My Saturday morning screentest for Freak Club,
Film Dayton's the forthcoming web
series, seemed to go okay.
What do I know, save for I did nothing that I recall as horrendous. Of
course, I did not have the misfortune of seeing a playback, either.
Most of today I was in Brookville for the tech rehearsal for
Souvenir, which opens this coming Thursday at the
Brookville Community Theatre.
Show Cue Systems has been
working just fine but, since I am a much better sound "designer"
than I am a sound "engineer," there have been some technical
quirks to work out. The bottom line is that I just don't know enough to
make my way around an unfamiliar mixing board and unknown power amp
systems.
I like to think of it in the
terms of me as an architect ("sound designer") and the
engineering functions are like the construction foreman who takes the
blue print and builds the temple ‐‐ despite that the analogy does not
work on several levels, it makes me feel better about certain ignorances
that I really think ought not be such for me.
As the result of my
"architect status"
I could not get the sound directed out of all the house speakers in the
exact manner I wished to, plus we had a horrible sound balance problem in
the booth, between the stage mics (to hear the actors well in the booth)
and the monitor feed for the audio from the laptop. Fortunately, a
most-knowledgeable young man named Trevon, who has both designed and ran
sound at the theatre, was able to drop by and get me better acquainted
with the hardware in BVCT's booth.
The
tease put a little lag on the tweak progress, but I think we'll get it
going along in a good time. I've arranged to get in a tad early tomorrow
to tweak some cue programing, which mostly means volume levels.
I'M NOT USED TO NEEDING SOMEONE ELSE TO LET ME IN EARLY..
AND IN OTHER WONDER-FRIKKIN NEWS!:
Saturday, late evening or so, I do believe the hard drive in my laptop
failed. At some point, while I was attending to other things, the computer
froze, and I could not force a shut down with any commands. I had to do
a hard reboot, and was never able to get a successful reboot in to a
functioning machine after that.
The good news is, though my back ups weren't as up-to-date as they could have
been, I was on a couple days behind and only need to catch-up a few files
in terms of data input, all which is possible for me to do, if a little
inconvenient. But over all, I have access all my files, so I am not in a
panic.
Updates here may be a little slower and sporadic for a while, as I don't
have that mobile freedom at the moment. Yes, but, man could it have been
a lot worse. I've had that experience of a hard drive crashing when I had
not backed it up. I felt like my wife of thirty years had suddenly said
she didn't love me anymore and walked out on me.
"Sheriff Andy Taylor" is truly one of
the great icons of American Culture ‐‐ not just
"pop" culture.
Andy Griffith was a true innovator who ushered in
a new type of sit-com. Really, to call The
Andy Griffith Show a sit-com does not give it
the respect it deserves. What it was was 22 minutes
of casual, small-town Americana story telling, often
amusing, certainly always touching to one extent or
another, and though many forget this, sometimes quite
dramatic with Sheriff Taylor on occasion actually in
harms way. And as a friend pointed out, Taylor was
either the first or one of the very first single
fathers on a TV show ‐‐ I think maybe he was the
first.
The Andy Griffith Show was real; the people
were real; nobody was a stereotype; nobody was
two-dimensional, including Barney Fife; even the
odd-ball mountain men and women were played and
shown with the dignity of real human beings. That
was all Griffith.
Goodbye Andy, you're one of the few who actually made TV more
intelligent.
I have tweaked the sound quite a bit, and even when in before the rehearsal
to do what I hoped would be the final tweaks in
Show Cue Systems, but, alas,
there were still some issues, mostly one overall volume tweak left the
need for some individual tweaks.
I'll attend the opening night this Thursday, for that last final tech
check; the goal is to be out of the picture after that, till the closing
show when I go back to deal with disengaging that which I brought into
the tech booth.
$TICKER $HOCK!!!:
FONT FACE="comic sans ms">
Monday I dropped my
MacBook Pro
off at The MacDepot and the a current estimate is
about $350. That to diagnose, buy a new 500 gig harddrive, and do data transfer. Then there's
been my automobile whoas. Dropped of the rental car yesterday ($800!!) and picked up my car
from the shop (almost $600!!).
Weeks & weeks of paying down my credit card debt: ERADICATED!
Yet, despite this $ticker $hock, my mind's eye looks toward a new car,
well, new to me, and a new MacBook Pro (And I
DO Mean A New MacBook Pro). The new-to-me car is more likely in the nearer future; it's
certainly closer to necessary.
The auditions for Opus,
by Michael Hollinger are coming up tout suite,
(or "Tout de suite," for the purists). This, of course being the 2012/13 season
opener at The Dayton Theatre Guild, where I really
would like to walk the boards again.
I have time before the July 16 & 17 auditions to study up on the play, and shall. I have been
told by several people that there are at least two roles in the play I am right for, and my cursory
read seems to belie that as true.
In related news, I have permission from Mr. Hollinger's representation to use dialogue text from
the script in the podcast.
Meanwhile, I have heard nothing back on any of my recent auditions:
Zoot, Freak Club, for
Film Dayton, or the full-length independent feature
I auditioned for through PC-Goenner.
Tonight is Opening Night for the redux of Souvenir at the
Brookville Community Theatre.
I'll be there in a tech capacity to be sure the sound design programed in
Show Cue Systems is as it should be. The
hope being that there are no tweaks needed and that if so, this is the last of that.
Yep. I am buying a new laptop.
The MacDepot called yesterday with
the bad news: my logic board is toasted. Somewhat good news is that the
harddrive is not toast, so I can get a complete data transfer onto the
new laptop, when it arrives. Though even if not, my Time Capsule backup
was only a couple days behind and I would lose very little data.
Just got pre-approval on the loan through my credit union yesterday
afternoon. I hammer out the terms this afternoon, and will order the
laptop as soon as the loan is deposited. Depending on how I get the better
price I will either order direct from Apple or will do so through MacDepot.
For those who care, here are some highlights of the spec configuration I will
get:
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Souvenir had a great Opening Night at
Brookville last night.
Reneé Franck-Reed
and Charles Larkowski
both were in strong form, as during the last run of the show. The audience was most
responsive and this new run is off to a good start.
No problems with the sound, either. I feel okay with the personal absence that I evoke now
until strike on July 15.
THE BEATLES -VS- THE ROLLING STONES TRIBUTE SHOW, TONIGHT:
There is a 99% probability I'm headin' to
The Canal Street Tavern
tonight to finally hear the lovely, bluesy voice of Miss Lissa of
Miss Lissa & Company,
along with a long list of others covering two of the big Rock-&-Roll acts,
one, of course, being my absolute favorite, and the other one being relatively
high up on my list.
The other bands on the docket are, Gathering Mercury, sport fishing usa,
Soul Rebels, A Shade of Red, Citizens Unrest, The Fair Shakes, Cydona Rise,
and Wild Forrest BlackBerri.
The PR says the bands will do their versions of Beatles & Stones songs
as well as their own originals. The show starts at 9:00 and the cover is
only $5.00.
By the by: Miss Lissa bears a striking resemblance to Ms. Melissa Young, a
most talented actor whom I miss on stage. One follows one's greater passions
I suppose. Well, the theatre stage's loss is the music stage's gain.
I've been officially offered a callback for
The Zoot Theatre Company
opening production, The Hobbit, which I certainly have an interest
in, though it is in direct scheduling conflict with
Opus
at The Guild. This is
information that I revealed at the Zoot general, so the directors,
Zoot founder, Tristan Cupp and co-director, Zoot resident artists
J. Gary Thompson were aware when they offered the callback. But the deal
is that Opus auditions are July 16 & 17, and Director
Greg Smith
rarely waits very long before casting. He's been known to cast the evening
of the second auditions. The callback for The Hobbit is that next
Saturday, July 21. It's almost wholly assured that I would know several
days in advance of the Zoot callback whether I am still available.
The only other schedule conflict I can think of is during the first week
of Hobbit rehearsals when I would have to be doing most of the
content footage shoots for the Opus podcast. That may kill
my contention for the Zoot show; hope not.
Then, of course, I have the callback for
Avenue Q
at The Human Race Theatre Company,
that which is in direct calendar conflict with
Pillow Man,
again at The Guild, both at the end of the season.
That's not to suggest that these are the only theatrical productions I
have a choice or interest in. And I would not presume I am a shoe in for
any of them ‐‐ but, for at least three of them I know there is an interest
in me, I got callbacks for two of them and the director for the third has
mentioned several times that it's desired that I audition; and I think
the director of the fourth show does want me to audition, though that has
not been specifically expressed, so I am making an assumption. There's
been no sense of discouragement, at least.
Though I wouldn't want to suggest I've been at all singled out, I have
also been invited to audition for several other productions, but only in
that general sense of being one of the actors on the distribution list.
Hey, at least I wasn't purposefully left off those lists-- though who
knows? Probably was left off some others.
As for the recent screentest auditions: no word, which at this point
probably just means, "No."
The money to buy the new MacBook Pro model is available, but I have not
yet ordered it. I'll do that tomorrow, as I've said, either directly
through Apple, on-line, or through
The MacDepot, depending on whether
the storefront can beat the price from the maker, that second price which
I already have.
Either way I will be able to get a complete data transfer from the dead
machine (AKA: my new paperweight)
onto the new laptop, when it arrives. I am not sure how straight forward
that is, so I may have them do it at MacDepot, regardless of how I get
the machine.
Meanwhile, my most helpful loan agent at
The Wright-Patt Credit Union, Angel,
advised me to increase my credit card limit to cover the money for the
laptop rather than take out a signature loan for almost twice the interest
rate. I then have the option to later reduce my credit limit on the card
back down ‐‐ which, believe it or not, I am apt to do.
For those who still care, here still are those highlights of the spec
configuration of my pending new laptop:
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's available
MISS LISSA & COMPANY, THE BEATLES, AND THE ROLLING STONES:
Friday night I did drop by
The Canal Street Tavern
for a couple hours during the bar's "The Beatles -vs- The Rolling
Stones" show, mostly to hear Miss Lissa & Company, whom I have
been derelict in supporting for a while. It's been maybe three years or
more since I last heard the band, at Jay's, in downtown Dayton, with some
difference in the line-up.
Miss Lissa & Company rendering a very nice version
of The Beatles' "I Want You," July 6, 2012 at
The Canal Street Tavern.
When I got there,
sport fishing usa
was on stage; next was
Gathering Mercury. Both
were worth hearing but my focus was, and rightfully so, on Miss Lissa and
her crew. All five songs in their set were good, but I'd place a premium
on their slightly slowed version of Lennon's "I Want You"*,
Jaggar & Richard's "Miss You," and the band's original,
"Back to Your Mama," (Melissa Young & Eric Henry).
Somehow I suspected they would also do McCartney's "Helter
Skelter"**, and Melissa (Miss Lissa) told me after the set that it
was one of their first choices. Nice job on that one, too.
* ‐‐ that's right, "Lennon's" not "Lennon &
McCartney's" ‐‐ Paul had nothing to do with writing this song, so
the silly agreement they made when they were too young to know better
may dictate that both names are on the credits, but this is a JOHN
LENNON song.
** ‐‐ that's right, "McCartney's" not "Lennon
& McCartney's" ‐‐ this is a PAUL McCARTNEY song for the
comparable reason stated above for the other one.
KIMBERLY HAMBY
‐‐ Another lovely voice from the CoC Radio is currently in
Little Shop of Horrors
at the Alpine Theatre Project in
Whitefish, Montana. By-the-way, she just happens to be sharing the stage
with one Aaron Vega, once one of Dayton's very own actors who has come
back a few times to both appear and direct at The Race.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's available
Yesterday afternoon I ordered the laptop through
The MacDepot. This route saved me
about $50. Not a fortune, but, hey, fifty bucks is fifty bucks. Best
guess is that the machine will be at least two weeks, and probably four
weeks away from delivery.
One thing I am not overjoyed about is that the battery is built-in ‐‐ a
portable battery is much more desirable. This is a very expensive piece of
machinery and if it becomes a paperweight solely on the death of the
battery, well, Apple would lose a customer in that scenario. I was assured
that when the battery dies I can have it replaced; although it needs be
done by a technician. I'd lie to be able to carry and extra battery and
switch them out when I am, oh say, off in the forest using the machine.
Well, they said "if" the battery dies, but let's be
realistic: the battery will last two years, tops; the machine better have
a longer life than that. Then, again, my laptop that just toasted was only
a little over three-and-a-half years old.
Another drawback, in the short term at least, is that the Retina Display
version does not have a Firewire port, and the Thunderbolt to Firewire
adapter cable is not available yet ‐‐ the Apple says it will be this month.
I have to have Firewire capability or I can capture no movie footage out of
the DV movie cameras; a bit of a problem as that's one of the key reasons
I want this machine: even more improved movie editing.
In the meantime, I will probably be temp installing
Final Cut Express
on a Mac Pro in the Mac Lab on campus
(where I am as I key these words) to edit vide for a while. Even after I
get the new laptop, until I have the Firewire capability I may have to
at least Final Cut 7 in the lab to capture the footage off the cameras,
even if I can edit in FCE on my machine.
Work arounds: it's good when they exist, but still, can always live
without them.
BEST LAID PLANS.....:
Rather convenient of me to say that my recent computer adversity threw
a monkey wrench into my plans for this period; yet, it is indeed true.
I had a mapped out plan to deal with two projects.
For one thing, start working and I hope finish the digital mix of the
"album" Heartwalks, which I conceived of, wrote and
recorded all but one bass-line, in the mid 1980's.
"Seems Like a Crime"
is from Heart Walks, and ironically is the one that does not yet
have a bass line.
Now that I have named the improv movie project, I have new enthusiasm
about pushing toward a final cut. Since I plan to use a lot of music
from heart Walks in the movie, the two jobs go hand-in-hand.
Both are, once again, on hold, and I may not have the new laptop to work
on them until after I am again busy in a rehearsal.
Opus at DTG ‐‐
Study of the script for the auditions next Monday and Tuesday night has
begun. By Monday evening I'll have read the play multiple times, at least
once through concentrating on each of the four men, and other times just
to get more and more familiar withe the script in general.
The Hobbit for
The Zoot Theatre Company ‐‐ I have not heard
back about an appointment time for this callback; so, perhaps the schedule
issue that I gave did kill my contention for this one.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
This is bit of a minor thing, but still...
Greg at The MacDepot is pretty sure
that I will need to re-install some of my software on the new machine
since it will have a different ip address. That will be a pain in the neck.
Not a catastrophe, but still it will get in my way!
I hope to see Elena Monigold on
Saturday, the 21st, in the new play, The Best Intentions, written
and directed by Charlie Goetz. The play is the winner of the first
Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative's "The Best of CPI New
Voices." It runs July 19-21, 7:30 pm curtain, each night, at The
Aronoff Center for the Arts,
Fifth Third Bank Theater.
Opus at DTG
‐‐ Have studied the script and think I have enough of a handle, of an
understanding of the premise and the characters to at least not fall on
my ass tonight and tomorrow night.
The Hobbit for
The Zoot Theatre Company
‐‐ Waiting for a specific confirmation on my appointment, potential
schedule conflicts aside (even if not cast in Opus, I still have to
shoot the tail end of rehearsals for the podcast, that period of which
overlaps with the start of The Hobbit rehearsals).
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
As I wait for the arrival of my new MacBook Pro and the call that it is
ready for pick-up, I have spent some time in the Mac lab
on campus.
Though I will admit that I have also done some document update, which
includes work on the blog, from my pc ‐‐ and Windows 7 ‐‐ at my desk in
the office. So, sometimes a part of my lunchtime has been at my desk,
rather than at a table outside.
