Serious Fun

There's no real "news" to report, but I do have a few things on my mind today...

To start out on a monetary note: At $73 worth of ad "clicks", I'm getting ever closer to my first check from the good folks at Google, so thank you all for reading and clicking.

I'm most of the way through The War Of Art - It's a brisk read, and definitely worth a look for anyone who's trying to get past the "resistance" in their lives.

The section about "Turning Pro" was especially inspiring, because that's been much on my mind (In terms of acting, and now with this blog); I told myself recently that, while it's okay to not want to work a regular job (Which I've sometimes felt guilty about), and to spend my time doing things I actually want to do, that means I then have to go "full out" on those "things I want to do", and not screw around.

If you want what you do "for fun" to be your life, then, ironically, you have to get pretty serious about your "fun", to make a commitment - "In order to avoid spending the rest of my life doing work I hate and being unhappy, I will invest myself whole-heartedly in doing what I love".

One point Pressfield makes in the book is that the commitment itself - to being a "professional" - changes things.

And I see the truth of that in my experience with this blog - wanting to make money from blogging, then "turning that thought into an action" has, for one thing, immediately meant writing more consistently. Because I know that if people come to this blog one too many times and there's nothing new here, they won't be coming back.

It's meant giving serious thought to what I have to say that might be of value to other people, trying to find the connection between my life and interests and yours as a reader (Which is why I address some of what I write to "aspiring actors").

It has me thinking constantly about what I want to write about in here, and it's even gotten me past my resistance to "marketing myself".

(Unlike acting, where you can spend all kinds of time and money on a mailing that gets no results, when I put a bulletin about this blog on my MySpace page and Diaryland journal, visits to the site immediately go up. And more visits means more readers, and more readers means more "clicks" on my ad, and more clicks on my ad means more money. And even though the money is pretty minimal right now, it's been surprisingly motivating).

Speaking of "professionals", the next book on my list, after The War Of Art, is Steve Martin's book Born Standing Up, just out in paperback.

Steve Martin was never my favorite stand-up comic, because I was always more interested in stand-up that at least seemed to come from a personal point-of-view, and his stand-up was clearly "performance art" that had nothing to do with Steve Martin, the person (If anything, his act seem designed to obscure "Steve Martin, the person").

But that said, I've always been interested in performance art, and in comedy, and I'm intrigued that this seemingly anarchic, absurd comedy act - Which was hugely successful "back in the day" - was in actuality, a very carefully crafted and well thought-out construction.

I don't want to rattle on for too much longer, but I'm still thinking about my last casting workshop...

I was actually trying to write about this last night - particularly about scenes that "worked" and scenes that didn't, and why - but I found myself getting bogged down in the intersection between cold-reading skills, personal presentation, and acting ability - all of which enter into the picture - so I've got to give it some more thought (But I do want to write about the general idea of what makes scenes "work" or not, because I think it's interesting and instructive).

For me, there's always a "competitive element" to workshops, because I want to be one of "the cool kids" who stand out in their scene - Because I'm a show-off , first of all.

But also because, on a professional level, I want to be one of the people that the casting person remembers once they leave the room at the end of the night. Because really, that's the only reason to do these things.

And that "competitive element" was really ramped-up for me on Saturday, because the casting person had a number of us reading the same scenes - For example, two other actors read the same scene from The Starter Wife that I had.

I was the first one up doing "the agent scene", and of the three, I was the only one not given a re-direct. And I don't mind telling you, I was very proud of myself.

(Most casting people who come in don't state it outright, but the casting person on Saturday actually said at one point, to the people who'd gotten re-directs, "Your second reading should have been your first one".)

While not all re-directs are created equal - Sometimes the casting person sees you have the right idea and wants to help you get where you're going, or sometimes they see that you've really got the goods, and just want to "take you for a test drive", and see how you handle direction - more often than not, in my experience at these things, a re-direct simply means that, for whatever reason, the scene didn't "work" for the casting person.

And you don't want that. Because in an actual audition situation, that first time through might be the only time you get.

One more thing about Saturday, and being a "professional", and then I'm done.

One of the girls who'd gotten a re-direct had been directed to "speak up" when she came back.

When it was time for her to do her scene again, she was a little louder, but still speaking in a lower-than-normal volume, and much like speaking too slowly or taking long pauses in a scene, it meant the scene didn't have very much energy.

When she was done, the casting person said the scene was better - and it had been - but that she still needed to speak up.

And the girl started going on about how she'd been loud as a child, and had always been told to "be quiet", and now it was hard for her to raise her voice, etc.

Afterwards Jen, one of the "regulars", and probably the most successful person who comes to workshops, was horrified - she said, and I believe I'm quoting here, "No one wants to hear that fucking bullshit".

And her point, acting hopefuls, while vividly expressed, is well-taken; a casting person is not your friend, your confidante, your priest, or your therapist. They don't want you to complain, or explain. They don't want your life story.

They just want you to be a great actor.

And if you start going on about why you can't do what they want you to do, guess what?

You don't get the job.

(Thus endeth the lesson...)