Awesome Double Feature At the New Beverly: Once & Waitress

I'm out of town this weekend, so I won't be able to see "Once" and "Waitress" at the New Beverly Cinema. My friend Prince absolutely raved about "Once" and I still have yet to see it, but I expect great things. But if you're in town, I highly recommend seeing a film at the New Beverly. Tickets run $7 for a double feature, and most of the candy and snacks are under $2. Oh, and "Reservoir Dogs" is this Saturday's midnight movie.

may 30, 31, 1

• Once (2006)
  • Fri: 7:30; Sat/Sun: 3:35 & 7:30

• Waitress (2007)
  • Fri: 9:15; Sat/Sun: 5:20 & 9:15

• may 30
  • Reservoir Dogs (1992)
    • Midnight - all seats $7

• may 31
  • Zardoz (1974)
    • Midnight - all seats $7

Kung Fu Panda Screening & After Party

My friends Phil "Captain 3D" and Deepa invited me to see an animators' screening of "Kung Fu Panda" earlier this evening. Both Phil & Deepa are employees at Dreamworks Animation – the folks that brought you Shrek. Phil is the "global director of stereoscopic digital photography" or some other equally long title for "the guy that makes 3D animated films fly out of the screen at your face." Deepa works in the texture department and is currently making computer generated buildings look like they're made out of real concrete, steel, and glass. Most of Phil & Deepa's friends work within the animation industry, and were already invited to the screening, so they brought me along as their plus one.

The screening was held at Grauman's Chinese theater – the space was done up in deep reds with gold accents, a significant improvement over the slightly dingy digs I first experienced when I saw "Judge Dredd" in the theater 13 years ago. "Kung Fu Panda" is Dreamworks' latest foray into the world of animated animals, and the martial arts theme made it seem right at home in Grauman's. I have to say that "Panda" is probably my favorite of the Dreamworks Animation films. The action sequences kept me engaged the whole time, and the jokes were funny without resorting to a panacea of pop culture references.

After the film ended, the thousands of animators that filled the theater took to the streets – inciting one taxi driver to let out a genuine NYC-style honk at the pedestrians crossing illegally. We all poured into the Roosevelt Hotel and made a B-line to the bar to make the most of our Dreamworks-sponsored bottomless cups. On the way to the bar, Phil went over to talk to a gentleman who was introduced as Jeffrey while I ate a complimentary cupcake. As Phil and I waited in line for the buffet, I asked him who Jeffrey was – turns out he was Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Dreamworks animation.

While Phil was away on his colleague-chit-chat adventures I spent most of the evening hanging out with Deepa. I started talking about my plans to take a trip around the world with Gabriel to make a feature film and Deepa asked if I was going to visit India. "If you do, you should stay with my family. My mother is very friendly!" So it seems I might actually know someone in India outside of the wonderful guy who helped me troubleshoot my DSL connection a few months back.

News Flash: American Sign Language is the new Spanish! This is to say, if you are going to speak a second language in California, it seems that ASL is the one to know. Deepa is deaf and normally has to read lips and use contextual cues to figure out what it is everyone is talking about. However tonight one person in almost every group we met spoke ASL to a greater or lesser degree. A lighting director's wife taught ASL to underprivileged kids, one of Deepa's supervisors took ASL classes to better communicate with Deepa, another woman's father lost his hearing in Vietnam, and still another was learning ASL to speak with her neighbor's daughter. It's an absolutely gorgeous language - I was surprised by how much and how little I understood by "reading hands" and using context clues.

Later in the evening, Phil was talking with another person that seemed to be a friend. I introduced myself as Donovan and asked "I'm sorry. And you were?" to which the man replied "Conrad". "Good to meet you." Conrad it seems is the director of Dreamworks' next film "Monsters vs. Aliens". Oh, and he directed "Shrek II" one of the highest grossing films of all time.