Opus at DTG
‐‐ The first night of auditions went reasonably well for me last night. There
was a bit of competition. I don't know that I was brilliant but I probably held
my own. Going back tonight.
The Hobbit for
The Zoot Theatre Company
‐‐ On another note, my appointment for The Hobbit is mid-afternoon on Saturday.
The Zoot knows and understands that if I am cast in Opus, I will drop the
appointment.
It feels good to be back on my home stage again. The creation of my index/flash cards
for line study has begun. The podcast production will need to be done slightly different.
I'll be bringing in someone to shoot much, really most or all the rehearsal footage. I
have a couple people in mind.
Well, I obviously had to contact The Zoot Theatre Company,
co-director of The Hobbit, J. Gary Thompson, to be exact, and let them know
I am no longer available for The Hobbit.
OTHER DTG STUFF:
Producing And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little ‐‐
Pre-production for this has begun. See the audition notice below. Auditions
are only five-and-a-half weeks away.
Designing Sound for Miss Reardon and for A Tuna
Christmas
‐‐ Though "sound design" is, in this circumstance not what I
consider a correct term, I do get to slough through the treasure trove of
pop songs from 1970, and maybe a couple years beforehand, to find pre-show,
intermission and other music for the production. This pleases me. If you
believe that some Lennon & McCartney, perhaps maybe some George Harrison
might make an appearance, I'd say you were making a smart bet. But there is a
Goliath of a smorgasbord of music from this era to choose from from a large
gambit of artists and styles. It's going to be a blast to put these play lists
together!
‐‐ I thought it was going to be the same for Tuna Christmas. It's been
a while since I saw this one. There are sound effects, though I don't think
at a level of complexity as something like Kimberly Akimbo, Sugar
Witch, or Wittenberg. Still, I was hoping to get a free pass with
this one like with Reardon.
House Management
‐‐ Time to fire up the motor on being the
House Management Chairman for The Guild. But like I said before, this will be a
different song than before. I'm not going to take it all on alone. There needs to
be a committee and some participation from a lot of other board members. I'm not going
to be married to the building like I was before. I want to give time to other stuff...
Last night we did the table read and it was already pretty frikkin' good!
Rehearsals start in earnest next Monday. The theory was that we're doing
some table work first, before we get on our feet. I say "was"
because that was what Director
Greg Smith
had said Tuesday evening when he cast the show; however, he seems to have
moved away from that, or he did not specifically think to bring that
game plan back on the discussion mill. I hope we are going to do some
table work ‐‐ this script needs some, I think.
Not that we aren't off to a good start. Like I said, last night's read
was very nice. All of us seem to have pretty solid holds, understandings
of our characters already; so we're starting off at a good place and it
can only lead to some amazing things.
My Carl got to many of his emotional places. There's a spot where I need
to be choked up, and I was able to get there with no effort. I was also
able to get to bat-shit enraged when I needed to, as well; and I mean I
was actually feeling the anger. But, anger's easy. It's the subtle stuff
that is the actor's challenge. And feeling it is one thing, communicating
it to the audience is another. Better to fake an emotion with verisimilitude
that the audience gets than to really feel it internally without the audience
picking up on it.
As for "challenges": we as a unit have some in a few spots that can be best
called choreographed dialogue, too. But, as Greg said last night when we
basically cluster@#$%&d one of those spots, "That's why we call it
'Rehearsal.'"
I switched my night to see Elena Monigold
in the new play, The Best Intentions, written and directed by
Charlie Goetz, to tonight.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
Major congrats to Elena Monigold for her
fine work ‐‐ (as usual) ‐‐ in the new play, The Best Intentions,
which is written and directed by Charlie Goetz for
Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative.
I saw the opening performance last night. Pretty good script and nice overall
performances from the cast.
Besides Elena, who plays Rise, also in the cast are Chessie Vigran (Ruth),
Linda Wylie (Rita), Marcus Jackson (David), and Max Skove (Alter Boy). Kudos to
them all and I was envious of their chance to originate a character on stage
with no legacy of other actors' interpretations. One of my favorite things about
doing a new play, myself.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
Not sure when the machine will be in my hands, but I do know that I will
not likely have direct
Firewire capability
until into September, which seems the earliest I can get my hands on any
sort of Thunderbolt to
Firewire conversion utilities. September is after I need to have the
Opus podcast done. So, I will need to capture the video footage on
Final Cut Pro 7
in the Mac lab on campus, then
transfer those .mov files over onto my laptop for editing. This isn't
ideal, but is an almost reasonable workaround.
Off-book date is Monday, Aug 13, three weeks from today. Doesn't seem a
big problem. I have almost got the flash cards done, though still have
begun my rote work on the lines, if only barely.
Fortunately
Greg Smithis doing several days of table work, staring tonight and running
through Wednesday. Thursday we are on our feet blocking what are best
called "The Interview Scenes." Friday is a TBA, which is good
because I do have a weekend pass for
The Dayton Playhouse's FutureFest 2012
which is this coming weekend and opens Friday evening with A Political
Woman, which I'd like to see if I can. But, if we end up in rehearsal,
so be it.
On podcast business: Since I'm in this show and will be actively involved
in rehearsals, my doing a lot the shooting for the podcast will be a bit
of a problem, so I have contacted Fred Boomer about shooting much of the
footage ‐‐ Fred having been my D.P. for Vignettes in Bellcreek,
and, of course, its outtake Be Or Not.
He and I will meet for lunch later this week to work out a shooting
schedule.
Yesterday afternoon, creating my flashcards to
memorize Carl's lines in Opus
Last night was the first of the table work and it went well. We started out
talking a little bit about our characters, with each of us giving our takes
on our own, then the others chiming in if they had an observation. It was a
productive process.
It's not my business to share about the other actors' characters, but as per
Carl, he's a family man, pretty traditional guy. It's not very likely that
he's ever had an elicit affair on the road while away from his wife. He's
the peacemaker in the group, or more accurately, the one who steps in and
tries to nip the conflicts in the bud when they rise. He's a cancer survivor
who, in the course of the play is doing the five-year follow-ups with his
oncologist. He's probably good for a beer or a cocktail every now and then
but rarely gets inebriated. He hasn't smoked pot since his first child was
born.
I haven't done the backstory yet, but will. Some of it's in the text and tied
to the other men, and I won't bastardize that. But beyond that I have a lot of
room. Like everyone else in the cast and their own characters, I have only
started to get to know Carl.
I've been left pretty much speechless by the horrific events over the weekend
in Colorado. I was planning to write something, may still. In the meantime,
Jason Alexander has written
a short essay, an extended tweet, actually, that is worth the read. It's been
getting around, but in case you've not read it:
263 flashcards; the lines of Carl in Opus,
though many are one or two words, and a couple
cards designate actions cued by another's line
rather than a verbal response.
Had Wednesday off from rehearsal but blocked some scenes last night.
We ran the second half of the show twice in our Tuesday night table
work.
At this point I'm officially starting to work on my lines toward
that August 13 off-book deadline. I'm not very far in yet but
will keep sluggin' along.
This weekend will be much of a bust for memorizing lines as I am
at FutureFest 2012
all weekend. I suppose I might get some line work in, but I'm not
silly enough to have high expectations.
Tonight we are not utilizing the TBA rehearsal slot. Monday we
have former Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra string instrumentalists
coming in to show us how to properly handle our instruments and bows.
I've noted that the cello I'm using is similar in size and shape to my
acoustic bass guitar, so I can do some reasonable physical work on
that at home, without taking the cello and putting it in potential
harm's way
I trying to line up two people to shoot some of the rehearsal footage and
such. I did shoot a little bit of some table work on Tuesday. It was an
act of moving the tripod around the room on occasion and it's not what I'd
call "fabulous footage," but, production has officially begun.
With no Opus rehearsal tonight I will be able to make the
opening of the the FutureFest new play festival and the first play
up: A Political Woman.
So, another weekend of six new plays and hardly any sleep. Fear not,
I am taking a vacation day on Monday. I will need to drop by campus to
get a DV camera for podcast production in the evening ‐‐ with Fred
Boomer operating. And who knows, if I'm lucky, I'll going to
The MacDepot to pick up my new
MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2.6 *(2.7)
GHZ with retina display! Least I spend of the day in the Mac Lab
on campus doing a blog entry about
the weekend. But it won't be in the morning.
Sometime soon, I need to catch a performance of The Merchant of Venice
as produced by Free Shakespeare,
too.
Tonight, retired
Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra
violinists Karen and Robert Young will be at the theatre to
tutor us cast members on the proper way to hold and use our bows and to
handle our instruments both when our characters are playing them and when
we are packing, unpacking and otherwise dealing with them.
As of yet I haven't pulled out my Giannini acoustic bass guitar, which I
already noted is essentially the same size as the cello Carl will use,
to get in a little practice at home on the craft of handling Carl's
cello. really moot until after the session tonight, anyway.
My weekend was a bit occupied.
Had lunch Friday with Fred Boomer (remember: he was my DP for
Be Or Not and its parent
Vignettes in Bellcreek), who is definitely going to some of the
podcast footage, including some tonight and some this Wednesday. Then he'll
be back in a couple weeks to shoot more candid rehearsal footage. I'd
When we are shooting the "interview" segment as well as the
principal performance footage is something I'll discuss tonight with the
cast and crew. Obviously I want this done at a time that is both optimum
for the play and the podcast. What i really want to avoid is putting any
stress or inconvenience that is not absolutely necessary ‐‐ and certainly
never anything that's major in either department. But I also need to
avoid situations that are less conducive to good footage.
The only night during tech week that principal footage can be shot is that
Tuesday, which unfortunately is the only night that our house photographer
can come in to shoot the archival production pictures of the show. The
click of his camera is not very desirable, so I want to find another
solution. That may be to have some moments acted for the camera on Tech
Sunday ‐‐ but Tech Sunday is not an absolute go,
Greg,
our director, is only mostly sure there will be one. So, I'm not sure when
the principal performance footage will be shot. We also have to determine
when we get the group discussion footage, too.
As for the rest of my afternoon before tonight: well, that would be for
line study.
It was another "Good-Time-Was-Had-By-All"
festival and I'll be back with a little more detail a little later.
Difficult to fit in writing about it right now, especially without the
mobility of the laptop to slide in some attention in places and time
unanchored to when I can be at a desktop computer.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
How I was hoping that on this, my day off, I'd get the call that the
machine had arrived, was full of my old harddrive data and was ready for
my pick-up. Well, hey, as I write this, it's only 12:29 and I am
in a spot with no cell service. Perhaps it came while I was down here or
will come later today.
Were I little farther along with my line memorization, I'd be happier. It's
not an urgent situation, but I'd rather be almost close to done with the
bulk of the process and ready to work on true "off-book" status.
You know, the refinement work, like saying done
rather than finished, and things like that.
In the case of this show, there are some spots where all of us cast
members have cue lines into our lines that are non sequiturs; i.e.; we are
not responding to those lines, they simple mark when it's time for our lines. Stick
enough of those in a scene and it's a challenge to get it right when you don't
have the book in your hand. Those are going to take drilling in rehearsal.
We also have to concentrate on making sure our faux playing works. The big
issue is verisimilitude of our bow strokes. For me, it's a question of knowing
the recorded music well enough that I am only bowing when the cello is sounding.
We all need to try to use the proper bowing technique for any given musical moment,
as well. That's not going to be a piece of cake, but we all are determined to achieve
the correct effect.
The session this past Monday on how to correctly hold and use the bow, as well
how to handle and treat the instruments in general, with violinists Karen and
Robert Young (Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra,
retired) went well. I can tell you one thing, stroking with that cello bow?:
My hand got fatigued rather quickly.
This week I did not have the help shooting that I had hoped to. So, though I
do have footage, it's mostly static since I had to set up a tripod, hit record,
then join the action, with the result of static shots.
I'd post a few frame shots from the podcast footage, but I haven't really
had time to grab any; add in the image software problem I mention below. I migrated
some footage last night in the Mac Lab on campus
Wednesday night, and there are probably many good frame shots to steal from
all that material ‐‐ but it was almost midnight when I was done importing the
footage and I needed to get home and to bed.
It does not violate any eligibility requirements, because there are pretty
close to no restrictions. It's about half the maximum length limit (which
is 29 minutes); it's not too old because there is no completion date
requirement; the short "may originate from anywhere in the
world," has no premiere requirement and can have been distributed,
so the movies posting on YouTube doesn't present a problem.
Man with Walking Stick, Madison,
Pleczkachevsky, Another Doctor
Franklin Johnson
Special Thanks to: Fran Pesch
This Rough Magic
By Richard Manley
(fully staged)
Directed by Gayle Smith
Cast in order of appearance
CHARACTER
ACTOR
Father
Richard Croskey
Mother
Carol Narigon
David
John Bukowski
Rachel
Wendi Michael
Caprice
Kelli Locker
Donald
Richard Young
other credits:
Program Director ‐‐ Fran Pesch
Production staff
Scenic Design
Bruce Brown
Light Design
Anita Bachmann
Sound Design
Bob Kovach
Stage Manager
Taylor Frasher
Publicity
Dodie Lockwood
Front of House Coordinator
Denise Eder
Photographer
Art Fabian
Special Thanks:
Russell Florence, Jr.
Meredith Moss
The Human Race Theatre Company
The Dayton Theatre Guild
Heidelberg Distributing Company
Adjudicators:
David Finkle, Robert Koon, Helen Sneed,
Faye Sholiton, Eleanore Speert
Another great theatre experience of new plays featuring strong women
‐‐ Maggie Wylie in A Political Woman (Sarah Caplan) and Mary
Anning in Excavation (Annie Branning); the befuddled Armand
Leclair, bearing a legacy of guilt in Provenance (Saul
Caplan); an under-famous American painter, Jamie Wyeth, obsessed with
capturing the life force of an internationally uber-famous dancer,
Rudolf Nureyev, in the festival winner, Nureyev's Eyes (Tim
Behnken & Darren Brown, respectively); what I would best describe
as a Gomez Addams wannabe and his apparently bipolar, nymphomaniacal
wife, Dakin and Angela Abernathy in Curve* (Geoff Burkman &
Debra Strauss); and, a super-wealthy investment-banker nerd, from
sometime in the near "tomorrow," named David who, can afford,
through life-like robots with artificial intelligence, to bring anyone
he wants from his past back into his life, as well as have himself a
sexy "pleasure"-mate, in This Rough Magic
(John Bukowski).
*Dakin in Curve was the only role I auditioned for. I must say
that when Geoff walked into the auditions I was relatively sure I would
not be on the FutureFest 2012 stage. Not that I don't believe I could have
brought Dakin to life in a very effective manner, I do. My instincts, however,
told me Geoff would likely get the role.
As with any new play festival featuring six new plays, in varying degrees
of progress toward final draft, I was not magically impressed with all of
the shows, though some certainly did impress me and I thought all the
concepts were strong. There were, as always, some very fine performances
from many of the actors, as well.
*No pics from the FF weekend at the moment, either. Two
reasons: first, without my own computer, it's difficult to
get access to image software to properly manipulate the pics
(mostly, change size and sweeten them); second, the pics
I took, all with my phone, didn't turn out all that great.
Still, there MAY be some posted later, perhaps even added
to this entry.
With the exception of a spot that needs fight choreography, the initial
blocking of the show is done. Tonight we start running the show, albeit
with books in hand. "Books in hand" is why that fight
section hasn't been blocked, yet. As Director
Greg Smith
said, "There's no sense trying to do that until you have the books out
of your hands."
