Today I was reminded of the quirks of humanity.
A person, who shall remain nameless, decided to announce that they were doing test shots, taking the ol' camera out of the mothballs so to speak, and if anyone wanted to get a free shoot in, to let them know. And of course the person gets requests, within minutes even I put in a request, and was told that they were busy working, but could try next week.
Flash forward the next week, and wouldn't you know, the same person is announcing how yet another photoshoot went so well, and that if anyone is interested, to get in on it while it's still free. I reply within minutes again, and even private message, which the PM got no response, so I clicked on that public announcement brag post and said "hey".
So ....the passive aggressive play of not answering me but answering other people reminded me that perhaps this person was not really interested in photographing me, especially when I recall a prior encounter I had with this person, who had sent me a "friend" request when I didn't even know, but I had seen in the same groups I had posted in, so I figured why not, probably harmless.
Turns out, several months later, we meet on set for a production, and the person paid me no mind, despite the fact that I introduced myself and the person acted like they couldn't place me. I then went on to say, "that's odd, considering you had sent me a friend request and I don't know you except for posting on work sites like I do," and then they just kind of looked like a deer caught in headlight and said some lame line about how they didn't recognize me from my photos. Huh? The pictures look like me, no one else has said I don't look like me, so it was total passive aggressive b.s. I asked for clarification, "really, what do you mean?" And got nothing. Just a shrug. I shrug back, and just shook my head. The person in question is not exactly competing in the hot/attractive department, not by a longshot, but I found it interesting that the person only seemed to want to talk to the skinny 19 year olds with long blond hair walking around. Nice. After that realization, and seeing that the person was blowing me off saying their "phone was dying" and couldn't send me location info but just a time to meet, and in the morning to boot, so I'm supposed to stand around and wait for when they can supposedly go home and connect via email. I send my email addy and stick around for an hour then sign off. Ten minutes later, I log on and see a tentative "are you still on?" and decided not to reply. It was going on midnight and they wanted to meet at 11 am at some place undetermined.
Now, I know that the offer was free and they could do what they please, but the vibe I got, and remembering our prior short icky encounter, is that this person was absolutely not interested in me taking the offer, but was offering it to specific cuties they wanted to get to know better. Then don't waste people's time and give half ass answers, passive aggro ass. I decided I do not need to shove myself down some nobody's throat, and quite frankly, I need to back off when someone doesn't respond with at least some level of enthusiasm. I had remembered too late the lack of warmth and kindness from this person, but I will make a note of it, and will be only too happy to not deal with this person ever again.
At the end of the day, at least I managed to state something very selfish and actor-y of me, that I would be in rehearsals at a certain time, so at least I advertised that I wasn't sitting at the computer staring at my emails into early morning wondering if they were going to contact me. I get enough abuse dealing with employment agencies that claim to have some dream job right up my alley and never answer me, or send some form letter of thanks but no.
Enough of a rant today. I am recovering from viral infection and have been having interrupted sleep. Gonna sleep well tonight, I hope, as I can breathe and not cough so much. Just needed to vent on the stupidity of some folks. G'nite.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Filming ... and it goes on!
This is going to be a bit of a rambler.
After months of fits and starts, and losing two key cast members, the pivotal lead and a co-star, we are finally getting underway to film the scenes between my character, my "daughter" and the lead male. Suffice it to say, it's been a long time coming, and I'm excited and look forward to the last several pages of dialogue and scenes before the final ending which should be the most complex film sequence, the rest is a cutaway shot of what happens with each character in the end, with my character in the final shot with the pivotal lead.
Of course, it hasn't been without its bumps and doubts, but I've hung in there, and continue to do so, despite the politics and maybe the slightly manic over-enthusiasm of those who are eager to look good in front of the papa director. I have had to remind myself that it pays to be professional and nice to all I work with and deal with, because the system is incestuous, and it's not just what you know but who you know.
I want to remembered for being a very good actor, diligent, and professional and kind. And the elements are already there. I don't worry about what others have to do, I just worry about what I have to do, and rehearse when it's needed.
It's lovely to see fellow actors showing such enthusiasm for a project and wanting to do a good job. What has been interesting is how actors do things that they may or may not realize actually undermine the production process and will color fellow actors perspectives while working with them.
I have not given the impression I'm inflexible or uncooperative. I have given much more of my time and resources than I care to admit. The issue is when an actor oversteps their boundaries, in the reason that they are looking to "help", that can cause some issues.
