The long-awaited 15th

So I got my first industrial audition this past Wednesday. It was a lot less nerve-wrecking than I thought. I got the script two days ago on Monday, but I didn't really get the chance to look at it until Tuesday night. The project is a sexual harassment prevention video aimed for college freshman and I was auditioning for the "intervener", the person who talked about what happened and what he thought about sexual harassment/assaults. The part was good because it naturally has a "depth", and all I needed to do was to find out who this person was. I employed the technique we used in class, and I asked myself the questions about the character that made me go deeper and really find out who he was. I ended up with a sort of mini biography and I was satisfied; I felt good, but I know that I'm doing it to make the part feel real to me, not just to please the people in the room.

The audition itself went along fine, but I was too confident about my memorization that I didn't have the script in my hand when they were filming it, and I got stuck. Thankfully the casting director was very considerate and allowed me to go through it again. Lesson: you can never be too careful. "Your over-confidence is your weakness". Sayeth Luke Skywalker.

The casting director - Vicky - seemed thrilled and pleased to find out that I'm a graduate acting student; she also seemed really satisfied with my work and said to me that I would get more opportunities than I might think. That, to me, was such a great encouragement. Besides the "talent" and "technique", I'm thrilled that I did my audition as best as I can and I leave a good impression to the people who auditioned me. After all, network is one of the most essential surviving tools for actors. I need to keep being positive, keep the working mentality, and keep moving on. Namaste.

13+1

Sometimes you just never know the outcome when you're into it. Fran said to me one time that your greatest performance often feels like you haven't done anything in particular at all, that there's always going to be a simplicity to it. Not to say that my work on Monday is particularly impressive, but I think it worked - especially the second try when I went with it without questioning - because I'd found the truth and kept the simplicity.

I've been regurgitating on this thing about simplicity when I'm teaching my acting class. I always ask them to stop working so hard to show that "I'm acting", but to start looking at the monologues in the simplest, most direct way: what am I saying? Once an actor accepts his lines as "truth", then whatever comes out will be truthful. It might not be what the director wants specifically, but without the truth we can't go anywhere. Always starts with the truth, and don't worry about what's the "right" thing to do. It takes me a long time to realize that as well.

Nonetheless, Mondays script was still very odd to me. Thankfully it worked because I tried to find the truth in it and not to question it too much, but it did reminded me that that's what I have to do every single time. No matter how ridiculous or illogical or whatever about the script, the actor's Jon is to find his own version of truth and embrace it. After all, I have to believe in what I say, don't I?

Looking forward to Wednesday. Hopefully something fun.

The number that should not be named

I forgot the simplest things on this last class. I got too comfortable with this format that I forgot to ask myself the simplest and the most important questions. Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? What is my job? That's why my performance was not specific. The accent might had made me interesting, but I could have done much better. I forgot to do the exact thing I said I was going to do in the previous blog entries. Don't be lazy. Can't be lazy. Don't take anything for granted. Ask all the questions. Read the damn script. From beginning to end. That's the most important thing. Read every word and make sure you ask the questions.

That's all I've got so far. Seven week had passed. It's roughly half of a semester left until the showcase in Los Angeles, the convocation, and the showcase in the Big Apple. I'd just posted a message on Facebook asking to meet people in New York City if they're available during the week of the showcase. I can't imagine how I'll feel when that comes around. It's a scary thing that I've never step outside of school and have a job and live a "normal" life. It's odd. It's a bit scary. But I have a lot of hope now. I have faith that everything is going to be just fine. I'm still here. I'm still loving it. I'm getting some opportunities. I can't ask for more. Although when more's coming, I'll grab them before anyone else notices it.

12 no 3

It's getting better and better. I'm getting more and more used to it. Relax more. Do what I can to put whatever nuances that can make me dive right into the scene to be real and truthful: talk to a person I know, understand my wants and needs, and what is bugging my character right now. But most of all, I can't be thinking about them anymore once I step in front of camera. I got to let it go.

Sally and I were talking about the successful first take much like what Liz had written in her blog. It just takes practice. I don't think there will ever be a day where your first take is better than your second take, but what can be done is to keep doing it and hoping that one day, that first take is enough to convince the people sitting across the room. Sure, you have to take other things into account such as the chemistry in the room and so on, but it's one of the few things that can be controlled. Keep doing it. Keep trying to be better.

Moving on.

Eleven: OSCAR.

