When Should an Actor Accept a Role?

This may seem counter-intuitive to some, especially when we're just starting out in our careers, but an actor does not have to take every role that (s)he is offered. So when should an actor take a role?

In my opinion, there are three reasons for an actor to accept a role. Ideally, all three will be present in the project, but that's not always the case.

Without further ado, I give you PEC.

1.  The PAY. We all want to get paid for doing what we love. Unfortunately, this is not always an immediate given unless you are incredibly lucky or really young when you start. However, you must determine how much this reason factors into your decision on whether to accept a role. If it's a big deal, you shouldn't be auditioning for things that don't pay. That's not fair to anyone. But, if the lack of Benjamins in your pocket doesn't matter to you, and you want to do it, more power to you. Personally, there are projects that I will do without compensation, and there are projects that I know I'll only do if there is at least some monetary offer.

2. The EXPERIENCE. This reason covers a lot. It can be a role you've always wanted to play, a theatre you've never performed at, or a genre you're not comfortable with. It can be about stretching yourself or resume building. It can be about a boy or a girl you like. It could be because if you spend one more second in the city you'll scream. Only you know what experiences are right for you when they knock on your door.

3. The CONNECTIONS. The world is big, but the theatre and film community, especially in Chicago, is not. For example, I didn’t have to audition for the past two projects on which I worked. I got the calls because the directors had seen me in a peer's project and liked what I did. As much as this introvert resists, acting, like life, sometimes comes down to who you know. Get in the habit of googling those attached to the project. Something that doesn't look great on the breakdown suddenly takes on a whole new light once you watch the director's reel on vimeo or check out the producer's IMDB page. The internet is your friend. Do your research. Also, don't be a jerk. It will get back to people.

Which matters the most? Right now, I am more interested in finding projects that have the potential for both Experience and Connections. Someday I'm going to reach a point where I require all of PEC for every project that I take on, but that's not my current reality. However, over the past few months, I've gone from being only an Experience girl, to looking for the Connections too. Let yourself grow. It's good business.

Have something to add? Comment below.

Jason Momoa's Game of Thrones Audition Tape

As previously discussed in my post about Rose Byrn's Get Him to the Greek Audition Tape, I firmly believe that studying professionals' audition videos provide wonderful learning tools for actors.

I hadn't seen Jason Momoa's Game of Thrones Audition before, but, luckily for me, the tape is currently trending like crazy.

Talk about a mic dropping audition. He GOES for it. He is terrifying and completely captivating.

Also, let's discuss wardrobe. This is more than Rose Byrn's suggestion of character. The man is wearing gauntlets, an open shirt, and a necklace with...are those teeth? I'm pretty sure those are teeth. However, he's not rocking all out animal skins and war paint. He gives us enough to see him as Khal Drogo. It takes no imagination to believe that he could lead the Dothraki, and yet we aren't taken out of his performance by any distracting costume choices.

Further, the tape ends with Momoa still in character. The last thing we see is not the actor, but Khal Drogo getting ready to maim a spoiled prince or eat a horse heart or something. He ends as he began, super strong and So. Good.

Set Stories: My Truck's Bigger Than Your "Art Film"

Sometimes I forget how awful people can be. Call it naive, call it rose-colored glasses, call it what you want, but displays of utter lack of decency take me by surprise.

This past weekend I was on two overnights for a shoot (call time was 6:50 PM, I was getting a ride back to my apartment at about 4 AM). The first day (night) went really well. People passing by wanted to know what we were doing, what all the lights and equipment were for, etc. I'm sure they hoped that they had stumbled upon Chicago Fire (me too y'all, me too), but were totally cool when they were let down.

The second night had a visitor who was less than thrilled at our presence. Before I begin the story, let it be noted that all permits were in place.

It started when he had to maneuver around a camera set up to parallel park his gigantic truck. He let us know we were less than welcome by screaming "This is my house!" OK, dude, whatever, no one's stopping you from doing anything. He parks and unloads his truck while his mortified teenage son tries to disappear into the sidewalk. We don't think anything else of it.

Then, about half an hour later, when we've changed set ups and moved down a little bit, he comes barreling down the street in his truck, having un-parked and driven around the block.

He yells that he doesn't care about the little "Art Film" and that this shouldn't be happening on "his street" and he's going to call the cops. Our fabulous DP replies to go ahead, call the cops, and shows him the permits.

At this point, the man gets angry and DRIVES OVER a traffic saw horse in order to speed through the set. He then parks in exactly the same spot.

