Easy Come....Easy Go.

A few days ago I wrote a rather cryptic blog entry. In it I said "There is indeed work for actors in Seattle after all, and if the actor doesn't go to Hollywood....sometimes Hollywood comes to the actor"

Here now is the story behind that.

Last Monday I auditioned for a role in a vignette. The vignette was four short sketches for an un-named company, charity, organization, whatever (more about that later). The role was choice, the writing was excellent, the audition went well, and two and a half hours after the audition, I received a call from the production company for the project telling me I had been cast in the role. The pay for the role, by Seattle standards, was quite generous

The final script approval had not yet been received and had to come from China, London, and Seattle. To what degree each location had in the script approval, I have no idea. We were not told the name of the organization at the audition.

The production company (which has a lot of good work under its belt) seemed very professional, and very friendly towards actors, and I was looking forward to working with them on the project, which was to have a half day of rehearsal and a full day of shooting next week. "Was looking forward to" is the key phrase, as I received a call this afternoon from the production company telling me that sadly, the shoot had either been postponed or cancelled. The client wasn't sure at this point which it would be. The production company has a long successful history with this client and perhaps the production will live again some day....perhaps not. We'll see.

I have been in this business for awhile and know that things like this happen. It fact it happened to me once before when I was cast in a role and then the plug was pulled on the project before it could start, and another time when the plug was pulled on a film after we had already completed two days of shooting.

As an actor, how do you deal with something like this.? You simply roll with it and move on. In The Office episode I was in, my character had eight lines, all of which were cut (along with the lines of other actors) in post production. Fortunately I still had a good deal of screen time in the episode, just no lines. Again, roll with it and move on. Regardless of the missing lines, I thought my short stint on "The Office" was great fun.

My Point? Actors must be flexible and ready for anything, because in an acting career, "everything" will eventually happen. Best to just enjoy the ride and all the things that ride will bring you. A seasoned actor once told me not to get too high emotionally when things go well, and not too low when they don't. That's good advice.

Auditions in the Seattle area have picked up noticeably in the last six weeks or so, and that is good for everyone in the business in the Northwest.

OK, that takes care of the first half of my cryptic blog entry, but what about the last half about Hollywood coming to the actor.

Before moving to LA, and even more so after moving there, I have been quite fortunate to be a student of acting coach Glenn Haines. Glenn does most of his coaching from his studio in Hollywood, but on rare occasions, still comes to Seattle. He is doing so this weekend and I have a long private lesson scheduled with him. Of course I still make periodic pilgrimages to LA to study with Glenn, and to attend various casting director workshops. Even though I will be seeing Glenn this weekend, I also plan to take my next trip to LA in a few weeks. So, with Glenn, a little bit of Hollywood is coming here. It will be good to work with him again.

Be good to one another and I'll talk with you again as soon as I have something I think is worth saying...........

The Teaser

Network and cable television is great for what is known as the teaser, where by they show you just the right few seconds of an upcoming show, which in turn makes you think, "Wow, what is that all about?"

Think of this incredibly short blog entry (Its been awhile hasn't it?), as my teaser. Ready? Here is is:

There is indeed work for actors in Seattle after all, and if the actor doesn't go to Hollywood....sometimes Hollywood comes to the actor.

Curious? More quite soon.................

Actors Must Be crazy

If you are wondering why I have not posted to this blog in two months (you were wondering, weren't you?), read on.

I know a very respected casting director who said, "I have no idea why anyone would want to be an actor." Some days I can find nothing in that statement with which to disagree. Don't get me wrong, as I love being an actor. Like most actors, it gives me something which I need, and can find no place else. Still, actors have to be a little bit crazy since acting is an occupation where even the very successful fail (auditions) more times than they succeed, you are always looking for that next job, you must continually study, even when you have no definite future project to study for, and when jobs (castings) do occur they fall in a very uneven pace. When I was living in LA, my best two jobs fell within four days of each other after several months of no work. Some days that casting director is right.

Since moving back to the Seattle area from LA, I find the Seattle film industry to be almost nonexistent. Before I went to LA, Seattle wasn't the liveliest film center around, but it was in far better shape than it is today. I believe one reason lies both to the north and south of Seattle in the form of Portland, OR and Vancouver BC, both of which (with government support) are actively courting film and TV productions. Seattle seemingly has no interest in doing what is necessary to attract major film and TV. Of course, Vancouver is way ahead of Portland, but Portland is working hard to become a film and TV center. Since my return from LA I have had exactly one job. It was a great role with a wonderful production company. It was also in Portland and not in Seattle.

