And now, I'll actually write about acting in this so-called acting blog!
There are some hard-core flu germs floating across LA these days. No six degrees of Kevin Bacon with this one, everyone knows someone or half a crew who's currently sitting on the bench. I was spared to a certain degree...101.1 degrees, to be precise, if I am to trust the Spongebob Squarepants thermometer my mom bought for me as a joke. Worse than that, it starts beeping the Spongebob theme song when it's done, so in my delirious state of mind that's the last thing I heard before going to bed. I had dreams that inspired me to to take SCUBA lessons and buy a pineapple.
But that was about it for me, I was fortunate. Also very thankful that it waited until after I'd shot an Advil commercial last week! Great set, great experience, and a holding room with a view from the 33rd floor of the US Bank building downtown. And hey, now I'll be able to buy a digital camera so next time, I can take a picture of it!
It occurred to me, speed-walking down a narrow office hallway and timing a near-collision with another actor who was not visible to me, that I trained for this role in no-budget USC film school productions shortly after I moved here. (Not the one below.) Sure, you can do fifty takes to get the timing and blocking down, but in the student films, they're limited in the number of feet of film they can shoot on a given project. In the Advil spot, they're shooting 120 frames per second, so we rarely did more than ten or twelve takes on any angle. Them feets adds up! Precision helps.
Some great physical comedy in this thing, and a cast full of great facial expressions. Once again, those USC productions were lessons in visual storytelling, as there was almost no dialogue. In the Advil spot, there's just one thing to know: "Doughnuts!"
And now, I could really use some Advil. Anyways, here's a shout-out to the USC boys who I owe a drink (and yeah, another shameless plug):
18 February 2008
10 January 2008
And here I am on a bus
I've had this idea to post the signs around LA that stand out for one reason or another. I'm not sure exactly where this will be seen, but I'm on the side of a bus (in a good way) for the first time.
If you've never watched Bus Pirates, five of the six episodes are available for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
05 January 2008
04 January 2008
Raw Bits
Lessons learned from another Cripma at home:
There is a vast right-wing conspiracy at work against anyone a few miles of out town limits who wants the high-speed intertubes connected to their house. Geez, you'd think the companies that control the information might want more people to have access to that information.
I need my Christmas in NC just to fill my annual biscuit quota. Good biscuits is hard to find in LA. Once again, I forgot to ask Santa for some country ham to fill that particular need, but that's okay. There's a water shortage anyway.
The futon must go. And with it, the color scheme in my room that I chose when I was four years old. I must have ingested some small toy from China the day my parents asked what colors I wanted.
We are all so thankful for the day that the cats and their litter boxes are forever banished from the dining room. I was introduced to those great igloo-shaped litter boxes which, in a normal household, would revolutionize the air quality. In our house, the cats would sniff around it, peek into the little tunnel and say, "Hell naw, somebody else can go in there. I'm pissin' on the hardwood floors right next to it. And then I'll go fight somebody."
There is a vast right-wing conspiracy at work against anyone a few miles of out town limits who wants the high-speed intertubes connected to their house. Geez, you'd think the companies that control the information might want more people to have access to that information.
I need my Christmas in NC just to fill my annual biscuit quota. Good biscuits is hard to find in LA. Once again, I forgot to ask Santa for some country ham to fill that particular need, but that's okay. There's a water shortage anyway.
The futon must go. And with it, the color scheme in my room that I chose when I was four years old. I must have ingested some small toy from China the day my parents asked what colors I wanted.
We are all so thankful for the day that the cats and their litter boxes are forever banished from the dining room. I was introduced to those great igloo-shaped litter boxes which, in a normal household, would revolutionize the air quality. In our house, the cats would sniff around it, peek into the little tunnel and say, "Hell naw, somebody else can go in there. I'm pissin' on the hardwood floors right next to it. And then I'll go fight somebody."
07 December 2007
When the shit is falling from the sky, plant seeds.
I guess that's my interpretation of Winston Churchill's brilliant-and-simple quote, "If you're going through hell, keep going."
