Remember that comment about the Tennessee Lottery commercial I was called back for? Well, I booked it! Not only that, but in a rare turn, they actually cast the guy I was reading with in the callback! We shoot on Aug 2.
Today, I had a callback for a TN Lottery commercial. It went great! I had a great read with a guy named Josh. It was one of those rare occasions when you actually read with someone who has some chops about them and are willing and able to listen and respond with you.
The director gave us several different bits of direction and seemed to be pleased with what we gave in return.
After we were done, Josh and I headed to our cars and asked me if I might be interested in taking part in the Nashville 24 Hour Film Festival. I gave him my info and we went our separate ways.
In short, good times today in Nashville! I hope I get the gig. It seems like it’s going to be a fun time.
Here’s a couple of updates on the goings-on around here:
New logo. Like it? Let us know!
The Workshops: We are in the process of putting together a series of workshops for the summer of 2007. They will be held in the Middle Tennessee area, but no matter where you are in the world, you can give us some suggestions and/or feedback! You can find out more here.
The Podcast: I’m also putting together a format for a monthly (or possibly weekly) podcast that will be hosted here. It will feature the same sort of topics we discuss around here. The first podcast should be ready in the coming weeks. Watch for updates!
Sorry about not posting in a while, but this week has been one of the busiest all summer. After an early drought from work around here, my agent has called me out for something every day this week! Here’s the rundown (so far):
Monday:
I had gotten a call setting up a time to record a radio version of the Bristol Motor Speedway ad that I shot back in April. So, without much notice at all, I found myself in a recording studio laying down my part of a 60 second radio ad that will run concurrently with my TV spot! The producer of the spot was teleconferenced in. Special thanks to Nick Paladino at NPall Studios and Charlie Andrews with the Tombras Group for bringing me back in for this “spinoff” gig!
Oh yeah, I got to see the rough cut of the TV spot. It looks great. I can’t wait to get a copy of it!
Tuesday:
Next up was a callback for Jimmy Kup Casting. This time it was for a spot for St. Thomas Hospital. It’s nice to be called to callbacks without ever having been to the audition!!
Wednesday:
I was off to the agency office for an audition for a spot for the Tennessee Powerball Lottery. This audition was a lot of fun. It was one of those rare opportunities to read off of someone that you actually have a bit of chemistry with.
Thursday:
Later on today, I’ll be going back to see Regina Moore at Moore Casting for an audition for a music video. This will be my first music video audition in Nashville and I’m looking forward to it. Based on the info my agent gave me, this should be a fun day!
Friday:
Who knows? Hopefully I can shoot for five in a row!
So, that’s all for now. I’ll keep you posted about any possible outcomes! Send good vibes!!
Title: Tools and Techniques for Character Interpretation: A Handbook of Psychology for Actors, Writers, and Directors
Author: Robert Blumenfeld
ISBN: 0-87910-326-4
Copyright: 2006
My Advice: Take an acting class instead
There are tons and tons of books on acting techniques and methods, and a lot of these how-to books tend to tout themselves as sure-fire manuals for making you, if not the best possible, a much better actor. To his credit, Robert Blumenfeld does not posit that his book will suddenly make you a star. He offers it as a handbook of useful tools to aid you in building a character. And while fascinating from a purely intellectual standpoint, Tools and Techniques reads too much like a textbook and offers the same sterile, academic look at what is largely an intuitive profession.
In his introduction, Blumenfeld speaks of his decision to pursue a PhD. in psychology, and I have a feeling that this book is his dissertation. It sure reads like one. The book is chock full of the scientific terminology of psychology and psychoanalysis. Blumenfeld devotes his entire first to Freud and his invention of psychoanalysis; the reader is given a brief but fairly in-depth history of Freud’s life and the evolution of his method of analysis. It’s interesting stuff, especially if you only know a little about the man and the practice. However, the information is so academic in tone that I found myself struggling to read it. And the problem isn’t one of understanding, intelligence or focus – it’s just boring. As brief as his recap of Freud’s highlights is, it’s still waaaay too long and dull.