So, my reason for not posting to this blog is quite simply, I have had no acting news to report.

As I said, an actor must continue to study under any and all circumstances, and that is what I am doing. With the dearth of work in Washington, I feel somewhat like a football player practicing for a game, which is yet to be scheduled, but study I must and study I will. Towards that end I am scheduling trips to LA in August and October for private lessons with my acting coach in Hollywood and for casting director workshops.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I have conducted two cold reading workshops since returning from LA, and I hope to do more. We'll see.

Finally, a swipe at something that has been on my mind for quite a while, that being reality shows. Even in LA, much less the rest of the country, reality shows cause less dramas and comedies to be filmed, with the result being less work for actors. On top of that, reality shows are incredibly boring. I really don't care what some bounty hunter or a pawn shop operator is up to, nor am I interested in a group on an island working to survive some contrived contest, while trying to make us believe they are alone, when they are surrounded by a large film crew and support staff. I am equally not interested in how fast people can race around the world or lose weight. Yes, losing weight is an admirable goal, but I don't need to see it. Because I am an actor, this opinion may seem very self serving, but I have a long standing rule of not watching reality shows because they are boring (to me) and deny actors the chance to work. Oh wow, I feel so much better for having said that.

Well folks, to use an old Texas phrase from my youth, "That's my story and I'm stickin' to it."

More later.....................

The Many Hats Of An Actor

For me, one of the pluses of being an actor is the variety. I don't just mean the variety of roles an actor will play throughout their career, although that is certainly a plus in itself. The variety I'm speaking of, today, is all the various hats an actor will wear. Actors will audition, will act on set once they have been cast in a role, will spend time marketing themselves to the powers that be in the acting world and, in general, will wear a number of different hats in their pursuit of the lightening in a bottle we all lump under the general term of "acting".

And so it was that while only a few weeks ago I found myself being an acting coach, as I conducted a couple of cold reading workshops, more recently I spent three days in Los Angeles wearing my acting student hat.

From living in LA, I made, and still maintain, good contacts there which I used to set up the schedule for my trip. Of course sometimes things don't always go as planned and I had to make some last minute adjustments to my LA schedule.

I was originally scheduled to attend a cold reading workshop of Craig Campobsso's in Burbank. Craig is a well known LA casting director who among his many accomplishments was nominated for an emmy for his casting work on the TV drama, "Picket Fences". Craig holds these cold reading workshops almost every Sunday, but as luck would have it, the particular one for which I was scheduled was cancelled. So, shifting gears, I took a private acting lesson from Craig. He's a very personable man, and the lesson was not only great fun, but very productive.

I also took a two hour lesson from my long time acting coach in Hollywood. Until now, I have refrained from naming him, but have decided to do so in this blog entry. My Hollywood acting coach is Glenn F. Haines. He coaches everyone from unknowns to name actors. His services are greatly in demand. and I am quite fortunate to have him as my acting coach. In a lesson or workshop he is never easy, and demands that you give your best and then give a little more. He pushes you and expects you to push yourself. He too, is a very nice man, but that never gets in his way when he pointedly needs to tell you what you did wrong or right, why this happened, and if what you did was wrong, what you need to do to correct it. His coaching is most certainly not for the faint hearted, but is definitely for those who want to continue to improve as an actor.

Glenn makes occasional trips to Seattle (where he used to live and where I met him) and if you can catch him on one of those trip and take an acting lesson from him, you will be a better actor after the lesson than you were before.

Finally, I attended a casting director's cold reading workshop which was held at Actors West in Thousand Oaks. This workshop was conducted by Allen Hooper, who casts the TV show, "Modern Family". Allen is personable, quite witty, and the workshop was a nice event with which to finish off my LA trip. There we 24 actors in attendance, most with one or more (a couple with a lot more) credits in network and cable TV shows, films, and commercials. Besides working with a top flight casting director like Allen, working with talented professional actors is also a benefit when attending an LA casting director workshop.

I returned home this past Tuesday, and am looking forward to my next trip to LA in a few months.

So, from actor to acting coach, and back to actor (and all the other stops in between) I am constantly reminded of just how fortunate I am (as are all actors) to have the opportunity to be in this wonderful business.

Until next time...................

