Friday and spent most of the day at UTS with munchkin. It's basically a kids space and for $7 they can run wild for as long as you like. Very cool if you're a parent, believe me. Funny how you meet a ton of people through your kids but you do. Today I met an animator who sold up and came over with her hubby to take a job with Disney only to arrive, work for a few months and have then close the studio she was working at. No warning, no recompense. Er, your job's gone so your visa's invalid so you'll have to go home with your hubby! No jobs to find elsewhere because no-one's hiring. Also met a record producer who looked, well, pretty fried! He said that he was insanely busy and just cherished an hour or two playing with his kid. There's a job that's gonna kill him!
G & R came over in the evening and we worked through the first part of G's top secret project. We laid some stuff onto tape but I definitely need to do some more work personalising the charcter for myself. Looking forward to it as my character is pretty intense and complex. I like a challenge! I know G does too! We chatted until 2.30am about the future and the long and winding road this project is going to take us along. Superb!
Called my mate in the Uk who is getting married to wish him all the best and he answered... just as the wedding dinner was moving onto dessert!! I had no idea it was today! He was pretty flumuxed that it ws me!

Two films you should be planning to go and see very soon:
Who killed the electric car?
An inconvenient truth

If you care about anyone other than yourself, that is.
Will anyone give a shit? That's the real question, isn't it?

"It's all tree hugging hippy crap" you say? I really don't think so...
Maybe checkout a few of the myspace friends of both movies to see the sort of people who give a crap...
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Inconvenient Truth

Thursday. Yet another class! I train a lot don't I!
NAM class (part of the spoon river series of extra classes I'm taking). Everyone had a good report from TS but we all (bar 2) needed to work a lot more with the imaginary circumstances we were given. He's rerunning the session next week so we get to put ourselves through another three hours of torture and anguish. Nice.
Took some time with the fam in the garden today.
Check In is up on ifilm now.

Oh, booked a day working on An American Crime a week on Tuesday. Should be fun. Let's hope it runs into golden time, eh!

Wednesday. 2nd session for the scene study with RC. Great stuff. I think it's probably some of the most useful information as an actor I've ever come across. It's really opened up my understanding of scenes and what to really look for.
Class with S. Worked with M and we got a 'dead on track, good work'. Funny as it was a fairly mundane exercise, nothing really happened but we both listened, reacted, worked off and did the doing. Sometimes nothing really happens and you have to have faith that what you're doing is right. No forcing, no 'acting', just doing.
Home and out to an audition (no4 in 3 months!) for E S P N. I played Nigel, a Brit who was basically giving a punchline to a joke he's probably told a million times. Nigel was a git, always laughing at his own jokes and he loved himself. Well, that's what I did with it so we'll see if that's what they wanted. Don't hold your breath...

Headed out to La Canada today for a job interview for the lady in my life. Sat in MacaDees for a hour or two while she had her interview up the road. Met some interesting people while I was there including an animator who used to work for Son y and Dreamw orks and who knew some of our friends from home. Small world, eh? Nothing on either callback yet.
Reviewed Gary's script and NAM for class on Thursday.
Posted 'Check In' onto both CheckIn and GBFilms myspace pages.
Hey ho.

