Friday and started the day with fun, games and 'homeschooling' the munchkin. It's fun to find to play teaching games and you'd be surprised how receptive the little monkey is. Smart fella! Had a meeting with my manager and we discussed a basic strategy for the next month or two. I also wanted to know how she and her colleagues worked together and how the office was run. She told me that basically one is on the phone schmoozing the CDs and she deals with face to face meetings, finding out who is doing what and trying to get me auditions with them. They discuss all their clients each evening to decide what they're going to go after the next day. On the whole, it seems like a pretty good method they have down and I'm hopefully going to meet her colleague early next week. I know it's not been very long at all that I've been working with her but I have a feeling that she's the right person to be working with. You have to make judgments in this life and I think it's going to work out. Bath, stories and bed for the young'un then onto the 'puter to do some more research on IMDBpro before my trial membership expires!

Today's pic isn't, as you might think, a picture of a TV monitor without a video input signal. No, it is, in fact, wait for it... video art called 'Blue'. Yes, some contemporary artist has put 90 minutes of blue onto a DVD and is flogging it as 'Art'. The sad thing is, of course, is that someone will probably actually buy it and rave about just how pure and monochromatic it is or spout some other horsepoop that so deftly describes the modern art lover's cockeyed view of mundane household objects or what is, to anyone with an ounce of intelligence, completely irrelevant and worthless items of modern life.

Spoon River class, and I performed my George Gray. Went really well and T gave me an 'excellent.' Off to my USPS callback and MM studios on Romaine. Did six short scripts with a little Spanish man who was having a teeny weeny issue with his English words but they obviously liked that about him - he was at a callback after all. Techs, clients and the production team were in the booth on the other side of the glass. Smiles, waves and chat made for a very enjoyable time. We'll see what happens...
Watched Cinderella Man and was completely engrossed. Compelling performances and a superb storyline mixed with period wardrobe made for an amazing movie. I thought it was fantastic. Definitely one of my all time top 10.

Met up with T to record her VO lines for Gazza's film, UC. The off to a rehearsal with KK for Spoon River. Callback tomorrow for USPS (yippee!). Read 'The Pillowman' by Martin McDonagh to find a scene for class. Wow, it's quite a read!

Links for today...

Here's a REALLY SHORT short film... 1 second to be exact.

Website of the week which is going into my right hand list (praise indeed) is an online video edit site. Jumpcut.com. Bloody superb!

Time magazine announced their '50 Coolest websites' and there are some humdingers in there.

Enjoy.

Spent most of the day in the park with the monkey today. You have to do that as a Daddy, it's one of the duties but it's also a major perk! There were some TV celebs there (as there often are) with their kids too. It's a hazard living where I do... trying to be polite and ignore parents you would normally start a conversation with. With celeb parents, it's different. Unless you accidentally lock eyes with them or your kid attempts to hug/kick/punch/jump on/throw up on/kiss their kid, you try not to give them the 'I know you're famous but I'm not going to engage you in mindless banter or ask questions about your kids which you'll perceive as a 'please let me talk to you 'coz I know you're famous'' look. It's a skill I suppose. You've either got it...

Have been toying with the idea of putting Japanese subtitles onto my short film 'Check In' (now showing at all good video upload websites) or on this myspace page - don't ask me why, just thought I'd do it for a laff and see how many new fans I could muster. Loaded up the Japanese fonts onto my 'puter and found I could now read stuff on random website which are normally vast forests of question marks... I still don't understand what it says but it looks much better in Japanese.

Also, I can now see the job that the AltaVista translation page does with Eng-Jap and vice versa. Very interesting... for example, a story taken from the Beeb news site about Boy George and his community service,

originally:
Singer Boy George has been sweeping streets in New York as part of a five-day community service sentence.
But the former Culture Club frontman, real name George O'Dowd, was moved into a fenced-off area after only 30 minutes because he was mobbed by the media.

Was translated into Japanese (which I won't show you here because your browser will probably show one of the aforementioned question mark forests) and then back into English

ending up like this:
Boy George of the singer the extensive sort of New York is as a portion of the community service sentence of directly five day system. But him being mobbed with medium, cultural club frontman before, autonym George O'Dowd moved to the area where equal to 30 minutes later is enclosed.

Which is, in my opinion, bloody hilarious... hang on,

let's try another one...
Picking up where the first movie left off, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan are to be married. However this is interrupted when both are arrested for aiding in the notorious Captain Jack Sparrow's escape. The new captain, Beckett, will lift all charges, if Will can hunt down Jack and bring him back to Beckett, along with his magic compass. However, Jack has other problems. Years ago, he made a deal with Davy Jones to raise the Black Pearl. Time is up. His part of the deal was to give Davy Jones his soul. Once Will finds Jack, unaware of the current situation, Jack coaxes Will into boarding Davy Jones's ship, the Flying Dutchman, and retrieve a mysterious key. This key opens the chest that contains Davy Jones's secret. With it, you can control Davy Jones and his fearsome beast, The Kraken. Once Will retrieves said key, Davy Jones is hot on his trail, now hunting down both Jack and Will. It is now, only a matter of time, before something happens. Hopefully the pirates can reach the chest and stop Davy Jones, before he reaches them and sends them all to a watery grave...

