My Early Adventures in Los Angeles

I recently came across some notes I wrote 16 years ago detailing my my first experiences in as an actor in LA. It was intended to be a one man show about whats it really like as a working actor in LA.  Enjoy :

I was cast in my Second short film while I was filming my first.  This time, I had one of the leads. I was very excited about it.  It was a comedy set in the Air Force.  It was sort of like Office Space set in the military.  A lot of Austin Powers type humor in it.  I really felt good about this one.  The writer-director (another hyphenate) was a young guy who worked as an engineer in the Air Force.  He had just gone to film school and this was his first film. The story was based on his experiences on the job.

 

I played the antagonist of the piece, an ineffectual boss who stands in the way of getting the job done.  His name was Maj. Oscar Meyer.  That’s right, like the hot dog.  He was a brownnoser who treated his subordinates like dirt and kissed up to his superiors.  One of the running gags was that he had brown stuff on his nose whenever he came out of a meeting with his superiors.

 

It was a lot of fun, but there were also many problems.  The film was shot on location in an office in downtown LA.  Like the previous film, we only shot over the course of two weekends because everyone had full time jobs. Two of the main scenes were shot in a meeting room, which had glass walls on either side.  In the first scene, the one wall was covered with green screen for some special effects shooting.  There were two cameras being used simultaneously and combined with the glass and the lights, it took a few hours for the scene to be lit properly.

 

Two of the actors were not called until later in the day.  One of them, had requested permission to leave early because he had plans that night. He wanted to leave around 7:00 p.m.  He was not called until about 3:00 p.m.  He and his scene partner were there on time and were not called to the set until after 6:00 p.m.  He was not happy.  He had less than an hour.  He was all flustered and he kept forgetting his lines.  All he was thinking about was the fact that he had to get out of there.  We did take after take, and he kept blowing his lines.  Finally, at 7:15 he announced he was leaving.  He told the director he had to be out of there by 7:00.  And he left.  We continued to shoot the scene around him.

 

Now what got all of us, was this.  This is a man who has been in the business for over 20 years and knows how things work.  When you’re shooting a movie, especially a non-union or low budget film like this, you know you’re going to be there all day and night. Why would schedule something for that evening.  The director should not have granted permission to him.  Secondly, what the hell was he doing for three hours!  I mean he was there from 3:00 to 6:00 and then he gets on set and keeps blowing his lines.  He should have been running lines with his scene partner instead of complaining about not being able to get to his date on time.

 

That actor was fired between weekend one and weekend two of shooting. Fortunately, his big scene was not scheduled to shoot until the second weekend.  It turns out, he had been trouble all along.  We had a rehearsal on location a couple of nights before shooting began and he fought the director on every bit of direction he gave him.

 

While we’re on that subject, let’s talk about the direction you get as an actor on a student, short and/or low budget indie film…not much.  It’s pretty much left up to the actor, unlike stage.  I had to make all my own choices and quickly.  I’m not saying that as a stage actor I depend completely on the director.  I do make my own choices, but you do have that long rehearsal period in which you can explore and work together on finding the character.  That doesn’t exist in film and many film directors don’t work much with their actors.  You have to come in prepared and with your character there.  It was a struggle.  In my case, it was doubly difficult because I felt I my acting was too big or stagy if you will.  But no one was correcting me, so it must be all right.  Still, I couldn’t help editing myself. In fact, it was my “staginess” that got me the part.  The director wanted someone who was more theatrical in his or her acting style.  This did not fill me with confidence.  Was I too “stagy”?  I must do something about that. I must tone it down.  Once again, I was not pleased with the final result on film. I swear I gave a better performance than what ended up on film. He seemed to choose the one take where I didn’t say the line the exact way I said it in every other take.  

 

Overall, it was an enjoyable experience.  I liked most of the other actors.  I thought it was a funny movie and it was a great part for me.  The final product wasn’t the best quality.  There were some pretty cheesy looking cuts and edits in the movie that reeked of amateur filmmaking.  I felt the script was really funny when I read it, but then on screen, it didn’t look so good.  Chalk it up to experience.