For example, an actor I've worked with, in eagerness to speed up filming for a project, has declared themselves not just a "lead" but THE "lead" on a project that they are actually, at best, co-star in. The lead is the person who appears in almost every scene and has the most dialogue. It's not me and it's not them. Yet this person sent out a "newsletter" describing what they have been up to acting-wise, and I was somehow included on the maillist, although I didn't ask to be put on an update list. Just because you have my email, it doesn't mean to abuse it.
Which is another thing I will get into -- why oh why, when you are given my email in the day to day production chatter between actors, do you think it's suddenly OK to put MY email, without asking me, because I never gave you my email, the director did, again, in the course of being cc'd on production day to day chatter, WHY did you think it's OK to put on your mail list to send me your newsletter? I didn't ask to be given updates on your musings on what project you're working on and how you feel you are learning so much with absolutely zero information on WHAT you are learning exactly? Just a form to praise someone who hired you for the gig? How is that not one-sided?
In any case, I learn my lines, confer with the director, who called me direct and we discussed specifically what scenes to be worked on. The scenes, two small ones to be filmed outside, had to be rescheduled due to inclement weather. We, the director, myself and the enthusiastic actor co-star agreed to it in an email. So I thank the director for calling, I appreciated the update, yes the film is coming along wonderfully, I'm very excited about it, yes, and I'm thinking we're all set, I'm off to have my holiday weekend with the relatives, and see you next week.
Only....I get an email the very next day, in the early Saturday afternoon, from the director, telling me about how they filmed a scene for two characters in the film - wonderful, OK, it's nice to be given an update, but I'm away, so....I think that's nice, no worries. The very next day, I get a double email from the one who is eager to prove to the director that they are eager and put me on their maillist without asking, starting the email with "I know it's a holiday weekend but...." And I think, if you have to start an email with that statement, you should have never sent it. But apparently this person feels eagerness is not to be mistaken for failure to be considerate.
This eager person made a point of saying they would change their holiday plans to work Saturday. As it was already established I would be away with family obligations, in passing I suggested that the sequence of this person's character and another could be filmed on the weekend since the other actor could not work on weekdays and thus doing Saturday, if the other actor, could, would work out for all involved. The director storyboarded it, and from what I heard, the shoot went well, hence the excited email update from the director.
Supposedly, the enthusiastic one was to go on vacation for Sunday. Yet Sunday afternoon I get an email -- from them, starting the email with that infamous line. It could very well be completely innocent, or it could be in their eagerness to be noticed by the director, they wanted to pull a somewhat passive aggressive move and see if I could "at least" Skype to go over the scene. When I wrote back briefly describing the scenes we had previously emailed each other about that was cancelled due to the weather -- if something had changed, please advise, otherwise see you when we film, I heard nothing for three hours. Then an email came about how the pages were understood by them to be different, and a list of the pages were sent.
I checked my notes. That was for scene 3, which was to take place with the pivotal character, and none of us had done a runthrough with the the pivotal character beyond one single read when we were all introduced to each other two weeks ago. At the end of last week, a casual email exchange between myself and the pivotal actor, who had just replaced another actor for the role, still did not have the full script given to him by the director who had promised to get one to him.
Back to the point on scene 3. So apparently we were skipping over the scene that was to be filmed and going straight into the filming of the pivotal actor and us two co-stars, me and enthusiastic newsletter actor.
When the director had contacted me Friday, he made absolutely no mention of the new scenes, and whether the actor would be there. Luckily, most of the pages mentioned had already been filmed, and were actually scenes between just me and eager co-star.
I wrote back to eager beaver and graciously thanked them for the headsup and I will see them on shoot day.
Not going to stress. Luckily I already started going over the lines, so I should be raring to go by then. It doesn't explain what happens to the outdoor scene, but it's small and maybe the director is thinking he can just squish all the scenes together to get as much filmed in one day as possible. However, we've had no time to do the dialogue-heavy ones amongst the three of us on our own. So this'll be a bit challenging, a bit stressful but also oddly exhilarating to me. Let's rock and roll and get it done.
After months of fits and starts, and losing two key cast members, the pivotal lead and a co-star, we are finally getting underway to film the scenes between my character, my "daughter" and the lead male. Suffice it to say, it's been a long time coming, and I'm excited and look forward to the last several pages of dialogue and scenes before the final ending which should be the most complex film sequence, the rest is a cutaway shot of what happens with each character in the end, with my character in the final shot with the pivotal lead.
Of course, it hasn't been without its bumps and doubts, but I've hung in there, and continue to do so, despite the politics and maybe the slightly manic over-enthusiasm of those who are eager to look good in front of the papa director. I have had to remind myself that it pays to be professional and nice to all I work with and deal with, because the system is incestuous, and it's not just what you know but who you know.