Some catch-ups again. I know I'm late and I almost forgot. I was watching Oscars at a friend's house. Ang Lee,  my uncle in my dreams - represent. So proud.

My NPR selections of this blog has to do with Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper, and I have much more respect to them than before after I read their interviews. Here's what enlightened me:

On Bradley Cooper first. He was talking about Silver Lining Playbook and he was mentioning his scenes / interactions with the great Robert De Niro. One of the scenes in the film was about Cooper's bipolar character breaking down during a verbal fight with his father who is played by De Niro. Cooper is a good honest actor and he was so into the scene that he started to cry "like a hyena", and it ended up being too much for the film. Cooper also mentioned in the interview about another scene where he was sobbing while reading a letter, and the reaction was also too much to keep it in the roll. He said he finally understood what "less is more" means. Another great thing he mentioned was when he was reading the script out loud for the first time with De Niro, and De Niro said his first line in such a truthful, "non-acting" way that for the moment that Cooper actually thought De Niro said something to him out-of-character. Conclusion: find the truth, stop acting, LESS IS MORE.

I was interested to hear Ben Affleck talk about self-directing in Argo because I'm also currently in the process of directing myself, but fortunately for him his product is a film whereas mine is a staged show so it's arguably more difficult to observe myself like he did. But he did say that he would do dozens of takes of himself from scene to scene where he would try different character approaches and different emotional prep / given circumstances. He said that that felt more liberating. Affleck also talked about his early acting years where he didn't understand the value of truthfulness, and he was just getting it by from day to day without the emotional honesty. When Terry Gross referred to acting as "a career of rejection" and asked Affleck how to deal with it, he did say the importance of keeping the confidence and not to let the rejections hurt you as an artist. "[People] get depressed. People get sad. And then that becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy." As difficult as it is, I / we have to keep that level of confidence even when we're feeling like we hit the bottom, because nobody wants a defeated actor. We have to shine. Or perhaps, we have to remember why we still love doing this. Easier said than done, but I'll try.

And Sally, yes hi, you, since you're probably the only person reading this blog, I'm extending my sincere gratitude to you - Michael said you said a lot of nice things about me. You didn't have to do that but you did it, and I'm very very thankful. I'll see you soon.

X Marks the Spot

I thought I can be freer but there were too much self-explanations in my improv. Stop. You don't have to explain too much, just embrace the circumstances and talk about it. I guess I didn't fully get into it because I'm too comfortable with the script, but the danger of that is I'll stop playing. Never stop playing. Perhaps, under my subconsciousness, I still want to be right. I need to get that away. I'm still afraid to do the wrong thing. I guess I'm still afraid because I don't want people to say "I thought you understand your character but you're showing him all wrong." I don't want that, and that's probably why I restrict myself a lot more than I should. Gotta be freer.

My computer's driving me nuts. I need a new one. Thank God for external drive and Google Drive. I saved my thesis and my one-man-show script there. 

I'm meeting Michael tomorrow. I don't want to think too much about it. I never like it. I don't like it when I disappoint myself. But this seems like a good start. I should have fun and have confidence. Hey, treat everything as a surprise but do them well, we'll see what happens. Otherwise, what are you going to do?

I still love doing this. Although it's a mystery and sometimes a self-contradicting thing I still love it. I can't explain it to people. I love it when I do it and see people's reaction. Yeah man, I'm telling a story. I'm using my whole self to tell a story. Isn't that super cool? Isn't that amazing? I know, I think so too. 

Keep loving it.

Nine

I'm currently in a rehearsal room trying uneventfully for the last 90 minutes to be productive. I'm doing a one-man show (partially forced) and I don't really have a director. I wrote the piece and I will perform it without any other "crews" or people to help me out during the actual performance process. And let me tell you, I'm trying my best to give a damn but at some point, you burn out. I do try to re-gear myself into the materials front time to time, but then you can only do so much. By yourself.

And is it bad to say that I don't care about it as much as I thought I would? I don't know anymore, I'm just trying to get by. Now see that right there can be opposite of what I just say, but I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Moving on.

My mistake of doing the improv was that I really let EVERYTHING go, which is a no-no. A certain structure is still needed for this kind of free form. I'll remember that. But man can I say that it's difficult to put that boys scene together because somehow I need to reshape the amount of people involved in the original scene? I felt a bit schizophrenic, but I won't complain. What I was glad about is that there seemed to be truths in the moment, which is always desired. I have a clear objective I was going for without me consciously realizing actually, but the form brings out the truth. Or it forces you to do it, rather. It was good. Got to make these things feel natural and comfortable. Got to get used to this form.

