Yearly Archive: 2007

The Victorian era film I did, “Birthright“, is now online for viewing. I think I explained before how this was the team that won the Austin round of the 48 hour Film competition and so this was the next round where we compete nationally. On Friday evening we received our Genre, certain props, story points, and a details that we had to use. As the director said, I’m not sure how much sense it will make to anyone not in on all the details we were saddled with, and quite frankly, I’m kind of worried that they might just throw us out for not fulfilling the requirements they gave us (whether or not we met some of the requirements could be argued and hard to “prove” either way; for example, our genre was “comedy/action/adventure” and I’m not so sure I would say it meets that; we were also supposed to have “adhesive tape” in the film and while we technically did in the scene where she cuts open a package, I don’t know if that’s obvious enough to the judges.)
I also composed and recorded the score for the film in a couple of hours on Sunday.

I had two auditions recently that I didn’t necessarily feel very good about. One of them was a film that had auditions two days in a row. I couldn’t make it the first day but I heard there were a lot of people who showed up. I was there first thing on the second day and the director was finishing up his lunch. His casting director wasn’t there but he went ahead and auditioned me anyway. He didn’t have a camera there which was unusual since people usually record auditions. In addition he read all the other parts opposite me so most of the time he was looking at the paper, I thought, and so I was worried that he couldn’t really watch my performance. I figured if I was going to be cast it would have be from his memory since there would be no footage and his casting director wasn’t there to give her input. I wasn’t sure how that would work. I could see the director talking to his casting director, “I want to cast this guy as Mike. You’ve never seen him. He came in while you weren’t there. There’s no camera footage of him, but trust me, he’ll be a great Mike.” I at least felt generally good about my performance though. I got the email yesterday that I got the part.
My second audition was more unsettling. Initially the director had sent me the first 20 pages and asked if it sounded like something I would be interested in. I said it was and then never heard anything else other than the open audition dates. I showed up figuring they would have some audition sides there for people to read. When I went in it became apparent that he expected me to have something prepared from the script. I think another general notice had gone out with links to audition sides, but the link had been problematic for a lot of people and I had never seen the sides. I had seen the first 20 pages but since it was just to see if I would be interested in the script so I didn’t think I’d be expected to just memorize the first 20 pages. It was kind of an awkward exchange and I felt really uncomfortable because I like to be very professional and prepared and I felt like I looked really unprofessional and unprepared.
The director was very gracious and fished out some bits for me to read. After the audition he told me he’d like me to send him some additional pictures mainly because he envisioned the character differently (possibly obese, maybe with glasses) so he wanted to see some other looks on me since he said he likes to go with the best actor more than a particular look. Though he was very gracious, I didn’t leave feeling very hopeful about that role.
I got the email today offering me the role. I guess you just never know!

…for one scene in the short film I’m filming tonight. I’d rather not but I think it was inevitable that at some point in my career I would have to smoke in a scene. I’m just hoping that I can make it look believable and no cough my guts out. They liked my current facial hair configuration (leftover from my Victorian shoot, sideburns and mustache but not chin hair, whatever that’s called)so I’m keeping it at least until Monday. I play a car thief mentoring a younger thief.