The schizophrenic nature of The Bidness occasionally makes for emotional volatility that would make the Dow Jones Industrial Avg blush. Volatility seems to pick up when testing new highs and lows, and I found myself riding the coaster, presumably, at a 52-week low.
Booking droughts are common among actors, and certainly no stranger to me. I had very high expectations of myself going into 2007, with 7 jobs in the last three months of '06. Kind of a difficult pace to keep up. Sometimes, you know you're close. I've been kicking at the door since October, an entire month I spent on Avail for four different jobs.
I finished October like Alex Rodriguez does. O-fer. So what you do is you give thanks for the knowledge that you're on the right track, you're not a Yankee, and you've jumped through that many hoops and done almost everything possible to get the job. (Either that or you can be pissed off about 2nd place and keep attracting more of it. Filthy habit I picked back up.) That last hoop is where chance comes into play. Wait--actually, it's more like Community Chest, given that not only do you have to nail the audition and however many callbacks, but you have to please a committee of ad agency, client, and production people.
This week, volatility was sharply up once again for Me (ticker symbol: SMRT). The price was up in anticipation of the Pirates 3 DVD release, which was to include the Tales of the Code short film I shot last year at this time. It happened to be the one and only reported special feature not included in the final packaging. So I'm left to assume it may appear on whatever monster Trilogy Box Set they come up with. (The sooner the better!) I was really looking forward to posting a recollection of that 16-hour night shoot and expressing my endless gratitude for finally having an incredible character and scene for my reel. Instead, my stock plummeted on the news, and investors reportedly spent an hour crying into and/or beating the crap out of pillows. An hour later, I'm putting the mental train back on the tracks with a same-day commercial audition...and then another. Nice, I'm back, stock price recovering after early weakness, time to go.
Here's where the poetry of life kicks in. Off I go for an afternoon of opportunity. If only my car would start.
Battery's dead, so I have an opportunity to be grateful to Mom, who still has me on her AAA account. Driver comes out just in time for me to be just in time. $109 for a new battery, but at least I don't have to worry about that for a while, right? Now, if only I could pay my rent this month. Off to my audition...for the role of a tow truck driver.
I gotta hit the fast-forward button before this gets too dull--good audition here, good callback there (yay), a check doesn't arrive on time, will my rent check bounce? (boo), Mom calls to inform that the new well we had to dig (back in NC) because of the drought is not, after all, contaminated (huge yay), two straight-to-callbacks the next day, one with a director who knows me and digs my work (more huge yay), perfect time for the car to overheat for the third time in two weeks (boooo), so I miss the second audition and take it straight to my dude at Midas, where I sit for an hour and he can't for the life of him find any leaks. (Yay? Boo? WTF.)
I do believe, at this point, I deserve that Super Bowl commercial that ends up playing incessantly for the next 12 months. Way back when I experienced this bottom-scraping before the 7-booking streak, the well ran completely dry and I was literally down to less than $20 in the bank. Now I'm back, and after rent is paid I will be at $21. The difference this time is a full year of dues-paying, well-digging, and seed planting. While the residuals of last year's tidal wave are long gone, I reinvested a lot of them in myself--headshots, reels, MacBook, a wardrobe that doesn't look like I picked it out in junior high school--they're all part of the reason I've gotten to this point. I'm going out more often, and all the time through the mountains of poop raining down from the sky on actors by the nature of the industry, the wilting dollar, and a debilitating strike. But I've seen much, much worse and with far fewer resources.
So I plant seeds and let the bullshit fertilize. And now that it's finally raining water on Los Angeles, some of them are gonna grow.
The schizophrenic nature of The Bidness occasionally makes for emotional volatility that would make the Dow Jones Industrial Avg blush. Volatility seems to pick up when testing new highs and lows, and I found myself riding the coaster, presumably, at a 52-week low.
Booking droughts are common among actors, and certainly no stranger to me. I had very high expectations of myself going into 2007, with 7 jobs in the last three months of '06. Kind of a difficult pace to keep up. Sometimes, you know you're close. I've been kicking at the door since October, an entire month I spent on Avail for four different jobs.
