Recently in Film Work Category

Almost 6 weeks ago, on an unseasonably chilly early spring evening on the lower east side, I attended a rare two hour open cattle call for a full length independent feature film. 60sec for a monologue -- and given the number of auditioners, the auditors were serious about cutting people off at 60sec, whether our monologues were finished or not.

I did my Vanya (only half this, and not exactly this but a great translation by Brian Friel).

So what happened ... ?

From Desiree:

HOLDING LOCATION: Everyone must report to:
EMPIRE HOTEL
44 WEST 63RD ST.
OPPOSITE LINCOLN CENTER
BETWEEN BROADWAY & COLUMBUS
MANHATTAN
Don't forget on Sunday is the NYC marathon. Please make sure you avoid the marathon route when reporting to set.

+-------
My check-in number: 137

The wardrobe fitting went well on Thursday (and we're all even paid for two hours, though the fittings took only 20 minutes). For the fitting, I had to bring in my own things -- no bright whites or red allowed -- 2 or 3 outfits. I brought things that I thought would be interesting. I showed them to the costume designer. She took one look at them, and. . .

. . . three weeks ago, on September 2nd, I flew home to visit my mother in MI., and I stopped off in Chicago, to visit, though Chicago was really a home for me for almost 10 years -- and almost 10 years ago to that day, for my birthday, I rented a car and drove from Urbana-Champaign to Chicago with a girlfriend. She showed me a place called Ragstock, near The Alley and Taboo Taboo on Belmont just off of Clark, a very popular place for all the north side hippers, and I immediately saw why. I purchased one of my favorite shirts there, completely impractical, and I have it & ware it to this day.

I felt a strong desire to see it again, and so I took the Ravenswood L up to Clark and Belmont -- it had been about 6 years since I had been back to that spot, a final departure point before leaving for NJ in '99, and even more years since I had been back in that general area. I was very happy back then, pretty networked and plugged in, at least for me. I know no one in town now. I found Ragstock again, and -- again -- luck was with me, and I found a couple of great shirts, and a pair of black & white docs in very good shape for $25 . . .

. . . fast forward to last Thursday. The designer saw them and . . . she thought they were great! My impractical tastes paid off. She was quite happy with what I brought because so much of what people were bringing were conventional & conservative colors and styles -- no one, it seemed, had brought what I did.

Thank you Ragstock. Thank you Chicago . . . Thank you 10 years ago . . .

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Made in NY incentive program (mostly less regulation, fees, and taxes) has yielded some $300 million in new film and television business for New York City.

I think in the fall, I'm going to attempt to do 2-4 days/month of background extra work on film and television.

It's great experience, it pays, it's something I've enjoyed in the past, and I've always learned a great deal (see Networking & Watching on "Law & Order." and (Semi)-Professional Acting (chance & luck): Film Work.)

The Librarian won a cinemotography award, and it was apparently well received by the audience . . .

Dennis called the other day: The Librarian will be screened by the Brooklyn College Film Department in the Gershwin Theatre next Wednesday at 4PM.

I won't be able to attend, but I'll get a DVD of the movie in a couple of weeks: I'm a bit anxious to see it: The Librarian was my first time on camera, it wasn't a minor role, and I was pretty theatrical/physical with "The Boss" (my first real "character," I'm not sure where he came from). I played him like I was on stage, which -- I learned from a film acting book I read after the shoot (because I never thought I would get cast) -- can be a mistake on film.

But, maybe I should just take a deep breath and watch it -- study it: if I look ridiculous, my excuse can be I had no training and no experience, all true -- but they did cast me way back in October, so they must have thought I was OK. I considered myself quite fortunate to have gotten cast out of the blue with no on camera experience -- and it was fun to do! I really like these guys (Dennis, the Producer, and John, the Director), and the other cast members were very cool. It was a very enjoyable two day shoot, way out there in Brooklyn, on two perfect New York City sky blue fall days . . .

N called me a couple of weeks ago, and he said they had finished cutting the film, and he was inviting all the cast and crew down to Suede on 161 W. 23rd Street (one block east of the famed Hotel Chelsea). The film is about 10min, just one scene, but a well-written scene.

First impression: honestly -- I was impressed and relieved. It was really my first serious time in front of the camera. I thought the director made good choices about what to cut -- a scene where I was directing myself and a scene where I was quite fluttered: neither made it into the final version. What did make it, though, I thought I looked believable and unselfconscious, which means I had moments of focus, relaxation, and clarity: the "character" wasn't what N wanted, but what was there was "truthful," which was my target. Before the screening, I asked N if he was happy with the film, and he said he was very happy, so all-in-all, I consider it & the experience of making it a success -- I definitely learned highly valuable lessons, but now I really want to see it/study it again: I've asked N for a copy that will hopefully include the parts that didn't make it into the final version.

Just finished filming my first fairly serious independent short film. It was just one scene, 10 minutes of screen time. It was from a full length feature screenplay. The short will be eventually shown at festivals in order to promote both the director and screenplay, and to find funding for a full-lenght feature. The scene was well written with definite, believable characters and a believable situation, and it was shot with film (24fps), not digital.

General Insights/Principles: Problems and Lessons

I found it difficult work -- at times quite difficult, a mixed bag of successes and failures, and I'd give my overall performance a C,C+/B-: not bad, but not great.

I think I may have been miscast. The director was also the screenwriter, a very talented guy, but given this, I think the first misstep took place at the audition: the audition required a monologue, which went well. However, as the writer, naturally enough, he had very definite ideas about my character, how he should be played, right down to specific lines. These ideas were great -- however, I don't think he anticipated the difficulty I would have giving him exactly what he wanted. I suspect that if the audition consisted of reading sides from the scene, he would have had a much better idea of whether or not I could give him what he wanted, and if I had auditioned with sides, I suspect I would not have gotten the part.

