One of my least favorite things to deal with on Earth is bureaucracy. And bureaucracy that is as sprawling and uncountable as the IRS is like my worst nightmare. But this isn’t a political rant… I went to the “Taxpayer Assistance Office” to deal with some old tax issues and proceeded to sit in the waiting room for two and a half hours. I studied sides for a class for an hour until my head was swimming, and for the other hour and a half I watched what people look like waiting to get audited. What auditors look like and how they carry themselves as they meander to the front desk and back. What taxpayers look like walking away from the place and heading out the door. It eased my anxiety and actually made it a learning experience to pretend that the whole room was a film set, these were all actors, and see how masterfully they captured the atmosphere of dread and boredom. The whole world is like a giant acting class going on all the time…

Went to the callback for “More Moments on the Go”. Call me nuts, but I love the energy in the waiting room; the nerves, intensity, anticipation. I’m still working on how to politely pass on conversation and catching up with other actors while waiting. Most seem to be preparing and working, but there are some that I think deal with their nerves by talking and socializing. I tend to try and get physically removed while preparing and staring at the sides instead of acknowledging anyone else.

In Mona’s class Mike and I did the coffee shop scene from “Heat”. Pacino and De Niro are impossible to erase from my head when reading that text, so it was a wonderful exercise in “making it our own”. This week I am moving to a new scene from “The Loman Family Picnic” with Linda. It’s a very bizarre scene that pushes me into some uncomfortable places.

Wednesday was the Network Mixer featuring speaker Marta McGonagle. I’ve made it a goal to go to all of these and meet a new person each time. This week it was Sarah, and actor just arrived from Alaska. Marta’s work ethic is really inspirational. Somewhere I once read and analogy comparing working as an actor to being in a car on the freeway. If you slow down or stop, even for a moment, others that don’t stop will just pass you by. Makes me want to put the pedal to the floor…

I also took some time to brush up on my comedic and dramatic monologues. Man, if you don’t practice those they do begin to fade.

Tomorrow will be my second session with Mona at Brite Lites. I’ll be doing a scene with Mike Price. I’ve made some choices about my character and have the dialog down and Mike and I will be rehearsing our scene shortly. I’m really excited to be in this class pushing myself, learning, and watching other actors do the same.

Saturday was an audition for a TV pilot. It was a really fun time in the room and I got to try out my Russian accent. Last week I also had auditions for “Ruby Mae” and “The Gold Coin”. Maybe this makes me a freak, but I just like auditioning! It’s like doing a little mini-play.
Also I just got my copy of the Vietnam Letters project in the mail. I LOVE filmakers that deliver on the goods, particularly when a copy is the only pay. I’ve been very fortunate that almost everyone I’ve worked with has given me a copy of the work. I’m getting closer and closer to constructing that all important reel…

Just got invited to a callback for “More Moments on the Go”, a feature by Eric Frodsham shooting here in Austin. The first round of auditions was two months ago, so I had already assumed they were going another direction. What a pleasant surprise!

Went to Mother Egan’s for the Network Austin Mixer to hear Kat Candler and Stacy Schoolfield of “Jumping Off Bridges”. Networking is one  of the hardest things for me to get pumped about, but I’m finding the more I do it the easier it gets. Tonight I got reconnected with a few people I already knew and added met a few new people. It gets easier to do when I realize that I’m not the only one there that is trying to network, so putting something out there and giving is always reciprocated.  And the place has freakin’ great fish and chips. Follow that up with a Spaten.  I can’t wait for the next one…

Today on Paul Bright’s latest project was a new challenge that I’d never done before; I drove a police car onto the scene, stoped on the mark and then get out to go through the rest of our blocking and dialog on foot. Took me a couple of tries to get it all right (like forgetting to turn off the ignition when I got out). At first I kind of came to a slow rolling stop, but by take three I had it down, like a cop that has arrived to kick ass and take names.
Another growth experience was training on cuffing people the way a cop would. Seems like a no brainer, but when you actually try it the process can be kinda awkward. I wonder if I can put these two new skills on my resume.

