German
I don’t speak German
But I play one in this film
Exciting challenge
25
Nov
2013
0:15
Monthly Archive: November 2013
25
Nov
2013
0:15
My Biggest Acting Challenge Yet
I was recently contacted about being in a short about 2 German immigrants. They asked to just read the English with a German accent for the audition. Luckily I’ve always been really intrigued with accents and tend to pick them up quickly and do fairly decent job. They liked my audition and signed me on. The director then wanted to meet to see how well I might be able to handle the actual German dialogue. I’ve never spoken German in my life, but I have a very intuitive and natural understanding for languages. This was the first time it had ever been put to the test though. He literally just had me read the German script, totally cold (which I found an exciting challenge). He actually was very pleased with my reading and said he felt confident that I could do it and therefore was going to leave the script as it was instead of paring down the German and making it more English with a German accent.
Also lucky for me, my co-star is actually German and from the specific region of Germany as our characters. She was kind enough to send me a recording of all my lines so I had an authentic reference to refer to.
So now I just have to memorize the entire German script and understand what it is I’m saying as well, and act while doing it. I am terribly excited to take this on.
02
Nov
2013
12:48
02
Nov
2013
12:46
Dream Theatre 22
In last night’s dream I was part of a live sketch show at a place not unlike The Institution Theater here in Austin where I’ve done some improv shows. My friend Steve Glazer was directing the show I think and at the last minute someone didn’t show, so Steve filled in since he knew the part. He came on as part of a trio and was dressed in a pink furry one piece kind dress thing, sort of like The Flintstones wore. It was not very long and Steve was not wearing underwear so everyone kept getting glimpses of his bits and pieces. When he sat on the ground with his knees up, he was full on flashing everyone.
After that act, I was up next. Me and a partner were lip syncing to “Mahna Mahna.” However, instead of a backing track they were using some really old, crappy recording that was really hard to follow and that was very erratic rhythmically almost like if a really inebriated person was trying to sing it. Consequently, the lip syncing did not go well. I remember wondering why they didn’t just use a karaoke track for it like the one Ralph Garmin and Kevin Smith use on the “Hollywood Babble-On” podcast when Ralph sings “Mahna Mahna” in various character voices.
02
Nov
2013
12:40
01
Nov
2013
2:19
Macbeth, I Hear You Calling
During one of our first Macbeth rehearsals, I sat down at a piano and started singing “Macbeth” to the tune of “Beth” by KISS. This inspired both Brian Villalobos and I to write parodies. I painstakingly recreated the music and we recorded both versions.