Not a good performance by me today. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't do it. I hate that.
An Acting Life
Archive for the ‘Acting’ Category
Shooting The Trailer: Day 9 (I Am An Ass)
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012Shooting The Trailer: Day 5
Monday, March 12th, 2012Wednesday was my day to be an actor. My writing partner played producer and PA today.
Michelle Actor speaking: I gave three transcendent performances in two separate scenes.
Michelle Producer speaking: Good, all you need is one good take of each scene.
I attribute my ability to give great performances partially to relinquishing producer worries for a few hours.
What I Want When I Produce Indie
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
I have no intention of coaching any actors. I don’t even want to be involved in directing. I want to write the screenplay and I want to play Magnolia and i want, in the end, to have a film that can strike the audience to the heart with its truth and loveliness.
William Shatner, Rescue Me
Saturday, August 13th, 2011I just added notes to TV.com about an un-aired episode of RESCUE 911, shot many years ago, and it brought back memories in a flood, memories of how we shot the reenactment of this incident.
I was an actor hired to play Nancy, the neighbor who calls 911. In the audition, they asked me to have a fight with another actor. Thinking I was auditioning for the victim (who is stabbed by her husband), rather than the neighbor, I let the other actor fight with me, but I didn’t fight back: I let myself be intimidated. I got the role of the neighbor, not of the victim. The actor with whom I was auditioning did not get cast. I thanked him for yelling at me convincingly enough for me to be cast.
As Nancy the neighbor, I was not to meet the actor who was to play my own husband till i got to the set. I did, however, listen to audio tapes from the real Nancy and look at photos of her.
The whole cast, other than the paramedics, were actors from San Francisco who traveled to Redding for the shoot. I drove up from Santa Cruz with Paul Henri, a hard-working, busy stage actor. Paul was to play the man who commits the crime. A change from his last role as a philosophical, gentle priest. After the 4-hour drive, Paul & I met the actress who would be playing the victim. I remember her strange face, with one blue eye and one green. In a few years, I was to have a dog who looked like that.
In this Rescue 911 incident, a man had stabbed his wife over 40 times in the face and body while their little daughter watched. It took hours for the makeup artist to do all the blood and stab wounds.
On our first shoot day, the little actress they hired to play the daughter was not a very good actor–she had been a print model, not an actor. Instead of crying, she laughed when she saw her “mom” with all the stab wounds. The director had to work with the little brat to get her to at least pretend to cry.
The actual victim and her daughter came to the set to watch us shoot. She came to the makeup trailer and talked about how long her husband spent in prison. We asked if she would be uncomfortable watching us reenact the crime and she said she was enthusiastic to have the show aired: she wanted to help other women leave abusive relationships and set good examples for their daughters. I got a chance to see her face: several years after the incident, it was a mass of scars & disfigurement. Her daughter wouldn’t talk about the incident at all.
This episode never aired. The producers told us that it was the bloodiest & most violent show they’d ever shot.
On the second shoot day, the actual victim returned to the set. She confessed to us that had gone back to her husband after he was released from prison.
Auditions
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011oh fuck them all just fuck them all it is too insane and too bizarre the power they have over people’s dreams so just fuck them all and double fuck them in the ear by an elephant
Meisner Technique, Part One Zillion
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011
Sandy Meisner was a famous acting coach and not-so-famous actor. Some of his students were Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Jon Voight, Kim Basinger, Sandra Bullock, Syndey Pollack and Philip Seymour Hoffman. There is a famous tale (at least, a tale famous in the acting & film community) of Sandy playing a minor role on stage, crouching upstage painting a wall while two other characters are standing, having dialog downstage. In this tale as it is told, all audience eyes are on Meisner, not on the actors who are talking.
This story raises the question, “When is it okay to ‘steal the scene’?” What if you are a stronger actor–how much do you flatten your work to compensate for the rest of the cast being too fake, phony and generally bad?
A couple years ago I was the Matchseller in Pinter’s play of the same name. For those who don’t know, there is a married couple and this weird Matchseller. The Matchseller does not speak throughout the play. When the couple is arguing downstage, I am left alone in a chair upstage. I arrange my matches in their precisely correct positions, for they are very important to me.