 

Next Week

Part Two: My first starring role in a feature! What could possibly go wrong?

Women Directors in Commercials

So last week, I worked on a commercial.  A big achievement in my career on its own. However, as I stood in the room waiting for my callback to begin, and was introduced to the director it struck me the director was unlike any commercial director I had worked with before. This director was a woman.

Now you're probably asking yourself, "What's the big deal about that?" And seriously, I wish I could say nothing. But the truth is I've only ever worked with men directors on commercials. As I stood there, I had to think about it. "Yes! This is the first time, the director was a woman."

And I thought some more, "Has this been true for the movies and TV shows I've worked on too?" I had to think back. My God! It's true, I could only think of one woman director I've worked with on a film. And that was just last month. There have been plenty of woman assistant directors, but no directors.

Then my next thought was. "Why should I be having this reaction? This shouldn't be a big deal."  But when I thought about it more, I realized it was true. Then I questioned why haven't I ever worked with a female commercial director, especially in this day and age. Is it really that unusual? It's 2017. And I thought more, have I ever worked with a black commercial director? Nope. Again, worked with some black male directors on film projects. But not commercials. Why is that? Latino males? Yes. One. Because it was a commercial for Spanish language markets. On Films. Yes. Asian? Films. Yes. Commercials. No.

Again, on stage, I've worked with plenty of directors of all colors and genders. But then the theater world is much more progressive in that way. Still not perfect, but ahead of the curve in relation to TV and film.  We've all been reading and hearing about the struggle from pretty much any groups that aren't made up of white men in the media in the last couple of years. And it's real. Of course, I'm a white male so do these words mean anything coming from me?

Yes, the mere fact that I thought to myself, "A woman director? I don't think I've ever worked with one on a commercial." But my next thought was, "Wow! Sad. It's 2017. I thought we'd come further than this." There's a reason women are being more and more vocal these days in their right to get equal pay and opportunities. Despite the progress made by the previous couple of generations of women and blacks and Latinos and Asians and LGBTQs, there is still along way to go.

The point that struck me the most standing in that room waiting for my callback to start was how sad it was that I had that thought at all. I shouldn't have those thoughts because there should be more women directors making commercials and TV shows and films, etc.  I look forward to the day that I don't have those thoughts because it won't be the least bit unusual.

The Next Chapter

I've been keeping this one to myself...mostly.  As of two days ago, it became official. I am no longer employed full-time. Now this news is likely to concern some people. But the simple truth of the matter is I was miserable. Absolutely, 100%, out of my mind, trapped like a rat in a maze I couldn't get out of and afraid if I didn't do something soon I would crack and lose it miserable. There were some very, VERY low times in the last few years. I had to get out of there.  And after years of contemplating, debating, discussing, threatening, ruminating, I finally took the step and gave my notice about two and half months ago.

Friday, I left my job of nearly 11 years. That's the longest I've worked anywhere and its been great for me financially. I've put some money away. I've got a nice retirement plan/401(k). I have a nice car. I live in a nice place and typically don't have to worry about my expenses. For all of that, I am extremely grateful. But my mental state was not good.

I moved here from NYC to further pursue my acting career on TV and in film. And when I came here I told myself, if I didn't succeed as an actor then come hell or high water I would work in the entertainment industry no matter what. So, how did I end up working in Legal Compliance for a large finance firm in downtown LA? First off, I wasn't aware that anyone moved to LA for anything other than TV or film. I mean why move here. That's all that's here, right?

So I came. I started temping almost immediately and was placed at one of the big studios. I got an agent. I went out on commercial auditions. I did theater. I did some really (And I mean REALLY) low budget movies. I temped at that studio for well over two years. And then it came to an end, but I was immediately called by another temp agency that saw my resume online and was placed within days of leaving my last temp assignment at the studio at a finance firm in Pasadena for two weeks. It lasted over three months. And then the day after that assignment ended, another agency called that also found my resume online. The next day I went to their office and registered and the following day interviewed at the finance firm downtown and two days later started as a temp. And here I am 11 years and three promotions later....burnt out.

