Zor And Zam

Time to play catch up! Yay!

First, in regard to driving 65 miles for work: Turns out Six Flags Magic Mountain is in Santa Clarita. And it occured to me that if I'd be willing to drive that far occasionally and spend money to ride the rollercoasters (which I would be if extreme coasters didn't give me motion sickness), then I can definitely drive that far occasionally to earn money.

So, my one day of work on The Unit turned into two days, hooray! And the first day turned into 14 hours, hooray for another fat paycheck! A big "Thank You!" to the Universe!

The director of the show is a really nice, friendly guy. Part way through the morning shoot, he introduced himself to all of us background actors with a New York accent: "Hi, my name is Dave! I'm the director. Thanks for being here today, helping us out, you're doing a great job! Hope you enjoy the show!" (Most directors never talk to the background, FYI.)

It wasn't until mid-way through the afternoon that I saw the name on the director's chair: "David Mamet" Somehow, I never expected to get to see in person a great writer like Mamet. (Turns out he's also the writer of the show.) And it was really awesome for me to get to see him work, since some of what I learned at The Acting Corps was based on Mamet's acting theories (in addition to Meisner Technique.)

Mamet has a very interesting directing style. He's very hands on with the actors, and leaves the visual aspect of the show to the 1st AD and the DP. For each scene, Mamet starts out simply rehearsing the lines with the actors a few times, then they block and set marks, and then they rehearse with the cameras, and then they shoot. Mamet discusses what's going on in the scene for the characters with each of the actors, giving them objectives, and always reminding the actors: "Don't think! Speak out!"

And a couple of times, he gave the background direction. For a debate scene that we were an audience to: "Do you know what your responsibility in this scene is? Nothing. It is the actor's jobs to keep you interested. So if you're interested, then listen to them. If not, then don't. If you agree with what is being said, then agree. If you don't, then don't." In other words, be real, be yourself. Don't manufacture responses. And so there was very little direction given to us. And actually it seemed that most of us were experienced, I didn't see anyone that was lazy: "I wasn't told specifically what to do, so I'm not going to do anything." I think everyone found something to do, a reason for doing it, without being told when there was no direction given.

And that was such a far cry from my experience on Blades of Glory. On Blades... we were given very specific reactions the directors wanted for specific sections of each scene. And there were a lot of lazy, stupid background actors there, who didn't do anything if we weren't told specifically what to do, and sometimes they still didn't do anything even after we had been told specifically what to do.

So I was happy to be a part of the group that worked on The Unit. And at the end of the second day, as I was walking out with two other people, David Mamet walked up to us and said, "Thank you for helping us out today, you did a great job! I really appreciate you being here." And he shook each of our hands.

Episode #207: "Old Home Week" should be on in six weeks, give or take. You may (or may not) catch a glimpse of me in the Peace Rally in front of the military base, and later in the Anti-War Meeting. I'm pretty sure I didn't get a lot of "featured" camera time, however, so don't hold your breath.

Oh, there was a quote on the board in the Anti-War Meeting room ("What if they gave a war...and nobody came?") that reminded me of a song by The Monkees I used to know when I was in highschool. I hadn't heard the song in at least 10 years, and so I spent most of the day remembering bits and pieces of the lyrics until I finally had the whole song:

Zor And Zam

The King of Zor, he called for a war,

And the King of Zam, he answered.

They fashioned their weapons, one upon one, ton upon ton.

They called for war at the rise of the sun.

Out went the call to one and to all.

It echoed and rolled like the thunder.

Trumpets and drums, four upon four, more upon more,

Rolling the call of Come Out To War!

Throughout the night they fashioned their might,

With Right on the side of the Mighty.

They puzzled their minds, plan upon plan, man upon man.

At the dying of dawn, the Great War began!

They met on the battlefield, banner in hand,

And they looked out across the vacant land,

And they counted the missing, one upon one, none upon none.

The war, it was over before it begun.

Two little kings, playing a game.

They gave a war, and nobody came.