I had a blast being on the set with these people and making this film. As an added bonus it was my first time in front of the Red. The camera is so freaking awesome it must be based on alien technology or something.

Film makers with prop guns meet cops with real ones. To be clear, were were filming on private land and out of the public eye and our guns made popping sounds but were far from blanks. But at some point a good citizen saw or heard us and completely misinterpreted what was happening there. That set in motion a chain of events that ended with a squad of heavily armed police closing in around us from all sides, springing from the brush shouting “You are surrounded! Hands up!” It’s pretty creepy looking right down the barrel of an assault rife. There were very tense moments as the cops took over the set, and suddenly I envisioned myself mentioned on the 10:00 news. “He dropped his flashlight and police opened fire”. I started to wonder what it felt like to get shot. Everyone in the cast and crew were statues with hands raised high during the standoff.
After a few harrowing moments the police found there were no real guns or criminals and then the gang became very friendly and personable. They asked about the film, made some jokes about some of our costumes, and even talked firearms with some of the crew for awhile. It turns out that the neighborhood we were in had seen some real problems recently and we were near where a meth lab had just been raided and shut down. They treated everyone with respect and the crew responded in kind.

One of the highlights of the encounter was when the police spotted one of our actors in his “nude suit” (his character was naked for the scene) the cops just decided there was no point in searching him.
One things settled down we had a bunch of laughs and went back to shooting and still wrapped the day ahead of schedule.

Ran through my scenes last night at rehearsal and really enjoyed it. David (our director) is collaborative with his actors, but just the right amount. We are free to explore with our characters and make some bold choices, and David gives us a nice boundary to work within which suits me perfectly. There is plenty of room to create but it never feels like we are straying from the vision of what makes the story work.  Most of my dialog has come from ad-libbing, and we have a cast that REALLY gives an actor what he needs to connect and create.

At the Mixer last night I asked Beth Sepko about her thoughts on branding. I’ve been having a really tough time figuring out what my brand is, and just wanted to know if it’s as meaningful here in Austin as it might be in LA. Her response was a welcome “Just be yourself”. Then she looked at me and called out “Computer Guy”. That’s pretty amazing, since I am a computer guy making video games for Disney. By the end of the night I was sociable beer drinking computer guy, and that’s ok with me.

Tonight is the last rehearsal before shooting on Tuesday. Preparing for this has been really educational as I learn about the context of what’s being said in this text. In a historical piece it is so important to really understand the spirit of the times and take on the perspective of one experiencing those events, rather than one who knows it through history books. My character doesn’t know where the Vietnam war is going, but I know where it went. Divorcing what I know from my character is challenging and fun.

Tonight was the screening of “Cannibal” and a collection of other short films. I had an appointment that ended at the exact moment that the screening started just a few miles away. As soon as I got out of my appointment I darted down the road and into the theater, just in time to watch the closing credits. Cannibal had gone first and I just missed it, but I did get to see most of the cast and crew, making the trip well worth it. I’ve learned that I get really attached to people on a project and it’s hard to part ways when a production is done. Every time a play ends I feel a sense of loss as we part for the last time, and that same feeling hits me when I realize that the cast and crew of a film aren’t going to be together in the same place again.

Next week I’ll be shooting a segment for Dave Miller’s “Vietnam Letters” project. It’s a very sober task, because I’m not memorizing sides from a writer’s imagination, I’ll be reciting the words of a real person trying to deal with real pain and trying to make sense of it. This is made even more meaningful to me by the fact that similar people are dealing with similar issues right now. Every day that sons and brothers and fathers die serving in Iraq and Afghanistan more of these letters are being created. Usually I feel a thrill when acting, but this is tempered by the gravity of what it represents. We aren’t making entertainment, we are making something more than that and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Today was a pair of auditions. One in Kyle for “Conflict of Interests” and one downtown for “The Falling Man”. The gods of traffic and parking were smiling on me as I zipped from one to the next in record time, and nailed the perfect parking spot downtown even though the Pecan Street Festival was in full swing.

