Category: Actor/Musician

I have finished my second short film. As with the last one I am both proud of it and embarrassed by it simultaneously. The complete lack of budget, equipment, and the tight time deadline again make the production values pretty much non-existent, but hopefully the content and the experience will hold enough value to get the viewer past that.
This year was a bumpy ride. I wasn’t as organized I should have been, and there were 2 scenes that had to be re-shot. One was because the cameraman apparently forgot to turn the mic on, so there was no sound, and the other was because the cameraman thought that he could not find one of the scenes anywhere on any of the tapes. For the latter case, I re-shot the scene myself (my cameraman had a previous engagement) just days before the deadline, and edited it all together. As I knew would happen, he then later found the footage in an odd place on a tape.
The one thing I’ve learned is that I’m just going to have to edit my own films. This isn’t because of any deficiency with my cameraman/editor, but more because I’m a picky bastard, and since no one is getting paid, I can’t really expect too much time and effort from people. With both of my films, I ended up taking the “final edit” and doing quite a significant amount of additional editing only to realize it would have been much easier to have just done it myself from the beginning than it is to try and tweak or band-aid an existing full edit.
We got home from my band gig at around 7:00 p.m. on Saturday and I edited until 3:00 a.m. I then awoke at 11:45 .m. and edited until about 7:00 p.m. I was mostly finished at that point with just a few more tiny tweaks.
You can view it here.

Today I was an extra on the movie “Infamous“. It’s a big movie about Truman Capote starring lots of really famous people, but screw them, this is about me.
Many people who work as “extras” on a set aren’t really actors. Many of them are people from all walks of life who somehow heard about “extra” work and thought, “Hey, being in a movie would be cool!” However, there are always at least some “serious” actors among them. Being an actor and working as an extra is somewhat like being Charlie and getting the Silver Ticket to the Wonka Factory. Not the Golden Ticket, but the Silver one. This ticket won’t get you a grand tour and face time with Wonka himself, but you do get to work for a day with Oompa Loompas. Not the featured Oompa Loompas who get to do the fun song and dance, but the nameless, faceless Oompa Loompas who work behind the scenes in the factory doing things like cleaning children out of chocolate ducts. You can see the Golden Ticket winners doing what you’d love to be doing more than anything, but you are stuck in the back room making sure the Ever-lasting Gobstoppers actually last forever and don’t dwindle just this side of eternity. You’re exhilarated by just being in the Wonka factory, but sad and frustrated that you’re only on the fringe of your dream.
Today’s scene took place on a closed off downtown Austin street which was standing in for 1960 New York. I had been to a costume fitting last week to be fitted with 1960’s New York guy clothes (although from the way my sweater buttoned, it was obviously made for a woman). My costume would be my own black dress shoes, rust colored slacks, a maroon sweater tucked in, a long tweed coat and a scarf. The pants pulled up rather high as was the style back then. Maybe the whole trend now of wearing your pants practically falling off is some kind of karmic pendulum swing the other way.