After the opening night, the director told me to quit being so involved in my task, as I was pulling focus from the other 2 actors.
“Hell, I say, if they want focus, let them be better actors, then.”
This, I said to myself, not to the director. But, really, should I be a crummy actor and just sit there in a chair because I have no lines and because other actors can’t act?
Acting
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011Perhaps there are situations on stage where you can’t listen to another character.
At these times you need to have something to do, some reason to be on stage. Sanford Meisner defined this reason as your independent activity. It’s some task a character very much—even desperately–needs to do, without any regard to other characters and their doings. The independent activity gives the actor an inner emotional life in that scene.
Let me use an example. In the Harold Pinter play “The Matchseller” I played the title character. There’s a scene in which I am left sitting in the living room of the two other characters (a married couple) while they are out in the garden arguing. I am a stranger to them; they are strangers to me. We have just met a few minutes ago. What reason would my character have to stay in the living room when my hosts have left the house? Why would he/me not leave the house? Yes, I know the ACTOR’s reason is that the playwright and the director told me to sit in the living room; but that is not enough. The CHARACTER needs to have a reason to stay; otherwise, while the character is sitting silently and the married couple is arguing, the character, the matchseller, becomes merely a piece of furniture.
I suppose I could have eavesdropped on the other two characters talking in the garden…that might have been a good choice. What I chose instead was to organize my matches. My character was a silent man, with a tray full of matches for sale. My inventory, my living, my profession, my calling; all were wrapped up in dozens of boxes of matches. I was in a strange land, not speaking the language, not understanding why I had been seduced into this couple’s home. I was confused, a bit scared, insecure. My only strength could come from doing what I knew: that is, to organize my matches.
Knowing exactly how they needed to sit on the tray in order to be in perfect order for retail display, while I sat in the living room I concentrated on this task of organizing. It gave me peace; it gave me inner strength. It gave my character life.
And, yes, often we get directions to “sit there” or “look pensive” and we have to find the reality on our own. Sometimes if you have a director who gives you no help, you’re forced to work that much harder on your own to get good work. This particular director didn’t give me any direction for this scene, other than to “sit on the chair.” Yet, if I had simply sat there, I would be a bad actor; I would be stepping out of character like a lump; I would be phoning it in. So, I found my reality, my character’s reality.
Whoops, There Goes My Budget
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010I am a purse snatcher in a low budget feature.
How low…I don’t remember if I ever knew the budget because I was an actor in this one, not a producer although since it’s a small town I tried to ask around just out of curiosity to see what the budget was so I would add to my information store by knowing how much money could be raised just possibly by an indie filmmaker if that indie filmmaker happened to be any good at raising money but then again the filmmaker had had an earlier film accepted into Sundance so thus he had more credibility than I would thus making it easier for him to raise money for a second film than it might prove to be for me for my first self-funded feature and even after the film was released I called the producer to ask about the budget but she would not share the information with me.
So let’s just say I am very comfortable saying this that it was under a million dollar budget I am even thinking under a half million maybe just a couple hundred thousand because as a data point I know what the costume designer’s budget was and what the actors were paid so I extrapolated from that: somewhat faulty thinking but nevertheless I say three hundred thousand.
