GAWD - Am I ever vain

Vain? ME? I’ve been known to walk out the door with a piece of toilet paper still stuck to my chin from a shaving cut, ‘cause I never look in the mirror. I never thought myself vain. WRONG!! Since I had my 252 head shots taken several weeks ago I have looked at them 253 times. I had no idea that I would be spending SOOO much time squinting, comparing, and admiring, but evaluating the need for eyelid bag surgery. This is just to pick out the one stellar shot that would get me that audition that will win me an Oscar (or at least get me a job). However, I did find a comrade to help me with the process. Dorothy Shaw, a beautiful lady in one of my acting classes, had her head shots taken by the same photographer as I (Jeff Nicholson). We decided to collaborate. She is a very talented graphic designer and has great equipment (no pun intended). She has a large monitor (I insist – no pun intended) and we could stack photos and compare our pictures on it side by side and see the many flaws. FLAWS – that would be me - NOT HER. Dorothy has been through this process before and I often see her on television commercials in Oklahoma City.

After loading the disk I had received from Jeff containing my 252 photos onto my computer, I started admiring me. A magnifying glass critique was scary. And, I was extremely critical of me. Too many wrinkles, eyes too squinty, not enough of my sexy Paul Newman blue eyes showing (magnified, they were kind of sexy – at least I thought), not smiling, not frowning, looking loopy, not enough eye showing, not smiling, not frowning, not looking correctly, head turned the wrong way, too many wrinkles, too many wrinkles, too many wrinkles. Not one made a George Clooney out of me! I decided that none would work, but since I wasn’t planning on going through this process again, I’d better choose one. Having been photographed in the four different outfits that I wore for the shoot, I intended to pick one picture from each change of clothes.

I picked a total of 42 pictures that I thought had a chance of making the cut and then traipsed off to Dorothy’s studio to have them displayed on her computer. She and I narrowed it to 13. Dorothy had over 300 pictures taken, but that Jeff’s all male. If I were Jeff, I would take more photos of her also. We narrowed hers down to a workable number. Then we emailed them to Jeff in Hollywood to get his idea. After all, he should know what the studios want and he seemed delighted to help us.

Several days later he emailed us the results. Well, it is evident that we do not know what the studios want since he picked very few of mine. Dorothy fared a little better. He sent us the photos that he thought were winners. He waxed enthusiastic telling me they were just certain to get me auditions in Oklahoma and Texas. WHAT!! Doesn’t he understand that my plan is to get to Hollywood?

This is tough. Back to the drawing board at Dorothy’s. Scrutinizing the lot, we picked the best of his best. I showed them to my wife and she also agreed. After all, it was Joy, my wardrobe mistress, who picked the outfits I was to wear. As I mentioned earlier, since we (she) had chosen four outfits, I wanted four shots. However, as it turned out one outfit was just not of quality befitting a star, so I discarded it leaving me with three. Jeff was very complimentary about several shots I had taken in a blue suit and I chose one that represented a grave, thoughtful, and serious person. That face could be an accountant or a mob boss. My dresser, having included a red (go OU!) fleece(I dont't even know what fleece is) jacket made me smile, and we decided to go with that look. One was John Wayne – ish. Since some cowboy type movies could easily be filmed in Oklahoma, I just had to include that version of me. But, now the magic comes into play. PHOTOSHOP. Jeff took away some wrinkles, did some other touchup techniques and voila´. I have my shots.

Those you see attached below are the ones that will move me along on the next step to an acting career. Dorothy already has an agent and she has told me she will introduce me to her. Now I need to prove to the agent that I am a product she can market.

BY THE WAY, FEEL FREE TO USE ANY OR ALL OF THESE AS YOUR SCREEN SAVER

Hitting The Mark 2

continuing my blog....

use experiences from our life to bring out these emotions. I think I did that with the aforementioned referenced gesture.

We learned “hitting the mark”. My slight familiarity with the phrase was close. There are marks for every person who is speaking. This first scene we did had a mark for the speaker, the person spoken to, and also a third person. This was someone who was talking to the person at the time I arrived on the scene. I learned that you do not need to move much either. If there is a close up being taken, just a few inches of movement is very noticeable on the screen.

What I found very interesting was not to panic if you forget your line. Just pause take your time and it will come to you. You know the lines, but for whatever reason you can’t recall it at that moment. The person who panics is you. Not the audience. When you see the playback, the pause is not nearly as long as you think it is while you are thinking of the line. Interesting how that works. We messed up on that, but we all eventually managed to work through it. As Darryl said, “Do not leave the scene. No one knows you made a mistake unless you announce it".

