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Making Ideas Happen

April 15, 2011 in Advice, Books, Ideas with 2 Comments

As a creative type, I come up with ideas that die on the sidelines of my mind almost daily. I stumbled upon a video recently that blew me away in terms of what it must have taken to turn the initial idea into a reality. Click here to check out this UBC Lipdub video.

I have four great passions in life: Writing, Acting, Rapping and Speaking. From time to time I will come up with an idea for one of these passions- something I think would be really neat. And I take that idea, and I tuck it away on a shelf in my mind. And there it stays undeveloped like a forgotten roll of film.

I have the best intentions. I have the worst execution. So I am reading a book called Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky. Click here to check it out.

Here’s what I’m learning:

- The idea is easy. The execution is hard.
- The idea is cheap. The execution is gold.
- The idea will die on its own. The execution requires action, leadership and community.

For those of you who turn your ideas into projects… how do you do it?

To Slap

October 27, 2010 in Acting, Advice, Auditions, Casting Directors, Movies with 0 Comments

I am in the middle of watching the movie Sideways. Paul Giamatti is amazing. I just realized something. Everything I need to be a great actor is in the eyes of my scene partner. Its all there. Watching, listening, believing what they say, not believing what they say…

Two weeks ago I had an audition for a new television series. The casting breakdown stated that the Producers and Director would be present. Yikes. That always unsettles me.  But I made up my mind that I was walking into that room thinking about one person. Not the producer. Not the director. Not the casting director. The one person I need to focus on… is the reader. That seemingly insignificant person reading the lines. I need to MESS WITH THEM! I need to move them. To listen to them. To challenge them. That is my goal. So I walked into the room and instead of being intimidated by the panel behind the desk, I was totally focused on the most important person in the room, the reader. My goal in an audition is to disturb, startle, disrupt, break, woo, slap, sting, stab, offend, love, and win the heart of the reader.

It was a great audition. I didn’t get the part. Rejection is part of the journey.

Blockable Goals

March 13, 2010 in Acting, Advice, Auditions, Goal Setting, Preparation, Uncategorized with 1 Comment

I have a big audition coming up this Monday. I am not going to tell you what it is for because I don’t want to jinx anything. I really want to nail this audition so I am setting some goals for myself…

I heard a teaching once about blockable goals. That’s when you set a goal for yourself when you are not in control of the outcome. Blockable goals lead to anger and frustration. “My goal is to get this role” is a decent rhyme but a blockable goal. And it has led to plenty of frustration for me in auditions past! So the goals I have set for Monday are:

- I want to arrive at the audition 60 minutes early
- I want to know my lines inside and out
- I want to be the most prepared actor at that audition

That last one might not be a perfect goal but it does inspire me to practice like crazy so it works.

If I get the role I will let you know. If I don’t get the role, forget that you ever read this. Except maybe for the part about blockable goals… that stuff really works.

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