Though I'm not prepared to say that I'm "off-book," I have made
it through the whole script on my initial memorization sweep. Now it's all
the dril, drill, drill work. I actually may attempt setting down the book
sometime during this week.
Big bugaboo for me right now is movement; not a new personal criticism and
concern, I know. My focus on this is brought about by two things: 1) as I
migrate DV footage over onto the computer and the Quicktime movie format,
I have the happenstance to have to see me moving ‐‐ and, in my
estimation, badly so. 2) At the rehearsal Friday, Greg gave me a note
to watch my posture. And watching myself move I see this stout jaunt to my
walk that I think looks horrible. It's one of the things ‐‐ my movement
in general ‐‐ that I still believe I need to address the most, and I don't
feel that I've shown improvement in any significant manner.
s i g h !
A post production editing concept is developing that is influencing how
the rest of the shoot may be done. The idea I have argues to me that I
should shoot the interviews 4:3 rather than 16:9. The DV movie will still
be 16:9, but the interviews, as I have done before with footage,
will be framed inside the wide screen as 4:3 screens in screen.
On the subject of the interviews, it's likely that I'll do individual
interviews rather than that group discusion session I had originally
planned. I did write of that here, right? Perhaps not. It still may happen,
but only if it does not seem it will be an interference in a tight
rehearsal schedule where we need to do a lot of work.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
The MacDepot called this morning to
say that my new toy has arrived. Sometime during the day they will migrate
old HD data, from the dead MacBook, to the new flash drive. I'm scheduled
to work at the rent-payer until 5:30 today, and have a 6:30 rehearsal. I
am tempted to take tomorrow off to handle the certain amount of
re-installing and configuring that I need to do.
Of course, I have another month or more before I have a
Thunderbolt Express Dock from
Belkin, so I will still be dependent on
the Mac Lab on campus to migrate DV footage
onto a computer in the QuickTime ".mov" format ‐‐ first onto an iMac
in the lab, then copied to an external HD, then onto my new computer for the
project editing.
Rehearsal has been swimming along. The Monday rehearsal was, for all practical
purposes, cancelled. Director
(Greg Smith),
Assistant Director (Marsha Nowik), and Elliot (Matt Smith) were delayed, out of town,
on day-job business, so there was only a limited amount the rest of us could do ‐‐
I was on book for some others while lines were run. Less than an hour in, we called
it a night.
Last night we ran most of the show, and it was not bad at all, especially for the
first run of scenes, post-blocking. We all still had the books in our hands,
"off-book," after all, isn't until next Monday, but we all did relatively
well at not keeping our eyes buried in the scripts. There were absolutely times
when we all were, to one extent or another, off-book and only holding the scripts
for security. Actually, for me, in many spots, I needed the book more for the
blocking notes and for some of the cue-lines ‐‐ especially those aforementioned non
sequiturs cues ‐‐ than for my lines; I believe that was true for the others as well.
There were also a few times some of us (not me) did all or part of some scenes
without the book in hand, at all.
This is all good. The sooner we can start rehearsing with the instruments in hand,
the better. I am hoping I can be there before the Friday rehearsal.
Needless to say, we are all starting to give far more attention and energy to
character development.
So: Yay!
At the start of my dinner break today, I drilled the scenes on the agenda tonight
and did pretty well; maybe 90% accuracy.
So: Yay, again!
When you read the next entry you'll see I experienced a little bit of a panic about
my ability to edit the podcast or any other movie editing, for that
matter on this new laptop, which I am happy to
say I am writing this post on. But, all is well (most is well) and
Final Cut Express is
up and running on the new machine! Well, it opens, at least....
The footage shot so far is migrated onto the new laptop and ready for a Final Cut
project to be created. One thing I do need is to get
Corel Painter 12
running on the new machine *(see below). I always use it for the podcasts,
and it will be especially important for this one, based on my final cut concept.
The plan is still to bring a comera operator next week for a few days to shoot the
first of the off-book days, with in the podcast to be determined later. And the
cast/crew sound bytes are still scheduled to be shot individually. It's not
completely settled, but I'm relatively sure the principal performance material will
be from footage where we actors are acting for the camera, not simply in dress
rehearsal.
CATEGORY: ONE OR MORE OF THESE...
I've been approached to participate in a planned production before the end of the
year. I do know what the show is and what involvement I've been invited in for, but
I know very little other details, such as whether this is a paying gig and what that
pay would be. However, I am sure it's not an
Equity gig. More details when
they can be made public. Right now, it's a question of sitting down and determining
conflicts.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
Who's surprised that I did, indeed, take a vacation day yesterday to deal with the
new laptop?
To those who are surprised: know me much?
As the screenshot of my facebook post from
yesterday evening, here to the left, illustrates, there was minor drama for me when
I got home from the truncated rehearsal Monday, and it escalated yesterday.
There have, thus far, been three pieces of software that would not run after the
migration from the old MacBook Pro to the new one:
Norton AntiVirus 12,
Corel Painter 12,
and Final Cut Express 4.
With NAV12, I was not able to get it to fully configure, even using the the original
install file I had saved. The price to re-purchase was low enough that I did so and
after an initial software update it is now running properly. CP12 has similar
problems but the full-boat cost is prohibitive. I have opened a service case with
Corel to see what I can do to get it up and running. They may send me a new
installer.
FCE4 is the one that caused the bigger of my little dramas, as is seen in the
screenshot. I did not have to re-install it, but when opening the software, the
dialogue window that asks for the registration key number did pop up.
Earlier this summer I moved and I must admit I am not unpacked from that move, yet.
To find the box with the software's install DVD threatened to be a challenge. Against
some potentially bad odds, I found the box pretty quickly Monday evening. Problem?:
no registration key on the box or the disk. As is usually the case, the reg key is
on the booklet that comes with the disk.
So, for several hours yesterday, I looked through box after box after box in search
of that little booklet. Of course, as it turned out, late afternoon yesterday,
"in a desperate last-ditch move, I opened up what looked like only a space
filler portion of the FCE box, and low and behold, there was the booklet." So,
now FCE4 will open. As I wrote above, I have not actually worked in it yet, so here's
hoping, since I need it to edit DV movies and I also use it to sweeten and mix
sound ‐‐ and I have a couple sound design projects coming up.
The current urgency is to get Corel Painter 12 up and running as that is how I edit,
process, and create still images.
REHEARSAL IS COMING ALONG, BUT WE CAST MEMBERS ARE ALL STILL
NERVOUS!:
We all feel a little under-rehearsed right now. I don't believe it is because we
actually are under-rehearsed as much as there are a few monumental tasks to
achieve that we have not yet accomplished.
There are parts of the play we need to just drill so we can get our lines in the
proper sequence ‐‐ most being those places I've mentioned before where our lines
are all non sequiturs (or close to) from each other's. Plus there's one spot with a
few moments of chaos that we need to have down cold and that can't be blocked until
we are off-book. Director
Greg Smith
plans to have us just run the lines for that until we have them tight, then the
movement of the moment can be choreographed. We need, in all reality, a fight
choreographer, and I'm not sure why that's not happened.
Next week ‐‐ when we are officially off-book ‐‐ we start using the instruments in
rehearsal. There's much to accomplish. We need to handle them correctly, and their
auxiliary paraphernalia; we need to have our bow strokes in synch with the soundings
of our instruments in the production recordings of the string quartet; we have to,
as well, properly bow, which includes holding the bows correctly and executing the
correct type of bowing for each composition our characters are playing.
I plan to work on the handling and the bowing a lot this weekend. As part of the
performance license, Dramatist Play Service
has, through arrangement with
Playwright, Michael Hollinger, provided
a media disk that has videos of a string quartet playing all the production music
that the characters play; We actors can see what is proper. Of course, recordings
of the compositions, four our mock performances, are on the disk, as well. I will be
finally giving the videos and the audio full attention this weekend, so I'm a little
less of a deer caught in the headlights come Monday.
The rest of the podcast shooting is in various states of tenuous. There is
going to be a rehearsal on Sunday, Aug 19, and perhaps the next day (which Greg
ideally wanted to give us off if he could). My hope is that the directed
performances for the camera will be done on the nineteenth. I'll be grabbing actors
and Greg & AD Marsha Nowik, for the five-minute interview segments during next
week.
The good news, as highlighted below, is that I have graphic arts capability now on
my new laptop, so I can get a bit of graphics preproduction done, some of which is
directly related to my visual concept for the production if this DV movie podcast.
Drilling lines in the board room at the theatre.
Drilling lines while doing laundry.
Canon ZR800 3-chip mini-cassette DV camera for the podcast
shoots.
Have an audition this coming Tuesday in Dayton for a local commercial, non-union,
probably a couple hundred bucks.
One of the production days is Friday, August 30, which is a performance date for
Opus, but this commercial shoots in Dayton, and my call for the play won't be
until likely 7:00 (6:30 at the earliest), and I highly doubt I would be wrapped from
the shoot too late to make my call at the theatre.
A couple weeks back I had to turn down an audition for an industrial that was going
to shoot in Louisville, Kentucky, which is a good two-and-a-half to three hours
away. There were at least two Fridays and a couple potential weekend shoots that
made it too chancy. For the Fridays, I would have had to be on the road back to
Dayton by 4:00. That would have been a big risk. Shoots often have delays that
make a 4:00 wrap on an actor a gamble unless he or she has only a few minutes on
screen and the shoot started early. Really it's all a guess, but having an
obligation 150 miles away? It was too risky. The weekends were a case of 4:00 and
2:00 calls for me, at the theatre so, just not tenable to go out of town.
But this new audition: I just can't imagine there would be a problem. Even if it
wrapped at 6:30 I'd probably be good ‐‐ and I'm not thinking the director won't call
it a day long before that. Besides, my agency
thinks the shots are only a few hours long for each day. And I might not even be
called on set on that Friday.
PREPRODUCTION IS UNDERWAY, SOME:
Thus far, all I've really done as producer is push to get the casting call out and
then field a few inquiries from interested actors. Most of the crew has been
recruited without my help, though there may be a few spots that need filled.
As for sound design: this is, like The Story of My Life was, not a major
challenge for a sound creator; no flying cats or such. I've previously written
that the big thing as sound designer for this one is the proper choice of music,
and that I am quite pleased with the era. The show takes place in 1970, so I have a
window of about two-to-three years of great music from my youth.
The only caveat is that the music needs to reflect the mood, mode, culture and
characters of the show, so it's all going to be probably a bit more of what was, in
those days called the "MOR" genre, i.e.: "middle of the road."
So a lot of artists and/or particular music I'd like to use cannot be justified as
fitting. I can easily justify some work by the likes of The Beatles, Simon and
Garfunkel, Carly Simon, James Taylor, maybe even Nilsson, and certainly singers
like Dionne Warwick. But my focus is going to have to be on Sinatra, Dean Martin,
Robert Goulette, that crowd. No Rolling Stones; no Led Zeppelin; no Steppenwolf; no
Sugarloaf. Though if I can find a way to make any such fit, I will.
2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
768GB Flash Storage
Apple USB SuperDrive
Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Apple Thunderbolt cable *just added
Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter ‐‐ when it's
available
Wednesday after taking a closer look at the case acknowledgement email from Corel,
about my problem getting Painter 12 to work on the new machine, I saw a link to their
"Knowledge Base" ‐‐ you know, one of those labyrinths of problems and
solutions than can often suck up hours of your time? I am most happy to report that
in this case it was a relatively swift and fairly painless experience that has me
now with a working Corel Painter 12 on my laptop.
*See the icon for And Miss Readon Drinks
a Little above; that, created with the newly functional CP12.
The funny thing is that earlier Wednesday I had one of those
DOH! moments. I realized that I still have
Corel Painter IX on my old
Power Mac G4, so, if push
came to shove, I could do graphics work at home. Of course, setting up that machine
in the new home is another on the mammoth list of things I have not done to move
into the new place. But, still, there was a solution. Fortunately, it's back-burner
solution, at present.
This past Saturday, then in the morning yesterday were a work days at the theatre,
to get it into some sort of reasonable appearance for, first, the annual Guild
smorgasbord, which was yesterday afternoon. The smorgasbord includes the annual
Murphy Awards the theatre's actors' and technicians' awards for the previous season
which are given out after dinner. The work day was also for at least the first round
in getting the theatre in shape to open the 2012/13 season. Since there is still
some building improvement work going on, there will have to be at least one more
round, or two, of cleaning for the opening.
At the Murphies part of the event yesterday I admit I did not record who won
what, which I usually do, and though I think I do remember most, I don't
remember all and probably am wrong about some that I believe I remember. So I'll
post the list when I have access to an official one.
MEANWHILE, CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE I HAVEN'T YET NAMED HERE!
I will say, right now, I am happier
this year about the sound design award.
I spent other time in the theatre over the weekend, too, alone, engaged in
activities described other places below....
REHEARSAL IS STILL COMING ALONG, AND WE CAST MEMBERS ARE LITTLE LESS
NERVOUS! ‐‐ a Little less:
Friday was a good rehearsal, one that I felt good about and believe the others did,
too. We all again tried, at varying degrees, to work as much as possible without the
books in hand. I was one who kept mine out of my hand, and I am quite happy about
that. I will say, in defense of some folk who didn't, they have a lot more lines
than I. In terms of getting to off-book, I have the easiest task of anyone in this
play.
Though we were not at all required to, we also incorporated the instruments onto the
set. We all are aware that we have a lot of work to do to handle those particular
props with verisimilitude, both when faux playing and when simply being
musicians who have spent years with their instruments.
The result of our pushing ourselves ahead a little was a rehearsal that was, in my
mind, absolutely successful. Sure it was a bit of a stumble through both in terms
of lines and many spots of awkward work with the instruments, yet it illuminated to
us all great reasons to be happy and hopeful with where we are at.
My only complaint is that we did not run the whole show as had been originally
planned. Director
Greg Smith
did stop and rework many moments in what we did, which naturally stretched out the
evening. I was very willing to make it a later night and get through the whole
show ‐‐ and I know at least some of the others thought as I.
So tonight we start where we left off, only now officially off-book.
After the workday at The Guild on Saturday, I did spend a few hours with the
provided video of the string quartet that performs the production music. The reason
for the video is, of course, so the actors can see how the musicians move and how
they bow, especially how they bow particular songs, such as Bartok's "String
Quartet, no.2." Then I played the audio files. Just practicing so that I can
create for the audience a Carl who has been playing cello for decades.
"I'm not a cellist; I'll just play one on stage." ‐‐ a
few pics of me last Saturday afternoon, working with the video and
the audio of the recorded production music, the compositions that
Carl and the rest of the musicians play during the course of the
play.
Will procede this week with podcast production. Kind of hoped to have created some
graphics I need for the movie, over this past weekend, but I was too busy with many
other things. Now that I am again computer-mobile and have working graphics software,
this seems like a lunchtime activity.
Right now, and until about 5:30 on Sunday, September 9, I am wearing Carl's face
for Opus: i.e., garnished with a goatee. The audition I have tomorrow is for
a TV commercial, so the picture submitted, and for any subsequent auditions for
professional work for the next few weeks, need to be me with the goatee. I had no
headshots with such, except for some I took a while back that mostly don't look like
the present-day me, and with a different styled goatee. So, I told
the agency on Friday that I would take and
get current pics to them by this morning.
I took a couple dozen last night, nine of which are useful. I sent three to the
agency last night after processing them for color correction, etc ‐‐ no actual
altering of my appearance, by-the-way.
Three of nine "temp" headshots I took myself last evening
at The Guild.