But I did get the part, so what lessons can be learned from the experience?

Lesson 1: When auditioning for a film, make sure I'm reading sides for the role I'll be playing -- I suspect the director/writer has also come to this conclusion.

Second Problem: Increasingly my approach has been to decide as clearly as possible what my character wants, try to emotionally connect with that, and then during performance, I "simply" ('simply' in quotes here because it's anything but -- but it is what I strive for), I "simply" let go, and go on impulse and intuition. My standard for success is that I surprise myself -- I don't plan it out, esp. for film (and most of the advice books strongly recommend this, e.g., The Art of Film Acting, A Guide for Actors and Directors by Jeremiah Comey).

Today, however, the director, for the most part, had a very clear idea of what he wanted to see in terms of character, and he would often give line readings. The problem that I had (stemming back to miscasting) is that the line readings put me right into my head, breaking most of my emotional connection -- it was exactly the same problem I would have if I had a "picture" or "movie" of the character in my head and then tried to "do that" during performance. At least for me, that's the way of ruin. My performance is always forced, head-driven, and flat.

How I experienced the character was different then how the writer experienced him when creating him. I could not bring myself in alignment with what the director wanted. Fortunately, it was not a disagreement about what my character wanted, just about how he was going about getting what he wanted. That necessarily isn't a problem, but it is if the actor's and the director's sensibilities are fundamentally different, i.e., I should have been reading sides for the audition instead of doing a monologue, but that is lesson one, so there I was, with a problem. What to do?

Lesson 2. The Principles of Good Acting are never MORE important than when you find yourself in a position where you are struggling. In short, there wasn't really much I could do -- but I could at least stick to first principles, and that saved me at least some of the time, and today, the first and most important principle was taking in fully, completely, my partner and responding only to that -- forgetting all direction and any pre-conceptions about what I thought the director wanted to see or hear. And a few times, it worked like a charm -- the director seemed happy or at least satisfied.

The steps I tried to apply were these:

1. Before the director called "action," I reminded myself what I was after, tried to feel it, emotionally connect with it.
2. After "action," I put full attention on my partner, taking him in from head to toe, tried to sense what he was feeling and emotionally react to it even before I started speaking.
3. Go with my impulses, "ride them" (because they seem to grow and change if I let them).
4. Give myself time to react -- don't rush.

At times I just failed to do this because I'm inexperienced, and once because I had no partner -- I was talking directly to the camera. In that case I got a lot of line readings from the director, a lot of specific direction, and my performance seemed to steadily deteriorate. Again, in this latter case, I don't think there was much I could do -- the director had a very specific idea of what he wanted to hear, and I just wasn't able to do it.

Third Problem: self-direction. I've done this in stage work, and it's a disaster there too. In one case, I simply had to walk up to a person in the scene, sit down next to her, and then dialogue would start. I made a decision, because it "felt" like something the character would do, to be looking down, checking over over some forms I was carrying, as I approached her, not looking it her at all. Now, the problem was NOT this choice per se or it's consequences, that is, not looking at her until I sat down. Trying it was the right thing to do, but immediately after the first take, the cinematographer said it "felt awkward."

My mistake was sticking to my self direction, and the choice I made turned out to violate, I believe, the above principle of taking in and reacting to my partner. For whatever reason, the scene wasn't working, and I think had I taken her in as I approached her, started to react to her even before she started the first line of dialogue, I strongly suspect the scene would have gone much better. However, at the time, I simply wasn't able to debug it like this, and I probably should have run my self-directed first choice by the director before attempting it. He probably would have said "try it," and it may have helped him debug that scene. Also, I did the same sort of thing for another scene, and again, I got into trouble, again unable, until now, to pinpoint exactly what the problem was.

Lesson 3. Minimize self-directing and when I do self-direct, or if I think I am, let the director in on it. I think I just really wanted to do it, but I was afraid I'd be told no, so I just did it, and then got into trouble without knowing exactly why. Ultimately this is a problem caused by lack of experience, so I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to learn this. Another problem was doing a scene as if MY eye was the camera (really self-directing there) -- that was clearly a mistake, but it was easily corrected on subsequent takes.

Lesson 4. Surprisingly, despite the stress, especially during the scene where I was just talking to the camera and things were starting to fall apart, I was able to maintain concentration and focus, and I was able to maintain a sense of focused relaxation for the rest of the day. I can't say exactly how I did this other than I just refused to succumb to the slings and arrows that were starting to come my way. I was simply determined to stick to first principles and do my best.

(The thing that also really helped was just staying by myself, staying quiet, closing my eyes, and meditating/relaxing between takes).

Conclusions

All in all, a very valuable (albeit painful) experience, but one (after a few hours of serious reflection) I'm glad to have had. The problems, I feel, really came down to not taking every opportunity of reacting to my partner, and second, to basic miscasting. However, I was very, VERY, surprised at how simply doing what I wrote in lesson #2 above counteracted the problems of miscasting. It really saved me, when I was able to do it.

And with all the takes, with any luck at all, my C/B- performance might be upgraded to a B or maybe even an B+, at least with some cuts/scenes. Editing will certainly improve things, at least to some extent, and there should be lot of opportunities for editing: it was a 10 minute scene that took about 20 hours and 40 "shots" to film -- that's 2 hours per minute of screen time. It was a serious, well thought-out, detailed shoot.

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.