But that isn’t the real problem. Blumenfeld goes on, chapter after chapter, to synopsize the major players in the field of psychiatry and psychology – bio, introduction to the science, and eventual application, as well as a pretty thorough list of terms and examples from well-known (for the most part) plays and films to illustrate the terms and methods at work. But the problem is that all of it, from an actor’s standpoint, is useless. What Blumenfeld’s book essentially seems to purport is that it can teach you the basics of psychoanalysis and all of its schools of thought so that you can in turn psychoanalyze the character you are about to play. To me, this is an alienating and emotionally sterile approach to answering the question “Why?”
The one thing that I keep coming back to as I study different acting methods and how to use them is this: the actor must always DO something. Objectives, motivations, goals – call it what you will, you should be active onstage. That’s where the job gets its name” ACTING. When you’re writing your character analysis (if you still do those after you get out of college), you should put your objectives, your super objectives, etc., into active terms. VERBS. “I want to pull the truth out of him,” “I must shield myself from her attack,” and so on. Give yourself something to DO onstage, both physically and mentally. If you’ve got a goal, you’re actively trying to pursue it, not just standing there and reciting words. Blumenfeld’s psychoanalytical approach makes it all too clinical, and tries to define everything in terms of a “disorder,” or a “complex.” Granted, most characters in plays have a problem, many of them are not well adjusted, and some are downright disturbed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have some debilitating complex or are “suffering from” some disorder. “Have” and “to suffer” are not very active verbs, and that makes them ineffective in most acting techniques. Just knowing your character is crazy doesn’t necessarily help an actor connect emotionally, physically or intellectually to that character. We all know Blanche is crazy, but that doesn’t really help an actor playing her in the scene with Stanley. You still have to know what she wants, how she intends to get it, and what’s in her way, and each of those things are easier to access if they are laid out in simple terms. By putting everything in clinical terms and assuming that something is WRONG with the character, it seems as though the actor puts an even larger distance between him/herself and the character, essentially putting a fourth wall between the two of them so that the actor can observe from a distance instead of actively participating in the rise and fall of the character. By deciding early on to approach it clinically instead of in the present tense every time the show runs, an actor runs the risk of presenting a caricature instead of a real human being, and that’s just not as interesting or as good.
Blumenfeld goes further to describe several complexes that have accompanying physical traits, or tics, and how knowing these conditions and how to replicate the physical tic can help you as an actor. Well, maybe, but once again, it seems to inhibit actual discovery of how a character behaves in favor of imposing, as an omnipotent actor/creator, a set of predefined physical characteristics to portray a specific neurosis. For my own part, the discovery process in rehearsal is usually the most enjoyable part of the entire process. I like finding out the why, and, while a director may give a specific characteristic now and then, it tends to result in a better (and more satisfying) character when the director and I work together to discover it within the process. And while Blumenfeld, at his best, is essentially recommending this book as a reference volume, the clinical distance that the book implies is off-putting and cold, at least from an actor’s point of view.
That isn’t to say that the information in the book is useless of completely without interest. As an overview of psychology and psychoanalysis, it’s a pretty informative and well-laid-out book. You can learn a lot about the subject itself in a brief period of time. As a playwright or a director, it might be useful in the context of reference. Surely a director could use it during script analysis to help understand why characters behave the way they do. Playwrights as well could possibly build a script around a particular complex, neurosis or disorder. However, the book essentially characterizes itself as a handbook to assist in self-analysis, something that any doctor will tell you is a bad idea for those who might possibly be “suffering” from a psychological condition. And while it may help a director or a playwright understand why a character does what s/he does, the director still needs to translate any relevant condition into terms that any actor can understand. The playwright can layer it in there, but s/he still needs to show events happening within the lives of the characters and let the director, the actors and the audience draw their own conclusions about what’s going on.
Generally, it just seems limiting and contradictory to the creative process to predispose a psychological condition as the only answer for why a character behaves as s/he does. As any actor, director, and playwright should know, every character and every play needs an arc, a journey to undertake through the course of the play, and the discovery is what makes it all interesting.