You see at the same time, I was working in the theater...almost constantly. In two or three shows a year.  And also going out on commercial and TV auditions. In recent years, its been tough to juggle. I'll go out on an audition during the work day and usually I'm back within an hour and a half. But every once in a while, I'm gone two hours, two and half hours. And every once in a while, my boss would notice and call me in wanting to know where I was. Stress. Anxiety. Anyone who knows me knows I can't handle a) stress, b) people not liking me and c) not being a perfect worker/employee/son/student/brother etc. I have to be perfect always, the good boy, the one who follows the rules and never does anything wrong. I cannot make mistakes, ever! It's a lot of pressure.

So take all this into an audition and well, you get the picture.  As I sit there in the waiting room, I'm checking the clock. Why is this taking so long? NO! Don't take a bathroom break. I have to get back to work! What if I get stuck in bad traffic? How will I explain myself?

I don't need that energy at an audition. Now, I'll be honest, once I'm in the audition room, I leave all that outside.  But as soon as I am out that door, I am OUT that door.  The stress of trying to juggle the full-time job and the auditions was too much. Now, I may go weeks without an issue but then I'll go through a stretch where I may have a couple of weeks with multiple auditions and me coming and going from work. Not so great. And lastly, I'm not 22 anymore! I'm exhausted all the time.

I need some rest. I need to relax and I need to give myself some time to prepare for each audition.
I'm not independently wealthy and I will need to find another way to support myself. But at this point, I'm looking for something part-time so I can have some flexibility.  I don't know what it will be just yet. I may open a store, or a franchise, or maybe work as a professional organizer. I'd like to teach acting to kids. Or maybe I'll just work as a barista at Starbucks. Who knows?

So if any of you know of a job or want to hire someone for some work around the house, let me know. I'm available.

Batman v. Superman Review (Mostly Spoiler Free)

December 1978. Fox Colonie Theatre on Wolf Road in Colonie, NY (just outside of Albany). It's a Saturday night. I'm in line with what seems like half the kids from my high school waiting to see Superman, The Movie.  The commercials have been playing for a long time.  A shot of clouds and the camera working its way through the clouds promising us that we'll believe a man can fly.

The movie starts. A movie curtain opens to reveal a black and white shot of Action Comics. A boy;'s hand opens it up. The camera pans into a panel of the Daily Planet building. It dissolves to a scale model of the Daily Planet pans out and up to the moon and beyond as John Williams score grows and we start to see the opening titles zooming out at us. Goose bumps.

In case you couldn't tell, I am a hug fan of that movie. I went back the following weekend to see it again. Probably the first time in my life that I ever did that. I don't go to see movies in the theater more than once. I loved that movie., I grew up on reruns of the 1950s Adventures of Superman. I read the comics, World's Finest with Batman and Superman, Shazam. I was a DC kid. Not a huge superhero reader but I went through a phase. I was certainly familiar with them.

Flash forward to 2016. Its a different world. Comics are now written for adults (graphic novels). They can be darker. Its believed that today's audiences want grittier more realistic. And it can work. It works for Batman. But Superman? I understand the need to modernize him. But you can't take away everything that we grew up loving about him.

Batman vs. Superman. The reviews have been mixed. Most internet social media squabble would have you believe this movie is bad. It is not. It's also not great. It's decent. It's dark. Very dark. Please, Zac Snyder. Could we have SOME sunshine?  But my opinion is that its mostly told from Batman's perspective. Mostly, not all. For him it works.

I don't know that I agree with the whole Superman is an alien in our modern world. So he is raised and placed on a pedestal word worshipped like a God. And then of course he is torn down by others because that is what we do. We tear down our idols once we put them up there. He is feared by Bruce Wayne as an alien. And I get it. But, again. Can we lighten this up some? It is a comic book character after all. Comics book characters! Give me some bright reds and blues!