A Tale of Two Auditions

Auditions are to actors what job interviews are to the rest of the working world. Of course there are differences, as auditions usually only last five to ten minutes, and there are many more each year (hopefully) than there are job interviews for workers in other fields. In essence, actors are always looking for their next job, even if they are currently working in film, television, or commercials. It is the nature of what we do.

Some actors literally loath auditions as they make them feel uncomfortable, while others neither hate or love auditions, and just figure they are a vital part of the business they are in. A third, and admittedly smaller, groups of actors actually like and enjoy auditions. I fall into that last group and freely admit there are other actors who look at me like I am a Martian when I say that, and I might as well have just told them I enjoy root canals. Still, love them or hate them, auditions are a part of being an actor.

There are many things an actor can control during an audition, but also there are a number of things totally out of an actors control. Knowledgeable people in the business say you should worry about what you can control, and not the rest. Fairly good advice for life, too, I suppose.

Recently I had two auditions with quite different results, even though both auditions went well. When an actor leaves an audition, they know if they did well.

First, I auditioned for a corporate/industrial film in Portland. The audition went longer than most (some 15 minutes) and I handled everything they threw at me well. Since then I also auditioned for another corporate/industrial film in Seattle, and again, the audition went well. I was equally pleased with both auditions.

I was cast in the film in Portland, but not the one in Seattle. I have been around in acting long enough to know that I will probably never actually now why I was not cast in one, and cast in the other. I have learned to accept the fact that I will probably never learn this and subscribe to the wise saying about worrying only about what you can control.

In both cases, I could have been cast or not cast because I did or did not have just the right look for which they were looking. Other than good grooming, we have no control over how we look. Perhaps I wasn't cast in the Seattle film because, as well as I did in the audition, another actor had an even better audition. If you can run the hundred yard dash in 9.8 seconds, you will win a lot of races until you go up against a runner who can run it in 9.7. That's life. Perhaps I reminded the audition person of someone they didn't like. That very thing once happened to an old acting coach of mine who reminded the film's director so much of his ex mother in law, he didn't want to be in the same room with her.

My point is this. If you can walk away from an audition feeling good about how you did, that is the very best result you can hope for. When that happens you have controlled all you could about the audition. What should an actor do after an audition regardless of how they think it went. If you learned something in the audition that will help you in future auditions, that's great. Otherwise forget it and move on. If they are interested in you they know where to find you or your agent. That audition is over and it is time for the actor to look forward, not backward.

I'm off this afternoon for LA for a series of casting director workshops and private lesson. I'll talk with you when I return.............

Put Me In, Coach

I have always maintained that most of us should and do wear more than one hat, and should not think of ourselves as being defined by a single skill, talent, or activity. An accountant is more than an accountant, as he or she may also be a writer, or a gardener, or a volunteer for any number of activities, or an expert on a particular subject not associated with accounting, or may possess any number of talents at either an amateur or professional level. Past that, and never to take a back seat in our lives, all of us are husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and so forth. We all are the sum of all these parts, and I am no different there than anyone else.

In the course of my life I have worked as a professional jazz musician, a computer programmer, a systems analyst, a hospital department head, a technical field salesperson, and for the past fourteen years, an actor. Additionally, I have been a writer for years, writing short film screenplays, articles, essays, short stories, and two radio dramas which have been performed nationally on commercial radio. All of this has played a part in who I am.

I have given a lot to acting in time, money (private lessons, classes, workshops), and dedication and acting in turn, has given a lot to me. It has been and continues to be a good professional marriage.

This past couple of weeks, I opened a new chapter in the book known as "Who I Am". I taught and conducted two cold reading workshops for actors. The first workshop was for intermediate actors, the second was for a group of advanced actors. These workshops were scene study workshops (two person scenes), which gave each actor a few minutes to prepare a scene with their assigned acting partner, and then do their scene, and re-work that scene in front of the entire group. I subscribe to the simple, yet important premise of famed acting coach Tony Barr, who said, "Actors should act." All private lessons, workshops, and classes that I attended while in LA were designed that way....scene study, scene study, scene study. Both workshops went well, and I found that assuming the role as an acting coach was almost immediately comfortable for me.

While, like all of you I am the sum of many parts, after family I am still an actor first, with any acting coaching, writing, etc. coming after that. Still, I found I greatly enjoyed the workshops I conducted. I believe I do have something to pass on to other actors, and I look forward to holding more workshops in the future.

