How To Research a Part

As homework for my class at Margie Haber Studio, I was just given a 4-page scene from the pilot episode of a TV show set in the world of the FBI. My teacher, then asked the class how we planned to prepare. "Boil a lot of water, drink a lot of tea, and eventually get down to work?" I offered. She was not impressed. Instead, she offered up these ideas for learning what is involved in living the life of an FBI agent:

• Read a book on the FBI
• Read a crime blotter ( http://www.crimeblotter.org/map/ )
• Interrogate someone, about anything. "It's my understanding this market stocks papayas. Yet, I don't see any papayas."
• Investigate something. Try and put the pieces of a mystery together.
• Call your local FBI bureau, tell them you're preparing for a role, and ask if they have any PR people or agents who would be willing to answer your questions.

Now this may seem a little preposterous, but I don't think I've ever done preparation for a role in this way before. I tend to just read the script a lot and build up a world imaginatively. Which, now that I think about it, seems like a pretty good way to create a performance that's not grounded in reality.

Whenever I get despondent about acting as a career choice, I'm usually able to re-motivate myself with the promise that acting is a way to experience all that life has to offer. I can be a policeman one day, a fireman the next, a schoolteacher, a doctor, a recluse, a roustabout - basically I'm paid to explore all of my childhood fantasies and I'm never forced to give up one in order to be another (forgot to mention: Astronaut!). But the fact of the matter is, it's been a hollow promise. I really haven't done much in the way of really exploring those other lives.

So my challenge to myself, and to other actors out there, is to: dare to live the life of the character.

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So what is it like to be an FBI agent?
Some preliminary investigation (one made-for-tv documentary and some web searching) on what's involved in being an agent has turned up:

• To be an FBI agent, you need a 4year degree and at least 3 years professional experience.
• Agents are haunted by unsolved cases for basically their entire lives.
• Agents undergo extensive training that simulates emergencies just in case one ever occurs, sometime you'll simulate something for years before you actually encounter it.
• Agents work incredibly long hours, get little vacation time, and are paid government wages.
• Working for the FBI gives most agents an incredible sense of purpose; your work has meaning. (This is the bit I'm most excited about playing)
• There is an acceptance that there will be another terrorist attack, and there is an accute fear that they won't have done all they can to prevent it.
• Agents often have to be hyper-vigilant in situations where nothing bad ever actually happens nor was going to happen (putting together security plans for big sports matches, etc).
• Working as an FBI agent often involves less action than working as a regional police officer, but it offers the promise of working on some of the largest and most important cases in the States.
• You might get the opportunity to work in beautiful foreign locales.

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Oh, and Creation #23 was a cold-reading from an episode of Law & Order. I haven't acted across from someone else in about a month, so once I got through the fear and anxiety of being rusty, it felt really good to be back in the swing of things.

#21 & #22: Acting and the Edge of Madness

Creation #22: A Rumination
An actor friend of mine often rails against what he calls "safe" actors. A safe actor is one who does a lot of homework, has a pretty clear sense of how the scene should go, and delivers a consistent totally usable performance. When thrown into a scene with little time to prepare, they deliver a very restrained performance. In my mind being a safe actor isn't a horrible thing, Harrison Ford once said that on days where he doesn't feel in it, he does "as little as possible," capitalizing on the Kuleshov Effect.

Then there are the... bold actors? The unpredictable? The risk-takers. The dynamic, charismatic, cornered animals of the acting world. When I think about my favorite film-acting performances, they came from risk-taking actors, often early in their careers. Some Examples:

Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver"

Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood"

Dustin Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy" or "The Graduate"

Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight"

If there's one thing I most enjoy about these performances, it's the sense that in the next moment anything could happen. These are actors existing on, what at least appears to be: the edge of madness. And if you hear anything about their process, you wouldn't be faulted for thinking that at times they've tipped over the edge.