I do ask myself during my own rehearsal process whether I'm bringing the truth. I think that's always a good reminder.

Namaste on ACH. Going to meet them soon. Thank you Sally.

8

Blog. Yikes. Nearly forgot about them. Alright I'll try to be good and concise. 

Felt good during Monday's shoot. A weird thing was I felt odd and not in the mood when I was outside reading with my partner (but Alexis is always an amazing and supportive partner, the problem was on me.) Strangely enough I cooled down when I walked into the room. Again maybe the extra gulps of coffee helped, but maybe it was because I was finally getting used to the camera. In fact I started to consciously ignore them. Still didn't explain what happened beforehand though, but it's good.

One colleague congratulated me after class and thought I improved. I said I was trying to stop "trying". Or stop trying to act I guess. It really would help sometimes if I decided to drop everything and just, simply, talk. Again it doesn't work all the time but when it does, it always felt present and truthful. Wonder why is that?

Had a wild thought a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I should send a resume to Ang-Lee? Hi, I'm an actor. I'm from Taiwan. I speak Taiwanese and Mandarin. I love your work. Well in fact I didn't see too much of your work but I'm very proud of what you did. You are very cool. Can you hire me?

Ha ha.

Moving on.

Seven Years of...

I'm in Starbucks, feeling productive, and jotting this down (figuratively) while I'm working on that gosh darn thesis paper. No I'm kidding, it's actually making me feeling quite good. At least I have something unique I can talk about for 20 pages. 

Okay. So. That Kevin Spacey article. Goodness. I will try not to cut and paste here.

Not that the majority of the population read or listen to NPR, but isn't it great when KS said that Richard III sort of prepped him for this show? Pay attention to theater work next time, kids. Great acting and great process starts from here. Stop eating films up like it's the greatest thing in the world. Remember there are always editing.

We'll be blessed (maybe not at the moment but likely later) when we can have a director who doesn't mind to do 100 takes. Yes man, beat the acting outta ya. Stop acting. Just react. It'd be wonderful to have a chance to do that. I think.

I love it when KS says about "excess accessories" that actors bring. It calms me because I always feel weird when other actors have a special gesture or attitude or whatever and they call it part of character. I'm not de-valuing those actors because those things can be wonderful, but I always feel odd because I don't have that, usually. I'm just thinking about using my whole self and being as truthful as I can (AGAIN, this is not saying that I know everything - I know next to nothing and the way to know SOMETHING is to get work, because it's from there that you learn). What KS says calms me.

About that David Fincher fella, I love it when he reminds me about the first moment when he talks about the first scene from The Social Network. It's what we valued on the stage and when we're doing scenes too, isn't it? We have to establish the relationship. Keep asking yourself, "What's the relationship? What's the conflict?" That gets you somewhere.

Alright. Back to work. See you fellas.

6: Catching Up

Got to do some catch-ups in this post. Thanks for the reminder.

To be brutally, painfully, and dangerously honest, I'm no longer the biggest fans of acting books. In my opinions, there are too many of them lying around. Although most of them are valid and the authors do try to contribute what they have find to be so crucial and golden that they want to share with their readers, I believe every actor has their own "kicks" or triggers. Eventually (in a perfect world), each actor develops his own process and hold on to the same list of questions or reminders that can spring them to live onstage or in front of camera. I find it a bit difficult to read more acting books because of all these teachings and previous information that I have yet to process thoroughly, but I'll try my best and say a few things in Mr. Cliff Osmond's book that ring to me.

Conflict: my undergrad acting teacher love to say: 99% of the scenes - especially between 2 characters - are boxing matches. You are in the ring alone with your opponent, and you have to fight like hell to win. I later came up with my own version: when I play a character, the common underlying thought across each and every moment of the scene should be: you (or any other people) will be better off if you listen to what I have to say. Cliff also said the important thing about love scenes (I guess it can be either between "lovers" or friends): there's always competition. Always. You always want to be better. You always want to win.

Reality: I embrace the moment when Cliff reminds the readers that acting should be as close to reality as possible (and yes, it's never equals to BORING or MUNDANE). I'd like to think though that if there's any difference between true reality and staged reality, is should be that staged reality is a "heightened" reality: that is, people in this world have more emotional freedom. They're more vulnerable and sensitive to their emotions, and they concentrate their every living second on feeling and living. We sometimes skip through our own daily lives in order to protect ourselves so that we don't ending up in an asylum, but audiences are hungry and bloodthirsty in that sense: usually, if not always, they want to see the actors feel and react and get overwhelmed by emotions. I have to remind myself of that. It's tough, but I'm learning.

