This past Friday my friend Megan and I shot an audition video for her. She is auditioning for an entertainment group which will tour aboard a cruise ship.
Most audition tapes are pretty boring – they are usually shot on a tripod, and with the actor or actress in plain clothes reciting their monologue. However, we decided to make our video a bit more dynamic.
First of all, Megan researched her historic role down to the minutia, and found herself the perfect outfit. Part two – instead of shooting in a house or at a studio, we decided to take it a step farther and actually shot aboard the Queen Mary – a cruise ship from the early 1900s that rivaled the Titanic in size and grandeur.
Below is our completed video. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
We have not me yet, but I look forward to working together soon. Just wanted to start out letting you know that you are one of my heroes, and truly have been an inspiration for the young entertainment professional. I’m frustrated with NBC for you, but at the same time very optimistic for where your career will head.
With that said, you and I both know that you have a few months of free time before you can be on the air again. With this time, I hope that you spend it relaxing, reflecting, and getting to spend some much deserved time with your family. However, once the kids are starting to be a headache, and you are starting to get the performing itch again, I’d love to invite you to join me on the set of my upcoming independent film staring Conan O’Brian. The pay sucks, but I think it will be a good experience.
You’ll play a Boy Scout Leader who is trying to prove to his son that camping is cool in a world of wiis and ipods in my movie “Man Scouts.”
Have your people talk to my people. Or just email me. Either way.
Yep. You guessed it. Just got a new camera. No hidden meaning in this title. Below are a few photos I took this week in Los Angeles of a very strange sight – a rain storm. After a long summer of fire and drought, we’ve spent this entire week in flood. Actually, today we had a few water spouts and tornado touch downs.
The camera is just a little point-and-shoot the size of a credit card, but it shoots at 12 MP, and can even shoot 720p HD video. It is the Canon PowerShot SD780. A very special thanks to the Bottorff family – it was their wedding gift to us.
Without further ado, here is our beautiful city during and right after a storm.
Allow me a bit of room here. These are my ideas, but I do not necessarily approve of them:
A homeless person asks if I have any ’spare change’ and I apologize that all I have is hundred dollar bills.
Another homeless person asks me for money and I tell them “sorry, there is a lot of competition out there – I already gave my change to another homeless guy.”
Best homeless sign I’ve seen to date. Very simple. It just said, “We’re Fucked.”
I was asked for $32 by a crazy person because he told me that his Ass was bleeding. Seriously. Then he wanted to show me.
I had a crazy person try to sell me a “wireless keyboard and wireless mouse.” They both had the wires wrapped around them. Clearly taken from the library next door.
The reason that we don’t have a recycling program in Los Angeles is because we have homeless people to do it for us.
A guy told me that he was starving and could I buy him a bagel. I said sure. Then he asked me to make sure that it was non fat turkey, jalapeño whipped cream, provolone cheese, and lightly toasted. All I was getting was a plain bagel. Something tells me he wasn’t that hungry.
While a homeless man was asking me for money, his cell phone rang.
Thank you all who tuned in on Thursday to watch me in Flashforward. Unfortunately, my face didn’t make it to the final cut of the episode, but there is a close up of the back of my head! I always knew that my hair was one of my most photogenic features. So, if you’d like to see the back of my head, it is on the left side of the frame right at 24:00 minutes into the episode if you are watching it below.
About two months ago I started seeing them outside our apartment. Two stray cats had a litter, and ever since then my heart has been entranced. Two little kittens. They were both so sweet, yet still were very dependent on Mom.
A week after they were born, I stepped outside headed for work, only to see that someone had hit one of the kittens with a car. It was too small, and too good for this world. After that I was determined to protect the other one in any way I could.
Since then, I’ve seen on a daily basis Mom, Dad, and the one kitten. Mom and Dad scurry away when they see me, but kitten usually stays around, very curious. On one particular day, I saw him disappear under our neighbor’s car. I looked under to see him, but no cat was in sight. When the neighbor stepped out, I asked if she wouldn’t mind popping her hood. She did, and right on top of the engine sat a little kitten. We were both glad that we’d checked before she headed out.
About a week ago I noticed that I was seeing kitten by himself more and more. On my steps. Meowing at the door. He’s about twelve weeks now. Finally on his own in kitten years…. So I’ve started feeding him bread. I’ve left bread crumb trails up to my apartment a few times, but without complete luck yet. I want to pet him, but he won’t quite let me, although he is very curious.
I’ve heard him crying outside. Its fall now, and its getting a bit cold.
So, two days ago, I step outside and I see kitten. But he’s not on the ground as usual. My neighbor is holding him! I asked how she did it. She shows me cat food. She tells me that he needs a home, but that she can’t take him. That she doesn’t have room….
So, Mojito is now living with me, and loving it. Unbelievably happy. He’s been looking for it for a while, and finally found a home.
Brace yourself, because I am about to give away the biggest secret of film & motion picture:
Its actually an illusion. The picture isn’t moving at all. You are simply seeing twenty four still photos flashed before your eyes every second. In one minute, you’ve processed fifteen hundred unique stills. They are all perfectly still, but your mind assembles them in a row, leading you to believe that you are actually seeing real life motion, captured on screen.
Visual Storytelling.