Luckily there was no damage to equipment or person besides the horse he drove over, but that kind of behavior baffles me. What kind of day or life did that guy have to make him so angry? In other words, "What is your damage, Heather?"

How to Write a Screenplay (According to Me): Part 1

This is not a definitive "How to Write a Screenplay" blog post. This is a "How I Wrote My Screenplay, What I Did Wrong, and What I'll Do Again" post. It is my goal to provide a case study of one way (out of bazillions) to get an idea from brain to final draft.

1. Teach Myself the Proper Screenwriting Format, etc.

I read The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script* pretty much from cover to cover weeks before I started this project. I thought it was very informative. I tabbed and highlighted the heck out of it. I even created worksheets based on the information the book contained to streamline my writing process. I didn't end up using the worksheets for this script, but I think they will be helpful for something that doesn't hit me like this one did.

Another edition has been released, but I used the 5th edition blue one.

2. The Idea

I've had several ideas for a screenplay percolating for months. One's even been kicking around in my head for over a year. However, none of these ideas started a fire under me quite like the one I experienced for this story.
I was up, unable to sleep, "what if, what if, what if" circling around my brain and messing with my beauty rest.
And that's just it. I thought about "what if" and out came scenarios, reactions, ways to combat the problem. No real life life solution manifested, but I had an absolute ball running with what could happen.  

3. Getting It Out of My Brain

I wrote a huge chunk out in Microsoft Word in a single night. The day after next, I had to drive six hours to attend a wedding. Most of that trip was spent improvising dialogue into an audio recording app on my iPhone. For some reason, long car trips help my brainstorming immensely. 

In between wedding festivities, I was transcribing what I had recorded and adding new scenarios. 

I used the following format in word:

• What's Happening in the Scene 
• Describe the setting (if I knew)
• Character 1: Talky talky talky.
• Character 2: Reply reply reply.
• This is action happening.
• Character 1: Babble babble babble.
• Action Action action
• Character 2: Ruminate ruminate ruminate
• Next scene
• Repeat above.

A note on why I wrote it out in Word first: My screenwriting program of choice is Celtx (because it's free). The program, however, does not lend itself, in my opinion, to easy editing and rearranging. Word, on the other hand, is incredibly easy to finagle with. Also, I used the transfer process from Word to Celtx as a way to do some initial re-drafting, but more on that later. 

The word count for my screenplay was 13,385 words (pre-Celtx transfer). After fleshing out the writing, this translated to roughly 90 pages of screenplay. As you may or may not know, in general, one page of script is equal to one minute of screen time. That, of course, made me as pleased as Punch.

4. Playing with the Scene Order

After I had it all typed out in Word, I made each scene its own page. I adjusted font size to make it fit onto a single page if necessary.

I then printed out two written pages to every printed page and cut them in half so I had a bunch of scene cards that I could physically see and play with. I also made blank cards so I could add scenes as I needed them.

Next, I sat on the floor and laid out my film. I rearranged, cut, and added scenes where there were holes in the story.

Once that was done, I went back into Word and cut and paste my new order and wrote out the scenes that had been missing.

|A Note on Thinking Ahead|

I wrote this screenplay for eventual production. Specifically, I wrote one of the parts for me. One of my many life's ambitions is to pull a Brit Marling and make my own way. 

This means that even if this is the best screenplay ever (which let's be real, even though I'm actually really liking where it's going, Casablanca it's not) getting this produced is going to be an issue. I tried to keep it as inexpensive as possible. I also made sure that there were plenty of Chicago shout-outs scattered throughout the script. 

5. Transfer to Celtx

I printed out another copy of my script and then started to type it out, scene by scene, into Celtx. 

This was an incredibly tedious process. I'm sure it would be more efficient to just do the whole thing in the program, however, during the transfer I fleshed out my scenes, added dialogue, cut things that I didn't think worked, etc. By the time I typed "The End" in Celtx, I was really on my third draft of the script (1. pre-arranged draft 2. post-arranged draft 3. Celtx draft). 

6. Reading Out Loud

I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Some of my dialogue didn't sound like something my characters would say: sometimes it was too stilted, sometimes it didn't make sense off the page, etc. I sat there and acted out 92 pages, by myself, making changes as I went. 

I also fixed regular typos in this phase as well. I read EVERYTHING aloud, even the action and scene headings.