The story is decent. But I couldn't help wonder what if there were more humor injected and the brighter colors. And oh maybe Richard Donner directing or at least consulting. But I digress.

Ben Affleck as Batman. Great job. Jeremy Irons as Alfred. Awesome. Would have liked more. Henry Cavill as Superman/Clark. Not really given much to work with was he? I mean he was good with what he was given. They could have given us more back story on the Lois/Clark romance. They just were a couple. Just there already. And she knows he's Superman. Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White has the best lines. Honestly, the scrip needed more levity. This movie takes itself way too seriously.

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Well it was a different take on him. But then why call him Lex Luthor. He could have been some other character. He basically was a filthy rich young man who inherited daddy's money and has a lot of strange tics eventually driving him into madness. I honestly didn't mind his portrayal. But to me that wasn't Lex. That was some new bad guy. I also thought in retrospect that if this movie is predominantly told from Batman's POV, then this portrayal totally makes sense. He was like any other Batman villain who either exceed from or belongs in Arkham Asylum. Good theory. Right?

I will admit that seeing Batman Superman and Wonder Woman standing side by side to fight together was pretty cool. But I then had a second thought. This story could have been told with a lighter touch.  Not so dark and serious.

It was cool to see a few other DC cameos and obviously setup future DC movies which is basically how this ends. As a setup to the Justice League.

I also didn't like the CGI. There's way too much of it. I don';t like how every time Superman takes off its like a sonic boom. Wouldn't that do some damage? And the climactic fight sequence. Too Much CGI! Geez! And i didn't believe for one second that the ----- they were fighting was real. It looked CGI.

Cool that they brought in another big bad other than Lex and they used a very famous Superman storyline for the movie. After all, I am tired of every single Superman movie having Lex Luthor and kryptonite in it. Man of Steel is the only one that didn't.

Overall, I liked it with some qualifications. It was good. Not great. But I do hope that they let someone else take over and direct these movies and add more humor. And color! Please. What's a comic book without colors? Now if you don;t mind, I'm going to pop my Superman the Movie DVD in to the Blu Ray and watch that.

I Saw Star Wars...Finally!

Yesterday, I finally made it to a movie theater and saw Star Wars The Force Awakens.  I've read many articles about it and seen some posts on my Facebook feed theorizing about where the new characters are going to go on their journey, etc.  But overall, I have managed to stay away from any major spoilers so I was able to enjoy the movie.

And I did enjoy it very much. I never saw the last trilogy that was made in the 2000s. I heard they were not so good. To be honest, I am not a sci-fi fan...at all.  I saw the original trilogy back in the day. In fact, I saw the original Star Wars at the movies twice, which is major for me.  Although, that wasn't so much because I loved it as it was I went once with my cousin and then had to go a second time as a family outing. I liked it thought. My favorite movies of that era were Close Encounters and Superman. I loved Superman with Christopher Reeve. That I went to see twice because I really wanted to. I still remember how excited I go sitting through the opening credit sequence of Superman.

Anyway, back to Star Wars. I saw the original trilogy when it came out,. And saw Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back again in the late 1990s when the re-released them . Return of the Jedi, I really don't remember much. I sought once, on VHS in my aunt and uncle's apartment with 3 bratty 13 years old triplets who had already seen it and wouldn't shut up through the whole movie.

So, The Force Awakens. It felt like the original movies. It looked like the original movies. It was a great homage to those films and fit right in with them. As if it was a part of the same story and the same direct's vision. And for this reason alone I loved it. I had also read an article that theorized that it was almost a remake of the original in its story. And I couldn't help that informing my viewing of it. I agree. We start out on a desert landscape. A lone young person comes into the possession of a droid with some important intel. There's the Order (Empire), the Resistance (Rebels), they escape on a ship and team up with its owner (not giving away any spoilers here), there's a Cantina like location with a bunch of strange looking creatures. There's a battle between a good person and a bad person on the mother ship. There are plenty of other parallels but I can't say without spoilers. So I'll stop there. You'll just have to see it yourself.

