An Audition

At the end of my first week of taking acting seriously, I got auditions for two different parts (lead and supporting) in a short film that is shooting locally. So that is neat! Filling out a current reel is the task at hand, so any little thing is useful. That along with writing. I finally have enough standup material, and it has been long enough since I wrote it that I am finally just working on cutting stuff. With my previous experience having been in academics where more words is the goal, it is a significant transition to just repeat the mantra of "humor is brevity" every time I hesitate on making a cut. The latest comedy writing book I picked up, Poking a Dead Frog, one writer said, "A writer's best friend is the wastebasket" so I have a Google Doc with "Writer's Wastebasket" as the title and paste my beloved favorite cuts into it.

A nice thing about this kind of writing is that I am listening to music as I do it. I have not kept up with new music for years, so it is nice to finally get that dose of relevance going again. I hope that this trend of inspired writing keeps up.

Motivation Dialed Way Up

 It feels like this past week has been absolutely pivotal. 

Being on set was significant. A 20 year gap is a long time between major gigs, and I admittedly was not sure whether I still had "it" in me. For one thing, I was unsure whether I had the same energy levels. Fortunately, it turns out that I remain a cartoon of a person, but now my back muscles notice. For another, I did not know whether I would still be good at it, so the affirmation of both cast and crew, and especially the directors, convinced me that I do in fact have a knack for it. Perhaps most important though, I did not trust myself to know whether it was just some childhood nostalgia or if I would genuinely enjoy that line of work. But after a full day of shooting was done, I struggled to think of a better day of my life in recent memory. It answered some real questions that I was afraid to ask and clarified some unknowns.

Previous to this, I was having depressive symptoms. I thought I might just be kidding myself and felt as though I had no way in, so along with general depressive thoughts and feelings, I was also sleeping into the afternoon, because why wake up any earlier? Life costs money (breakfast!) and is a big leap from being what I particularly want to live, so just sleep through whatever I can. Apart from a scotch tasting with friends from the set of that show, I have not had alcohol in a couple weeks. I am not holding myself too strictly to anything with that though.

At the standup writing workshop on Tuesday, I told the host that I had something new, and he said that it is probably time for me to start working on stuff that I already have so that I do not just have a pile of second drafts of jokes. Part of my reasoning so far is that I wanted to have some time separating present me from the past me that wrote them, but I can now try to put things together and make the big mean cuts.

Wednesday night, I participated in a screenwriter pitch practice meeting online. It was very good for gaining insights into what pitches can look like, along with what works and what does not. And they reminded us that NaNoWriMo is almost upon us, so perhaps this would be a good time to become more disciplined in the writing. My script has a pitch and a starting point, but not much more, in part because I imagined having a writing group to fill in some gaps. But those would merely be gaps, so I might as well get on with it.

Thursday (yesterday), I was paid to do voice acting for the first time. I did the voice work for the lead characters in two horror films. The second had quite a few profanities, which I refrain from using even in my head, but if it sounded strange out of my mouth, I was not corrected. When I asked for feedback after the session, he booked me again for next week (and said that he would have me do more characters within a given movie) and also gave me another contact for more work, letting me know that I should name drop for the session that we just did. I had asked a voice actor friend about it beforehand, and he had told me to ask for above minimum wage, something in the realm of $10-$12 per hour, but my pay came out to something closer to $15-$16 per hour with a few hours of work. And the best part? It was some fun work.

Then my friend who shot and was to edit the lecture series that I wrote and performed last year got back to me. The developer for their website had apparently been cheating them and doing a terrible job, so after a significant loan, he said that they are "really" six months away from finishing it. And he said that he will be sending me any clips that stand out. So that is nice. I wrote a whole lot of jokes for that, and I believe it to likely be the best of its kind on the market in terms of the combination of practical medical content and entertainment. That plus my scenes from this past weekend will hopefully add up to a decent reel, though I can also fill it in with child actor and student film stuff if necessary. Apart from that, the biggest need will be new headshots since I had my pandemic hair cut. But I am still submitting for auditions with what I have, and just leaving a note for casting to let them know about the hair. My resume fortunately looks impressive, perhaps even if you do not ignore the more dated work. Having said that, the only audition opportunity I have received since I started submitting this week was for an online improv group thing, and I backed out of that once I realized that it was most likely not going to be a legitimate paying gig.

The Absolute Best Time

I drove to Austin to play the role of bartender in this show. I had tried asking my friends in the cast what the show was about, but they did not even attempt an answer. They did, however, mention that there was a lot of improvisation. So I showed up to set and pitched a few ideas to one of the directors, who was a little dismissive of them at first, saying that I was mostly there for some over the shoulder shots as I poured drinks. But then we started shooting and a new comedian friend I had met the night before was playing opposite me and asked me a question. Bear in mind that I was told nothing about this, but I knew that questions are often answered, so I improvised something and they liked it enough that the director eventually said things like, "does he have a mic on?" (the sound guy assured me that the boom caught all of my stuff) and "do a shot of London. He's earned it" and then brought back one of my ideas and had me do it, a physical bit with my face that I assume others cannot do.

The shoot lasted a long while. My scene was technically maybe eight or nine hours long, give or take. Lots of physical comedy and stunts, with me reacting to it. And in between takes, I was dancing around and having fun. Other (paid) actors let me know that I could stop, and when my part was finished, that I could leave, but I had to tell them that this was the best time for me. I had not been on a proper set in 20 years and it was just my favorite thing. I felt so happy and fulfilled and thrilled at how it all went. I earned my place there. I improvised with famous people and did well. The cast and crew were all very kind and a lot of us added each other on social media, exchanging numbers too. 