Okay, well, on that subject, that of sweetening the photos: it's only trying to
improve the quality of the image and not to change who I look like. An actor's
headshot has got to look like the actor or casting people, directors and producers
will be rather upset when the actor shows up looking different than the picture;
this would be for an audition, if you are showing up on set, they've already seen
your screentest as well as maybe at least one in-person audition. But camera casting
almost always has looking for type involved in the casting. Often the casting
people are looking for a very specific physical presence. If they see that in your
headshot, that is a primary reason you are getting called for the audition. If the
actor who walks in does not have that same presence, because it was
"photoshopped into the picture," well, that actor has wasted a trip and
the auditors' time.
Down to brass tacks. I do alter my appearance just slightly, but it is not this
sort of dishonesty that I describe above, it is an alteration I will carry onto
the set, and usually, by the way, onto the stage. On camera, especially, I have a
tendency to have dark bags under my eyes, and I have some blemishes on my nose and
it tints a little red, too. I use foundation makeup to remove those things. Last
night, when I was taking the headshots, I forgot to take the makeup step and it
wasn't until I loaded those picture onto my computer that I realized I needed to
take a new set.
I also needed to experiment a bit with the light sourcing, which was actually good
practice for this movie auteur ambition I seem to cling to. I ended up using the
standard three source concept. I used the house lights for the overhead, which are
pretty soft. Off to the far back with a pov shooting in from the right of the frame
I had a light with a blue gel on it. The third source was shooting on dead center
front, again back a several yards. I also had the back stage lights on, a fourth
source, but this was mostly to provide back lighting behind the curtains, which are
part of the set for Opus. Yes, I was on the Opus set. It was a great
environment for the pictures. For someone who knows almost nothing about lighting,
I faked a pretty good set up for the pictures, reasonable, at least.
Granted, these aren't the most professional actor's photos in the world, but they're
a few levels above crap.
Would I shave the goatee before Opus closes, you ask? If I had to, I would.
But, I would rather not. It just says, "Carl," to me. The facial hair is
my concept not Greg Smith's, but he is on board with it, obviously. I'd hate to for
Carl to take the stage without the goatee, but if a professional gig dictated it, I
would have to acquiesce, clearly.
Part of my weekend, after I did my cello work at The Guild Saturday, was to see
a very nice Free Shakespeare
production of The Merchant of Venice, performed last weekend at
Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark
in Dayton. It was directed by Chris Shea and touted some very fine work. Kudos to
the cast: Riley Able (Antonio), Bob Allen (Shylock), Charis Weible (Portia;
also the production's stage manager), Robert Stimmel (Bassanio), Leah
Strasser (Nerissa), Justin King (Gratiano), Alex Chilton (Lorenzo), Alexandra
Hildenbrandt (Jessica), Ben Miller (Salerio), Michelle Weiser (Solanio), Jason
Antonick (Launcelot/others), Marcus Simmons II (Prince of Morocco/Duke of Venice),
David Zelmon (Prince of Aragon/Tubal), and Bill Styles (Old Gobbo/Balthazar).
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WHO TOOK HOME MEDALS SATURDAY EVENING FROM THE
2011/2012 DAYTON THEATRE AWARDS ‐‐ THE DAYTONYS.
A MAJOR CONGRATULATION TO BRUCE BROWN WHO WAS INDUCTED INTO THE DAYTON THEATRE
HALL OF FAME DURING THE SAME PROCEEDINGS!
Yesterday afternoon into evening was packed with activity....
The festivities began in the early afternoon with my audition for a
DP&L commercial.
Shaunn Baker
shot the screentests, here in Dayton.
Without giving details, I auditioned for a role that I am typed for. The actual
work will be mos, but for
the screentest, so that the producers can see "character," we actors
improvised a short monologue that our character might give.
What I'd been told before I arrived was that i would have lines fed to me. Not a
problem though; the new method kept me on my toes. I'd say what I was pretty much
spontaneous, save that Shaunn had me do it again with a couple tweaks.
I suppose I did okay....
Earlier in the day Peter Condopoulos (PC-Goenner)
called me about a last-minute commercial gig in the afternoon for
Horenstein, Nicholson & Blumenthal. I'd
already planned to take the rest of the day off from work to take care of
Opus-related errands, so, what the hell: booking a paying gig without an
audition? ‐‐ Hell YEAH!
It's not really going to be a fat check, but I did about an hour's work, so in
perspective it'll be good pay. Moreover, I believe the production team was happy
with my work and I made sure to remind them to think of me in the future.
Right after the impromptu commercial gig, I headed down the street, not very far at
all to Price Stores to be measured for
Carl's tux for a couple scenes in the show.
Geez, last time I
was fitted at Price Stores it was
for my senior prom in
19...
We are pushing along in rehearsal, officially off-book this week with various
degrees of success. We are working in props, though mostly do-fers
(Do for now props ‐‐ not the actual production
props), of course, using our instruments. With the sound team on site, we have
started to work in our bowing along with the recordings. It's the early stages so
there's a lot to still master in terms of bowing with a look of authenticity ‐‐ as
in stroking congruently with the music ‐‐ and coordinating starts and stops with
the sound operator. Which is why we're doing it now, before the official tech
rehearsals.
Personally, I have some business after an entrance in a scene that is going to take
some practice to shave down to a good time. I come in and set up all my music stuff:
a portable chair, my folding music stand, adjusting end pin on my cello to the
proper height, getting the sheet music out and ready, and tightening and rosining
my bow. I have a certain window of time to do that which is not terribly long before
we start to rehearse a song, prompted by my (Carl's) line, "Let's just
play." Actually Matt Smith's Elliott has the next line right before we start to
play, but by the time I say, "Let's just play," I have to be sitting and
ready to strike my bow on the cello strings. And it really is not a very long after
I enter that we are to start playing.
One thing I will do is have a couple things already actually done off stage so I can
do a quick fake of them and move on, those being tightening the bow hairs and running
the soap ‐‐ our faux version of rosin ‐‐ across those hairs. The rest of is just
going to be a combination of getting a smooth routine down plus some built-in
dramatic opportunities to delay returning my lines while I soldier on in the setting
up. The moment in the play does allow for that; so long as I don't drag too much, it
will work.
We have yet to do a full run in an evening. There's been so much work being done
with each scene that we've eaten up a lot of time inside the work. To quote Carl,
however: That's not a bad thing; that's a good thing.
To further paraphrase him: It keeps us all in focus, priorities straight.
My hope is, however, that tonight we finish from where we left off, maybe then work
on some spots that need it, then do full runs from tomorrow forward. It all depends
on the caprice of Director
Greg Smith.
After the Price Stores and before rehearsals I spent some time at the theatre
setting up in The Guild boardroom office for the podcast commentaries ‐‐ see the
photos on right. That for catching folk whenever for their five minutes on
camera ‐‐ any time during this week, really.
After we had come to a particular breaking point in rehearsal last night, though,
Greg suggested I shoot the commentaries. I got all the cast, including me, though I
may re-shoot mine tonight as I am wholly unhappy with my ramblings (surprise,
surprise). It's all still set up in the office so I can get Greg and AD Marsha
Nowik tonight, if not also the boob who plays Carl, again.
Fred Boomer should be there tonight to shoot what may be the last of b-roll. I am
forming a very good idea of the brief moments I want to shoot as principal
performance (performed for the camera); I think it can be done rather quickly. I
have also arranged to have two cameras for the Sunday rehearsal, which is where I
want to shoot the moments for camera. I'll have Fred shoot actual rehearsal, too.
And if we are rehearsing Monday, rather then having it off, if Fred can't be there,
I'll at least set a camera on a tripod to shoot more potential principal performance
footage from rehearsal.
Meanwhile, I am creating what amounts to a sort of animation for the background of
the podcast and will generate some footage of that, starting this afternoon. The
idea I have seems like it will work and look very good; we'll see how correct I
am.
In planning good blocks of time for serious editing, I've also arranged to take off
at least half days this coming Monday and Tuesday from
the rent-payer, as well as the whole
day on Wednesday I had already scheduled off.
CONTINUING FORMAL TRAINING AS AN ACTOR:
There's another acting class coming up this fall at
The Human Race Theatre Company with
Kay Bosse.
It starts Monday, September 17, and I must admit, I am inclined toward enrolling.
Kay, by-the-way, is appearing in The Race's opening production for the season,
Managing Maxine, in
the roll of Joanne. It closes Sep 23, six days after class starts ‐‐ but Mondays
are dark at The Race, anyway. I have tentative plans to see the show on
Final DressCan Night.
Introducing Carl McIntyre ‐‐ Cellist for the Lazara String Quartet
*photo by Debra Kent
CARL & THE BOYS (AND GIRL) & THEIR STRINGS ‐‐
Karen and Robert Young (retired violinists from the
Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra)
dropped back by this past Wednesday to check up on the verisimilitude of our faux
playing and how we all handle our instruments. They had a few corrective pointers,
but overall were complementary about what they saw.
The biggest challenge, in my mind, for the faux playing is Bartok's "String
Quartet No. 2," which the quartet plays at the top of Scene 2, Grace's audition
piece. I spent a lot of time on that particular music last Saturday *(re the pics
above in the Aug 13 post). I spent about an hour on that one alone.
THEM LINES ‐‐ Thursday we did a line run, which was most
beneficial. I will say, for myself at least, a few times Wednesday I blew lines I
haven't been blowing; they were in scenes when we were playing, so I think I was
unnerved by the expert string musicians in the room, watching us faux play.
To be honest, I would prefer to be a little better "off-book" than I am.
I'd gage my level at about 98%, but I have still had to ask for line at least a few
times each night. As far as I am concerned at this point that is not good enough ‐‐
I'm behind the curve. Last night I drilled the shit out of the lines in
preparation for today and the first tech run, and will do so again after I get to
the theatre early today.
TECH BEFORE TECH WEEK
‐‐ We've been throwing a certain amount of the sound in, which is
essentially mostly the recorded music we are bowing to. Friday was our first
full run of the play, at all, much less with tech. I would have been happier
had I not called for line at all, but at least I did not much. Regardless,
it has been good to tech some this week; I am very okay with the early tech
work.
MEET CARL MCINTYRE ‐‐ Well, I have always said I would alter
my appearance for a role and to some extent have done so in the past. Hell, I'd
shave my head if I could get away with it. The goatee was already a part of Carl's
look; that being my choice. The picture on the left here shows that Carl has a head
of hair that K.L. does not have; that being Director
Greg Smith's
choice. As I believe I wrote here before, a few years back, a piece in my everyday
life?: no, not likely; on stage?: why the hell not?
Carl's full development has not completed, I don't believe. I think he's at a full
three dimensions bit not 100% here. The hair piece is certainly a great help toward
that 100%, but there're still some things to get to. I am not completely satisfied
with his voice, I quite literally mean his speech, his dialect. I want a little bit
of east coast in there and I have been too concentrated on what the words
are to worry about how to say them.
The last name is my invention. Other than a last name, however, backstory did not
get written, either, and now it may not. Oh well.
THE PODCAST HAS BEEN ON AN OBSTACLE COURSE THIS WEEK ‐‐ The
first few obstacles actually came up before this week. First, of course, was me not
having a working computer at the point that I started shooting, so I had no access
to my Final Cut Express.
Then when I did have the new computer, even though the data off my old HD was
completely migrated to the new machine, I still needed the FCE registration key to
get it to work, and I had some problem finding that key. Then there was ‐‐ IS
‐‐ the problem that my new laptop INEXPLICABLY does not have a direct input
for Firewire, so I still cannot
transfer footage from the DV cameras to my hard drive until the adapter is marketing
which seems to be slated for next month.
Enter the latest obstacle. I have to use a Mac Pro in the Mac Lab
on campus and Final Cut 7 to capture the
video into
".mov" files that I then
copy over to my hard drive via an intimidate portable two-gig hard drive. Yesterday
afternoon I'd planned to stop by that Mac lab to capture all the video that's
been shot this week. Problem: Since WSU summer quarter
ended on Friday, the Mac labs are closed until tomorrow. Fortunately I will have
the day off, thus most of the day to capture, but really I wanted to start some
serious editing. Too bad. If there is no rehearsal tomorrow night, and there may not
be, I can at least edit past late afternoon. Otherwise, I will be seriously behind
where I'd hoped to be ‐‐ or, rather, I won't be able to catch up some. Believe me: I
already am behind.
It also looks very much like there will be very little principal performance
footage, certainly not the footage I really wanted to get. That's more than a little
too bad, because it means that this podcast will not be anywhere close to as good
as it could have been. Let's just say I find it highly disappointing.
Elseways I have done as much pre-production editing as I can, including all the
graphics, music and closing credits as is possible to be done right now. I also
have the opening splash created.
SOME PR WORK ‐‐
Larry Coressel, whose one
hat is as weekday morning announcer at WDPR Radio,
contacted us about interviewing someone connected to the show for the episode of
Arts Focus that will air this coming
Thursday. Greg forwarded the request to me, so looks like I'm recording the
interview tomorrow morning.
Now I'm off to The Guild to do some cello work and line work;
and later today ‐‐ TECH SUNDAY
READING OF A NEW PLAY:
Natasha Randall invited me to be a part of the dramatic reading
of the play St. Augustine Was a Swinger, by her friend Bob Garvin.
The reading will be Sunday evening, August 26, at the Guild, a few hours
after I've wrapped the Opus performance.
According to Tosha, Bob "took his one act Choices and has developed
it into a full length play." I believe I attended a reading of Choices
several years ago.
We open tonight. This has been a difficult production to get to this point. The
technical aspect took some by surprise: that they would prove to be as menacing to
conquer as they have been. Rehearsals have been glitchy, glitchy, glitchy. It's been
so many things, at different times (graciously). One time ‐‐
Okay, "Many" times ‐‐ it's been
dropped lines from actors. Then there's the complexity of stagehand work to strike
and get props to where they need to be; that either means, where on stage, or where
back stage so the actor can grab the prop for his or her next scene. We actors are
bringing on or striking what we can, ourselves, but often it's impossible. For me in
at least one scene I leave before the scene wraps and it's not logical for Carl to
leave with the props in question (namely his cello and his satchel) in hand. Other
times, the mere fact that I do strike the cello with me, makes it difficult to
strike much else.
The coordination of the recorded chamber music our characters play as we actors faux
play on stage is a bit of a challenge; it's the starting and stopping at the right
instant, so we are neither bowing to no music or not bowing when there is music.
It's a concerted collaboration between us and our sound tech, Chris Stipp. That has
been well dealt with, though.
There are also a couple places where the light cues are sticky and tricky. last
night was almost perfect ‐‐ though lights did come up once on me before I was in
place. Our AD mistook the silhouette of our SM as me, so called the cue too early.
The really good news is that Alan, Carl, Dorian, Elliot, and Grace are all fully
present on the stage. We are rockin' our characters, if I do say so, myself.
And in a note related to both the last paragraph and the next part, as I finished
the podcast editing, I watched more footage of me on stage and it's definitely
much better for me to have the ideal of what I'm doing on stage in my mind than any
video evidence of the actuality. Once again I watched my lumbering around on stage
with a wince on my face as I witnessed that "actor" pretty much
faltering around; never mind my spastic, kinetic mannerisms;
such finesse; I felt like shouting,
"Calm down, Dude!"
Clearly, the podcast is done. It did not meet my vision because the shooting was
somewhat hindered. I could not shoot this exactly as I wanted. The final product
certainly is not bad; but: The Good Is The Enemy Of The Better.