I want to remembered for being a very good actor, diligent, and professional and kind. And the elements are already there. I don't worry about what others have to do, I just worry about what I have to do, and rehearse when it's needed.
It's lovely to see fellow actors showing such enthusiasm for a project and wanting to do a good job. What has been interesting is how actors do things that they may or may not realize actually undermine the production process and will color fellow actors perspectives while working with them.
I have not given the impression I'm inflexible or uncooperative. I have given much more of my time and resources than I care to admit. The issue is when an actor oversteps their boundaries, in the reason that they are looking to "help", that can cause some issues.
For example, an actor I've worked with, in eagerness to speed up filming for a project, has declared themselves not just a "lead" but THE "lead" on a project that they are actually, at best, co-star in. The lead is the person who appears in almost every scene and has the most dialogue. It's not me and it's not them. Yet this person sent out a "newsletter" describing what they have been up to acting-wise, and I was somehow included on the maillist, although I didn't ask to be put on an update list. Just because you have my email, it doesn't mean to abuse it.
Which is another thing I will get into -- why oh why, when you are given my email in the day to day production chatter between actors, do you think it's suddenly OK to put MY email, without asking me, because I never gave you my email, the director did, again, in the course of being cc'd on production day to day chatter, WHY did you think it's OK to put on your mail list to send me your newsletter? I didn't ask to be given updates on your musings on what project you're working on and how you feel you are learning so much with absolutely zero information on WHAT you are learning exactly? Just a form to praise someone who hired you for the gig? How is that not one-sided?
In any case, I learn my lines, confer with the director, who called me direct and we discussed specifically what scenes to be worked on. The scenes, two small ones to be filmed outside, had to be rescheduled due to inclement weather. We, the director, myself and the enthusiastic actor co-star agreed to it in an email. So I thank the director for calling, I appreciated the update, yes the film is coming along wonderfully, I'm very excited about it, yes, and I'm thinking we're all set, I'm off to have my holiday weekend with the relatives, and see you next week.
Only....I get an email the very next day, in the early Saturday afternoon, from the director, telling me about how they filmed a scene for two characters in the film - wonderful, OK, it's nice to be given an update, but I'm away, so....I think that's nice, no worries. The very next day, I get a double email from the one who is eager to prove to the director that they are eager and put me on their maillist without asking, starting the email with "I know it's a holiday weekend but...." And I think, if you have to start an email with that statement, you should have never sent it. But apparently this person feels eagerness is not to be mistaken for failure to be considerate.
This eager person made a point of saying they would change their holiday plans to work Saturday. As it was already established I would be away with family obligations, in passing I suggested that the sequence of this person's character and another could be filmed on the weekend since the other actor could not work on weekdays and thus doing Saturday, if the other actor, could, would work out for all involved. The director storyboarded it, and from what I heard, the shoot went well, hence the excited email update from the director.
Supposedly, the enthusiastic one was to go on vacation for Sunday. Yet Sunday afternoon I get an email -- from them, starting the email with that infamous line. It could very well be completely innocent, or it could be in their eagerness to be noticed by the director, they wanted to pull a somewhat passive aggressive move and see if I could "at least" Skype to go over the scene. When I wrote back briefly describing the scenes we had previously emailed each other about that was cancelled due to the weather -- if something had changed, please advise, otherwise see you when we film, I heard nothing for three hours. Then an email came about how the pages were understood by them to be different, and a list of the pages were sent.
I checked my notes. That was for scene 3, which was to take place with the pivotal character, and none of us had done a runthrough with the the pivotal character beyond one single read when we were all introduced to each other two weeks ago. At the end of last week, a casual email exchange between myself and the pivotal actor, who had just replaced another actor for the role, still did not have the full script given to him by the director who had promised to get one to him.
Back to the point on scene 3. So apparently we were skipping over the scene that was to be filmed and going straight into the filming of the pivotal actor and us two co-stars, me and enthusiastic newsletter actor.
When the director had contacted me Friday, he made absolutely no mention of the new scenes, and whether the actor would be there. Luckily, most of the pages mentioned had already been filmed, and were actually scenes between just me and eager co-star.
I wrote back to eager beaver and graciously thanked them for the headsup and I will see them on shoot day.
Not going to stress. Luckily I already started going over the lines, so I should be raring to go by then. It doesn't explain what happens to the outdoor scene, but it's small and maybe the director is thinking he can just squish all the scenes together to get as much filmed in one day as possible. However, we've had no time to do the dialogue-heavy ones amongst the three of us on our own. So this'll be a bit challenging, a bit stressful but also oddly exhilarating to me. Let's rock and roll and get it done.
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