Having met both the head of a major film studio and the director of Shrek II without knowing who they were in the moment, I started to wonder… Is it better to not know so that I can have a genuine experience, or is it better to know so that I don't ask questions like "So what's your role with the production?" "I'm the director. Without me you wouldn't be eating the free food tonight you dip shit!"*?

*This is an entirely hypothetical dialog that I might have with a director like David O. Russell.

Titanic Fun Ride... Too soon?

Whilst walking through a Celtic festival located kitty-corner to the Orange County Swap Meet and petting zoo I discovered the above singularity. Kids were bounding up the right side only to moments later slide down the left. Parents pay $2 so that their children can giggle and shriek as they fall down the deck of the ship and into the murky depths below.That's right, the sinking of the Titanic has been commoditized into an inflatable bounce-house-style children's slide.

It's long been known that Comedy = Tragedy + Time. In this particular instance, I can't help asking "Too soon?"

Judd Apatow Talks About: Writing, Producing, and Penises at WGA

Writer, director, producer and all-around funny-times wunderkind Judd Apatow spoke to members of the Writer's Guild tonight. The discussion was moderated by writer/actor/producer Jay Kogen. Both Judd and Jay were quite funny and personable. I was surprised that Judd was in his 40s, as his movies Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall revolve around characters in their teens and twenties. He self-identifies as most like the character played by Paul Rudd in The 40yr Old Virgin. The following are my paraphrased remembrances of some of the more insightful parts of the evening:

Writing

• You only know what makes you laugh, so write what makes you laugh. However, if a joke doesn't get a laugh at the table read, it isn't working, so kill it.
  
• Judd felt that Cable Guy was a great film all the way from shooting through post. He couldn't figure out why folks didn't like it – until a couple years ago. He now thinks that the sense of impending danger (will Jim Carrey kill someone?!) squashed a lot of the laughs.
  
• As soon as you finish writing a film start on the next one. Don't wait for them to produce it. That way you'll have product scripts ready to produce if anything hits.
  
• It takes Judd about 6 weeks of writing to get a 1^st draft, after thinking about a story for about a year.
  
• You don't know if you have good taste, but you have to go with your gut. If you have good taste, people will laugh. If you're crazy everything you make will be horrible, but that's the risk you run.
  
• When Judd was younger he'd wake up at noon, watch an entire season of the Real World, start writing at 11pm and go to bed at 4am. Now that he has a family, he tries to fit his writing into the school day while his kids are away.
  

Producing

• "The TV Set" is a movie that shows you the process of how a pilot gets turned into a crappy TV series. It's scary accurate.
  
• "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" was written just before 9/11, given its subject matter (an Israeli counter-terrorist fighting terrorists in NYC) it couldn't have been produced any sooner than now. That's 8 years of waiting.
  

Career

• Judd started out doing Stand-up comedy. He did this for about 7 years.
  
• He realized that he just wasn't that charismatic and so began writing comedy for others to perform.
  
• After a chance meeting with Ben Stiller, he and Ben came up with a concept for a show, pitched it to Fox, and sold it within two weeks.
  
• Judd then wrote on a number of TV Series including "The Critic".
  
• He helped produce "Freaks & Geeks" and "Undeclared" and discovered he wasn't a huge fan of making TV.
  
• He started writing/producing films and after working at it a few years, he eventually found greater success.

Penises

• Jay Kogen asked Judd Apatow why so many male members made it into his films. While the question might have been facetious, the responses were plentiful enough:
  
• Women's breasts can randomly show up in jokes, why not penises?
• You get an NC-17 for an erect penis in a film, but note that the penis on display in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is only semi-flaccid. This gives a good combination of length and MPAA friendliness.
• There is a fantastic "cockumentary" on the special features of "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story".
  

I Met Danish Rhythm

Earlier this evening I attended my friend and neighbor JP's birthday happy-hour in WeHo (West Hollywood, known to former SF residents as Sad Castro). After pushing through a crush of muscled-out bleached blonde boys I found JP at a table on the balcony. He introduced me around the table and as it came time for meet the conspicuously Canadian looking fellow I had a brain fart and initiated this dialogue:

ME: Do you perform at UCB?
SPENCER: No.
ME: How about I.O. West?
SPENCER: No.
ME: Huh. You seem really familiar.
JP: Maybe you know them from the sketches I showed you.
ME: Oh my goodness, you're Danish Rhythm!!! I love you guys!
SPENCER: Well JP, I see you've done a good job of promoting us.