Monday... well, still loving that feeling of pre-callback reality for the HUGE audition I went to last week. Wouldn't it be great to know there's a callback for you without having to ever go to it and risk not booking the actual job? Sounds stupid? Yes, I suppose it does. It's sort of like buying a lottery ticket and waiting for the draw knowing that you've neither won or lost. After the draw, well, you normally lose so the excitement and expectation and that feeling of 'my god, wouldn't it be great if I actually won" goes away, coupled with disappointment (in the case of a callback, a 2nd or a 3rd callback, crushing disappointment). The difference is that it's my job to book callbacks and do everything I can to ultimately book the work. Simple. Sounds like crap? That's upto you to decide.
Thankfully, I have a little more control over the callback than a lottery draw. It's almost all upto me, what I do, how I am, my attitude and my talent. But, there's also an element of luck, what they think, who else turns up, do I match up with everyone else, will there be someone 'like' me? You can't think about that though, otherwise it will screw you up! Just go in, have faith in yourself, be professional, don't 'try' to be someone you think they want to see, don't 'act', show them who you are and what you can do, be 'unique' - the only thing you can be.
Anyone who knew me back home would be shocked to know that I watched the Czech Rep vs USA match in the World Cup footie. The USA were absolutely outclassed, outgunned and totally shown up. Sorry, that's the long and the short of it. Checkout any online reports of the game and I bet they'll all say the same thing. One of the funny things I did think after the CR scored the first goal was that the ESPN stats machine kicked into life about how many teams had come back to win after losing the first goal, etc., etc. Very amusing. You had to be there, I suppose....
Anyway, nothing like keeping a callback alive by going to another callback!! Yes, folks, I had another callback today for a show in Malibu at a rather well known Villa. It was for the musical director, the director and the casting director. In the two hours it took, we did individual and group singing, vocal improvisation and speeches. I was pretty relaxed through the whole thing... you really don't have a prayer if you're tense during these things! Seemed to go really well so we'll wait and see.
Missed class unfortunately. B's away anyway so I wouldn't haven't have been able to do one of my scenes anyway.
Had a call from my agent to say that I have another commercial audition for E S P N on Wednesday. The funny thing (not surprising with my agent) was that I had submitted myself for it and they get the call (that makes two out of the four I've had in three months). That means that, if I get the job, they'll get their 10%... for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! That's the pain with an agent, boys and girls. Good or bad, they take their cut! And you need to pay it to buy those magic agent details at the top of your resume. It elevates you above the cannon-fodder so I'll pay it happily!
I'm nice like that.

Sunday. Up very early with the lad. These early mornings are killing me! Watched some F1 and played! Loads of reading and learning today. Lots of sitting in the garden and playing, playing, playing with the lad. Chatted with G. He's still in a lot of pain with his leg and back and he's fed up with popping prescription pills so I suggested a reiki session or two as recommended by JC. I think at this point he'll try anything.
Called sis and spoke to J. He's going to send me something very very useful with regard to the *show*. Nice! Reviewed the scene study session.
IM'ed DK who's in Fuji with a film. JC may have an in for me for a 'scale' SAG film. Superb. Spoke to A who's going back to NY for two months to see if she can energise her career with the help of her old NY agent who's promised to send her out theatrically. Good luck with that...
Invites for littl'un's bday which is coming up.
Links for today...
Comics Page Brewster Rockit
skyjude - the rutles

Saturday. Pretty lazy day. Don't want to go out as the WeHo parking restrictions are going to be lifted for the 2006 Pride thing which basically takes over the whole area. Last year was a total f**king disaster when we had to take the car to something and when we returned home, there was NO parking ANYWHERE. A request to the neighbour to move her car along the shared drive so we could park behind (as we had done for her the previous year) was met with a "no, f**k you" so we had to go miles away. So, the car is in the drive and that's where it's staying! Juvenile you say? You have no idea. Don't give me the 'turn the other cheek' crap. You live next to this bitch for two years and you will have probably done something you would have been arrested for, believe me. Anyway... I'm calm and I'm moving on...
Went out for a stroll with the missus and the monkey. Very nice. Nice and warm. Lots of party people everywhere in very *interesting* clothes...
Spoke to SG who's a little better than when I spoke to him the other day. Turns out that he got involved in a very dodgy funding source for his film and didn't realise just how much shot he was in until people started taking him aside and asking him "do you know who that is"? and "get as far away from that person as possible". So, he did and was put thru the ringer by this 'person'. It, apparently, has blown over now but it was little close for him. He had some auditions as well today which produced a couple more cast members for VI. Super

Friday... Worked on a letter to the agent referral. Still haven't sent it. Have to hang on for a couple of things to pop up...
Also assembled a folder of everything I have on at the moment...

Class scene: Hardstuff
Class scene: Prisoner on 2nd Ave
Lyrics for *musical* song for a certain callback (shhhh, I don't want to jinx it)
Lyrics for 2 other *musical* songs for another callback, this one's at the Getty and it's set for Monday.
Scene study scene
Baker's book, 'NAM' for spoon river classes
Lyrics for the songs I have for a singing telegram next weekend
Sides for first copy of scenes for Gary's new project.

So, yes, I'm carrying that lot around with me at the moment.