However, I was able to execute the basic, overall concept, and pretty much
successfully. There just wasn't any exceptional, controlled principal performance
footage ‐‐ though some of what principal performance footage I was able to capture
wasn't too bad. On the other hand, some was just simply not usable.
In December, 2003, on the centennial anniversary of The Wright
Brothers' first powered flight, in Kittyhawk, North Carolina, I
e-published a virtual chapbook on the theme of first flights,
titled, as it would be logical,
First Flights.
In that, along with prose and poetry by others, is an essay I wrote
that I republish here in its entirety. It had been originally
written as a submission for The Vincent Brothers Review but
was passed on by the editors.
In honor and memory of the late, great Neil Armstrong, who passed
away over the weekend, I repost it here.
*DO NOTE THAT "LAST YEAR" REFERS TO 2002.
Meeting Two of Ohio's Other First Flyers and Looking at the
Nature of "Greatness"
Last year I twice brushed with true greatness. The moments of these brushes
were brief and ultimately shallow, yet still, they were moments of import to
me. Brushes with greatness ‐‐ real brushes with real greatness
-- don't come often for most people. I've had few. I once met comedian
Roseanne before she was famous. I came reasonably close to meeting Paul
McCartney when I was eighteen. I have a few other stories like these and
they're all the kind about show-biz celebrities that many of us have.
However, my brushes last year weren't with the type of celebrity you'll see
featured on E True Story. They were with the type of people who would
be portrayed in movies by the show-biz celebrities; in fact, both have been.
And in several ways these meetings are directly tied to the legacy of Dayton,
my home town, and the Wright Brothers' first flight.
We've now entered into the second century since Orville and Wilbur Wright
made that historical first powered flight on a field in Kittyhawk, North
Carolina. For us in Dayton, where the brothers conceived, designed, built
and first tested their flyer, the centennial of powered flight bolstered
Dayton's great pride in two of its native sons. In this town, we jealously
hold tight to the conviction that Dayton is the real birthplace of
aviation. Kittyhawk is, for certain, the location of a great historical
event, there can be no successful argument against that. However, Dayton is
where it all was put together. Kittyhawk had the land (and the wind); Dayton
had the plan. The Wright brothers are among those relatively few in history
who have greatly affected the world. At this one-hundredth anniversary of
their flight, we are reminded of how other great historical events and
achievements reach directly back to that brief flight on December 17, 1903.
In October of last year, I personally experienced my thrilling brushes with
greatness, which reach directly back to the Wright brothers' flights, to
their achievement.
I was in the presence of two profoundly significant people. They are two
more men (both Ohio natives) who have left their own deep imprints in
history, pioneer explorers, the real kind, in the company of not only the
Wright brothers, but also the likes of Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand
Magellan, Marco Polo ‐‐ heavy weights in human exploration. That October
day, Wright State University (named, of course, for the Wright brothers)
hosted a meeting of the U.S. Centennial Flight Commission and the First
Flight Centennial Federal Advisory Board. It was the only meeting of these
groups held outside of the D.C. beltway. These two men were among the
participants. They are astronauts, and that in itself puts them in an
exclusive club. Which astronauts they are is far more impressive. One is
John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth (Mercury 2, 1962) ‐‐ and
only the second human ever to do so, and also currently the oldest person to
ever travel into space, as per his trip on Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998.
The other, the first human to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11,
1969). Centuries into the future, these will be two members of humanity who,
as the Wright brothers, will be answers on and subjects for school exams.
And I got to meet them and shake their hands. Small events, but for me, very
big deals.
Of course, the meeting they attended concerned the then coming first flight
centennial celebrations, and was held in Dayton, and at WSU, for the obvious
reasons. Col. Glenn attended as secretary general of Inventing Flight,
Dayton's centennial of flight celebration committee. Dr. Armstrong was a
Speaker of the House appointee to the First Flight advisory board. I met
these men in a large room I frequent. The commission held the meeting in the
group study area of Wright State's Paul Laurence Dunbar Library.
Some of us on campus knew the summer of 2002 the event was coming. For
months it wasn't two astronauts we thought would be there, it was the actor
Kurt Russell, a pilot who was also an appointee to the First Flight advisory
board. So my first ideas were of a brush with a famous actor. Then I got this
notion that his step daughter, Kate Hudson, would for some inexplicable
reason accompany him and I could meet her: (because talented, smart,
young, beautiful, successful Hollywood actresses keep their eyes peeled for
middle-aged, middle-class men). At some point a rumor started to bubble
that John Travolta, who's certified to operate airliners, might be there.
And Kurt Russell morphed into Russell Crowe. I'm sad to report there will be
no picture in People magazine of Kate Hudson in the company of a
mysterious, bald, older man "while visiting Dayton, Ohio."
Likewise, her step dad, who actually might have been there, wasn't able to
attend. John Travolta isn't on the board; and to the best of my knowledge,
Russell Crowe isn't even a pilot, and not being American, probably wasn't
eligible for the board even if he is a pilot.
By the day the meeting was held it was clear Armstrong and Glenn would
be there. I became far more interested in meeting them than Kurt Russell or
the other movie stars ‐‐ even the lovely Ms. Hudson. I used my lunch time
and some personal time to attend as much of the meeting as I could. I
thought the astronauts might speak from the podium at some point, but they
weren't there to present, they were there to listen. Though I was interested
in the meeting, itself, I really sought openings to meet these two men. The
panel had begun to introduce itself as I entered the room. There were people
present from places such as the U.S. departments of Interior and
Transportation, high ranking members from the Air Force and Navy, people
from the National Air and Space Museum, NASA, the National Forestry and
Parks Service, the Rockafeller Center. It was impressive. What impressed
me the most, however, was how the two astronauts introduced
themselves. "John Glenn, Inventing Flight Committee," said one.
Then, a few people down, "Neil Armstrong, member of the advisory
board." It wasn't, "John Glenn, first American in orbit, who went
back into space at the age of seventy-seven." It wasn't, "Neil
Armstrong, mission commander of Apollo 11 and first human being to step foot
on the lunar surface."
Certainly they could both afford to be so humble. It's not like their
historical import was unknown to those present. I'm also confident both men
have a much different perspective on their "greatness" than those
of us who thrust the mantle upon them. Neither man engineered nor built the
vessel he flew on his mission. Neither planned the intricate details from
take-off to splash-down. Neither executed his mission alone, nowhere close
to alone. Perhaps thousands of people participated in each mission. Col.
Glenn and Dr. Armstrong are surely acutely aware of all this.
Human achievement is built upon previous human achievement. The astronauts
were, after all, attending a meeting about the celebration of the Wright
Brothers' flight. A human had to fly a few yards above a sand bar for a few
moments before another could orbit the earth and then another could fly to,
and land on, the moon. Before that first powered flight, the Wright Brothers
designed and built the Wright flyer by building upon previous engineering.
We had to make kites and bicycles and engines before we could make
aeroplanes. So the two astronauts I met, these two profoundly significant
figures in human history, don't stand alone in their accomplishments.
Yet, that's only one side of the coin. The other side is that history has
cast these men in their significant roles. Only John Glenn gets to be the
first American in orbit, the first person in his or her seventies to travel
into space. Only Neil Armstrong gets to be the first human to walk on the
moon, the first to perform a successful docking of two vehicles in space
(Gemini 8, 1966). The greatness of their legacies goes beyond their personal
memberships in the human race.
I was only four when John Glenn orbited the planet. I don't remember it as
it happened. But my Aunt Gladys had a 33 1/3 LP documenting the event that I
often listened to as an older child. It solidified the greatness of the event
for me. It taught me the wonder of the technical achievement and of the metal
a person must have to sit in a space capsule traveling at thousands-of-miles
per hour. It takes a brave human with the heart of a pioneer, the soul of an
explorer, a lust for adventure, to overshadow the tremendous risk to life
that space travel presents. We've had two space shuttle tragedies to
underscore the point. In my youth, John Glenn was ingrained in me as a
bigger-than-life American hero.
Then, just weeks after my eleventh birthday, on Sunday night, July 20, 1969,
I, and perhaps a billion other people, watched a smudgy, grainy,
black-and-white image of Neil Armstrong step off the bottom step of the
lunar module platform ladder onto the moon. We heard him utter those
historical words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for
mankind." I remember my dad responding to Mr. Armstrong's words with a
giddy giggle of enthusiasm saying something about how we'd be quoting that
in a thousand years. Dad made sure I understood I was witnessing one of the
most important events in human history. Unlike most historical events, it was
the type where the weight and import is right there, in your face, as it
unfolds, where though the total meaning may take historians to decipher
later, the fact that it does mean something very big is not at doubt, as it
happens before you.
It never occurred to me I'd ever meet either of these two mammoth historical
figures. It seemed as likely I'd have witnessed Orville Wright's brief flight
in Kittyhawk in 1903 or would have went to the moon myself. Though, Col.
Glenn has spent so much of his life in the public sector, as Senator Glenn,
that it eventually seemed a little more likely I'd meet him, yet not by much.
But there I was, in a room with both these historical figures.
The commission meeting took a break. In C-SPAN-like fashion, the
participants were beseeched to hold the five-minute break to twenty minutes.
I stood chatting with my boss. Dr. Armstrong walked by us and back to where
First Flight memorabilia items were on sale. Now, in Ohio at least, it's
known to many that Dr. Armstrong is uncomfortable with his
"celebrity" status. It's reasonably substantiated that he's only
visited the Neil Armstrong Museum, in his home town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, a
few times. So, as I stood there, I thought to myself, Oh, leave the guy
alone. He's got thirty-three years of people wanting to intrude. Then I
thought, On the other hand, that's Neil Armstrong, mission commander of
Apollo 11, the first member of the human race ‐‐ the first terrestrial life
form, period ‐‐ to set foot on extra-terrestrial ground. I'm in a room with
this man and I'm not going to at least introduce myself and shake his
hand? A few minutes later as Dr. Armstrong wandered back to his seat at
the commission table, I saw myself three decades earlier, an eleven-year-old
kid who never dreamed he'd get this opportunity. I excused myself from the
small group of people I was currently in and went to Dr. Armstrong, who sat
in his chair.
"Mister Armstrong," I said, standing beside him, reaching my hand
out, "I don't want to intrude," he began to stand and grabbed my
hand, "But I just wanted to shake your hand and welcome you to Dayton
-- the real birthplace of aviation."
Perhaps because I knew his reputation for being shy about his place in
history, I read a slightly embarrassed graciousness that wasn't there. But I
don't think so. I think the almost pained humility I perceived was real.
"Well, thank you very much, Sir," he said. I told him to enjoy his
stay and was on my way. There it was. No big deal. A small encounter. Just
two human beings meeting briefly. Dr. Armstrong wasn't godlike, he was just
another one of us.
With Col. Glenn there was less mystique, even though he was the first hero
of space travel I was ever aware of. But he's spent much of his life in the
public eye. As I shook his hand I used that same real-birthplace- of-aviation
line and he laughed and said, "Oh, don't worry, we're all aware of that."
He was gregarious and made a point of asking my name; he employed all the
\people-person skills a seasoned politician and experienced statesman will
use. There it was. No big deal, again. Another small encounter. Just two
more human beings meeting briefly. Col. Glenn wasn't godlike, either, just
another one of us.
Neil Armstrong and John Glenn did not have to be the ones who achieved their
accomplishments. There were many other men who had the credentials (and I
say "men" because, let's face it, in the sixties, women weren't
given this sort of opportunity). There were hundreds who had the know-how
and skill. There were thousands who had the cultivated talent ‐‐ certainly
women can be counted by this level. There were surely millions of men and
women who had the potential. It's not that Neil Armstrong had to be
the first human to walk on the moon. John Glenn did not have to be the
first American in orbit. Orville and Wilbur Wright did not have to be
the first men to successfully fly a powered heavier-than-air machine; there
certainly were others making the attempt. Someone was going to do it
first.
There are also those millions and millions who could not have stood in any
of these shoes. I, as an example, don't do well on a roller coaster, much
less in a jet as a test pilot or in a space capsule as a member of a crew
traveling thousands of miles from Earth at a speed of thousands-of-miles per
hour. But I bet I have the potential for some sort of historical greatness
based on something about me, my talents, my know-how ‐‐ we all do.
Historical greatness, as with these men I met, and with the men they were in
Dayton because of, has as much to do with timing and circumstance as it does
with who the person is. This is the idea that seems to drive Dr. Armstrong's
timidity toward his historical import. He knows he's not the only human who
could have been the first on the moon. And Col. Glenn has been known to
credit his wife for more-or-less pointing out this same idea to him.
Still, they all purposefully put themselves there in those moments. Their
places in history are more than just the happenstance of events. They all
wanted to fly, from the odd notion that two brothers decided they could make
a reality, to the man who accepted the role as mission commander for an
extra-terrestrial touch down. And there once was a kid who was in awe that
the first people to fly a plane came from the same town as him, who
marveled at Col. Glenn's flight into outer space, a kid who sat with his
parents and saw the great historical event of a human's first step onto the
moon. It didn't have be them, but, it was them. And I met two of them. And
because of what they represent, whether either of them like it or not, it
was a big deal to me. And I can't think of better place for me to have met
the two astronauts than during a meeting to plan the celebration of the
first flight and on the campus of the university named after the two
inventors who did it, who made it all possible.
OPENING WEEKEND FOR OPUS ‐‐ NOT BAD; NOT BAD AT ALL:
Opening Night, Itself ‐‐ It was a good open.
As my facebook post from Saturday says, it wasn't perfect but there was much, much,
much to be happy about. A couple technical woopsies and a few line flubs kept us
from an absolutely stellar performance, but overall it was a really strong start for
the run. Our characters were certainly all present and accounted for!
Sophomore Night ‐‐ The Saturday performance was somewhat
tormented by that mischievous little theatre gremlin bastard!
First, we had a lighting sequence discombobulation at the top of the show. There's
an exact sequence of different isolated lights that have to come up, individually,
on each of the four male actors while we say disjointed lines. If Anything in the
sequence is off, everything after that is thrown off. Something ‐‐ which we never
fully identified and have since let go of ‐‐ got out of sequence. At one point, my
spot came up and because this is one of those "non sequitur" places I've
mentioned before, and because it wasn't really my turn, because I had not heard the
cue line, I had no idea what to say. I was blank. In character I simply said,
"Um...." It got a laugh, and I believe the audience, or most of the
audience, thought that was in the script. The several theatre people in the audience,
however, most likely recognized the deer caught in headlights.
Then, the little bastard decided to dislocate the hair strings on Grace's (Mary
Mykytka's) bow right at the very top of scene 2, when Grace is auditioning for the
quartet. As lights came up, I, sitting next to Mary, heard the audience begin to
laugh. I thought, Are they laughing because we are faux playing and they find it
amusing? Then I looked to my left and saw my poor young costar bowing along but
with the bow hair hanging off the bottom end of the bow. We all find it a funny
story to tell...now. At the time it was an
OH SHIT! moment for all of
us on stage, but I am quite sure a bit magnified for Ms. Mykytka. I give Mary
major points for her composure. She soldiered on like a pro and soon the audience
forgot all about it. I was probably thrown more than she. I dropped a line right
after the mishap; fortunately, Matthew Smith (Elliot) covered for me.
Sunday ‐‐ the consensus among the cast is that Sunday's
performance was overall the best of the weekend. The audience was docile, which is
typical of Sunday matinee audience, at least The Guild's Sunday matinee audiences,
but we feel our work was at its best. I think my own work during the climax of the
play was better Saturday night, but I do otherwise agree with the consensus. One
thing, though, I did get a key line verbatim from the script on Sunday, that which
I had clumsily paraphrased the first two nights.