I open up most scripts, and I see just two thing: dialogue and description. The dialogue is usually the characters telling an audience exactly what they are experiencing, and the description is usually telling the audience exactly what the character is thinking. Both absolutely useless for a movie.
You see, you can’t shoot on film what a character is thinking, and it will bore an audience to death if an actor is actually telling what he is experiencing or feeling.
Ninety seven spec scripts out of a hundred are written like this. Well, actually, while I’m making up the statistics, it might as well be ninety nine hundred out of a thousand. And it is a huge red flag to me that the writer – although most likely talented – doesn’t have a clue about screenwriting.
All that a screenplay is, is a story told in pictures. In essence, a movie is just a picture book. Since we have a sound track, and since the pictures seem to be moving, most people think that the medium is somehow different, but if you look closely, this understanding of the medium is what makes the difference between the novice writer, and the expert.
The secret to writing a movie: forget that it moves at all. Forget that you are a writer – you are not. You are a photographer. Instead of telling your story with words, think about how you can show it with images. Imagine that you are trying to explain to a deaf person an experience that you had, and all you have are pictures from your Polaroid camera. Show those pictures in such an order as to show them your story. And now, as a screenwriter, know that you can take pictures of absolutely anything you want to get your point across.
When putting your masterpiece together, each sentence of description is one Polaroid photograph. Nothing more, nothing less. Describe that photo with one sentence, in the simplest way possible. Then line up hundreds of these Polaroids in a row, and simply describe each one.
When a reader reads this list of photographs, they won’t realize that they are looking at a series of still pictures. Their mind will blend it together, and create motion between them, creating a fluid story that they can see.
I still haven’t seen the movie yet, but already the story has captivated me. “Where the Wild Things Are.” I’ve seen the preview a hundred times now, and the images keep filling my head reminding me who I am. For the last four or five months I’ve been trying desperately to grow up. Its been painful. There have been tears. Its been a tearing of me. And then the beautiful images of this film showed me what the problem was:
I’m not supposed to grow up.
I’m supposed to stay a kid. That is where fun is. That is where creativity is; freedom. Like the words of the theme song, “Our bodies grow up, but our hearts get torn up.”
I’m looking forward to taking the journey to “Where the Wild Things Are,” and finding the kid in me again.
If you haven’t heard it, take five minutes and enjoy the song “Wake Up.”
Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. Justin Timberlake. All three superstars, and all a product of Disney. Arguably some our best pop talent today, and they all got their start on the Mickey Mouse Club.
I was listening to the radio last week and heard for the first time “Party in the USA,” but didn’t recognize the voice. A little bit cheesy maybe, but part of the song struck a cord with me. Maybe its because I relate to the story of being new to Hollywood, and building my own career. Either way, it sounded to me like a song of a young artist who was definitely breaking into the industry.
So when I got back home, I looked up the song on the net, and to my disbelief, it was Miley Cyrus. I was shocked – even though I’d never seen Hannah Montana, I was sure that anything that came from Miley Cyrus would have to be for tween girls – until I saw the music video.
Now forget about Miley for a second and just watch the video. It is aesthetically beautiful – the director did a fabulous job with different levels of lighting and contrast. It is eye candy for any director of photography. Part two: Miley. After watching this video, I know that Miley Cyrus is no longer Hannah Montana. She truly is entering the arena of young pop stars – following in the footsteps of Christina and Britney – but for some reason, I think that she is more ready for it than either of them were.
I want to put her in a movie – a real movie. Get rid of the Disney stigma, and see what she is capable of. As a dual threat, crossing the boundaries between music and screen, I have a feeling that her career is just beginning.
I’m at Starbucks, and I’m completely shocked at a what I see. A brother and sister walk in after school. She has pig tails. He has a Power Rangers back pack. She’s no older than eleven, and he’s maybe eight. They look like the two most innocent kids in the world, the kind that would be in a Walmart picture frame. They walk past the cash register, and straight to the back of the store and ask where the supervisor is.
So, the supervisor comes out, and immediately makes them drinks, and brings them to the kids. The kids leave. Did I miss something? I know they didn’t pay. I think that perhaps she knows them.
The next day, I’m back at the same Starbucks. The kids are back. They pass the register, including the line, and strait back to the back. I see the same supervisor this time shake her head “no”. I watch.
Then from the little eight year old boy I hear “Are you kiddin’ me? We come in here everyday for a year, and now you’re not givin’ us OUR drink? I mean, we’ve been LOYAL.” He starts waving his hands like a rapper. The eight year old.
The supervisor still says no, and then the twelve year old girl gets in her face. “You trying to tell me that you’re going to make us drinks every day for a year, and then out of no where stop? What’s wrong with you?” I could tell the Starbucks employee was getting nervous. Heck, I was getting nervous. Things were getting loud.
A few minutes later, both the kids walked out – drinks in hands like they owned the world. I know that they at least owned Starbucks.
A few days later I was back for my regular Carmel Macchiato. Guess who shows up? So they walk past the register as before, and are looking around. The supervisor from before must have been off that day. But after a minute of these kids sticking their heads in the back of the store, the eight year old boy looks around at all of the guests in the store, and throws his hands up in the air and says, “Must be the wrong store.” The girl flips her hair back, “Yeah, we ain’t never been in this Starbucks before.”
