Tripping on Tripe
I watched Underworld and Underworld: Evolution yesterday. Ohmigosh, what fun. Take 50's creature features, update with current tv plots and special effects, and bang you've got it. I was chuckling over the whole thing at Blockbuster when I went to get the sequel, and the clerk pointed out they have Kate Beckinsale. Okay she is right, there is that added dimension. Kate Beckinsale carries on the tradition of of Diana Rigg in The Avengers and Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns of making leather/vinyl looking better than any standard issue male can bear for extended periods of time. (Okay, among others, Carrie-Anne Moss merits mention.)
So beyond leatherbound thought patterns, it struck me there is a huge space for more send-ups of the genre. Something humorous and a bit of an homage. Like Young Frankenstein to the creature features of old. Maybe I'll need to do some research. I'll probably enjoy it, but right now I'm dreading the dreary thought of watching Buffy, Candyman, etc. Just a thought for now, but it sounds like a fun idea for an indie. I have the basic set up for the story line, though I suppose I'll need a plot too. Watching enough of these modern day B horror movies and series should provide me ideas and time for that. If the idea stays with me. It's kind of old now, but I'll have to watch Poltergeist III again as an early one in the new horror genre. ;)
I'm getting the itch. To be working on something. I've gotten a little writing and housecleaning done, not as much as I wanted, but at least with the housecleaning I've the beginnings of some new habits. The house is an unmitigated disaster. I've decided to stop refiling stuff. You know, cleaning and simply stashing/smushing most of the stuff. Nope, now it's time to make decisions and actually toss, or keep stuff for real. It's a slower process, one I've worked up to gradually, but to my eye there is progress. Not to anyone else's. The quicksand looks the same to the untrained, but it's only about five feet deep now. The bottomless pit of quicksand looks the same on the surface, much like my house in fact. But there are little tiny enclaves beginning to pop up.
So, I'm looking for auditions. Looking at classes -- there's a voice over intensive late in November that caught my eye. Thinking about some more singing lessons too. There is another project I am looking at, which I'll talk about more if it pans out. And looking for auditions. Now that my Summer respite is done, the itch is only increased by the current paucity of auditions. One I signed up for never got back to me, they were desperately looking for someone about forty. I look the age, and should not have let on my real age. The fact they didn't bother to acknowledge speaks volumes. I have little respect for those lacking courtesy, so I likely wouldn't have been happy with them. I'll never know for sure, but things do seem to work out in the end. The other recent audition, they changed their mind as they'd cast the role without needing the audition they'd announced. A lame thing to do, but he got back to me which I appreciated.
So, I'm looking to trod the boards before long. I've had a nice break, and while focusing on other things I feel like things from the conservatory program I started two years ago (already!) are clicking into place. Makes me excited about trying them out. The things which feel the most profound, are the most mundane really. That is, they are things which have been harped on starting with the first introductory acting class I had back in 2000. It is connecting to concepts on an intensely personal and meaningful level. Saying "to be affected", "to be in the world", etc. It all makes sense, and at every turn I find room for a magnitude of improvement. I've had tremendously powerful experiences from doing things terribly, and happily more often, for doing things well.
The first thing to get over was worrying about making fool of myself. Simple right? Yet I still work on it, though I've come so far, even carrying it over into my personal and day job lives. Listening. Honesty. It goes on. Terribly simple concepts, which end up being very deep and deadly hard to do on the boards and off.
I've come to realize that is what I love about art. Once you learn the quadratic equation, "x = (-b ± sqrt(b²-4ac))/2a", there's not much else to do. You can rewrite it, with prettier formatting, or resolved in different ways, as long as it says exactly the same thing. That would be death in art. There is a level of art in mathematics, but the defining difference for me is that difference, or lack thereof. If you said exactly the same thing twice in a performance it would not be alive, you would have killed it, and buried it's meaning. However, if you said the equation differently, it would be dead and it's meaning would be lost.
That brings up another thought. A script I started this Spring, has a scene where I'm thinking of having the Grandfather recite Hamlet's soliloquy to his grandson. It's apropos and should build their relationship in a nice way, and what actor over forty wouldn't enjoy the chance to say those words in an appropriate setting? It is the kind of thing someone with more life experience can connect with more personally. Too contrived? If so, what do you think it would hurt?
And in it's own turn, that brings up another thought. I was thinking of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet this morning. In both cases, you have young protagonists verbalizing their thoughts in very mature ways, yet the very situations they are in are dependent upon the inexperience (or folly if you will) of youth. What mature adults would kill themselves because their parents disapproved? Same with Hamlet, who would consider suicide as a viable option for revenge? Older people do make these kind of choices, but you would focus on how they are acting like kids. Shakespeare manages to combine youthful actions and mature thoughts to great effect. Don't get me wrong. Mature folks make their own folly-ridden choices. Medea. King Lear. Bush. Part of it is Shakespeare's style, but he does manage to paint the lovers and Hamlet as callow, without detracting from them or the story. I can tear it apart all I want, and where it might give me some insight, or illusion of it, his genius still eludes me.
