Honeymoon Period

I've heard, the best way to learn how to swim is to be thrown into the deep end. I'm actually a great swimmer, so this idiom doesn't really apply to me in liquid environments, but it does apply to my first day on set.

In the last few weeks, as with any new job, I have found myself learning how to negotiate my needs for each situation while working to bring the writer/director/producers ideas to life. It's requiring me to put a lot of trust in the powers that be, which is good for me. 

As you may be aware, I have a tendency (I use that word lightly) to over analyze things. So the less time I have to think about the situation or ask questions the better. I'm known for wasting all kinds of time talking rather than doing the task that is required of me. 

Cut to: Me in karate class when I was 13, all I did was distract my classmates with ramblings of Digimon and going on Parisian tours. Eventually, it came time to show what we had learned and I was put into the ring. It went something like this: Karate with Wayne.

A similar situation happened when I tried to play the clarinet in junior band. 

When one is only allowed 2 or 3 takes, max, for a scene, one learns very quickly that there is not a lot of room for failure. Lessons need to be learned quickly and without much discussion. This is very different from theatre school where we would all go around, share our feelings about the scene, discoveries we had made and what worried us. Then we would all lie on the ground and breathe deeply for about an hour while an unlucky classmate massaged the tension out of our sweaty backs. 

Ahh, the good ol' days. 

This particular show is shooting an immense amount of footage a day, moments lost worrying about trivial things is money out the window. This lack of time has forced me to start filtering out the most dire and important questions for the director, and figuring the rest out myself. In hindsight, this is a valuable lesson to learn for me not only an actor, but also a person.

Another one of my character flaws is that I, again, have a tendency, to take things personally. Mainly because I open myself up to people, more than I need to, and expect them to respect my "honesty and openness", but unfortunately, society views this as a weakness and people end up using me for their personal gain. As I get older, I am learning how to protect my heart and only expose it when it's truly safe. I think a huge lesson I'm learning here is that although I feel like Lizzie MaGuire in her movie, working on this project, it's still a job in the real world and I can't let peoples' insecurities and judgments affect my work. 

The rose-tinted glasses have been broken; the honeymoon period is over. 

Although the aforementioned may sound jaded, I want to state that I feel very taken care of on this show. The cast and crew are wonderful people, I feel honoured to be surrounded by some extremely talented, albeit not well known (yet), actors who are wonderful resources for me. Through them, and listening to their stories I'm learning how to protect my work and releasing my need for constant approval.

This quote has been motivating me lately:

"When you become confident, your opinions start to matter and your ability to work with people grows exponentially." -Kiefer Sutherland.

In case you missed my last post: I have launched, while trying to avoid pretension, my official website and Facebook page. The idea behind the launch is to streamline all of my social media pages into one access point. If you are interested in following me and my journey, I encourage you to take a gander! 

W.

Divine Intervention - Part One.

I cannot contain my excitement anymore: a month ago, in a matter of hours, my life was turned upside down.

It was a Friday evening and I had received an email from my agent for a new network television show that was filming in Vancouver. She said they needed a self-tape by Monday afternoon, at the latest. I was working a dishwashing shift at the time and I started to recruits someone who may be able to help me get a decent self tape done before the aforementioned deadline.

My good friend, Daniel, came to my rescue by saying he could help me film it Sunday night, after my shift, as he had a friend that was also submitting for the role. When I got home and finally started to read over the scene something electric happened: I knew it was mine. Perhaps it was all the self-help books and audio tapes I had been listening to, or divine intervention, but I had never felt so confident about, one: a project and two: me booking a role.

The next two days, I thought of nothing else, those sides became woven into every fibre of my being. I spoke the lines to myself every waking moment; perfecting how I was going to perform them Sunday night. I confessed to my co-workers how bad I would feel for up and leaving the restaurant to go do this role, in the event that I booked it. I did the whole Robert De Niro mirror routine umpteen times. I treated my cats like the characters opposite me in the scene, their udder disinterest only feeding the energy of the scene.

All this prep was for a self-tape...

*For those of you who may not know what a self-tape is: basically they are a way for actors to submit for roles that they would normally not be able to submit for because they live/are working outside of the casting location. You may be thinking, "Oh that sounds great! And also SUPER convenient.” This is a great way of looking at it, as it is both of those things. The downside to submitting to a project via self-tape is that anyone who had access to the breakdown also submitted to said project; making the competition grow indefinitely, and usually moving ones submission to the bottom of an ever growing pile of tapes.

I showed up at Daniel's around 12:30 am on Monday morning after my shift ended. To my surprise he had a stellar and very professional set up for me, I am used to filming my tapes on my iPhone. Buddy had lights, I background and a high-quality camera. (You are a king, Daniel.) We talked for a bit about what I wanted it to look like and got to work.

My heart had never been in something so much before, I was so concerned about it being the best I could make it. Here I was in a comfortable situation with someone who I trusted and who supported me, if I couldn't bring the good then, there was no way I could ever bring it. The last two days had been building to this moment and now I was in it, after doing about 3 usable takes from each side I chose which ones to use. I have this feeling that if I do too many takes I start to over analyze my performance. The best takes, for me, are usually the first or second, as those are the most instinctual. Daniel edited them there for me, provided me with some much needed advice and encouragement, and we sent them off.

It was done.

I walked home in the middle of a rainstorm with no umbrella, despite Daniel insisting me to take his. It felt good to have the stress washed away from me, so to speak. I talked to myself the whole way back and settled that the only way for me to be truly successful was to relinquish control and concern over what happened with that tape from there on out. It was out of my hands, and into the casting directors. It was up to the universe.

On Tuesday, amid cleaning my apartment, I got a call from my agents’ secretary saying that I had been shortlisted for the role. My whole body started shaking, I was one of potentially 2-20 people from across the country that were being considered. She told me to just keep my phone close as they would keep me posted about progress. I was dying. I thought to myself that even if I didn't get further than this I was still happy. Someone had watched my tape and thought I was good enough to be shortlisted. It was an incredible feeling.

Continued in Part Two...