View Point

It's been really hot and humid here the last couple of weeks. (humidity is extremely unusual for California), plus now that I'm not in class every day anymore, and I still don't have a lot of massage clients, I've been puttering around the house most days, with waaaaaay too much time to think, especially now that I've finished processing everything I learned from Boot Camp I. I haven't been trying to find any background work because I wanted to be able to use the rest of my tickets for the Daily Acting Workout, plus I'd been feeling pessimistic about finding work anyway since most of the TV shows are on hiatus during the summer. (Not good excuses, I know.)

Anyhow, I went to the Daily Acting Workout on Tuesday evening, even though I was feeling blah and spaced out from too much puttering. In the end I was glad I went, however.

At first I had a really hard time getting into the repetitions, because it had been five days since the last DAW I attended, and I found myself very timid and unsure again. But one thing that happened really bothers me. I was repeating with one young woman, and she just stared at me, smiling, but her eyes were cold. So I sighed and said, "You're just smiling at me." Then someone else in the circle called her on what was really going on: "You're talking down to her." I never saw that, and that really bothers me. How am I supposed to learn to stand up for myself when I can't even see when I'm being treated like a doormat?!? I've got my rose-tinted glasses on, want to think the best of everybody (maybe not everyone likes me, but there's no reason to be mean or condesending), so unless they smack me over the head with their condesending attitudes, I don't catch the subtleties (sp????), and that really frustrates me. Or maybe I should give myself a break because I was so spaced out in the beginning of the DAW. I just don't know that I would have caught it even if I had been fully alert. *sigh*

Then we started exploring view points. Everybody has a view point, a way of looking at the world, and so picked a view point different from our own, and repeated with a partner from that new viewpoint. I tried three different ones: I can't remember what the first one I picked was, but I was having a really difficult time sticking to it anyways. The second one I picked was hyper, I imagined I'd had too many coffees. (Not sure that was such a good viewpoint to pick.) The third viewpoint was as a Vulcan. That was really hard, stuffing my reactions as I stayed connected to my partner. As soon as the exercise was over I took in a deep breath, and realized I'd been having a difficult time breathing during the exercise, and that my chest had gotten tight with all the stuffed reactions. It felt good to breath again and let all of that go.

Next we took on opposite sides of a controversial issue. It didn't matter if we actually believed the viewpoint we were defending, but we had to be able to argue the issue effectively. Because as an actor, if we are cast in the role of a racist, or a murderer, or whatever, we have to be able to see the world from that character's view point, react honestly and realistically from that view point. The first round, my partner and I argued abortion, I took the opposite of my own belief and that was really hard, it felt so yucky. Then we switched partners, and this time I randomly decided that the US should give nuclear weapons to all of the small countries in the world, because then the small countries could blow each other up, and we could stay out of it. Yeah, that was an interesting debate.

The last part of the class we spent mingling at a "party", carrying a different view point than our own. I started out being pessimistic, and not caring about anyone else, not really wanting to talk to them, and that rapidly turned into a cold hearted, not giving a sh*t about anyone else attitude. But the fun thing was another girl in class who I've been getting along with really well, suddenly came over and stood next to me while I was talking to this guy, and I looked at her and realized she was carrying the same attitude that I was in the exercise. So the guy looked at her, then at me, and said, "Oh, so you know her, do you?" The girl said nastily, "I wanted to see my friend." He just looked her. And I said aggresively, "Yeah, we're friends." (Whatcha gonna do about it, mofo?) The guy just stared at both of us with cold disbelief. And suddenly I just bust out laughing (the kind of laughing you do when you're trying not to spit out your drink, but it ends up spraying everywhere anyway) I couldn't help it, it was hilarious that we were ganging up on him with the same attitude. And then our instructor ended the exercise and class was over. I'm really glad I went.

And now I've only got three DAW tickets left, I've decided to save them for next week, go three days in a row right before I start Boot Camp II.

I also found an article in Actor's Ink (free e-zine from NowCasting.com): "The Business of Auditioning" . I've pinpointed several things that I did not do in my audition for The 48 Hour Film Project.

The first and by far the biggest (in my opinion) mistake I made was not bringing my headshot and resume. I had brought them to the informational meeting with the director the week before, and it simply did not cross my mind that I needed to bring another one to the audition. But that was the first thing I was asked for when I walked into the room, from the Guy In Charge, who was not the director. The director told the guy that I'd already given him my headshot and resume, and that seemed to be okay, but after reading the article, I know now that it absolutely wasn't. I still should have brought another copy with me.

The second mistake and probably a close runner-up to the first, was that I walked into the room with a shy attitude. Friendly, open, and not necessarily timid or unconfident, but shy. I slated with confidence & charisma, gave a good audition performance, and then left with the same shy attitude I'd walked in with.

The third mistake (possibly) was what I chose to wear to the audition. I wore a clean T-shirt and jeans. I had several reasons for choosing this outfit. First of all, it is what I wore to the informational meeting the previous week, and I had it in my head it's good to wear the same thing because it helps them remember you. Second of all, the director had told us at the informational meeting that we would be wearing just regular wardrobe for the film, whatever genre they got. And the third reason was that a week or two before, Rainn Wilson had spoken at the Acting Corps (sort of a mini Inside The Actor's Studio session), and one of the things he said, with a mildly sarcastic tone of voice, was when he first started auditioning he would put on his nice shirt and his nice pair of pants, and then after a while (this part spoken more honestly) he just decided that he would just bring himself to the table. So for all of the above reasons, I chose to wear a T-shirt and jeans to the audition. And just for the record, that is the first time I have ever done that, every other audition I've gone to previously, I made sure that I was wearing a nice blouse and slacks, like I would for any job interview, (if the audition didn't need me to dress to suggest a certain way.)

So those are some reasons I may not have been cast for their film. I have no way of knowing if those were the deciding factors or not. The possibility exsisted that even if I had done everything right, they still might not have chosen to use me. But because I made those mistakes, I cannot say that I gave the best audition that I possibly could have, and it may very well be my own fault in this case that I was not cast. Lesson learned for next time.