One of the directors later told me that our dialogue created a new scene, but I was perfect for the role. I gushed my thanks to them before leaving, and reiterated that I am a drive rather than a plane ride away. Easier to get. And I sent my contortionist video around.

I also learned about another showbiz audition website, which was how the lead in the show had been cast, and I made sure to sign up for that. I was not sure if I was kidding myself with a childhood dream about comedy and showbiz, but that really was the best feeling.

Restive

The budget is tight, but after receiving no response from agents nor managers regarding voice talent work, I forked over $100 for a year membership with Backstage with the hope that I may find some gigs there. 

I have been feeling restless lately. Some depression too, but mostly this restive anxiety keeps settling in. I want to write more, but my lack of defined goals in the short or long term leave me feeling somewhat paralyzed. And of course, most weeks, I am working on something in a livestreamed standup comedy workshop. I just feel as though I keep casting these nets and hoping that something somehow catches.

Last weekend, I reconnected with the writer/director/lead actor of my first feature film. He was very kind and responsive, giving me many details about his current projects. I played the young version of him, so he described receiving my email as a refreshing trip to the past that came at a rough time. He also mentioned that he had sent a pilot pitch to Disney and it was now in the fourth month of waiting to hear back. I hope that such a wait time is normal for a pilot that will be greenlit, because I too have been waiting a similar amount of time to hear back about that sketch comedy show.

My slightly famous comedian friend is visiting Austin for a shoot, and when I asked if she would have time to hang out, she said no, but if I wanted to, I could play the role of a bartender and we could then hang out on set. This was on the list of secret agendas I had had with regard to visiting with her anyway, so I of course accepted the offer. So that is supposed to happen on Friday.

I feel as though I am Groundhog Daying it. I read testimonials from patients with Long Covid and it leads me to think that this long-term relative isolation is okay, that it is justified. Even if I had money, going out and spending it on social activities would be risking chronic respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological disease. That being said, it is very easy to revert to alcoholic tendencies. What is the difference between the sober nights and drunk ones? In the former, anxiety can take over and I can dream of uncomfortable realities such as how I feel about my family, especially my father. But when I am drunk, I just watch a movie and, occasionally, become inspired to write something.

I spent so much of my life with something to aim for, a direction to throw myself. Now, I feel caught outside of my previous aspirations. One comfort in that regard is that if I suddenly had no worries about money, I am fairly certain that I would not feel fulfilled. I would still likely work on writing, but then I would have the means to write for what I want to do. A comedic one-man show, the podcast, the television show for which I currently just have a pitch and a scene written, and hopefully more travel-inspired content would all be on the list of creative tasks demanded by my work ethic.

But alas, for now, I just try to read, write, perform, and get paid.

Lil' Thought

Brief thought: Is it healthier to live life without religion, with the concept of this limited mortal life being one's only chance at giving this existence a go? When I felt much more solid in my faith, I trusted more, perhaps to the detriment of the world and people around me. A healthy distrust may have made me more appropriately discerning.

Less brief thought: My slightly famous comedian friend got me a little unpaid acting gig next week. 

New Avenues and Writing

In that last post, I referenced the fun I had in Waco. The next night, I went to a networking event with a film contest hosted by the director who worked with me twenty years ago to make my own short film. That night, after he and I had caught up a little bit, I was asking his boyfriend about his work in adapting foreign films for English-speaking audiences, and he mentioned the need for voices. I said that I do voices, and he asked me to demonstrate. So I did Mickey Mouse, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and some original voices as well. He immediately asked me to send him a one-minute demo of that plus some lower pitch voices, and said that he likely had work for me if I wanted. I naturally gave the affirmative, recorded the demo the next day, and sent it to him. Then a week later, I asked for feedback (especially critical feedback), but he assured me that the demo was solid and he would contact me when he needed to cast something. Given that it took so relatively little to impress him, I then sent that voice demo to a local talent agency. You see, I have delayed trying to really get into acting in part because they all want a reel of your work, and most of my work was either done a decade ago, online through twitch or the podcast, or is still in post-production, in the case of that lecture series I did. Since I am also approaching the point of roughly six months since I had heard from my old manager in Burbank, I also gave him an update that included the voice talent demo.

If I have some talent in voice work, as it appears, then that would be a dream gig. Just record wherever I go in the world. As tolerable as it is to donate plasma twice a week for my money, the pay for that has gone down, and though the scars from it are small, they are still scars both on the skin and within the blood vessels.

I have been staying true to my word to myself by reading books while donating plasma. It has been insightful, but my latest and current read of Poking a Dead Frog was at the top of many humorous book recommendation lists, in part because the contents range from general knowledge to very specific advice. So far, the comforting advice regarding how to become a better writer has consistently been to write more (or possibly to go live life in order to have experience from which to draw). And in the last passage I read, an interview with Mike Shur (showrunner of Parks & Rec), he went further to say that you can never really coast, that your best work from two years ago may seem terrible to you now. This makes sense to me. Another writer recommended finding a writing partner for writing scripts, in part because you need someone to be critical of your stuff, but also just because you can generally learn from each other. I am barely into the book, but they have also discussed the two-dimensional nature of characters in sketches vs the three-dimensional versions of characters in shows, and how certain funny jokes simply do not work for a character with depth and longevity.

Anyway I need to write more. I am falling into the same issue that I think (or at least hope) plagues many writers, that I enjoy coming up with new pitches far more than I prefer to work on existing ones. This is why my podcast is so nice, because it is a weekly exercise in coming up with and throwing away material. But a lot of writing involves adding and refining content in multiple drafts. And without a specific goal in mind, the accountability is lacking, which can lead me to become lazy in my approach. The nice thing about blogging like this is that it is finally becoming the easier writing compared to my "homework" of writing standup, humorous essays, a pilot pitch, or a spec script.