If you look at recent efforts from De Niro and Hoffman, it seems that at some point they lost their edge. Their performances are still charismatic and enjoyable, but they no longer seem wholly unpredictable. Comparing early interviews with more recent ones, they also appear to have mellowed as people. I'd much rather have a beer with De Niro in his 60's than De Niro in his 20's.

The question, at least for myself is: Is is possible to lead a safe, happy, sane, restrained, pleasant life and still turn in a compelling performance that hints at a life on the edge?

Creation #21: A (Micro) Adventure

Okay, while not technically a creation, I feel like it counts as my homework for the day as it explores the question posed above. This was a recent status update "In a possibly ongoing experiment in risking rejection I asked a stranger out to coffee. 30sec of conversation later, I desperately wished the person had refused."

Yes, my version of living dangerously is asking someone on a totally innocuous coffee date. I get a similar jump in heart-rate when I write a strongly worded email that I never send. I suspect that if there is a correlation between an unpredictable life and an unpredictable performance, I've got a lot more growing to do.

Creation #13: Lemon Meringue Pie

Well, that was the goal. It turned into an over-wet half-baked pie crust, sans lemon, and sans meringue. It seems there are some projects in life that can't be rushed and that don't respond well to haphazard instruction-following. I suspect that there is more leeway in how one can operate a nuclear power plant than in how one can bake a lemon meringue pie.

4 tbs of ice water turned into 5 tbs of tap water, which turned into a sloppy pie crust that didn't come together. Matters weren't helped when I put the pie crust in the oven, and returned in 20 min to discover I had turned the oven off instead of on. What should have been a deliciously crispy golden brown crust was a soppy pile of raw dough collected at the bottom of my pie pan.

What I Learned:
-Baking anything worthwhile is an hours long process that doesn't respond well to multitasking.
-Follow instructions exactly, unless you know the mechanics of a process well enough to know what effect your deviations will have on the final result.
-Even a failed pie is better than a pie not attempted, the crust (once baked again) made for a pretty tasty snack.

Creations #6 - #12

In an effort to minimize the number of emails going out to my readers, I've bundled 6 creations into one post.


#6: A Dog House
Well, that was the goal. The end result looks like an insulated dog lean-to.

What worked:
My dog should be insulated from the worst of the elements this winter.

What I learned:
Don't undertake a project without the time and energy necessary to complete it. Being tired can lead to some pretty serious compromises. For film-making and acting: build enough time into the schedule so that you don't feel rushed into completing something.

#7: A Scene & The Outline for a Screenplay
The end of every single one of my romantic relationships has precipitated the creation of a large memorializing piece of artwork. My first girlfriend got a series of hand-drawn portraits. My second a painting. My last major breakup got about 30 monologues from different people of different ages talking about what they understood about relationships. My most recent has turned into, well... right now it's a scene and an outline for a screenplay.

But frankly, these are all incredibly embarrassing pieces. Some artwork is for the public, and some is therapeutic.They are not to be published in any form until 200 years after I kick the bucket.

#8: A Sonnet
Okay, so this turned out horribly. I think it's the first and worst sonnet ever to be written about a person who's received a lung transplant (not my original idea, but that's what forcing rhymes does). I'm finally appreciating just how astounding Shakespeare's body of work truly is.

Until sun sets ever he must contend

his life is worth its weight in borrow'd breath

these donor's lungs he fears they will rescind

So e'er more he gives at guilt's behest

Soup for the sickly and toys for the blind

Books for orphans, a shoulder to cry on

Daily genuflection before Lord divine

Planting a redwood for anon, anon

But when night draws drapes over our bright star

A dread upon him deeply does descend

Extorted goodness is in sooth a sham

And feigning saintdom pulls his bitter end

One life to live, a wicked bargain seems

The weight of two lifts only in his dreams

#9: A Comic
Okay, so I really phoned this one in. I had to create something before I passed out. I'm starting to feel just what a big commitment a daily creation really is.

#10: A Modern Dance
Okay this was really fun and totally hilarious to watch. Unfortunately me prancing around in tights, a wig and mustache is incredibly blackmail-worthy so the webcam video is not going online.


