taking pictures of people on the site, like a real photographer would. The call was quite early (7am), the shoot lasted all day, but I simply made sure to pay attention to when they needed me for various scenes. After 10 hours, most of other camera-guy 'extras' couldn't take it anymore and left (we were all unpaid), but I stayed, and the call came that they needed some camera-guys on set, so I went outside. The director, Paul, was specifically looking for one of the camera guys who had been there earlier,but left, and so he pointed at me and said "you'll do."

This was completely out of the blue: I suddenly got pulled into a 15-20sec scene with one of the principles, Tony Darrow, who roughs up a camera-man. The scene was simple: watch a limo pull up, wait for Tony's character to get out, stick a camera in his face, and then Tony shoves the camera and me aside. The director did about 4 takes. He only gave me some simple direction after the 1st take -- the final three were apparently fine.

The lesson here: near the end of the day, they needed to do a short (15-20sec) scene with an extra and one of the principles. All the other extras had left by then, but because I stayed and was available -- I got the job.