I awoke at the ungodly hour of 5:15 a.m. to be on set at 6:15. When I arrived, a big bus took us all to another location which apparently used to be a restaurant or something. They gave us our costumes and then sent us outside to change in some tents set up in the parking lot. Hair and make up then saw us and did their thing (which in my case was putting lots of product in my hair and slicking it into a side part). I sat there at a table feeling like melancholy Charlie with the silver ticket and contemplated whether or not I should continue doing extra work since it was just sort of a tease and pretty much leads nowhere except to more extra work.
Quite a while later the bus took us to the set and we were all sent to get props. I got some lovely 60’s eyeglasses and a brownish orange briefcase. We were then placed in various areas and told what to do when the cameras rolled. I was paired up with another guy named Rance who ended up being very cool and interesting to talk to. We were both actors, writers, directors and had some really interesting conversations throughout the day while plotting how to best get us some screen time. There were lots of extras who owned old cars which they had on the street for the scene.
When the cameras rolled, Rance and I would walk down the sidewalk acting like we were talking, pause to say goodbye, and he would go into a building while I tried to hail a cab. This ended up being quite fortuitous since the two stars of the scene (Hope Davis and Toby Jones who looked like an absolute perfect clone of Truman Capote) ended up walking right in front of us as the passed. Score! There is no way that I will not be seen in this movie unless they completely cut the scene out. There were many takes and as with all movies, much waiting in between. Another good sign that I must have been in the picture a lot is that I got several notes from the crew member handling our section such as “tone it down a little when you’re hailing the cab so as not to distract attention from the leads”, and a few other notes which indicated that I was definitely being seen and thus scrutinized heavily.
Though I was only in the background, I was genuinely acting. Rance and I would walk along engrossed in our mimed conversation, gesticulating with purpose. We would reach our mark, say our goodbyes (linger as the two leads passes mere feet next to us), and he would go off to his imaginary job, while I tried to get the attention of the cab driver who just wouldn’t stop and pick me up. Instead he drove on and some other girl got in and stole my cab! I could hardly blame him as she was very pretty, but I still acted indignant and annoyed, and proceeded to look for another cab down the road.
In the end it was a good time even if it was a tease. I enjoyed meeting and talking with Rance, and I might finally make it in a movie without being cut out (knock on your crossed wooden fingers). Though it can be painful and taunting, I know I will do it again. I am an actor. Actors must perform, and given the chance to be a part of a movie, even as what equates to just being part of the scenery, we are drawn like sailors to the siren on the rocks. Like moths to the flame. Like bad writers to extraneous similes.
Charlie would have kept buying those chocolate bars too, hoping that Wonka would someday give another tour, and when that day came, Charlie might just open that wrapper and see the corner of something gold.
*EDIT*
I feel the need to share this entry from Wil Wheaton’s blog as it’s nice to see the other side of the coin sometimes. I love to see things going well, and people finding satisfaction in their endeavors. It made me feel good just to read this and live vicariously through him! Nice counterpoint to the incessant whining I can sometimes do here.