Such is the way of the internet. You can develop a sort of transcendental celebrity amongst your friends' friends. The following is a primer on the brilliance that is Danish Rhythm's sketch comedy (Warning: While funny, a lot of their jokes aren't what one would call "school appropriate")

The following are some of my favorite videos (if you can't see them, open this post in your browser):

Hotel del Monico - Wherein a hotel guest is given more specific options than smoking or non-smoking. Spencer Crawford is the hotel receptionist.

Fosse Dancer - Wherein there is silly dancing. Also, my fellow Sage Creative Career Co-Op member Cassie stars as one of the home-owners.

Lesson 4: Guilt - Where Spencer stars as the over-zealous acting teacher we've all had and are ashamed to admit we at one point idolized.


For more Danish Rhythm, check out their YouTube Page.

Keeping Track of Who You Know

In this life you can and will get people's business cards. This is a good thing. In fact, you should make a point of asking people that you meet and have a conversation with for their business card. Why? It's that whole networking thing that all the acting career books keep harping about.

But almost more important than getting the business card is storing the information in a secure and easy to access location. I myself use Microsoft Outlook, but you might use your PDA, an address book, a Rolodex, or even just a box full of business cards. Regardless, you should follow a procedure that looks something like the following every time you meet a person and get their contact info:

1. Create an entry for the contact.
   
2. Input their name, phone number, email, fax, website, job description, etc into the appropriate fields.
   
3. Write down some notes about the person:
   
   1. Where and when you met (be as specific as possible).
      
   2. Write down who introduced you if you remember.
      
   3. Include a brief description of the person, what they look like, defining personality traits.
      
   4. Write down any trivia you remember about this person, pets, children, spouse, favorite food, etc.
      
4. Categorize the contact. If you're using outlook you can assign multiple categories. People that I meet through the Groundlings get put in the following categories "Class, Actor, LA, Improv, Fan List".
   
5. Search for and attach photo. Most people have photos online, a quick search for "John Doe" will turn up a copy of his headshot. Paste this into your contact.
   
6. Send the person an email saying that it was nice to meet them at such-and-such and include your contact information at the bottom of the message.
   

Review: The Camera Smart Actor by Richard Brestoff

One of my goals over the next couple months is to acquire the technical skills necessary to book national commercials and legit SAG productions. To that end I've been reading a lot about acting for the camera.

Richard Brestoff is fast becoming one my favorite writer on the topic of acting theory. I really enjoyed his book "The Great Acting Teachers". With "The Camera Smart Actor," Brestoff takes a highly technical and potentially dry subject and makes it compelling, even fun, to learn about.

The book is broken into two parts. The first part analyzes the theory of film acting in a light yet academic manner; Brestoff is a professor at UC Irvine. The latter two thirds is written in screenplay format and follows an actor through his first day on a film set. As this actor stumbles into some difficulties he is assisted by a fount of knowledge who freezes everyone around him 'til he's done 'splainin' ala Professor X in X-Men 2. By writing about camera acting in script form, Brestoff manages to translate dry information into not-entirely-clunky exposition.

The following are points that stick out in memory:

• On Theory:
  
  • The camera can't steal your soul, nor can it tell whether or not you are lying. It will however transmit the minutiae of what it is you show the world.
    
  • The practical application of the Kuleshov Effect comes when you are unsure of how to react in a situation. If you're on a green screen and you don't know what the monster looks like – a blank expression will do all the work for you. If it's a scary monster the audience will think you're frozen in fear, if it's a cuddly creature the audience will think you're staring in wonderment. In other words, when in doubt don't do anything; the audience will fill in the blanks for you.
    
