Thursday. Up early and dropped off the munchkin at school. Then onto my next spoon river class. This week we had prepared another imaginary circumstance where we're all actors in Hollywood (convenient!), backstage at the opening night of a show having just discovered that our leading man has given up on LA and acting as a career. So we basically talked about that but mainly let it live as a circumstance and use it as a springboard to discuss what acting means to us and what we have to do to survive in LA whilst trying to follow our career. It was an incredibly emotional two hours for me and various others in the group. Everything came out and I mean everything. I found that several stories struck something deep inside me which triggered the reality of the life that I'm leading. I spoke about my circumstances from the heart and it really affected me, deeply. The point of today? To let things really affect me and to tell stories that have true and deep meaning to me. In a scene, letting the lines really affect me will ensure that not only me but what I'm saying will be compelling and will hold an audience. If you watch someone and they don't believe what they're saying or they don't have a true feeling about it, it's dull and uninteresting. BUT, speak from the heart and let EVERY line mean something to you personally and you'll be compelling.
In the group today, the meaningful stories, the ones which made people listen, and the people telling them had to be told, without interruption. The storytellers couldn't and wouldn't be interrupted because they wanted to tell their story and the others wanted to hear to the end, to the point of the story. The stories without real meaning, without a true focus, without being personal to the teller were easily interrupted by others, the storytellers allowing themselves to be interrupted.
Wow, totally draining. This job's difficult sometimes, you know! BUT, this is the work we have to do to become better actors.
Oh sure, go to a scene study class and do a scene without meaning, without making it personal and some people may tell you you can act but I bet it won't be many!
Printed up 50 resumes to take to my agent tomorrow in the hope that they'll seize them with vigor and send them out! Here's hoping!
Crashed out at 8pm! Woke up at 11 and finished the ident.

Wednesday. Headed off to a scene rehearsal with M. Went very well.
Class was great. Came to Y's door.
After class I dropped off my headshots at the manager's office. Will anything happen with him? Who knows BUT if you don't buy a ticket, you'll never win the raffle!
Worked on the ident in flash. It's bugging me a lot. I'm spending way too much time trying to work out how to do stuff rather than just doing it.
Composed the ident tune in Reason. It sounds great. You can head on over to gotbrit.com in a few days when it's up to check it out. I'll have the short film posted there also very soon.

Interesting. Did you know that the UK has just finished paying off the 'loan' the US made to them to rebuild after WWII?
Read on...

Tuesday. Printed up some new resumes. Loaded up Flash (which I've never used) and started work on the ident visuals. Hum... maybe I CAN do Flash. It isn't going to be stunning but it will do what I need it to.
Had a stroll with the dog and the munchkin.
Spoke to RJ, a manager who saw a scene with N and I months ago to let him know that I finally have new headshots and could I drop some off to him. He said of course! He had said that although he isn't going to rep me, he thought I was a great actor so to give him a few headshots so he could submit me for the odd thing here and there.
Saw C who took a couple of headshots to submit me for the TEN shorts she's producing for the DGA! I may be doing the background casting for her as well depending on the time commitment.
Still nothing from the new Theatrical agent. I'm beginning to think that he took me just to honour M's recommendation. Maybe he typecast me when we sat down and he's not submitting me for all the stuff that I AM actually suitable for but he just doesn't know. That's the problem with an agent not coming along to see you in something or have you audition. They don't know what you can do.