So, I am this purse snatcher and we are shooting a tiny little insert scene where I am getting ready to rush the businesswoman and grab her purse and they didn’t even use the insert scene in the end; he shot so much more footage, so, so much more; but, of course I didn’t know how much he was shooting ‘cause I was only on set that one day and I don’t think I had ever read the entire script ha ha you can see how desperate I am for work but that’s a different story for a different day back to business:
Here I was standing on a bridge contemplating the businesswoman and her handbag and it’s a scene where I have no lines you know just an insert scene where I am contemplating so I am to stand in while they set the cameras since this is a low-budget and they have no stand-ins and besides my character is not big enough nor is my status as an actor big enough to warrant a stand-in should they even be available to bigger actors but of course they’re not at all so I’m standing on the bridge overlooking a city street, the street to which I will eventually escape after I’ve done the purse-snatch, and the director whom I definitely appreciated so very much for taking so much time with my day-player character the previous week to rehearse with me—almost a half a day rehearsal with me and my victim talking about my motivation—so I really loved it I thought he was so sensitive and concerned with every detail and I loved how he looked into my eyes and tried to understand where I fit into the character and how I would play this little role and how he shut the world out for a half day to work with me it was very intimate and empowering and I remembered thinking to myself how nice I would love to work with this director again nay I would jump at a chance to work with this director again in a more substantial role but anyway back to the present:
I am standing on the bridge and the director has four PAs holding back a tree which happens to be framing one side of the shot while I am standing patiently or impatiently or avariciously or jealously and then the director says he needs two more PAs because the tree is strong and it’s hard to pull it entirely out of the way and I vaguely hear the location manager say we better be careful not to ruin this tree we have to shoot another day in this location and after all this is a small town and the director says get me two more PAs I cannot have the tree in this scene and the PAs are tugging the tree and the director is looking in the monitor and everyone is wondering how long when or why when the scriptie says:
“Maybe we can pretend this movie takes place on a planet where there are trees.â€
So the scriptie is fired.
The producer the same one who wouldn’t tell me the budget and now I realize why she wouldn’t did not say anything to the director about y’know getting behind sticking to the schedule making tradeoffs or maybe she did and I didn’t hear it I only know that it didn’t stop that insert from being shot nor the trees from being moved till they were perfect.
And we continue on this artistic path spending an entire day shooting an insert scene that didn’t make it into the cut or it made it into so few fractional seconds that I didn’t see it and you know—you do know—that I was watching so very carefully for every frame of my own performance.
I do believe that film went over budget. But, then, again, how would I know?
Character Sketches
Thursday, October 21st, 2010In our short history as independent screenwriters slash independent producers, my partner and used to write character sketches after the script was finalized. We would make them available, rather than give them, to the director and the actors.
Some directors, the ones I label “Visual Directors” were not a bit interested in the sketches. To them it was all about camera angles, great framing, and good shot variation. Other directors, the “Emotional Directors,” would read the sketches, maybe using them for casting assistance or help working with the actors on set. Some Emotional Directors just read the sketches to give themselves more information; then they chose to formulate their own notions of the characters’ back-stories.
Some actors choose not to read the sketches, too. I was surprised by that. As an actor myself, I always write my own back story when I’m cast; I’ve never been given one by a director or writer. Seems to me I’d be glad to get a character sketch so I knew what was in the director’s head. But, maybe not. Maybe to own the character, the actor needs to create her own back-story.
Looking back at the times we have written these sketches, I think that perhaps we felt compelled to create character sketches because the script itself was not excellent enough to give the actor that information. Looking forward at the feature-length I’m writing, I doubt I’ll write character sketches post-script. My new writing partner likes to answer a series of questions about each character during the writing, but does not share any of this with anyone but her co-writers.
Sawing the Air: Bad Acting
Friday, October 15th, 2010
I did an internship I did with Shakespeare Santa Cruz. We were in class doing the R & J balcony scene with various permutations of players.
I was playing the scene with a man who was sawing the air too much. He put one hand on his hip, struck a pose, and lifted his other hand in the air to gesture.
The whole thing struck me as hysterical–to begin with, he was 20 years my junior; and then he proceeds with this posturing. I started laughing at him and sticking my tongue out at him during his speech. This discombubulated him so much he could not speak the words trippingly and complained to the teacher, the patient & creative Jack Zerbe.
Jack told him, “That’s your Juliet. If she’s laughing at you, then you have to do something different to convince her that she’s in love with you.”
Michelle is..
an actor, performance artist, screenwriter, indie filmmaker. Her books are available at right on the front page of Reel Grok.
SHE wants YOU to cast HER in lead roles where sexy middle-aged women have hot affairs with younger men.
Senryu 38:
Many times I’ve said //
“I love your work.” I was false //
I loved his body //
Michelle can currently be seen performing in … well, is currently writing … a multi-media live / filmed performance with elements of insanity. In my work, my goal is to present fictional narrative entertainment that inspires people to change the world.
click to see a list of movies with cats
Senryu 92:
I wrote a screenplay//
My brilliant, unique story //
Tits and car crashes //
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