First position, second position, and so on are other terms I learned. I suppose you could have several positions but normally no more than two to three. The actor waiting off camera to enter the scene is in first position, and then when the actor enters the scene, that is second position. After that scene, we were given partners to work with on a different scene. Darryl did the match up and as luck would have it, Robin Garner, my partner from a yes and no exercise, was my scene mate. Ummm is that a phrase? We cut the scene first by doing a master. That is when the entire scene it shot at once and all players are in the scene. Then one by one each person is given a close up. Robin and I did the scene. Then the camera was placed just next to my left shoulder and they did a close up of her. We did the complete scene, but she was the only one on the camera. It was then my turn, and the camera was just behind her shooting me. Again, you do the complete scene, but only one person is on camera. I have watched television shows the past couple of nights and I see this now. I know when they do a close up, they have already done the complete scene. This is one way that the director can change the scene around for the viewing audience. But, you must make sure that the movements you make in the single scene are the same as when you do your master.

I really felt like I learned a lot in this class. I had an excellent instructor and was in the presence of very good and talented classmates. One young man was just completing a film he was producing and was taking the class to learn more about how the actors work. The name of his film is "Greyscale". Look for it soon. “Hey, Ryan! Need an old man to be someone’s father?”

Hitting Your Mark

This last weekend I took another acting course. The class was “Acting for the Camera”. And as advertised, that was exactly what it was. What a process this is – filming scenes. Our instructor was Darryl Cox. Darryl is a professor of Film and Video Studies at the University of Oklahoma, with an extensive movie and television background. He will soon be seen in the upcoming television series “The Deep End” which will be shown on ABC soon after the first of the year. He is very passionate about his craft and brings that passion to his class. He is very entertaining we learned so much.

He instilled in us that this class is not a competition and no one comes in first. All of us will make mistakes, but that is how you learn this craft and it is all right to get nervous when you are on camera. He tells you not to project past the camera. My over enthusiastic loud voice I found not to be appropriate. Big projection is fine for stage, but not film. That is the first of many mistakes I made. He gave us a small part to memorize and then perform in front of the camera. After my first take, he reminded me of the talking past the camera. I did better after that. It was a scene where each of us could interpret it any way we wanted. I assumed the person I was talking with was a long time employee who was trying to do something nefarious to my company. It started out with the words “You’re nothing. What I thought of you! How I felt about you-- etc”. l was full of adrenaline and really lashed out at the other person. I even scared me. I even ended the scene with a one finger expression people might use when a person cuts in front of them while driving.

Once I finished, I had to do it again. “Keep the passion but speak much softer”, was my instruction. The microphone is very close and therefore one does not need to speak loud at all. I wonder where that built up passion came from. Dad gum, I can be intimidating. I once had a lady embezzle a large sum from my business and I thought about that. Maybe that is what caused the passion. Also, could have been nervousness. I even surprised myself. The performance was repeated, I was softer, used the hand signal and walked off. I expected accolades. Instead I heard, “Your voice was better, but you still did not need to use the hand sign”. Bad news on my part. I was so concentrating on his message about not over talking the microphone, I completely missed him mentioning the hand signal. Less action is best. Growing up in a refined household, I was just not around vulgar. So from where my obscene gesture arose – I do not know. But for emphasis, I had shot the finger! Egad, you’d have thought I’d murdered someone on stage. Darryl used me as an example of “over the top” or “over acting” throughout the rest of the class. From then on through the rest of the two days, I was constantly reminded not to use gestures. It fact, it became a good hearted running joke, but I got the message.

When I arrived home that evening, I walked straight to my wife, said my spiel about, “You’re nothing! What I thought about you ..etc etc” and walked away. I found out that my new familiarity with “belittling” dialogue wasn’t popular. She came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around – she punched me in the stomach.

Darryl asked us do the scene again, but this time we were all on the receiving end. His intention was to have us respond naturally to what was being said to us. We were not to say a word, only react. That is much easier said than done. I was very impressed with how the class handled this. Some had great expressions and reactions. Gosh, this must be acting. He had told us to

.....It has been strongly suggested that my blogs may be too long. So, I am cutting it in half. The rest of this one is continued under the heading "Hitting The Mark 2".