On those NPR thingy, I read about the crazy and mesmerizing Daniel Day-Lewis and the underrated william H. Macy, and boy did they have something to contribute. My most memorable moments of reading/listening to Day-Lewis talking about Lincoln was when he talked about how thrilled he was when he discovered Lincoln's sense of humor. To be a smart-ass for a moment, Kurt Vonnegut said at one point that "humor is an almost physiological response to fear." What makes us human is our sense of humor. We use humor as a weapon to deal with our frustrations and fears we encountered in our everyday lives. I believe, therefore, by understand the character's humor, I can get a clearer glimpse of the character's fears and views of life. It can be very valuable. It's huge and hard to grasp, but I think this is the right track.

William H. Macy, on the other hand, said something that was very important and is especially true to us "student actors". I'll be lazy there and post the transcript:

"In our theater company, with Felicity, with my wife, we talk about actors sometimes - some actors, they're good actors, quote-unquote, "good actors." And then you get these other actors who are completely not, quote-unquote, "good," meaning they're not team players. They're just all over the place.
They're hard to get to the set. They're unpredictable. They never do the same thing twice. You don't know what they're going to do. They, a lot of times, turn out to be - give the best performance. They're great. And I fall into the category of the good actor. And I'm trying to do less of that and be outrageous."

Isn't that a great wake-up call? Sometimes we need to, yes, stop acting and stop being careful and start reacting. Feel. Be free. Don't worry if you're off-beat. Don't worry if you lose yourself. That's great. People savor it when you can make the unscripted errors part of the characters. Keep living.

Wow-wee. A lot of words today. Good. Productive. Onwards and upwards.

I Plead the Fifth

Less and less to talk about now. 

Sometimes acting is also about experience. The fact that I've never been a waiter before might have hindered my audition on Wednesday. (Adding on to the fact that I'm still trying to get used to "seeing" and "putting" my lovely off-screen imagined partners and make them stay at the same place.) Although acting teachers would say that each of us has already experienced all there feelings in the world and leave the rest of it to your imagination, it is still helpful at times to be observant and look at the people around you. I admit that I seldom pay attention to the people around me, but it can likely be both productive and fun. I'll try to pay attention to the people sitting next to me in a restaurant.

To be honest, I'm getting really tired recently of all the classes lately. I think I've had my share of learning. Not that I'm done learning or I know all the techniques in the world, but it's that I really need time to dissect all this. Three years of notes and records takes time to consume and to brand them in your head. What's more important, I think the most important thing for me is to figure out how I work. I need to figure out my own acting process. It might need to go through some trials and errors, but I need to make these techniques to become instinctual. I need to find my own way. Now, the days can feel like dragging and at times I feel like I lost all the energy that keeps moving forward.

I'm a little bit in a slump now. I'm fighting with my flaws and laziness and imperfections and over-thinking, and sometimes I need to deal with people who I love but find it hard to connect and/or relate to at times. I know eventually things get better. I know this is the feeling that comes and goes. Sometimes I feel golden and sometimes I feel poop-y. Just have to learn to ride the wave and be who I am. Or at least to remember what I used to be.

Turn out this is rather longer than I expected. Ha. (No pun intended. Oh the irony.)

Go Fourth.

I've been thinking about what to say; I keep deleting paragraphs because I'm not satisfied with it. Life can be hard for a writer. 

-----

A HUGE NOTE TO SELF: read that damn script from top to bottom. Those are the things you absolutely need to know. Ask questions if you're confused, but never ever ask something that can be answered simply by looking at the script.

But it's also good that at least I made the mistake here, because that means I'll remember it and will never do that again in the real world.

Oh and one more thing: do your homework, but do it the right away. A.k.a. ask the right questions. Sometimes we might not know we're heading to the detour and we'll end up getting worked up in the wrong way. Be smart about how you prepare yourself.

-----

Sometimes I'm amazed by how lucky and fortunate to get to where I am today. It might sounds ridiculous to some people, but I won't have a lot of regrets if for whatever reason I can't be an actor anymore. For the past five years I have been through some tremendous moments that I will never forget, and I can even argue that at moments got to be in a place that many actors wouldn't even dare to think about in their wildest dreams. That teaches me to be humble - be humble about the experiences, be humble to the people, and never take anything for granted.