I finished October like Alex Rodriguez does. O-fer. So what you do is you give thanks for the knowledge that you're on the right track, you're not a Yankee, and you've jumped through that many hoops and done almost everything possible to get the job. (Either that or you can be pissed off about 2nd place and keep attracting more of it. Filthy habit I picked back up.) That last hoop is where chance comes into play. Wait--actually, it's more like Community Chest, given that not only do you have to nail the audition and however many callbacks, but you have to please a committee of ad agency, client, and production people.
This week, volatility was sharply up once again for Me (ticker symbol: SMRT). The price was up in anticipation of the Pirates 3 DVD release, which was to include the Tales of the Code short film I shot last year at this time. It happened to be the one and only reported special feature not included in the final packaging. So I'm left to assume it may appear on whatever monster Trilogy Box Set they come up with. (The sooner the better!) I was really looking forward to posting a recollection of that 16-hour night shoot and expressing my endless gratitude for finally having an incredible character and scene for my reel. Instead, my stock plummeted on the news, and investors reportedly spent an hour crying into and/or beating the crap out of pillows. An hour later, I'm putting the mental train back on the tracks with a same-day commercial audition...and then another. Nice, I'm back, stock price recovering after early weakness, time to go.
Here's where the poetry of life kicks in. Off I go for an afternoon of opportunity. If only my car would start.
Battery's dead, so I have an opportunity to be grateful to Mom, who still has me on her AAA account. Driver comes out just in time for me to be just in time. $109 for a new battery, but at least I don't have to worry about that for a while, right? Now, if only I could pay my rent this month. Off to my audition...for the role of a tow truck driver.
I gotta hit the fast-forward button before this gets too dull--good audition here, good callback there (yay), a check doesn't arrive on time, will my rent check bounce? (boo), Mom calls to inform that the new well we had to dig (back in NC) because of the drought is not, after all, contaminated (huge yay), two straight-to-callbacks the next day, one with a director who knows me and digs my work (more huge yay), perfect time for the car to overheat for the third time in two weeks (boooo), so I miss the second audition and take it straight to my dude at Midas, where I sit for an hour and he can't for the life of him find any leaks. (Yay? Boo? WTF.)
I do believe, at this point, I deserve that Super Bowl commercial that ends up playing incessantly for the next 12 months. Way back when I experienced this bottom-scraping before the 7-booking streak, the well ran completely dry and I was literally down to less than $20 in the bank. Now I'm back, and after rent is paid I will be at $21. The difference this time is a full year of dues-paying, well-digging, and seed planting. While the residuals of last year's tidal wave are long gone, I reinvested a lot of them in myself--headshots, reels, MacBook, a wardrobe that doesn't look like I picked it out in junior high school--they're all part of the reason I've gotten to this point. I'm going out more often, and all the time through the mountains of poop raining down from the sky on actors by the nature of the industry, the wilting dollar, and a debilitating strike. But I've seen much, much worse and with far fewer resources.
So I plant seeds and let the bullshit fertilize. And now that it's finally raining water on Los Angeles, some of them are gonna grow.
12 November 2007
Quick question about winter
How many people in the United States will freeze to death this year because they couldn't afford their fuel bill?
Where will our winter Katrina be?
Growing up in a typically-uninsulated 1920's farm house gives rise to these questions.
Where will our winter Katrina be?
Growing up in a typically-uninsulated 1920's farm house gives rise to these questions.
25 October 2007
My First Gig
Fifteen years after my professional acting career started, that first, most glorious job has finally come to DVD.
And the callback that got me the gig still remains in my memory bank. It's crazy: I can't tell you what I ate for lunch most days, but I can still remember the improv I did that day for the director, Syd Macartney, in that cramped-as-hell upper floor that the Fincannons (casting) used to use.
It was the summer of 1992, almost morning in America, and it was my first major audition: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Took them a couple of weeks to get back to us, but when I booked it, I think I finally realized that I was on to something. Deep down, I knew I wouldn't be booking jobs like that all the time, but thank goodness I couldn't know that in 2007 it would still be my longest job to date.