#11: A Monologue
After auditing the most intense, draining, and terrifying acting class of my life I wrote an incredibly nihilistic monologue. Then I wrote a manifesto to actors, the thesis of which was basically: stop thinking what you're doing is art, get a job, and hire a therapist. If what's happening in that class is what it takes to be an actor, I have no interest.

Honestly, I'm still reeling from all that I witnessed that night. But cooler heads have prevailed, no need to post a manifesto and blacklist myself. I take back my thesis, it's a noble profession and all that.


#12: An Abstract Painting
I really appreciate that with an abstract, there's no right and wrong. It can be incredibly relaxing, and more often than not it's the materials rather than some preconception that defines the final result.

Creation #5: Short Subject "A Shed in the Woods"

Daily Creation #5 - A Shed in the Woods from Donovan Keith on Vimeo.

Based on the standard cabin in the woods horror genre, this is an experiment in what I can accomplish in a single afternoon by myself. There's a lot that I would like to fix (Foley for one) but probably won't. The goal is to create a "complete" project in a single day, and learn from my mistakes for the next one.

What Worked:

• Location, location, location - Finding a "filmic" location is half the battle.
• Tho logo on my t-shirt and jacket were too distracting, so I turned them both inside-out and it worked.
• The "dead" shot was surprisingly successful.
• My personality came through in my one line.
• Shooting through objects can create a sense of being watched.
• Some of the cinematography is quite pretty; I'm buying a DSLR when next I have the cash.

What I Learned:

• Stories need a beginning, not just a middle and an end. If I'm going to recognize the "monster" in the end, I should know that I'm looking for him in the beginning.
• POV shots only cut, if there's a closeup of a face first.
• Shots of shoulders to feet with no head are just awkward.
• Things that feel really unnatural look fine on video.
• If an action is only implied, you can make it real with sound. So know what sounds you need to capture to create that reality.
• Long takes of long shots feel long.
• Final shots can be meditative if you've earned them, so give them time to breathe.
• If you're not fully committed, you should just play it deadpan; at least that can be interpreted as shock.

Creation #4 is Exercise #1: Performing Actions with a Physical Disability

Acting Exercise: Perform a simple physical action that is made difficult by a physical disability as if your life depended on it.


Inspiration: There is a scene in "Kill Bill Vol. II" where Uma Thurman's character is attempting to eat a bowl of rice with chopsticks. A seemingly simple task made nearly impossible by her battered hands and state of total physical exhaustion. Why doesn't she just eat the rice with her hands? To do so would disappoint her kung fu teacher Pai Mei; the consequence of which would feel worse than death. The scene is about 5 minutes long, Thurman's character never says a word, and it is absolutely gripping.

Instructions:

1. Pick a physical action to perform.
2. Pick your physical disability.
3. "Script" a high-stakes situation where this would need to occur.
4. Set a timer for 5min. - The timer is there to keep you out of your head, you no longer have to direct the scene, you can just live it.
5. Take some time to really build up the scenario, make sure you have the important relationships.
6. Begin performing your physical action, don't stop until the action is complete or the timer has gone off.

An Example:

1. The action: Make the bed perfectly
2. The disability: Shot in my dominant shoulder
3. The situation: It's 10pm. I just murdered my wife's lover and stuffed his body under the bed. My wife, who works the night shift, just called to say she forgot her work keys and that she'll be back in 5min to pick them up. She's a nurse, she's anal-retentive about having a neatly made bed. I need to be in a perfectly made bed reading a book, with my right shoulder under the blankets, before she gets home so that she won't think anything is up.

Okay, if the above example seems a bit contrived, it's because I came up with it while getting ready for bed. Nonetheless it was a plausible enough situation that by the time I finished, my heart was pumping a mile a minute and I had a very tidy looking bed.

Creation #1: An Ambitious Project

Today's creation is my "new" blog ActingDaily.com and its inaugural post.

Does anyone else care to join in on the challenge? Create something, anything, every day for a year.