Holly asks me how it went after an audition and I’m understanding now that I rarely know how it went. On many occasions I thought I nailed it but never heard from them again. Often when I think I bombed, well, then I’ll get a surprising callback or book the part. I think that when I feel I did well in an audition it’s a sure sign that too much of my focus was on me and not on my reader.

This morning I had an audition that blew my mind. It was an audition for a PAYING feature film. By the time I got in the room I was 11th on the audition schedule. But guess how many had been in the room before me. THREE. And one of them was a Houston actor that got there early and was auditioned early because no one else showed! The producer was new to filming in Austin and he marveled that so many actors were a no-show. I have been hearing about how poorly we are thought of by the rest of the film creating world, but this is the first time in my new career that I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I expect that film will be made somewhere else now, and that’s another producer that will not consider Austin for casting principals. Over 80 actors were scheduled to audition today and I wonder how many made it when the day was done.

Last night we wrapped shooting on Cannibal. It was a grueling day, but the cast and crew stayed focused and driven to meet the deadline and we got it done. A dozen people (and one really cute dog) spent 12 hours together in a confined space enduring stifling heat, and the fact that we were all bound by the shared passion for making films made it fun instead of Hell on Earth. (For PETA folks, you should know that Paddington’s scenes came first and he wrapped well before lunch)
I am amazed by the way film makers create and share their own realities. Our scene takes place in the morning and we were shooting in the morning. But because “real” light wouldn’t last long enough we blacked the windows out and recreated morning sunlight that is utterly convincing. Later, long after the sun set, my animal brain kept struggling with the lack of synchronization between my internal clock and my senses. The light was 8:00 am, the clock was 8:00 pm.
As always, I learned some cool new stuff on this set and faced some situations that I never anticipated, and I’m grateful that this group of filmmakers trusted me to take part in the project. Thanks to Megan and Hollywood Tim!

We had our first day of shooting on Cannibal yesterday and it was my first time working with a dog. Wow. He didn’t care when the director said “action” and “cut”, he didn’t take direction, he looked right at the camera, and he would wander off in the middle of the shot… But man is he cute. I worked with Paddington in my scene and, though you won’t know it by seeing the final cut, it was peanut butter on my finger that finally cemented the connection between us.

I went to an audition as a cop in “Stoner” on the UT campus. It made me laugh to see those signs taped to the doors with directional arrows and old letters “STONER”. I wonder if any real stoners just wandered into the audition as they were directed. I read with another actor that was really easy to work off of. I really like auditions with other actors over the flat reads.

While it’s not explicitly acting related, I did submit a lecture topic to the Austin Game Developers Conference today. All of my interest revolve around storytelling, and my proposed talk for the conference could also work for film with a few tweaks. Plus I need the challenge of getting up in front of an auditorium full of game developers and sharing. You would think as an actor that would be easy, but it’s nearly petrifying.

Two auditions tonight. Cannibal looks like a dark comedy about… well, you can guess. After reading a Bonnie Gillespie column I decided to make some risky choices for my character in the Cannibal reading. Viet Letters is a project that has actual letters red by actors portraying friends and family of soldiers killed in Viet Nam.

Today was an audition for “Three Night Stay” and this led me to DVXuser.com, an independent filmmaker community. I’ll be reading through those threads for days. Matt just let me know I got the role in this film noir. I can’t wait! I LOVE playing creepy/weird guys. What does that say about me? Three roles in three days! I love doing this stuff.

Wow. I got cast as Cooter, get to run around in the words with a gun and deliver some funny lines! I don’t want to say anything about the script of any project I work on, but this one is something else. Hell yeah.