Three weeks of shooting, when it was all over. The first week as an extra, an upgrade at the end of the last day, and then another two weeks as a principal later in the month. Not bad at all in Actorland. Hell, almost unheard of today if you're not a name. But the memories of myself as a teenage dork, interacting with this new world to which I was drawn are still here, if the money is not.
I remember the woman in the production office handing me a stack of twenties with trepidation. Nobody bothered to tell me about the per diem I was entitled to, until one of the extras did. I remember a 110-degree upstairs holding area in an abandoned warehouse, with a dead rat in the far corner. Oh, and I remember George Lucas walking around the set all day. Yeah, I didn't know how freakin' good I had it.
Most of the action took place in Thalian Hall (Wilmington, NC). One day my mom made the 3-hour drive (2 hours for the rest of us) and got to play the stage mom for a bit. She was mostly well-behaved. Once however, she brought a confession back to the seats where I sat, watching the next shot being set up. She was wearing her "I just got into mischief" smile.
"I just ran into George." Oh my God, please tell me you didn't say anything.
"Well, I introduced myself as he was coming out of the bathroom..." She told me all the wonderful gushing things she had to say about the whole experience, yada yada. Geez, I hadn't even talked to him and here's my mom stealing my thunder, a bathroom stalker no less!
It was a few minutes later when George, on stage going over the script with others, uttered the words, "Why don't we give those lines to Fred?" I know I didn't imagine it, either, because I turned around to my mom in time to see her turn around to me, both of us wearing our "Holy shit, did you hear that?" looks.
My other favorite story from that gig happened before the day I learned about the glory of per diem. I was at the hotel and decided to go downstairs and just get some chicken fingers at the hotel restaurant. With no money or car, my choices were limited. I stepped off the elevator and at the restaurant entrance was one of the leads, who said they were all going to eat and I should join them. Well....okay. If you say so.
See, my feeble brain couldn't quite figure out that the cast and director and producers were not going to step inside to the hotel bar. No, up pulled the van and I jumped in with the cast, Rick McCallum, and some other people I should have gotten to know better. So, not surprisingly, we went to the best French restaurant Wilmywood had to offer. Oh, and I was wearing cut-off shorts, a tie-dye, and probably Chuck Taylors.
And in that impressive wardrobe, I sat down at a huge table and ate dinner with all those cats: Lucas, McCallum, Flanery, and probably Anne Heche, too. (She wasn't Anne Heche yet, so I don't remember for sure.) I picked the cheapest thing I could find on the menu and still had to borrow cash from this guy. (McCallum picked up the check and the other guy gave me my precious money back the next day.) And after an early morning call and a late start to dinner, I was falling asleep in my chicken dinner. I was the broke-ass, teenage, tie-dyed nerd falling asleep at dinner across from George Lucas. Let's just say he's never cast me again.
But I have run into him a couple times since. I went to Vegas for New Year's around '99. As I crossed the pedestrian bridge at Caesar's, there he was walking towards me, anonymously shopping among the masses with his kids. Finally, seven years later, I had the balls to thank him.
Quickly, of course. And nowhere near a bathroom.
And the callback that got me the gig still remains in my memory bank. It's crazy: I can't tell you what I ate for lunch most days, but I can still remember the improv I did that day for the director, Syd Macartney, in that cramped-as-hell upper floor that the Fincannons (casting) used to use.
It was the summer of 1992, almost morning in America, and it was my first major audition: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Took them a couple of weeks to get back to us, but when I booked it, I think I finally realized that I was on to something. Deep down, I knew I wouldn't be booking jobs like that all the time, but thank goodness I couldn't know that in 2007 it would still be my longest job to date.
Three weeks of shooting, when it was all over. The first week as an extra, an upgrade at the end of the last day, and then another two weeks as a principal later in the month. Not bad at all in Actorland. Hell, almost unheard of today if you're not a name. But the memories of myself as a teenage dork, interacting with this new world to which I was drawn are still here, if the money is not.
I remember the woman in the production office handing me a stack of twenties with trepidation. Nobody bothered to tell me about the per diem I was entitled to, until one of the extras did. I remember a 110-degree upstairs holding area in an abandoned warehouse, with a dead rat in the far corner. Oh, and I remember George Lucas walking around the set all day. Yeah, I didn't know how freakin' good I had it.