And, as on Friday, if nothing else, our characters where still all strong the rest
of the weekend.
I erred a bit in the closing credits of the podcast. I had to redo them and
render a new version of the movie ‐‐ new in that the credits are fixed, otherwise
it's the same movie. I had omitted several things and spelled a name wrong. Most
importantly I had forgotten to credit Fred Boomer as second camera. It's now all
fixed. For a little while there will be two of that podcast at the
DTG youtube channel,
but the one with the bad credits will soon be removed, as soon as I know everyone
who has embedded or linked has updated their connections to the new one.
Saturday morning I was one of many from the local acting community who saw the
screening of the full-length indy movie, The Wonderland Express, conceived
and directed by Greg Nichols, at the 2012 Film Dayton film festival. The film
features three of my favorite people from said acting community: Craig & Natasha
Randall and Charles Larkowski. There were also cameos from many other theatre
friends ‐‐ I'd list them but I'm afraid I'd leave someone out. Shawn A. Green and
comedian Ryan Singer also starred as
brothers; Shawn, in fact, plays what I'd call the lead character.
I must say it is a most enjoyable film to watch. Interesting to me was that it was
mostly improvisational, based on Greg's concept. Having shot ‐‐
and, of course, still not cut ‐‐ a similar
type movie myself, which happens to have Natasha and Craig in it (re: the outtake,
Be Or Not), it was nice to see a
comparable work that was cut to success. I'd say this is cut to a better success
than I anticipate mine will be.
Also on the program Saturday morning were a couple shorts, one very much worth
mentioning. Young Nick Messinger, a student from Troy Junior High has directed a
short-short,
Always Believe,
which was a big hit. Click on the hot linked title for the whole movie. It's only
about ninety seconds and it's worth it.
Sunday evening, a collection of local actors and I were involved in the staged
reading of the play, St. Augustine Was a Swinger, by Natasha Randall's
long-time friend Bob Garvin; Tosha directed. Bob comes to a lot of the shows at The
Guild, certainly when Tosha is in them or has directed them; he's a really nice
guy and a virtual encyclopedia of theatre. It was much fun and most rewarding to
give voice to his words for him, and Bob was in hog heaven.
What a nice way to cap off my weekend of theatre (and cinema).
We had the first night of auditions last night. It was a decent turnout including a
few faces I don't know. Being on lobby duty, I didn't much attend to the
auditioning but was told there are some possibilities.
I was again not much privy to the auditions so any input I had was cursory.
Fortunately for the production there were more good auditions, I understand,
than roles to fill, so Director Debra Kent had some hard choices to make and, no
way around it, will be not casting some people who could be cast.
I will post the cast when it has been finalized.
AS FOR MY OWN AUDITIONING:
You'll note below* that our next auditions at The Guild are for Howard, Sears,
and Williams'
A Tuna Christmas.
A theatre colleague asked me the other day if I was auditioning; I'm not. There is
a need, a very strong need, for a robust sense of comedy and sharp comedic timing to
successfully do this show, neither that I have any delusion I possess. I've been
funny in shows, but that has usually been under coaching and direction from the
director; let's say virtually always under coaching and direction from the
director; it's sometimes been under heavy coaching and direction from the
director.
* "below" until Oct 10, 2012 when auditions are over
I know there are other opportunities for me this year at DTG, I just have yet to
scope out and target them, save for
Pillow Man,
which may or may not be tenable, depending on the outcomes of the
HRTC callback for
Avenue Q,
which would be a schedule conflict.
A few weeks back I was approached about an independent theatre project that is
auditioning soon: a local, limited run of
The Rocky Horror Show.
David Harewood, the director, contacted me about auditioning ‐‐ along, I'm sure
with many other local actors ‐‐ and though I have not committed to the audition
just yet, I'm certainly not uninterested. No, I would not be going after Frank N.
Furter or Riff Raff (or Magenta, for that matter).
There have got to be a whole lot of other opportunities out there in the theatre
community that I haven't properly scoped out, too.
Moreover, as per that HRTC callback for Avenue Q, I am patiently
awaiting the date and the specs!
And, of course, any professional commercial, industrial, or feature film
auditions I can get through PC-Goenner
are always welcomed.
DOH!
‐‐ MIGHT I ADD MY CURRENT SHOW TO MY RÉSUMÉ?:
It occurred to me that I had not added the last two gigs onto my actor's
Résumé, neither Opus nor the commercial for
Horenstein, Nicholson & Blumenthal, which
I have not seen as of yet, by the way. Both are added now, on each of the different
résumés; Theatre, Pro Theatre, Screen, Pro Screen,
On Line, and Agent's version.
Oh, the new Theatre, Pro Theatre, Screen, and Pro Screen résumé PDFs
are all copied onto my cell phone for those instances when someone says,
"Do you have a résumé and headshot handy." And I will, if
not hardcopy. I copied a handful of headshots over, including two of the new
"temp" ones of me with Carl's goatee.
The sophomore weekend opens tonight. We did not have a brush up rehearsal, even a
simple line run, which makes me a little nervous. But I have studied my lines
during the week and will likely run them with my flash cards at least twice after I
get off work from the rent-payer.
So, three shows down, six to go...
REHEARSAL HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN:
The table read was last night. Many of our actors already have some clear ideas of
where they want to take their characters. The producer has a note for the director.
That which I will share with her, probably today. I left before the the closing
discussion was done, so I did not speak with her about the issue last night.
Actually, I have some scooping out to do as per the note. There is a safety issue to
address, clearly, and I am now on the prowl for a person to help with that safety
issue.
About an hour before the table read, Director Debra A. Kent cast young Leo Santucci
in the role of deliver Boy at the top of Act I. So, now
the cast is complete. Leo's dad, Pat, made his return to the stage, after a
hiatus of some years, as Phillip in Mauritius, on our boards, to end the
2011/2012 season.
In sound design news, there hardly is any, save that I will get started on that
soon. Someone has suggest a song that thematically works as the show opener, but I'm
not too sure it's not too rock-&-roll; I think what this show mostly needs, as I
have stated before, is pop music listened to by the adults of the late 60's and 1970
‐‐ that old programming genre classification known as MOR (Middle Of the Road). That
qualification leaves only a small handful of top 40 artists of the time and the list
would not include much by the artists of that song, and would not include that song.
As of the mail pick up this morning, at said
"rent-payer,"
my registration
form for the Advanced Acting Techniques class coming up September 17 at
The Human Race Theatre Company,
with Kay Bosse at the helm, is on the mail.
This will be, I believe, my fourth acting class with Kay.
Here's a screenshot of the class information that is currently at the HRTC website:
The check for the
Horenstein, Nicholson & Blumenthal law firm
commercial was surprisingly prompt in arriving. My limited experience with such
payments and the standard stories I have heard from all my acting friends all
suggests that this was an extraordinarily quick issuance. As I'd written earlier,
the compensation wasn't behemoth by any stretch of the imagination, but for about an
hour of work, it's not a bad wage at all.
Last night was successful in its own right, but there were problems. There
were various timing issues, low energy, and dropped lines. But the audience liked
it, regardless of these, in fact didn't catch most of the problems we cast and crew
recognized; however, a few they had to catch. I will say that we rocked the
end of the play though.
My goal is to make the
Springfield StageWorks production of
True West tonight.
The show is 8:00 in Springfield, which is about 30 minutes away from The Caryl D.
Philips TheatreScape. In theory, Opus is over is about 6:45-ish, so I should
be able to make it.
Relatively good show. I flubbed a couple lines in what seemed rather obvious ways.
Both were during the infamous documentary interview sequences. I may have actually
covered the first one to some extent but I don't think i did the second one.
The first is a return to me when I am to repeat, to myself, "What is
it?" mulling the question over. When the spot hit me, I went up. I had lost my
focus because I had spied someone I thought I recognized in the audience ‐‐ amateur
mistake. So I said, "Well, uh," then the line came to me. It may
have looked scripted.
The other was later, in another sequence when I jumped to my next line and
started, but had to stop and correct myself. We can't say the wrong thing in these
non sequitur sections or the following actor may very lose his place, too. So what
was heard was:
"That accent...The quintessential European mutt."
Might have seemed scripted, but, I'm betting some caught the error.
I was not much acquainted with the script; it was, of course, the usual uplifting,
life-affirming fair one expects from Sam Shepard.
Yes: sarcasm intended.
Kudos to Director Sarah Davis and the cast (Joel Bonsell [Austin], Joey Ahern
[Lee], Saverio Perugini [Saul], Bonnie Bertelson [Mom]) for executing this dark
script and its deep black humor.
First, an oh-yeah-I-forgot-to-mention
addendum regarding the post from yesterday: not only did I have a couple line flubs
during the Saturday show, I also missed an entrance at the end of a scene. They
covered on stage. I didn't even realize at all until it was pointed out to me.
On Sunday I had one line flub ‐‐ that I'm aware of. The line is "Even the
threat of physical injury." What I said was "And occasionally a hint of
physical injury," or something like that.
But overall it was a good show.
The houses were pretty good all weekend, too. About sixty-five or seventy people on
Friday, one-hundred-and-two on Saturday, and ninety on Sunday. 102 is almost a full
house in our theatre.
Mr. Duncan died yesterday from complications brought on by a recent
heart attack. He was a man I really wanted to meet and get to know.
All reports have always been he was as wonderful a human being as
his presence suggested. And what a strong presence he had.
REST IN PEACE BIG GUY
PINCH HITTING & THE REGULAR BASE RUN STUFF:
Tonight I fill in at the first blocking rehearsal for the production stage manager,
Deirdre Root, who is out of town. I'll be writing down the blocking in as legible a
manner as I can manage. Covering such duty a slack that a producer sometimes needs
to take up.
Under the actual producer's hat there's a minimal of things going on at the moment.
The cast members are to get their program bios and their headshots to me and I am
presently slowly accumulating them. How slowly? you ask: I requested them last
Thursday at the table read; I have received two (happy to say both actors gave me
pics and bios). I set the deadline for Friday, September 14. I would guess I'll get
most of them on that day or Thursday the 13th. I'm half expecting that at least one
will be late.
I'm also arranging for one of our special effects, actually, the only special
effect.
As far as the podcast goes: nothing. I have not shot footage nor hardly conceived my
concept. Further, I haven't heard back either way from the copyright holders of the
play about clearance to use dialogue text in the podcast movie.
Managing Maxine
opens Friday, with the preview this Thursday and
Pay What You Can Night tomorrow night.
I plan to be there for "Can Night" tomorrow. Along with
Scott Stoney
and Tim Lile,
the other HRTC resident artist in the cast is my stage wife from Caroline, or
Change as well as past and soon to again be acting teacher,
Kay Bosse.
And stay tuned as I get myself in gear to attend other productions.
FULL PRODUCTIVITY STILL ON HOLD:
In order to do some of my audio type work I recently bought
Avid's
M-Audio Fast Track II USB Audio Interface
so I can record directly into my computer. I can not however, send a stereo signal
in and record such with this hardware. At times I will need that ability.
There are various USB audio adapters out there, some that have stereo inputs. There
are also many, I might add, that have only stereo out but mono in, which will not
serve my needs. I am looking at
iMic 2 by
Griffin technology, which does
have stereo input capabilities. All I have to do is verify that iMic 2 will work
with my new
MacBook Pro
and OS Lion. I kind of
suspect it will, but I have a question logged at the Apple Customer Support
Communities knowledge base and am waiting for a geek response. Whether it will
work with OS Mountain Lion remains to be
seen.
As reported before, I am still waiting for word from
Belkin about their
Thunderbolt Express Dock. which
will make it possible for me to plug Firewire 800 peripherals directly into my
laptop; that, of course being the only way to directly capture DV mini-cassette
movie footage into my
Final Cut Express.
Peter Condopoulos (PC-Goenner) called
yesterday afternoon to say that I was chosen from the profile at
Now Casting for the
screentest for particular role. It's only a small role and I'll only be a day
player, but it's stil a pretty damn good opportunity. Of course, since Ms. Belajac
requested me based on a picture at the Now Casting web page the goatee I gave for
Carl in Opus had to go. So, as yesterday's facebook post said, "this
weekend Carl...will not have his goatee." So oh well. I got a haircut yesterday,
too, which does not affect carl at all, since Carl has
WAY
more hair than K.L. ‐‐ ya know, that full head of hair piece.
And I am very happy this is today and not tomorrow. Opus may not be a pro gig,
but I still would not desert the show and I'd hate to have had to turn down the
screentest. I already had to do that recently and I was not happy about it at all.
The shoot would fall within a pretty big window: sometime between Oct 15 & Jan
15, which doesn't exactly narrow it down.
Ms. Belajac's office told me when I made the appointment that
Director Bennett Miller wants a
natural, understated, subdued performance. The sides actually have good dialogue to
speak naturally ‐‐ doesn't always happen that way. Also, there are only three lines.
Between real dialogue and brevity of amount memorization wasn't be a bear.
I've rented a car for the trip. Driving 238 straight miles would, I have absolutely
no doubt, tax my elderly 1989 Saab. I may have to do it again; there's a possible
callback next Thursday.
On a related note, I went to
my profile at Now Casting last
night to finally update, after what i thought was a few months of delinquency to
see that it's been much longer. But. it's up to date now.
Looks like I'll be paying full price for a ticket later in the run.
Fran Pesch has asked me if I was up for the gigs with the law students at the
University of Dayton School of Law during this coming academic year. As always, I
will clear my schedule whenever I can.
Tuesday I recorded the blocking for Act I in the
Stage Manager's script.
The big question is, will SM Deirdre Root be able to decipher my notes?
The screentest at Donna Belajac Casting
in Pittsburgh for that small role in
Foxcatcher seemed to go
well. At least I didn't leave feeling bad about it. To be honest, I'm not sure I am
what the producers are looking for but, as is always the question, what do I
know? And I auditioned as if I was perfect for the role, by god!
The role I was called to read for was as a three-star general, thus the necessity to
shave the goatee and force Carl in Opus to look different this last weekend
of the run. Couldn't be helped. I also got a haircut, though probably not as close a
cut as it really should be. I took some wardrobe choice with me and Ms. Belajac
advised the all khaki choice. The general is in full dress in the scene from the
movie; I did not have access to full military dress at the last minute and likely
would not have gone that far, anyway. But khaki at least suggested military, as
opposed to a business suit or such.
I also brought my black dress shoes but did not wear them for the screentest since
my feet would not be in the shot. I was in my sandals with no socks. Why not? I've
been in TV News studios and seen anchormen do the news in a suit coat, blue shirt,
and tie with jean shorts on ‐‐ they're behind the desk.
In a side note, when I got home I didn't see my shoes in the back seat of the rental
car with the rest of my stuff. Oh crap, I thought, I left my shoes in
her office back in Pittsburgh. It looked like I was stopping off on the way to
the theatre on Friday to buy a new pair of dress shoes. As it turned out, I had
managed to cram them into the bag I brought with my audition accoutrement, so I
would not have the shoes to lug separately in addition to the bag itself and the two
shorts and three pairs of pants I brought as choices.
Not sure why this merits mentioning,
but there ya go.
Further side note: having never been to Pittsburgh, and admittedly not really
spending time soaking in the city at all, it still seems like a good city to spend
time in. The Belajac office are downtown close to the city's market square, which
had I not been impatient to get home, I would have hung out in a bit, perhaps ate
at one of the food spots. If
(when)
I get the callback, perhaps I will work it out to be able to spend some time there.
Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh
Market Square, again
Some downtown Pittsburgh architecture
More downtown Pittsburgh architecture
Fountain Square in downtown Pittsburgh, right next to
Market Square.
Somewhere on I-70 East on the way to the audition, just
about to leave Ohio.
In West Virginia on the way home
The whole trip was almost exactly a twelve-hour adventure, from hitting the road
north-easterly bound that morning at about 9:30 to sticking the key in my apartment
door lock at about 9:30 that night. I can also tell
you I did not make into the rent-payer
at 7:00 yesterday morning, either! It was 9:45, after I
dropped off the rental car.
No comment on the facebook screenshot here, it seems self explanatory. The callback
is next Wednesday; here's hoping I have to make the trek again. The trip was rather
pricey for me. With car rental, gas, AND $24.00 FOR JUST LESS THAN
TWO HOURS OF DOWNTOWN PARKING, and meals, the trip came to $148. An
investment in my goal of full-tine acting, and tax deductible, for sure. Hefty for
a ten-minute audition, nonetheless. Foxcatcher is a
SAG/AFTRA gig, and I would have lines which
makes me eligible to join the union, though I could
Taft-Hartley out
of joining, as this would be my first principle work in a SAG/AFTRA movie. And I
would opt out this time. I have local actor friends who are SAG/AFTRA and they cannot
audition for most local screen work as it is usually not union.
How's that for
putting the dialogue about the audition and its results in a positive frame-work?
"Write/Talk as if it's yours."
PS: Grecos Italian Restaurant in Wheeling, WV, just off I-70, has some great
Chicken Parmesan, in case you need to know.
Last night was the first of our home-stretch performances. Today and tomorrow are it
for the show. I think overall we did a good show last night. Though subdued, the
audience was most appreciative of the show, at least based on the feedback after
the closing curtain. It was about a half house and we unfortunately got little
energy on stage from the crowd to feed off. They lightly chuckled at the humor. They
were as attentive (glued to their seats and leaning forward) as the audiences have
been at the other shows, during the climactic moment of the show. So, though it
mostly felt like a bust, the performance actually went well.
Yesterday was our Swan Song, and perhaps one of the better performances of the show.
Of course, the picture here from my
facebook post from last night is not
Carl as he looked this past weekend; the was from Tech/Dress week.
As is usually the case, I need a few days to get my final thoughts about the
production and my work in it together. I'll work on the essay from time to time.
Plus I'll select and process a few of Craig Roberts official DTG production photos,
as well as perhaps some frame captures from podcast footage or other pics that I
took, to accompany this final thoughts thing.
In the meantime, I will say that I feel good about the work I did and the production
as a whole. I certainly am glad to have worked with all those I did for the first
time on stage as fellow actors, as well as being back on stage with Matt after all
these years.
Another thing I will point out right now is that this may very well be another sort
of Swan Song.
Greg Smith
is moving to Tennessee within weeks, and though he has tentative plans to come back
as a visiting director, this might possibly be his last director's work at The
Guild. I suppose it's a good way to have ended his work here, but still, it's a bit
sad to think that this may be it.
It's more a question of getting the pics ready than the text.
This morning I finally got word back from the copyright administrators for Mr.
Zindel's cannon. We do not have permission to use dialogue text from the play in the
podcast, which is unfortunate. Yet, we've had to work around this before and no doubt
will have to again in the future.
Tonight is my standard "BRIEF" production meeting that I always try
to schedule earlier in the rehearsal period for all the different production people
to get together and disseminate or request information. It's simply at least one
chance for everyone to be together to have an idea of the whole picture and see if
any issues come up as the result of the broader understanding. Not everyone can be
there tonight but what-a-ya-gonna-do.
NO FOXCATCHER FOR ME:
It is clearly confirmed: I have no callback for
Foxcatcher. All I can say
is, "Se la vi," as well as a phrase I haven't used for a while:
"AND IT'S ON TO THE NEXT AUDITION!"
In the meantime, I do owe
Donna Belajac Casting a hardcopy
headshot for their files. It goes in the postal mail tomorrow.
On a related note, here's something interesting: a link to the IMDB page for the new
movie A Late Quartet,
featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman
and Christopher Walken, among
others. Note that, at least on the face of it, the synopsis at IMDB for this movie
has a striking resemblance to the scenario of Opus, for those of you who have
a familiarity with the play script. I see nothing, at least at this date, at IMDB
that says the screenplay is based on the play script.
I haven't dropped in much on rehearsals but I've been to a few and, of course, with
the cast we have, what I've seen has been the progressive beginnings of the
promising show that is expected.
Saturday was the first day of set construction, for which I was there along
with a few others. Newer DTG board member Jeff Sams is our set designer and his
ability at the craft comes at a welcome time because of the imminent departure of
one of The Guild's primary set designers ‐‐ among many other creative things
‐‐ one Mr.
Greg Smith.
For those who don't already know (such people
being pretty much NO ONE in Dayton area theatre), Greg is moving
from the area in just a matter of weeks.
Saturday, I don't know that we got as far along as Jeff had wished, but he was at
least not too terribly disappointed with the progress we did make;
* see the pics, below.
"DTG podcast 1213-03 And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little" will have a lot of
stills, a feature I haven't used much in the past several podcast movies. There will
be DV movie footage, too, but I'm going to try to use a heavy percentage of stills.
To that end I took a few dozen photos with my
cell phone last Thursday night.
However, the batch I've gone through to process have had a lot of blurred movement
spots. I'm going to use my
Cyber-shot
for most or all of the rest of the stills for the project. The camera has more the
twice the mega-pixels as the phone camera, though the processor doesn't contrast
color as well. But I seem to remember that I had less blurred movement with it ‐‐
though I certainly do get blurred movement with it.
I have a DV shoot planned for tomorrow night. I'm not sure I'll shoot any more DV
footage this week, but I may drop in Thursday &/or Friday to snap pics.
Sound design has not progressed as far along as I had hoped, but it has at least
begun. I have compiled a list of selected songs from the Top !00 pop songs of each
of 1968 through 1970, as well as the album releases by various adult oriented
recording artists from the same period. I have started my scavenger hunt for the
selected music but have not been successful save for one particular song. There are
also a few on my list that I already owned. Still I don't have enough collected for
a thirty-minute pre-show, a fifteen-minute intermission and Act openers and closers.
There are a few door bell (or buzzer) sound cures, but I have that in my SFX library.
The beginnings of the Reardon home as started this past Saturday.
Because of the Pittsburgh trip on September 6 to screentest for
Foxcatcher I did not go
to Pay What You Can Night the evening before for
Managing Maxine
at The Human Race Theatre Company. Though
It's cost me a bit more, I have a ticket for this Wednesday's performance. Though I
was able to get a 10% discount through having "Liked"
The Race's facebook page.
There were, on the other hand, several other shows I wanted to see that I missed.
Well, at least two. I just could not justify spending the money. I've had a few
unexpected personal expenses that popped up. Actually, had I not already bought the
ticket, I might not be going to Managing Maxine.
A week from tonight I start a new advanced acting class through the Human Race with
Kay Bosse
at the helm, just having wrapped Managing Maxine. There are some plays that
will be focused on and I plan to read through them before the sessions begin.
Yesterday I wrote that "[a] week from tonight I start a new advanced acting
class" at The Human Race Theatre Company
with Kay Bosse.
Um: WRONG!
The class started last night. By providence I became aware of that fact yesterday
afternoon through the advent of a wrong-number text that was to remind someone else
of an appointment last night; it caused me to check my registration and find that I
had the start date wrong in my mind. Thus I did not miss the opening session. But so
much for getting a jump on reading the plays we will cover.
Actually it turns out I only need to focus on one of the plays. Kay has given us
each our own specific play to read and perhaps pull out a monologue. She assigned
me
Clybourne Park
by Bruce Norris,
for which Norris won the
2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Also an actor, by-the-way, one of Norris's best known gigs is as
the teacher, Mr. Cunningham, in The Sixth Sense.
And it's my charge to get to know this play well. Guess I got to fit some reading in
this week so I have an idea of the monologue.
During class last night I attempted a less "presentational" reading of
Carl's one real monologue from Opus. I was never satisfied that I was as
natural and conversational with it as I should have been, during the run of the show.
Last night Kay told me afterward that I could still pull it down more. So,
regardless of any material from Clybourne Park that I work on in class, I may
still work on that just to finally deliver it in a way that I feel really good about.
The wrap-up essay is closer
The deadline for cast & crew to get bios and headshots to me was September 14.
Of course, there are those who didn't make the deadline; some haven't still.
I will shoot the first DV footage for "DTG podcast 1213-03 And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little" tonight.
As a DTG producer I picked up the spring 2013 mounting of
Leaving Iowa
which was to be produced by
Greg Smith,
who, of course, is leaving Ohio.
The show doesn't audition until February 2013, and I am in the midst of producing
Miss Reardon, but still, this one can at least be on my radar, if not
prominently blipping.
Director Robb Willoughby and I will likely to get together sometime soon to at least
touch base in what I guess could be called a pre-pre-pre-production meeting.
Mr. Caplan would be proud
When I first offered to cover this I thought perhaps I'd have to bow out if I
manage to get myself cast in
Avenue Q
at The Race. I wasn't mentally solid on the dates for each, though. Leaving
Iowa closes April 21 and Avenue Q doesn't go into rehearsal until May 5;
so we're good.
This morning I checked the Belkin website to see
if the Thunderbolt Express Dock was
available yet. It looks like it is not. So, I may be capturing DV footage for the
Reardon podcast on a
MacPro in the Mac Lab
on campus as I had to for Opus.
Not thrilled about that.
A couple years back I posted a trailer for a new play,
Restoration Dogs, written by
actor Mark Finnell, who is married to Tina Gloss.
Tina is the female lead in Still Me,
my first professional theatrical film gig. If you remember (you five regular blog
visitors), Tina also played the role of Ned's mother, when he was a child, in
flashback segments on the innovated ‐‐
AND FAR TOO SHORT-LIVED ‐‐
ABC television series, Pushing Daisies.
There is now a capital campaign, via, indegogo
to produce a mounting of Restoration Dogs in Michigan, where Tina and Mark
now live and work as actors. I thought I'd pass the info along in case any of you
five have an interest.
Click here for the indegogo page about the project.
Low and behold, I now have everyone's bios and headshots for the printed program!
Only complete almost a week after the deadline ‐‐ not a shock, whatsoever.
Some receipts for production costs are beginning to trickle in. We are nowhere
close to the budget ceiling, and I don't think we will hit it in the end. We'll see.
To the best of my knowledge things in all categories are progressing along. I know
in rehearsal Tuesday night, the cast was doing well.
I did shoot DV footage Tuesday evening for the podcast. Tomorrow night I'll drop in
and take copious amounts of stills. Since I still don't have the
Thunderbolt Express Dock I have to
drop into the Mac Lab on campus and use one of
the MacPro towers to transfer the footage
shot Tuesday onto my
MackBook Pro
via the route of capturing on the tower, then copying to an two-terabyte external
hard drive, then copying from there onto my laptop hard drive.
Yep. A pain in the neck.
The plan was to zip into the Mac Lab right after work. However, there is a class in
there that occupies it until 6:00 pm on Thursdays this semester. Guess I stay on
campus for a couple hours and, oh, say, work on the Opus wrap-up essay.
At The Race show last night ‐‐ *see below ‐‐ I happened to run into Director Robb
Willoughby and we made tentative plans to get together next Tuesday afternoon after
I get off work at the rent-payer.
We had a very cursory discussion which will be elaborated on next week, I'm sure.
Have to say it was an enjoyable evening, and very pleasant, even "cute,"
script. I don't know that the play will ever win the Pulitzer, but it is a good
script. Kudos to cast and Director
Marya Springs Cordes
for a fine mounting of a fairly new show.
BRUSH WITH FAME ‐‐
Okay, Steve Vinovich isn't a major star or anything, but he has worked on screen and
stage a lot for decades and was a face I recognized immediately when I saw the
promo pics for the show. So this is really more of a
"Brush With A Veteren Prolifically Working Actor," which is just as
good, in my estimation.
After the show, I hung out in the lobby, as is often the practice for many so that
we can congratulate any actors who come through that way. And of course I
specifically wanted to say hello and "good work" to those few cast members
with which I have some sort of connection. Mr. Vinovich did come out that way and
was very gracious with his Thank You. The two of us ended up walking to our cars
together and had a nice little chat that included talk about my forthcoming callback
for Avenue Q
and that I am in Kay's current acting class. Okay, so it wasn't some great, deep
connection, and it's not like that conversation I wished to have had with
Philip Seymour Hoffman on the
The Ides of March set;
maybe Steve Vinovich doesn't have the professional stature of Philip Seymour Hoffman;
still, Mr. Vinovich is an accomplished professional actor with a great
résumé and a strong skill set, and it was nice to have a moment with
the man, even if it was superficial.
If that makes me a still-wet-behind-the-ears,
naive, dork-level actor, so be it.
Last summer Brittany Campbell
(Washing Machine in Caroline, or Change at HRTC) released her album
Black Summer
and this is the video for the single
"Call Me Baby."
Also featured in the video, as the girlfriend, is Ms. Ashanti J'aria (also cast
alumnus from CoC, one of the three lovely Radios). Just thought I'd share it.
Hey....it's been a tad busy here lately so giving time as well as intelectual
energy to this particular thesis has been difficult. It is in progress and
probably fairly close to finished.
Of course, there's more than a little chance that I
care far more about its completion than anyone else: an egomaniac is an egomaniac is
an egomaniac.
OPENING CURTAIN SNEAKED CLOSER WHEN WE WEREN'T LOOKING!:
Yesterday, while we were at the theatre working on set construction, it dawned on us
that NEXT Sunday is "Tech Sunday."
In the meantime, the set is nearing completion. We have spent three days working on
it, the Saturday of last week and both days this past weekend. It's starting to
look pretty good. Set Designer Jeff Sams will be in during the week, as I believe
some others will be. The last push will be next Saturday, which has to wrap it up
since Tech Week begins on Sunday.
Finalizing credits and other material for the printed program is my producer's
priority at the moment. I do now have all the bios and headshots, from assorted
cast and crew members, edited and formatted as needed. As well, I have the
playwright bio and the "About the Play" sections researched and written.
Now it's a question of making sure I have all the credits correct and complete
before I sent the information to our print media person, Wendi Michael.
Thursday evening when the Mac Lab on campus
was finally open, after a class ended, I was able to get the footage that I had shot
Tuesday evening transfered onto my
MackBook Pro
via the interlay of a campus MacPro and
my primary two-gig portable hard drive for movie files. I have shot no more DV
footage, probably won't until later in the week. I was to shoot stills of rehearsal
this past Friday evening, but I had a monstrous headache and pretty much spent most
of that evening at home, sleeping.
But this week it's al on! As I wrote in a bulk email to cast and crew this morning,
I will be in quite a bit, if not every rehearsal, then certainly most, either taking
copious amounts of stills or shooting video of the rehearsals for the podcast.
Thursday and Friday I will be pulling each cast member as well as Debra aside to
shoot the short commentary segment with each of them.
I may try to edit this one to final cut on Saturday, or mostly so, perhaps leaving
spots for dress rehearsal footage to plug in quickly the early part of next week.
With the exception of some tweaks, the sound design is finished and programed
into Show Cue Systems. Honestly it was
pretty simple stuff. One sound cue, a door buzzer, that occurs a few times, and is
handled in SCS with a designated Hot Key ‐‐ the B ‐‐ so it can be played at any
given time with no regard for linear placement in the sound plot. Then there are
three songs in the show: one for the opening; one that closes Act
I then also opens Act II;
then the song to close the show and play over Curtain Call.
