A Working Actor's Lament (Chapter 23)
"Improving on Improv-ing - The Student Film Experience"
It was a balmy day, unlike any he had seen in July. The invisible water in the air was sticking to his body, causing his clothes to stick to places that previously had never been sticky. The unusually hot temperature had reached above the double digits. The actor kept wondering when he moved to the center of the sun, but he had more important things to worry about. He was on his way to the University of Southern California to meet Michael, a film student who responded to the submission sent out from the actor just yesterday.
On the way to the audition, the actor turned down the radio so he could fumble through the monologue that was requested by the up-and-coming George Lucas. Under 5 minutes, that was all the time he had to prove he was right for the role. The role: a starving artist. Not that far of a stretch for this ball of sweat sitting behind the wheel. He figured he would dust off his standard "I Hate Hamlet" speech, after all, it had worked in the past. After running through it a couple of times, as well as through a couple of stop lights, he was at his destination. Pulling the quarter out of his pocket and placing it in the meter, he knew that one hour would be plenty of time to get in, blow them away, and get out.
As he walked past the campus Starbucks, he thought about adding caffeine into the equation of nerves, dehydration, and a body temperature that was slowly rising, and decided against it. A frap might be good for the ride home. Strolling through the USC labyrinth of buildings, the site took him back to his college years and he felt the urge to build a "beer wall", throw-up at the football game, and skip classes. Oh, the memories.
When he got to the television studies building, appropriately called "Carson Hall" (the actor thought the television studies building named after the great Western hunter Kit Carson was weird, but he tried to put that out of his mind), he saw the hand drawn signs leading to the second floor. It read "Auditions for 'Bored' Room 200". As he got to the second floor, he saw two men standing outside the room. He realized why they had named the short film "Bored", as they had no life in them. They noticed the actor walking towards them and called out his name. He was early, but the guys looked happy about that. Their mood changed as the actor shook their hands. It was time to show them how much he hated Hamlet.
The room was your average sized classroom with all the desks and chairs pushed to one side so to leave an big empty space for the audition. The only furniture on the "stage" were two chairs. There was a table about 20 feet away from the two chairs. This is where the two men headed. The actor took out his photo and resume and started spewing his hatred for Hamlet. When he finished, he felt pretty good about it. The director stood up and walked over to a camera that was placed over in the far left corner of the room. He told the actor that he was going to film him during his improv.
The actor didn't know if the sweat on his scalp was from the 105 degree weather or from his insecurities of doing improv. His obvious shaking probably had to do with his body going into dehydration and not from the fact that improv is not his "strong suit". Was he going to pass out and hit his head on one of the two chairs in close proximity to him? Would it be caught on film and seen on America's Funniest Home Videos in the up-coming months? He would do his best to make sure that didn't happen.
The director told him the scenario: he was to be moving into a small, cramped studio apartment where he could not move from the clutter in the room, and with him was his only inspiration to paint - his chair. "And, go."
The actor went on auto pilot. This big, empty room was now a small, cluttered space, and the chair (his muse, if you like) became his dancing partner. He placed it here, then there, then here. He sat in it, laid across it, flipped it in the air. By the time he was done, he had no clue what he had done. An oxymoron of moronic proportions.
He left, hoping that his hatred for Hamlet shined brighter then the tango/line-dance/hip-hop of confusion he left the two men with. As he thought more about it, he realized that he never played anything towards the camera in the room: good, because he wouldn't be recognized when they showed it on national TV, and bad, because he probably wouldn't get the job. Either way, the heat hitting him as he opened the door to the outside was welcoming to his body, now on the verge of hypothermia.
As he walked to his car, passing the Starbucks by, he smiled. The actor put the keys in the ignition, started the car, and turned the air conditioning on. As his body adjusted to the new temperature, he thought to himself how he wouldn't have wanted his audition to go any other way. This was definitely the career he wanted.
It was a balmy day, unlike any he had seen in July. The invisible water in the air was sticking to his body, causing his clothes to stick to places that previously had never been sticky. The unusually hot temperature had reached above the double digits. The actor kept wondering when he moved to the center of the sun, but he had more important things to worry about. He was on his way to the University of Southern California to meet Michael, a film student who responded to the submission sent out from the actor just yesterday.On the way to the audition, the actor turned down the radio so he could fumble through the monologue that was requested by the up-and-coming George Lucas. Under 5 minutes, that was all the time he had to prove he was right for the role. The role: a starving artist. Not that far of a stretch for this ball of sweat sitting behind the wheel. He figured he would dust off his standard "I Hate Hamlet" speech, after all, it had worked in the past. After running through it a couple of times, as well as through a couple of stop lights, he was at his destination. Pulling the quarter out of his pocket and placing it in the meter, he knew that one hour would be plenty of time to get in, blow them away, and get out.
As he walked past the campus Starbucks, he thought about adding caffeine into the equation of nerves, dehydration, and a body temperature that was slowly rising, and decided against it. A frap might be good for the ride home. Strolling through the USC labyrinth of buildings, the site took him back to his college years and he felt the urge to build a "beer wall", throw-up at the football game, and skip classes. Oh, the memories.
When he got to the television studies building, appropriately called "Carson Hall" (the actor thought the television studies building named after the great Western hunter Kit Carson was weird, but he tried to put that out of his mind), he saw the hand drawn signs leading to the second floor. It read "Auditions for 'Bored' Room 200". As he got to the second floor, he saw two men standing outside the room. He realized why they had named the short film "Bored", as they had no life in them. They noticed the actor walking towards them and called out his name. He was early, but the guys looked happy about that. Their mood changed as the actor shook their hands. It was time to show them how much he hated Hamlet.
The room was your average sized classroom with all the desks and chairs pushed to one side so to leave an big empty space for the audition. The only furniture on the "stage" were two chairs. There was a table about 20 feet away from the two chairs. This is where the two men headed. The actor took out his photo and resume and started spewing his hatred for Hamlet. When he finished, he felt pretty good about it. The director stood up and walked over to a camera that was placed over in the far left corner of the room. He told the actor that he was going to film him during his improv.
The actor didn't know if the sweat on his scalp was from the 105 degree weather or from his insecurities of doing improv. His obvious shaking probably had to do with his body going into dehydration and not from the fact that improv is not his "strong suit". Was he going to pass out and hit his head on one of the two chairs in close proximity to him? Would it be caught on film and seen on America's Funniest Home Videos in the up-coming months? He would do his best to make sure that didn't happen.
The director told him the scenario: he was to be moving into a small, cramped studio apartment where he could not move from the clutter in the room, and with him was his only inspiration to paint - his chair. "And, go."
The actor went on auto pilot. This big, empty room was now a small, cluttered space, and the chair (his muse, if you like) became his dancing partner. He placed it here, then there, then here. He sat in it, laid across it, flipped it in the air. By the time he was done, he had no clue what he had done. An oxymoron of moronic proportions.
He left, hoping that his hatred for Hamlet shined brighter then the tango/line-dance/hip-hop of confusion he left the two men with. As he thought more about it, he realized that he never played anything towards the camera in the room: good, because he wouldn't be recognized when they showed it on national TV, and bad, because he probably wouldn't get the job. Either way, the heat hitting him as he opened the door to the outside was welcoming to his body, now on the verge of hypothermia.
As he walked to his car, passing the Starbucks by, he smiled. The actor put the keys in the ignition, started the car, and turned the air conditioning on. As his body adjusted to the new temperature, he thought to himself how he wouldn't have wanted his audition to go any other way. This was definitely the career he wanted.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home