Otherwise, it's going to auditions which either my agent finds, or that I find, and continuing my own studies as an actor. Towards that end I will be spending a few days in LA in the first half of April, attending three casting director workshops (including casting directors who currently cast Criminal Minds, Leverage, and Modern Family), and (schedule permitting) a long private lesson from my Hollywood based acting coach.

I cannot stress too strongly my belief that any actor can benefit from spending a year or two in LA. I now have contacts there which I never could have formed any other way. Living and working in LA will change the way you look at acting, and it will change the way the acting profession looks at you. However, obligations being what they are, I understand that many either cannot or will not make that move. It's a highly individual decision to move to LA, but to all serious actors....if you can, you should.

Here's a fact about actors. Most actors have a built in and pesky self critic, which tells them (the intermediates) you are not good enough to find work, or (the advanced actors) sure you can work in the Northwest, but you are not good enough to work in LA. From what I observed in the two recent workshops I conducted, nothing could be farther from the truth. All the intermediate actors I worked with are good enough to work in the Northwest, and all the advanced actors I worked with would have just as good a chance in LA as any other new actor. Perception is half the battle, and it's the old story of if you think you can't, you can't, and if you think you can, you can. I am no better an actor than any other Northwest actor, and certainly not as talented as some. However, I went to LA convinced I could find work, and I did.

Now that I'm back in the Pacific Northwest, the cold facts are that there are not as many gigs for actors here as in LA, which I'm sure, comes as no surprise to anyone. However, there are good opportunities for actors in both Seattle and Portland, with Portland currently holding a slight edge. I have not yet really investigated the Vancouver BC market for American actors.

So, life goes on, auditions happen, actors get cast, films and commercials get shot, actors classes and workshops get held, and it all happens in one of the most beautiful places in the country, the Pacific Northwest. "Ain't" life grand?

Home Again, Home Again, Jigity Jig

Somewhere in my childhood, I heard the nursery rhyme phrase "Home again, home again Jigity Jig", and for some reason I still remember it. I have absolutely no idea what it means. I've also heard most of my adult life, that "You can't go home again." I'm sure ninety nine times out of a hundred that is probably true, as the place you left is usually not as you remembered it when you return. Still, that leaves the one time out of a hundred when it is true, and fortunately, that one time applies to my return to the Seattle area from LA.

We left on January 25th from LA, with bad weather having been the norm up and down the entire west coast. The week before I left LA we had four days of rain which made the rain in the Pacific Northwest look like a spit bath by comparison. Sometimes you just get lucky. We left LA in the sunshine and remained in sunshine for the entire two and a half day trip, and with the exception of a one hour long hard rain just north of Fresno, California, all mountain passes were bare and dry, with the sun shining brightly.

Once home again, I quickly settled into Northwest living, both as a resident and as an actor. I had lunch with my Seattle area agent just before attending the first day of the "Leverage" (TNT) workshop in Portland. I next had an audition in Seattle, followed by an audition in Portland. The one in Portland bore fruit and I was cast as a prison medical director in a film for the U.S. Prison system. That film was shot in Portland just last weekend (Not so lucky with the weather on that one, with rain all the way down and most of the way back....oh, well). And yes, my wife and I really did stay in a Holiday Inn Express the night before the shoot, which means I can legitimately say, "I'm not a real medical director, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night."

The film shoot itself was great fun, and the Portland media production company that was running the show was first rate and quite professional all the way around. For the film I had to learn thirty one lines in two days. Then, on the second day there were a few revisions of my lines, as well as the lines of others. This was a challenge which I welcomed, and is not an uncommon occurrence, as shooting scripts are usually in a semi-liquid state for most productions, right up until the camera begins to roll. The shoot went well with a good group of actors to work with, great crew, and a wonderful catered lunch. We had a ten hour shooting day before we wrapped, coming in only 30 minutes over schedule.

Now it's March 2nd and already I am planning my first return trip to LA, where I will be attending several casting director workshops and taking a private lesson from my acting coach in Hollywood. That is planned for the first half of April.

Other irons in the fire? I'd like to do some teaching, as I feel I have some worthwhile techniques to pass on to other actors in the Northwest. I am just doing some preliminary work to look into that.