Most of the action took place in Thalian Hall (Wilmington, NC). One day my mom made the 3-hour drive (2 hours for the rest of us) and got to play the stage mom for a bit. She was mostly well-behaved. Once however, she brought a confession back to the seats where I sat, watching the next shot being set up. She was wearing her "I just got into mischief" smile.
"I just ran into George." Oh my God, please tell me you didn't say anything.
"Well, I introduced myself as he was coming out of the bathroom..." She told me all the wonderful gushing things she had to say about the whole experience, yada yada. Geez, I hadn't even talked to him and here's my mom stealing my thunder, a bathroom stalker no less!
It was a few minutes later when George, on stage going over the script with others, uttered the words, "Why don't we give those lines to Fred?" I know I didn't imagine it, either, because I turned around to my mom in time to see her turn around to me, both of us wearing our "Holy shit, did you hear that?" looks.
My other favorite story from that gig happened before the day I learned about the glory of per diem. I was at the hotel and decided to go downstairs and just get some chicken fingers at the hotel restaurant. With no money or car, my choices were limited. I stepped off the elevator and at the restaurant entrance was one of the leads, who said they were all going to eat and I should join them. Well....okay. If you say so.
See, my feeble brain couldn't quite figure out that the cast and director and producers were not going to step inside to the hotel bar. No, up pulled the van and I jumped in with the cast, Rick McCallum, and some other people I should have gotten to know better. So, not surprisingly, we went to the best French restaurant Wilmywood had to offer. Oh, and I was wearing cut-off shorts, a tie-dye, and probably Chuck Taylors.
And in that impressive wardrobe, I sat down at a huge table and ate dinner with all those cats: Lucas, McCallum, Flanery, and probably Anne Heche, too. (She wasn't Anne Heche yet, so I don't remember for sure.) I picked the cheapest thing I could find on the menu and still had to borrow cash from this guy. (McCallum picked up the check and the other guy gave me my precious money back the next day.) And after an early morning call and a late start to dinner, I was falling asleep in my chicken dinner. I was the broke-ass, teenage, tie-dyed nerd falling asleep at dinner across from George Lucas. Let's just say he's never cast me again.
But I have run into him a couple times since. I went to Vegas for New Year's around '99. As I crossed the pedestrian bridge at Caesar's, there he was walking towards me, anonymously shopping among the masses with his kids. Finally, seven years later, I had the balls to thank him.
Quickly, of course. And nowhere near a bathroom.
19 July 2007
12 July 2007
Is this how to bust Big Oil ?
In order for progress to occur in today's American capitalism, profit must be present. In order to compete with the scum of K Street, renewable energies have to blow away the profit margins of our fossil fuel economy. It's just a shame that nobody seems interested in a study like that, or...um.....like, one of them librul media outlets would hafta...whoa. Holy shit, dude:
Renewable energy 10 times cheaper
Amsterdam/Brussels, 6th July 2007: Investing in a renewable electricity future will save 10 times the fuel costs of a 'business as usual' fossil-fuelled scenario, saving $180 billion USD annually and cut CO2 emissions in half by 2030, according to a joint report by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) released today. (1)
A powerful economic argument for a shift in global investments towards renewable energy (including solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and bio energy), within the next 23 years, and away from dangerous coal and nuclear power. The report gives the financial rationale for Greenpeace's "Energy [R]evolution," a blueprint for how to cut global CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050, while maintaining global economic growth (2).
It's a Greenpeace press release, so you can be certain that if there is anything the slightest bit off with these numbers, the anti-earth crowd will howl. In fact, they will howl either way, making shit up to debunk the alternative energy movement. But even if these numbers are exaggerated by 300%, it is still worth it.
Boise Thomas makes a great point (in his Bookin' DVD) for actors when they have to justify going after this ridiculous dream of making a living at doing what we love. Tell Aunt Tilly that you chose to enter into the second largest industry in the world: marketing. Second only to oil.
Change is beautiful.
30 May 2007
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