becomes

Choosing in the place where the first movie goes away, the will turner - and Elizabeth's swan should have gotten married. However as for this when the escaping of both ill repute high jack Sparrow's captain being obstructed for helping, you discontinue. Beckett, new captain with the compass of that magic searches the jack and to return by Beckett if in order accompanied becomes the canned goods, fullness everything is raised. However, there is an other problem in the jack. Before the year, he did Davy Jones's transaction in order to lift the black pearl. There is a time. That part of transaction should give that mind to Davy Jones. As for one time will finding in order the jack which in the Davy Jones's of embarkation boat and the Dutch boat which you can wander about does not become aware in present condition and the jack useless acts cool, to remove the mysterious key. This key opens the box which includes Davy Jones's secret. That and, Davy Jones and that terrible animal, Kraken can be controlled. One time will the aforementioned key, removes Davy Jones hotly on that road, now searches under the jack and will both. Problem of time before something happens, but, now it is that. If it goes well, as for the pirate he reaches to those, everything... before sending, reaches into the box in the grave which includes the water, can stop Davy Jones

Ha ha! Cannot wait until I have time to do my film. I think it's safe to say it will be a whole lot funnier than I could have ever hoped for!

The work front is still very poorly, in fact, if it was a horse, I would have shot it! Never mind, think positive...

'Nuff said.

Start of another week in the entertainment factory city we affectionately call 'LaLaLand' for reasons blazingly obvious to the Angelinos. Off to class to study my craft and paired up first with Suz then with Ric. Both seem to go well although the depth to the new relationships we're working on can't be too involved that they interfere with the exercise (so you end up 'playing a story' but can't be so shallow that they don't add a dynamic to it either. All part of the process, boys and girls.
Called my manager and my commercial agent to see if I can get a little movement into the career with the result that I'll be calling in on them both later in the week. Let's not talk about my theatrical agent who I'm sure is working very hard for me but I haven't seen anything since I started with him (five months ago, now). I know it'll the summer but it'll be autumn soon and then into pilot season again. I would love to book something before next year, actually. Call me fussy but it would be nice to have some dosh to buy luxuries like, oh I don't know... erm, food perhaps! Just kidding... we have loads of tins of beans to last us... a week or so, plenty of stuff, no worries.
Worked on the website and scoured IMDBpro for some UK agents and managers who are the next group on my Blitz list! Have to keep going in this business... no rest for the workers and nothing's going to magically happen without keyboards being pounded, headshots being stapled and envelopes being stuffed... ONWARDS!

See if you, like me, was filled with an overwhelming desire to scream "Who Cares?" when reading this NON-news item on the BBC news site (who are otherwise top notch with their stuff)... Sorry, had to vent...

Arty crafty day with the munchkin. Basically, think spray-mount, paint and cardboard boxes and you've got the idea. Sticky letters, shiny paper and crinkle cut scissors (pinking shears?) and you too can be a 'make a painted cardboard box toy' expert yourself. Then, it was off to 'Opera in the Park' at the Huntington in Pasadena. Definitely not hard-core opera, it was a very 'light' program akin to a 'Popular Classics' type of middle-of-the-road, everyman selection. I wasn't really listening to it anyway... I just wanted to lay on the ground and stare at trees... which I did. The missus and the monkey had a marvelous time too! Add a picnic blanket, tuna sandwiches and chocolate to a warm night, surround yourself with a diverse selection of flora and all's well with the World! Well, not the whole World, obviously, most of that is badly screwed up, but at least our small part of the World which is mostly what we have to worry about, isn't it?

Wonderful BBQ in the evening. Really nice group of people and lots of nice chat. Littl'un basically in full 'cute' mode. Everyone loved him. Ahhhh.

Probably the coolest cellphone accessory you can buy! You know you want one! (from Charles and Marie dot com)

Have you heard of prog that allows you to take control of your office PC from home? Yes, very cool and very useful but they want to charge you for it. Much better, then, to find an alternative which is just as good, just as secure and absolutely free! Yes, I thought you'd agree... here it is.
As a general rule of thumb, the best thing to do if you're searching for a program to do something and you don't want to pay for it, is to look for the 'open source' programs that do the same thing. How about a video editor? Do a search on 'open source video editor'. That's just one example. Most of the time, there's a free, open source program to do the job you need doing.
Oh, and while we're talking about searching, how about a search engine that's just as good as... the one that everyone uses... and contributes to the non-profit of your choice - with every single search. It's called GoodSearch. Enjoy!

Did you know that if you show up with a munchkin at a fire station in LA County, one of the very friendly fire fighters will show you around and explain what everything is. We visited our local and we were shown around by Firefighter Steve who was really nice. Ahhhh.
Zipped off to the park afterwards and he played for hours with a new friend. Two of them running around for hours. Great!
Nowt on the work front. I'm going nuts!