• On The Necessities:
  
  • Eat light and eat healthy – big meals make you sluggish and you're liable to get fat and become a continuity problem if you don't.
    
  • Don't drink coffee, drink juice – you've probably got enough nerves going that the coffee would only speed you up and make you crash.
    
  • Don't nap on set – you'll be groggy and your face will look puffy.
    
• On The People Around You:
  
  • 2^nd AD: This is the person you check in with and is your primary liason to the production. If you need something, go to her/him.
    
  • 1^st AD: This person calls everything but "Action!"
    
  • Camera Operator: In a quiet moment, befriend this person by saying "Hi, I'm BLANK. I was hoping you could tell me if I'm ever popping out of frame or moving too quickly for you to follow." This opens a dialogue and makes both of you look better.
    
• On Behavior:
  
  • Don't be an actor that needs to be liked – be a professional. In other words, trying to entertain people constantly because you're nervous is a bad move – you're likely just annoying everyone.
    
  • Show up on time and prepared.
    
• On Working with the Camera:
  
  • Hit your marks – Practice hitting your marks by walking at full speed and energy, do anything else and you're guaranteed to miss your mark.
    
• On Working with Cast Mates:
  
  • Run Lines – Just try to feel out where the other actor is taking things to see if you need to make any serious adjustments.
    
  • Be There – Always help your cast mates by performing your lines for their close-up.
    
• On Preparation:
  
  • Tell me the story up 'til now – Shooting out of order can throw your acting out of whack. Get in the habit of telling yourself your character's story up until this point in the film. What do they know or don't they know?
    
  • Title your scenes – in order to better track the story, give each scene a short title like "Confronting Richie About Cheating" so you know what it is you have to do in the scene.
    
  • Listen – do your best to respond organically to what the other person is giving you, these subtle variations will make for a better finished product.
    

There are plenty more topics that are discussed in this book. It's definitely worth a read and it's infinitely accessible.

The Truth of My Absence

It's been almost two weeks since my last post. I feel like I've neglected you – but to be perfectly honest I was neglecting myself as well.

After I wrapped on "Manual of a Weed Killer" I was overcome with sloth. I stopped doing freelance work – I used my tax refund and my $600 economic stimulus check on an all expenses paid trip to the confines of my studio apartment. I found myself watching 12+ hours of "Battlestar Galactica" a day. I never left the house unless I had a class or a social engagement. I was in a weird state of pseudo-depression, happy about some things but profoundly dissatisfied with other facets of my life. If I was to try and analyze myself, I'd say that shooting for a week made my rent-paying life feel all too humdrum and I was in no mood to return to it.

This malaise would probably have lasted months if a good friend hadn't told me that she was disappointed in my behavior and worried about me. True friends can make you take the bitter medicine; thank God for that.

I've showered, shaved, and found myself a new accountability buddy ala AA. I'm once again firing on all cylinders. I've completed a freelance project, started on another, and I'm jazzed about living and acting in LA.

While my financial life was on hold, I did manage to accomplish quite a few personal goals:

• I started eating healthy foods.
  
• I lost 6 lbs and 2.5 inches around my waist – my dress pants fit again.
  
• I emptied my wardrobe of clothes that I didn't like – I now feel sharp in every outfit I wear.
  
• I submitted packets to agents.
  
• I wrote and sent my first thank you/follow-up cards.
  
• I read a ton of books on acting.
  
• And so on…

Don't be like me, Save your script, Save a tree.

A few days ago in a flurry of inspiration and procrastination, I did a deep-clean of my apartment. I threw away all the random papers and audition scripts laying around my apartment and I took out my recycling as it was over-flowing as a result.

Well, today we're shooting pickups for Manual of a Weedkiller, and when I went to look for my script I couldn't find it. So here's the deal: Until a film is done being edited, hold onto your script and your notes. You'll never know when the director/producers will want to shoot pickups to account for gaps in the story or takes they don't like.

It's not fun to find yourself in this position due to lack of foresight - trust me.