Some sound engineering was involved. The show's opening song will shift from a
full-bodied ambience to a more tinselly on-the-radio sound ‐‐ a trick I've used
before. There are also several automatic volume changes programmed in.
The bulk of the sound "design" was simply finding and choosing music for
pre-show and intermission; music from the 1970 era that the Reardon sisters would
have listened to ‐‐
again, only SOME of it being music
I was listening to then (or now, really).
Last night was the first time I was able to sit down and look through
Clybourne Park
by Bruce Norris
for the acting class tonight with
Kay Bosse.
As I read, it was getting later and later, so I must admit I gave the bulk of it a
lot more of a cursory skim than I would like to report.
I'm afraid I will walk into class with a much thinner knowledge of the script than
I should, much less than is to be desired.
The wrap-up essay is imminently closer to around the corner
at some point...
Dropped into rehearsal last night after acting class, mostly to shoot stills for the
podcast. I did take a few publicity shots but my main reason for being there was
podcast production. Though I also dropped some of the sound cues in while they
were on stage.
Since one actor was not there when I got there and will not be tonight, there's
little sense dropping in tonight as I need images of him more than anyone else. So
I'll probably be home processing the stills I've thus far shot.
There is a Film Dayton gathering tonight, and
I'd love to be there, but I have a lot of images to sweeten. I'd like to edit most
of the podcast this Saturday and then maybe plug in some dress rehearsal b-role at
the end of the edit process. So, I don't want to spend any more time on sweetening
stills on Saturday than I have to. Still, Greg Nichols will be at the Film Dayton
gathering talking about
The Wonderland Express, and I kind
of want to be there for that. Dilemmas dilemmas....
The podcast production schedule is: stills tomorrow night; commentaries and
rehearsal video footage Thursday and Friday, and then maybe dress rehearsal footage
Monday; then final post-production to final cut on Tuesday. If I take out the bulk
this saturday, then I will be able to get the podcast to final cut Tuesday yet still
make the new rehearsal I have to be at, which is in the section below about a new
gig.
NOVICE "work" IN AN ADVANCED ACTING CLASS:
Last night, in the HRTC
"advanced" acting class, it was not one of my greatest evenings as an
actor. Our instructor
Kay Bosse
had us do an exercise toward the end of class in which I basically fell horribly
short of the intention. Actually, I didn't so much fall short as never move. In the
exercise, the three of us who were left in class were to make a secret decision of
an action we wanted each of the other two to take (a separate action for each).
Then we pulled a card with a verb written on it, from a stack Kay held. We could
only use that verb action as our tactic to get the other two to take the designated
actions. And that verb was a secret, too.
My decision was to get one of the other two to take his glasses off, the other, to
look at her wristwatch. The first card I picked said "praise." And I was
simply stumped as to how to employ praise to engender either action. So Kay let me
pick another, and that one read "disturb." Stumped again.
The exercise is to work on several things, but the two most important to the theme of
the evening, at least for me, were being spontaneously in the moment and risking
failure. I was not able to get to spontaneity and I didn't risk failure, therefore
I failed.
The best explanation I have for my fail was that I was caught off guard and then I
over-thought. My ego sometimes insists I must be
"Brilliant"
‐‐ brilliant by my ego's estimation, mind you ‐‐ or there's this unfortunate failsafe
that shuts down my give-it-a-try gears. It's difficult to be in the moment
when that mode is active; it's impossible to be spontaneous.
I have had my moments of being fearless with opportunities to be spontaneous as an
actor, certainly in some of the improv that I've done ‐‐ try doing improv without
being spontaneous and in the moment. This was one of those times when I was more
interested in how I was coming off than I was in the work. Those are not productive
times and I need to learn to kill that in myself. So, lesson learned. As my former
castmate, the male lead of Still Me,
Scott King advised, as part of a
subsequent dialogue stream to the facebook post shown in the next section:
"Embrace the pain!"
Otherwise in the class, along with finding a monologue from
Bruce Norris's
Clybourne Park,
I am also, as is the rest of the class, to find a comic monologue. Kay wants us all
to work on comic sense and timing, as she insists that's what an actor is going to
need for the next few years or longer; that, says she, is where the work is going to
be.
We all know how unimpressed I am with my sense of comedy and my comic timing; so,
whether she be right or wrong, it's not a bad thing for me to work on.
Picking up this gig means that I'll miss half the Tech Week rehearsals for
Reardon, next Tuesday and Thursday (Thursday being Final Dress), as well as
maybe some Saturday performances, due to rehearsing for Edgar; so-oh-well.
Wayne says there'll be some pay involved, but I'm guessing more in the category of
stipend.
Well so dang it! I was responsible to my show and my podcast, thus, rather than go
to the Film Dayton meeting last night to hear
Greg Nichols share about his experiences taking
The Wonderland Express to film
festival, I stayed home and sweetened multitudes of still shots from Reardon
rehearsals for the podcast production. I spent the evening in
Corel Painter
correcting color and contrast/brightness, as well as identifying each photo by the
cast and crew in it, while I watched reruns of, first,
The Big Bang Theory, then
Friends.
Let me tell you, I did not finish the task. I took a good chunk out, but I still
had about 46% (93 images) left to deal with when I went to bed. And I am shooting
stills again tonight at rehearsal. Though I am concentrating on Michael Taint, who
has happened to not be there most of the time when I have been shooting, thus far.
But tonight is a full run and I should get some shots of him.
As I have already expressed, my game-plan is to get the bulk of editing of the
DV movie dine this coming Saturday, then perhaps plug in some b-role of Monday
evening's dress rehearsal on Tuesday. I have pretty much resigned myself to taking
Tuesday off from work, though I am always chagrinned to use vacation leave for
anything other than a professional acting gig, preferably that ever elusive
SAG/AFTRA gig.
*That safety bank of 120 hours will be pushed to February; and if I were to have
an actual three weeks for a movie; plus another week for actual vacation and
bit-and-piece acting work, it stands as May of next year, providing that I use no
more vacation leave before then.
I digress, however.
A lot of the standard image work has been done for the DV movie. I have all the
actors' and Director Debra Kent's headshots edited correctly for drop-ins, as well
as the podcast identification logo and the show logo. I have the closing credit
texts ready, too, save for the title of the underscore music. That is something I
have left to do, is find and purchase the license for the underscore music for the
body of the movie. More than likely I'll grab something from
D.A.W.N. Music, which has been my primary
source every since Peter Wine
recommended that particular royalty-free music site a while back. Here's hoping
they have something that'll give off a 1970's jazzy, adult-contemporary pop feel.
I used Sinatra, but I don't make enough smack for that choice.
On the sound design front, one tweak is that I am changing the door buzzer,
dictated by the script, to a standard door bell. The first use is during the opening
moments of the show, when a song is playing on the radio. "Ding-Dong" is
going to be more distinct during the music than "buzzzzz."
EDGAR: A MESMERIC PASSAGE INTO THE LIFE OF EDGAR ALLEN POE:
In truth, I was already a part of this multi-media production. Project
Writer/Director Wayne Justice shot video of me in August of last year, non-verbal
stuff where I portray George R. Graham, the American publisher and editor, known for
Graham's Magazine, where he employed Poe as a writer for a period of time. On
my résumé it credits the work as Graham as a "[video cameo]"
in a stage production.
Wayne emailed me the script yesterday, though, beyond printing it out I've not given
it attention, yet. As the facebook screen capture says, I am taking over the role
of Fortunato, from Poe's short story, "The Cask of Amontillado," which
Wayne has played in past mountings of the show. He wanted to free himself up for
other aspects behind the scenes. He had someone lined up but they had to drop out,
just yesterday morning. So he contacted me to see if I had the time to step in.
Rehearsals are going to be slim ‐‐ six scheduled rehearsals (Tue & Thu starting
next week) with possible Saturday rehearsals "as needed."
ROUNDING THE CORNER INTO THE HOME STRETCH FOR REARDON:
We are moving into Tech Week, with
Tech Sunday in just two days.
cue-to-cue rehearsal (sometimes
known as "Q2Q") will be at 11 am, Sunday; it's going to be a
dry tech (without the actors)
and it's going to mostly be about the lights since I've been throwing the
sound cues in already. Although there will certainly be some solidifying of
cue execution on the sound and I'm sure some volume level tweaking may
happen, too.
The still images for the podcast are all shot and sweetened. Last night I shot half
the commentaries and got more b-roll of rehearsal. Tonight it's the other half and
more b-roll.
Tomorrow I will edit the lion's share of the podcast. The goal is to have nothing
left to do but impose some b-roll of the dress rehearsal this coming Monday, perhaps
some footage from Tech Sunday; but everything else, including sound mix should be
done already; so Tuesday, the finishing touches should be straight forward, easy and
swift.
We'll see....
Essentially, Sound Design is finished, save for the tweaks we come to on Tech Sunday.
I have already fussed some with sound levels and at least one fade-in (at the start
of Act II). We start that act with same music with which
we end Act I, so I have it fading in, further along in
the song for the top of the next act, which, in the time of the play, is the next
moment in the action. At rehearsal Thursday night it was clear the fade-in was not
quick enough. I'd originally set it at four seconds; I've sliced that in half.
It's starting to be time to start looking at A Tuna Christmas
sound design needs.
OH YEAH, AND THERE'S ACTING CLASS:
I need to get some time in working on
Clybourne Park
before Monday's Advanced Acting class at
The Human Race Theatre Company with
Kay Bosse.
Need to look at comedy, too. I believe I'll go back to an excerpt I took from
Woody Allen's
Riverside Drive,
though I took it from the original one-act version. I used that back a few years ago
for my general auditions at HRTC for the 2008/2009 season. For you five who follow
this blog, it was the monologue I went up on in the audition in front of the late,
great
Marsha Hanna
as well as Mr.
Kevin Moore,
and about which they were both very gracious and allowed me to take five, collect
myself, and start over. Actually gave me a callback for that season, which floored
me!
OH YEAH, THERE'S A NEW GIG FOR ME, TOO:
With my first rehearsal for Edgar fast approaching (this coming Tuesday
night), I ought to give the script a look when I can this weekend, too.
Not sure when that's going to be, but I'll look for the opening. Guess I'm gonna
have to make that opening, huh?
"GTA": in the circles I ran in heavily from my mid twenties
through my early forties this terminology means, primarily, "Grandiose
Tenth Anniversary." That anniversary being ten years free from alcohol
or any other mood altering chemical or illicit drug. In other words, it
refers to being ten years clean & sober. GTA can also be co-opted for
twenty years sober, or for, in my case, thirty years sober.
Today, I am thirty-years sober.
It is most certainly a hallmark event for me, as it would be for any
alcoholic or addict who manages to make it three decades substance free. The
Grandiose designation is a tongue-in-cheek reminder that one of the big
problems we addictive types have is an ego that gets us in trouble. That
never entirely goes away, but man has it gotten better! At least it hasn't
almost killed me for many, many, many years and today I am much better at
winning debates with it.
That tongue-in-cheek use of "Grandiose" says:
Okay. Yes, this is a hallmark day. It is a fabulous thing to be an
alcoholic who hasn't found it necessary, for such a long period of time,
to drink through all the crap and all the good times that would have
sent you on a binge before. It's a miracle. But, just remember this, sir
-- take that first drink and you'll very probably lose it all and be
right back where you were on September 29, 1982!
At this stage of my life, that does not hang over me like a black cloud of
doom. But that there is doom embodied in that truth of what the first drink
would invariably lead to, is a fact I just am aware of as part of my
existence. Today that awareness expresses itself in some rather undramatic
ways.
The most vital of those, in my mind, is that there's nothing that happens
that persuades me that a drink would be a good idea. There is no trauma or
tragedy, no happiness or ecstasy that invites the concept that booze will
fix it or enhance it. That is miraculous; it amazes me that an alcoholic
like me has not been convinced that a beer or a rum or a shot (or a
whatever) would work, and I haven't for a very long time. The last
time I was intent on drinking I was about eight months sober and had just
been confronted by an ugliness from my past. I was on my way to that drunk,
but enough of me wanted to keep my sobriety that I went, instead, to talk
with a friend who was also in recovery. Crisis diverted.
It's all possible because I adopted into my life a simple set of spiritual
principles, a set that is as old as humanity itself ‐‐ and some spiritual
philosophies say it goes back before humanity. How fortunate am I
that one does not have to perfectly adhere to those principles, or I'd be
screwed; I also would not be thirty years sober today, quite possibly not
even alive.
There's a lot good about my life today; there are a few things that are not
so good; there are some things missing, and some may stay missing; I have
been struggling to let go of an emotional burden for months, more than a
year, really. I am satisfied with many things in my life and not satisfied
with others. So, I know there are things to do, even if I don't know what
all of them are, to address some of those dissatisfactions.
Some things are great; some things are okay; some things suck; it's life.
I thank God *(as I define
"God") that I am awake and able to live this life to
some reasonable success.
This life I have, this imperfect but valuable life I live, stays possible so
long as I live those spiritual principles in my life. Otherwise, a drink
might just become a viable option, and for a guy like me, the first drink
might as well be the twenty-first. Because if I drink the first one, I am
sure to drink all those drinks in between that one and the twenty-first one.
So Happy GTA to me, and my humble gratitude to the multitude of lovely
spiritual souls who taught, coaxed, and sometimes carried me to this day
K.L.
The wrap-up writing?...
Same old story
Same old song and dance
My friend
In the Mac Lab, capturing DV footage.
Capturing footage and working on this blog post; Multi-task Boy!
The production seems to be on track and amazingly under budget. Though our food
needs through Tech Week and into the run will take a bite. But, otherwise we are
pretty thrifted out ‐‐ please, grammar
cops, give me the poetic license for "thrifted."
After rehearsal last night I was in the Mac lab on campus
until 1:30 in the morning capturing the DV footage from Thursday night and last night
with Final Cut Pro 7 on a
MacPro tower; and I'll have to do this
one more time, Monday evening so I can drop some dress rehearsal footage in.
Belkin can't get that damned
Thunderbolt Express Dock out fast
enough. I might add, that their site says it's to be out in "September,
2012"; such is almost over, Belkin!
Today, is all about getting the DV movie as close to final cut as I can, everything
done save for the dress rehearsal footage.
I do have a few graphics to create for a concept I got yesterday. And I have yet
to pick and license the underscore music. The first items on the agenda after I have
slept a few hours, which I get to right after I ftp this blog update to the server.
Still some tweaking going on but it's all very minor stuff.
Scott King (leading man in the 2008
Still Me, in which I made
a small appearance) just sent out this trailer for the new movie that he plays a
Nazi heavy in,
Puppet Master X: Axis Rising.
This is the tenth installment in the
Puppet Master film series.
It is the sequel to the 2010 installment,
Axis of Evil and it
introduces new puppets to the franchise.
Yeah, yeah, "Nazi heavy" as opposed to the
"Nazi sweetheart."
What the screen currently says in a two-plus minute section of the
podcast DV movie.
It's 1:05. Dry Tech is essentially over.
The show gets a run at 4:00.
The podcast DV movie is done except for the placement of footage from dress
rehearsal tomorrow night, and perhaps from the run today. I also may tweak a few
volume levels during some of the commentary moments; from the intermediate render
I notice a few spots where I can't hear well what the actors are saying.
But the podcast should be at final cut by Tuesday afternoon and posted to the
DTG youtube channel
and our
facebook page
by Wednesday.