So I definitely give it two thumbs up. And like I said, I am not a sci-fi person, In fact, I don't like sic-fi in general. I've seen a couple of the Star Trek movies, The Final Frontier and Generations. And I saw the reboot with Chris Pine as Kirk a couple of years ago, bit thats it. I'm not into this stuff. I don't like other planets and weird alien looking creatures and stuff. Does nothing for me. Although, I did watch a few Star Trek Next Generation episodes back in the 90s and liked what I saw of those. But in general, not a sci-fi fan.

But Star Wars? Go! See it! Its awesome.

Arsenic and Old Lace and other classic comedies

Last night I saw Arsenic and Old Lace at Glendale Centre Theatre. A friend of mine was in the show and as it turns out a few friends were in the audience as well.

I first discovered Arsenic and Old Lace via the movie version on TV when I was around college age. It was my introduction to Cary Grant. Love him in this movie. So damn funny. I like the play too. Not as much as some of the other classic Broadway comedies of that era but I still like it quite a bit. I tend to like the older plays from the mid-20th century (Kaufman and Hart's plays, Neil Simon's a couple of decades later).  So many great plays.

So many plays that were standards in community, stock, college and high school theaters all across the country for decades. But these days, maybe not as frequently performed, although still done on occasion. Now I sometimes hesitate when I go to see productions of this era these days. Afraid they may not stay true to the era they were written by modernizing some references or clothing styles.

I am happy to report this production did not disappoint in that department.  There was one joke in the second act that referenced Judith Andersen, and I had to process it. Mortimer says to his aunts who are dressed all in black for a funeral service, that they look like Judith Andersen. And then I thought to myself. Judith Andersen. Older actress, British Dame. Known for Medea. Oh! And the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Rebecca where she played Mrs. Danvers who was obsessed with the first Mrs. de Winter and is dressed all in black throughout the movie. Oh. Yeah. Funny! I wonder how many people in the audience got that. I'd say none based not he fact that it didn't get a laugh.

But back to the play. The pacing was good for the most part. There was one actor in the opening scene who did not have good pacing.  I liked the actor playing Mortimer. He reminded me A LOT of Danny Thomas. I'm guessing if I told him that he would have no idea who Danny Thomas was.  My one quibble with  him was that he was considerably younger than the two actors playing his brothers. Both were also quite good as were the two aunts. What great parts!

The actor playing Jonathan was great. He looked scary and moved kind of like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, (which is the main gag for his character).  But he really had it down. He was funny.

The reason I'm going on about this is that about 10 years ago saw a production of Arsenic and Old Lace that was not good.  And I saw it because I knew several people involved in it. In fact, they closed it down, re-cast a couple of roles and re-opened it. It was definitely better the second time around. But man, the first version. Yikes! I felt like the lead actors didn't get it. They didn't get the style at all. And this brings me to my point.

I feel that many actors who are a decade or more younger than me, don't get plays and TV shows from before the 1980s. Seriously. Like they don't know how to play comedy at all. And I'm talking about really good well-trained actors who are serious about their craft. And maybe that's my problem. Not that I don't take these plays seriously. But to me there is a whole style of acting that has gone out of favor. And its the kind of acting that I like. I feel like a relic.

I feel this type of play falls into the sitcom category as well. There were many plays on Broadway around the 1960s or so (like the Neil Simon plays) that come from the same type of humor...sitcom. Setup. Setup. Joke.  Guaranteed laughs.  But I think so many actors today don't grow with that so they don't get it. They try to dissect and analyze and approach it like a serious piece. And they miss the beats, the rhythms. Because all great comedy has a rhythm, a pacing, a style. You need to know this and feel it in addition to all the other acting research.

So I am happy to say that Arsenic and Old Lace at Glendale Centre Theatre got it right. It was a delight.