This might not sound like it is related to acting, but I'd like to share it. If I can have a motto, it would be: Be as nice as you possibly can to others. But do it more for yourself, so that at the end of the day you're comfortable with yourself and you can put away many worries. It got me far enough. But don't be nice to people and expect them to return it with a huge favor. Try not to function like that. Treat everything good that comes along to you as a surprise or as a genuine gesture from others, and keep that in mind. This is how I carry myself as a human being and as a professional. 

3rd Entry: Some mumble jumble

You only have one line. Nothing more. Get into the story. Get real. Do anything you possibly can to emerge yourself into that situation. Who are you? Where are you at? What time is it? Who are you talking to? Is this the first time you meet? If it isn't, when / where / what happened the last time? If it is, what do you think about the person talking to you and standing in front of you?

I had to create a whole scenario for that one line, "your re-birthday". Sure, it all happened in 20 minutes from the moment I got the script until the moment I'm going for real in front of the camera. I still have some tensions and I can still delve into the situation more, but what the hell, it worked. Kind of. I did all I can in that 20 minutes. It's all one can ask for. 

Sometimes it seemed like the best question to ask myself is, "Do you care what's happening right now?" or, "Are you saying this like you mean it?" It's simple, but it seems like they work most of the time. Sometimes I also ask "what are you really saying?"

---

I was watching The Expendables 2 the other day just because, and there was a young guy mingling in Stallone's macho, grumpy, all-action ensemble. His name is Billy the Kid. His actual name is Liam Hemsworth. He only had about 20 minutes (max) of screen-time, and there was a moment when his character was talking about being in Iraq and being fed up about losing dear comrades and dealing with abusive commanders. Not that true acting always mattered in a popcorn movie, but hey, he was truthful in his monologue. I felt it. 

Note to self: no matter what I do, even if it's a McDonalds commercial where there's literally no character at all, find one and be one. Do it like I mean it. I might go further than I thought.

2nd Class: That (bleep) camera

I sometimes find myself to be too superficial. I concentrate too much on making it "real", forgetting the fact that every word I say needs to have a certain weight. I need to find that weight, remember it, and I need to stop thinking about it.

The camera can be unforgiving. It picks up the most minute things and call you bluff. I certainly had that feeling the last time I saw myself in class. It wasn't disastrous, though. It's more like carelessness on my behalf. I say "carelessness" because I have not make the monologue my own. Where am I? Who am I talking to? What am I talking about? I need to ask myself the same questions my classmates and I would ask to our students in the classes we teach. And what's more, you never end the discovery part.

With that being said, it was truly a humbling experience. It made me understood what it takes to be truthful. It is also very helpful to see where our individual tensions hold on your face and neck and the rest of the body that is in the line of sight. Maybe Alexander technique would be a great tool to solve those problems. There's also this thing called "breathing".

Conclusion: always be better than you were yesterday. Or at least try to be that.

Onwards and upwards.

Jan. 14th: 1st Day.

Oh good Jesus. It's 7 PM already. Gotta get up. Gotta write that blog entry. Up yours, jet lag. 

When you have a 14-hour time difference you need to adjust in a few days, life can be quite blurry. 

This is the day which I like to call "the beginning of the end". We are just merely months away from getting our diploma. Of course, there's also the thesis and other things you have to go through, but it's something, isn't it? Getting a degree. And a degree like this is called a "terminal degree", which means this is the farthest you can do academic wise in your own field. Whew. I sometimes want to throw my hands up and say, "Well, gee, don't look at me, man, I just got here. I don't know nothin' about this." But of course you can't behave like this in front of your undergrad class. Get yourself together, Jason.

Despite everything else, I think I love acting. I think I like doing this more than any other stuff. It doesn't necessarily means that I'm always working hard when I'm on it - I have my flaws - but it seems like there's nothing else I'd rather do. Sometimes that's enough, isn't it? To have something you really love to do and being able to do it. And I'm doing it now. What a huge blessing it is.

I like our first day. It was very warm and friendly and humane. I like to listen to people's interesting facts, I love the instructor being very approachable and friendly and honest, and I like the energy in the room. It made me felt secure. It filled me with positive thoughts. I still have to look at that NPR thing in a minute, but it's a very good start, I think. I'll put my (metaphorical) pen down for now, but before I go, here's something that I'd like to share. Listen to him speak the thing he loves.

http://youtu.be/YaVwKN8DdkI?t=1h18m1s