So beyond leatherbound thought patterns, it struck me there is a huge space for more send-ups of the genre. Something humorous and a bit of an homage. Like Young Frankenstein to the creature features of old. Maybe I'll need to do some research. I'll probably enjoy it, but right now I'm dreading the dreary thought of watching Buffy, Candyman, etc. Just a thought for now, but it sounds like a fun idea for an indie. I have the basic set up for the story line, though I suppose I'll need a plot too. Watching enough of these modern day B horror movies and series should provide me ideas and time for that. If the idea stays with me. It's kind of old now, but I'll have to watch Poltergeist III again as an early one in the new horror genre. ;)
I'm getting the itch. To be working on something. I've gotten a little writing and housecleaning done, not as much as I wanted, but at least with the housecleaning I've the beginnings of some new habits. The house is an unmitigated disaster. I've decided to stop refiling stuff. You know, cleaning and simply stashing/smushing most of the stuff. Nope, now it's time to make decisions and actually toss, or keep stuff for real. It's a slower process, one I've worked up to gradually, but to my eye there is progress. Not to anyone else's. The quicksand looks the same to the untrained, but it's only about five feet deep now. The bottomless pit of quicksand looks the same on the surface, much like my house in fact. But there are little tiny enclaves beginning to pop up.
So, I'm looking for auditions. Looking at classes -- there's a voice over intensive late in November that caught my eye. Thinking about some more singing lessons too. There is another project I am looking at, which I'll talk about more if it pans out. And looking for auditions. Now that my Summer respite is done, the itch is only increased by the current paucity of auditions. One I signed up for never got back to me, they were desperately looking for someone about forty. I look the age, and should not have let on my real age. The fact they didn't bother to acknowledge speaks volumes. I have little respect for those lacking courtesy, so I likely wouldn't have been happy with them. I'll never know for sure, but things do seem to work out in the end. The other recent audition, they changed their mind as they'd cast the role without needing the audition they'd announced. A lame thing to do, but he got back to me which I appreciated.
So, I'm looking to trod the boards before long. I've had a nice break, and while focusing on other things I feel like things from the conservatory program I started two years ago (already!) are clicking into place. Makes me excited about trying them out. The things which feel the most profound, are the most mundane really. That is, they are things which have been harped on starting with the first introductory acting class I had back in 2000. It is connecting to concepts on an intensely personal and meaningful level. Saying "to be affected", "to be in the world", etc. It all makes sense, and at every turn I find room for a magnitude of improvement. I've had tremendously powerful experiences from doing things terribly, and happily more often, for doing things well.
The first thing to get over was worrying about making fool of myself. Simple right? Yet I still work on it, though I've come so far, even carrying it over into my personal and day job lives. Listening. Honesty. It goes on. Terribly simple concepts, which end up being very deep and deadly hard to do on the boards and off.
I've come to realize that is what I love about art. Once you learn the quadratic equation, "x = (-b ± sqrt(b²-4ac))/2a", there's not much else to do. You can rewrite it, with prettier formatting, or resolved in different ways, as long as it says exactly the same thing. That would be death in art. There is a level of art in mathematics, but the defining difference for me is that difference, or lack thereof. If you said exactly the same thing twice in a performance it would not be alive, you would have killed it, and buried it's meaning. However, if you said the equation differently, it would be dead and it's meaning would be lost.
That brings up another thought. A script I started this Spring, has a scene where I'm thinking of having the Grandfather recite Hamlet's soliloquy to his grandson. It's apropos and should build their relationship in a nice way, and what actor over forty wouldn't enjoy the chance to say those words in an appropriate setting? It is the kind of thing someone with more life experience can connect with more personally. Too contrived? If so, what do you think it would hurt?
And in it's own turn, that brings up another thought. I was thinking of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet this morning. In both cases, you have young protagonists verbalizing their thoughts in very mature ways, yet the very situations they are in are dependent upon the inexperience (or folly if you will) of youth. What mature adults would kill themselves because their parents disapproved? Same with Hamlet, who would consider suicide as a viable option for revenge? Older people do make these kind of choices, but you would focus on how they are acting like kids. Shakespeare manages to combine youthful actions and mature thoughts to great effect. Don't get me wrong. Mature folks make their own folly-ridden choices. Medea. King Lear. Bush. Part of it is Shakespeare's style, but he does manage to paint the lovers and Hamlet as callow, without detracting from them or the story. I can tear it apart all I want, and where it might give me some insight, or illusion of it, his genius still eludes me.
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