Monday. Rehearsed my new scene with Miche. Prisoner of 2nd Avenue. Very funny! Of to class. Did a first read and it went well. The rest of the scenes were great. Some peeps were a little in their heads but nothing which couldn't be fixed.
Worked on the ident tune for gB.com.
St phoned me up to say he was going to a money meeting and I gave him some pointers as to what to say about producers and how the film was being setup.
Called him after class and apparently it went friggin amazing! Apparently, they want to drop 1.2M on him and they have a very novel source of money. It's basically someone VERY rich who runs a very popular fast food chain who wants to dump his money on films projects. The guys St met with front for him (St had met one of the guys 3 days earlier in a gas station)! They want to drop the projects they're doing (from a very well established team) and do VI. Fantastic!! He's very happy!
Went along to sing for DO who called me up and asked me to help out with his latest show. Sang thru a couple of very interesting concept pieces. Probably not going to go to most of the rehearsals, just the tech, dress and the shows themselves. Probably won't get paid for it either! Mind you, it will probably help with getting an 'in' at the next G show in Mal which he is also MD'ing.
Watched Just like Heaven which had some good performances. Mark R and Reese W were excellent. Both very present and real.

Sunday morning. Sanded and oiled the garden tables (whoopdedoo) and headed off to Travel Town by LA ZOO. Loads of old steam and diesel trains from C19 & C20 USA. Very interesting and, of course, laods of fun for littl'un! Sat and chatted to a Beatles fan who just loves the UK for about an hour! He didn't want to stop! I promised him a CD of the goons whom he has been wondering about since he heard their name mentioned in 'A Hard Day's Night'. So, I told him who they were and he got very excited!
Hit the shops in Burbank and headed home.
Watched Batman Begins and was impressed. Hey, even Michael Caine was good! He wasn't doing an American accent though which is probably why I liked his performance!
Chatted to G for a half hour going thru what needs to be changed in the short.

Saturday. Home at 8.20 and went to bed!
Got up around 4pm! Had a quiet evening and watched TV with M. Wasn't really up for anything else. Showed M the film and she said it didn't suck. Result!!
1.5 days' shooting. 40 hours editing. Start to finish = 2 weeks!!!!

Friday - reshoot and finish editing.
Arrived at G's and met with G, B & R. G was shooting for his project so I got ready for my reshoots. Sat in his garage and delivered my lines to a shelving unit. Damn glamorous, my job! Wrestled with so much noise, you wouldn't believe it. Planes, cars, kids, dogs, you name it, we heard it. Welcome to lo-budget indi filmmaking! Nailed it in an hour and G set the tape digitising. Off to have a quick lunch. Yummy chinky.
Back to his house and started editing around 4.30pm. To cut a loing story short, we finished editing (non-stop with only potty breaks) at 7.30am!!!! 15 hours STRAIGHT. Very tired driving home!

Spoon River class reunion! We sat in the studio for two hours and basically lived through the class reunion with our imaginery pasts from our imaginary school! What use is it? Well, we all went along with at least two stories which we may or may not tell when recounting our 'memories'. Did we feel under pressure to tell the stories? No. Did we think about what we were going to say? No. Did we listen intently to the person recounting their story? Yes. Did we react to what the person was saying and let it affect us in our own way? Yes. Exactly what we should be doing in our scene work!! Very useful indeed!
Munchkin is becoming very clever and very very cute. He announced that Uncle J (who's from the UK) had to get on a plane to come and see him. He then runs to the front window to shout at the planes overhead to go and pick up Uncle J to bring him to see him!!
Had a stroll.
Worked on assembling all the audio clips and everything else for tomorrow's reshoot and edit... late night

Wednesday and still pretty quiet in the house.
Off to a SAG free health care forum thing. Basically, once a year, SAG invite a bunch of companies/health care providers to offer free check-ups in exchange for the personal info of the SAG members who go along. Well, it was billed as a wonderful opportunity for members and their dependents. Yep, right. Turned up and littl'un was too young to be tested for anything. Great! Some family health fair! Well, all I could be bothered to queue up for was diabetes testing (negative) and an eye test (20/20). Wow, that was a lot of use. Anyway, back home, dropped off munchkin and had a h2h with M. Worked it all out. We got a lot of stuff off our chests. Off to class with S.
Worked with J. Came to his door. Went well. S gave us a good!
Other stuff happened, can't remember what...