Once again the Kinetoscopic Wonderment festival draws nigh (for those who don’t know my film won Best Film and People’s Choice at the first fest last year). I didn’t think I would be able to get anything together this year, but in a last minute push I wrote a script I like and am scrambling to get it all filmed and edited by the deadline at the end of March. I’m really afraid that there’s no way I can get it in under the ten minute mark, but we’ll tackle that bit of track when we get to it. This train is a’rolling, baby!

It all started on the way home from a gig with my cover band once day. We got to talking about band names for the project I was working on with Craig Davis (which has since become The Toreadors) and my band mate Donnie, kept coming up with random things, sometimes culled from passing road signs. One random one from his head was “The Skagnastics”, which we found amusing, but then he came up with one that for some reason just made us laugh our asses off. Treasure Pie. This amused us way more than it should have.
I relayed this story to Craig and a week later he had written a song called “Treasure Pie”. It was a fun, silly little ditty, and my mind immediately had a vision for it. A vision of drunken pirates, a peg-legged tap dancing pirate, tubas, accordions, kazoos, and general insanity.
Last night and today, I took the demo Craig had recorded and added my own insanity into the mix. I was far more pleased than I should be, and find it all terribly amusing and catchy at the same time.
So grab your grog, and experience Treasure Pie.

Now that the play is over, it’s time to spill all the beans.
Richard Garriott is a video game designer here in Austin. He designed the Ultima games, and many others. He’s a fairly well known celebrity around Austin and among video game fans. He is also known for his incredible themed parties he throws. Last night he threw a “Victorian Christmas in September” party. For this, he built a replica of The Globe Theatre on his property. For the inauguration of this theatre, we performed “A Christmas Carol”.
I was Bob Cratchit, and Jess was The Narrator, and The Ghost of Christmas Past. Jess also was the Scenic Designer, and she busted her ass since June designing and building (or acquiring in some cases) all the set and prop pieces with pretty much no help except for me and my cousin Casey, who we also roped into the production. I initially called my cousin to just be an extra in the background.
Since my cousin isn’t an actor, and has never been involved in theatre with the exception of things I’ve dragged him into, he told me that my call was possibly the strangest call he’d ever received, since it was basically, “Hey would you like to be in a play (a bit unusual) at Richard Garriott’s party (more unusual). It will be “A Christmas Carol” in September (more and more unusual).” He ended up playing the silent Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, and a party-goer, and helped build the sets and such with Jess and I.
The play went phenomenally, and afterwards all the guests were taken down to the little fake village on the property where there were shops, a planetarium, an opium den, a toy shoppe, a brothel and other Victorian locales. Jess and I worked after the play tending the snow slope. Yes, you heard me right.
A while back Richard acquired a snow machine which was used at another party in the past, and this time they used it to create a snow slope for people to race sleds down, and such. Jess and I were hawkers giving out coins to the winners of races, and generally trying to get people to come play on the slope. Unfortunately, the ice slope was quite surrounded by a lot of mud due to the inevitable melting of ice in Texas in September. Remarkably the slope was still totally intact and all night long, and you couldn’t really detect any melting of it aside from the wet mud marshes surrounding it. I must say I was in top for as the master of the slope. My days working at the Texas Renaissance Festival as an actor had served me well.
At the end of the night there was a fireworks display. Real, class “c” fireworks like they use at professions displays. We all gathered in front of the wooden castle to watch the display. They fireworks were being set off on tables not more than 20 feet in front of us. We were warned that, as anyone who has attended Richard’s parties in the past, many times the fireworks display becomes interactive with the audience, or “full contact fireworks” as some called it.
Jess and I were sitting on a tarp right in the front as close as you could get to the tables. Indeed it was somewhat like being in a war simulation with debris and ash raining down from above, and occasional stray fireworks causing you to duck and cover. It was definitely and extreme sport, but quite fun.
A few highlights:
Jess and I had Victorian portraits taken in our costumes and they look pretty authentic.
The planetarium was cool. It was in a domed little room, with a projector that projected the night sky on the ceiling and walls, and the man controlling it was explaining constellations and then could overlay the pictures over the stars so you could see how they were supposed to be the things they were named. Most constellations are an extreme stretch to say the least, but then again constellations called “a crooked stick”, “old man’s cane”, or “bent rapier” wouldn’t be nearly as exciting.
There was aa brothel where you could pay a prostitute, and then they would take you into a room and give you a card telling you what happened like “You got the clap”, “broken member”, “you pulled a muscle”.
All in all it was very much fun, and having met Richard Garriott, I have to say I’m a fan. He is a very nice, fun and down to earth guy. A big kid with a lot of money, which is totally what I would be in his position. He’s always out at the site doing all this manual labor himself. Tinkering with this and that, and helping put up curtain rods, and lanterns. The man knows good video games and a fun party too. Thanks Richard.
The capper is that we all ended up getting paid a decent amount for our work in the play (and separately for our work at the party). Jess got a lot more money than we were expecting for her role as Scenic Designer (although, believe me, it was well earned). Consequently, we will be going to a party in L.A. in December. That’s about all I can think of at the moment, but I’m sure Jess will have more to say when she gets back from helping clean up the site today (I had to work so I couldn’t go).

Drove 3 hours to my band gig yesterday. Played one and a half sets before the sky unloaded on us and we had the tear everything off the stage as quickly as possible and put it in the garage (we were playing a wedding reception at a really nice house in the country). We then sorted out all the haphazardly rescued equipment,and drove, soaking wet, 3 hours back home. Got about 4 hours of sleep, and now must go to work. Rock and roll, man, Rock and roll.
On a side note, does anyone else ever hesitate making a new blog entry when the last one you’ve made hasn’t got any comments yet? I’m always afraidit will just get buried and ignored if I make a new entry. My “I Robot” entry hadn’t had much time online, and I almost hesitated in making these last two entries. Then I did obviously. Just me?