The Creative Bug

I've been officially bitten again. Or perhaps my creative mind is just waking from a dormant state. Either way, I can't sleep at just after midnight. I wish I had my camcorder here, but it's at my parent's house.

But first let me explain where I'm coming from: I recently received my copy of the student film I had a supporting role in a few months ago, but I have not been given permission to upload it, so unfortunately I cannot share. I wish I could because I really like the director's style, I felt the film was very well done.

I can say that my part in the piece is little more than a blip in the overall story. But again, this is quite often the way an actor's career goes. And after watching my performance in this piece, I am second-guessing the statement I made in my previous blog that I am ready to play with the big kids. I can see faults in my on-camera performance. Such as dropping character/purpose after I finish saying my lines. That's a very bad beginner's habit. But I see it in the footage I'm editing for Boundaries (which i am still chipping away at, btw. That's the adapted Good Will Hunting scene for those who don't know or forgot since it's been such a long time.) And I've been thinking about how my ego-monster can adversely affect my performance. As well as my mood and energy levels.

In addition to all that, for a while now I feel like I've been atrophying, as an actor, as a human being. And then I remembered a plan I'd had a while ago and failed to follow through on: To film myself giving a practice audition every week to keep myself sharp.

And now, I'm resurrecting that plan, but with exciting changes because with Blogger I can upload videos directly to my blog. (Anyone see where I'm going with this yet?)

The new and improved plan is this: To put myself in front of the camera at least 10 minutes every day, regardless of my mood and energy levels. I'll have to do that on a much larger scale as a professional actor working in the industry. But I'll get creative with what I do: sometimes it'll be a cold read/audition thing. Sometimes it will be a prepared monologue (public domain of course, or adapted.) Sometimes, it will be a video blog. And sometimes, I won't say a word, it'll just be me thinking-- a study of emotional expression without words. And as long as what I film doesn't totally suck, I'll post them here. After all, that is what an actor's journal is for, isn't it? To self-examine, self-critique, learn and grow from your experiences. So my journal is going multi-media. And that scares the crap out of me, because I don't know how many professionals in the business are reading my blog. Or will be reading my blog. But since the videos I post will be a learing tool, and most of the ones I post will be at the very least average, hopefully they can possibly serve as an unofficial reel. Meaning, maybe someone will look at these and see the quality, and I thereby create a good reputation for myself, even if my official professional reel is lacking.

I hope to be able to start with this tomorrow. My sister was driving out to our parent's place tonight anyways, so I asked if she could bring my camcorder and tripod back with her. Keeping my fingers crossed that she remembered.