Also, while I have written a number of short film screenplays, I have my sights set on something bigger. I have the first 27 pages of a feature length script written. It's been on the shelf for awhile and I want to get back to working on it. If you think getting work as an actor is hard, that's easy compared to selling a feature length script. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, while an overused phrase, is still true.

I'm still determined to check out the acting scene in Vancouver BC, and now that the Olympics are over, I will need to get serious about that before very long. I will either find out that there is work for U.S actors in Vancouver, and how to go about it, or I will find there is not a possibility of work there and why. Either way, I'll pass on my findings in a later entry in this blog.

So, in my case, you can go home again, and I sum up my year in LA this way. I'm glad I went, and I highly recommend it for all serious actors. Even if, as I did, you decide to leave LA at some point, you will have made contacts that will serve you well, long after you have gone. I'm also quite glad I have returned to the Pacific Northwest, and I am happy to be back.

More later............

A Quickie.

Just a short entry to let all know that I will again be appearing on an episode of The Office. It Will be the episode entitled "The Banker" which airs on Thursday, January 21st.

Did I get a call from casting, rush over to wardrobe, sit in the makeup chair, before moving in front of the cameras? No, nothing like that. In "The Banker" will be clips from previous episodes including "Niagara" in which Pam and Jim were married and I played the minister. I signed all the paperwork for "The Banker" yesterday.

Will some of my eight deleted lines be restored in this new episode? I seriously doubt it. Still. it's nice to be seen again.

As a side light I remembered, as I was doing the paperwork for the new episode, something that happened during the shooting of Niagara. As all actors know, there is a lot of waiting when filming any film or TV show. I was standing outside talking with a couple of the background people (The term extra is no longer used). One said to me, "Are you a real minister?" "No," I replied, "I'm an actor." "well, you really look like a minister," they said. Intended or not, that's always a nice thing for an actor to hear, when someone asks if they really are the character they're playing.

Gotta run.

Until next time...........

On The Road Again.

It has been said many times that the only real constant in life is change. And so it is with my acting career.

On, January 23rd, my wife is flying to LA. On January 25th, we will begin our drive back to our home in a suburb of Seattle, as I make the move from LA back to the Pacific Northwest. In truth, it had been difficult for my wife and me to be apart, and that is my reason for moving back.

Some people come to Southern California and hate it, but I am not one of those. Like most areas it has some really neat features and some that are not all that great. My reason for returning to Washington State has nothing to do with any dissatisfaction with LA.

When I return to the Northwest, the geographical scope of my acting will be quite a bit different than it was before I came to LA. Before, I was pretty much a Seattle actor, auditioning, working, and studying in and nearby the area where I lived. This time, while I will continue to ply my acting wares in the Seattle area, I will also expand into Portland (see below), Vancouver BC (where many TV shows and films are shot), and also in LA, where I have made some good contacts. I will, in the future, attend casting director workshops in LA, and continue to study with my current acting coach, both in Hollywood, and when he makes trips to Seattle, where he used to live. I plan to stay at the same level of effort regarding acting in the Pacific Northwest, as I was in LA over the past year.

On February 6th and 7th, I will be attending a workshop in Portland specifically designed for actors wishing to appear in the TNT cable series "Leverage", which is shot entirely in Portland.

Vancouver BC is a tough nut for an American actor (not the star of a TV show or film) to crack, but it has been done by US actors before, and I will make every effort (including trips to that lovely city) to see what I can accomplish up there.

In essence, I will be much more of a traveling actor than I was, prior to living in LA, but I will do it from our Seattle suburban home.

My year in LA has been wonderful. I have met some very talented people, made some great contacts, found more work than I would have imagined, and all in all have benefited in many ways from the experience. While, like most actors I still have much to learn, I am a better, more confident actor now than I was when I arrived in LA. I feel that moving down here was a good idea, just as moving back home is now. Whether it's for a year or forever, I highly recommend to all actors who can swing it that they spend some time living in LA.

As it is with all of us, old chapters close, while new ones begin in our life, and I am looking forward greatly to this one to find out what lies ahead.

This blog was originally created to chronicle my journey as an actor in LA. However, now that I have decided to move back to the Seattle area, I have also decided to continue with blog entries here, as I start yet another leg on my journey. One of the neat things about being an actor is that each day holds the possibility of a new adventure, project, or task. A phone call, or an email and another door opens....another opportunity presents itself. Professional athletes have a schedule which tells them where they will be playing on any given day. Actors do not. I kind of like it that way.

Stay tuned...............