7. Read It Again and Fix the Nuts and Bolts

I fixed my errors in spelling, typos, and formatting. For example, I played with my montage format a few of times, so I needed to decide on a consistent approach. Also, I have a couple of phone conversations so I needed to figure out how to write those effectively. The resource that I turned to repeatedly was this fantastic free PDF called How Did They Write It, which is a compilation of how writers have dealt with issues ranging from phone conversations to on screen text. I also referenced my tabbed pages in The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script*. (Especially pages 136-138 which contain a sample script.)

8. Sending It to First Round Beta Readers

At the end of last week, I sent it to my first round of beta readers. These are the people who I trust to rip it apart and tell me what they think. None of my first round readers are in the industry or have studied film. However, most really love entertainment and are close friends. I've gotten initial comments back from one reader thus far and they've been beyond helpful.
Once I get those comments back, I'll take them into consideration, change what I agree with, ignore it if I disagree, and send it out for another round with my next group of victims friends. Again, these will be close friends and people I trust to eviscerate my writing.

This is where I am with the script. I will do another post as I take steps toward getting that final draft completed. Hang with me.

* I have become an Amazon Associate to monetize my blog. When you see an asterisk, it means that the link could put money in my pocket if you decide to click it and make a qualifying purchase from Amazon. I do not include products on my blog that I have not personally used. If I find them valuable, I'll let you know. If I hate them, I'm probably not going to write about them because of that whole "If you don't have something nice to say..." thing.

Screenplay: 6 Days Later

My cousin's wedding was this past weekend (beautiful ceremony, incredibly happy for her) so I was home visiting with family and friends. Before that, my dog had an appointment with her primary vet. The office she goes to is nicer than my doctor's office. There are slate looking floors and a coffee machine for all the pet parents. She even had a chiropractic adjustment. It was rather bizarre to me, but she immediately stopped dragging her back foot so I will call it money well spent.

Smooshed in between all the wedding festivities and visits was me typing away on my laptop, finishing the first draft of my script. It's rough. But it's there. The next step is to take my shoddy word document and turn it into something that looks like a screenplay. This will be finagled somewhere in the midst of rehearsals and line memorization, and planning an epic itinerary for when another cousin makes her first visit to Chicago.

In other news, I finally saw Guardians of the Galaxy. I will admit that, for the first third to half of the movie, I was a little disappointed. This was the movie that I was looking forward to the entire summer and it just wasn't doing it for me. However, they hit the halfway point and I was there. I ended up loving it. I'd like to see it again just to determine if I was in a weird mood that was keeping me from falling into the movie immediately or if it really was just inconsistent.

I also caught up on Outlander. The wedding episode. Gah. That show really knows how to work the slow burn. And the costuming. And the scenery. And the Jamie.  

Burning the Midnight Oil

As I begin this post, it's 4:50. In the AM. I don't actually remember the last time I've seen 4:50 from staying up all night. Oh, yeah I do. The last time I was awake this late it was a result of subjecting myself to a horror movie featuring terrifying ghosts. I couldn't go to sleep until the sun came up. Yes, I realize that I have an over active imagination and that my emotions are easily manipulated by movies.

Today, however, I am still awake because I've been pounding out a screenplay. I'm trying to take the advice to create my own content seriously. I am posting this here because, allegedly, if I shout it out to the world I am more likely to follow through (that's what the internet told me). The story is in its very preliminary stages. I have a rough outline and some dialogue. That's not much, but it's certainly better than nothing. Hopefully, in a year or so from now, the film will be on its way to being produced. Or, I will have learned so much from the process that I wrote another, better screenplay and it's being produced. The way I see it, those are only two option. Success or success.

Here's Peter O'Toole singing "The Impossible Dream," from Man of La Mancha, to inspire us all.

In other news, I have been cast in another student film that shoots the first weekend of October.   

P.S. If there are typos please be a doll and ignore them. I'm so tired that my eyes are doing funny things.

A Couple of Redesigns

Hey All,

A little while back I decided that I absolutely hated the way that my website looked. So, I redesigned it. I also cleaned up the code. It was, to put it mildly, a hot mess.

Click here to see my new website. Tell me what you all think.

I am much happier with the way it looks. Unfortunately I'm having some issues with the CSS of my photo album. The last two pictures take the viewer back to the beginning of the slide show. I don't know how to fix it, but I'm researching solutions.

And, as hopefully you noticed, I've updated the look of this blog. I wanted something more minimalist and (can you sense a theme?) cleaner.

There are also going to be some content changes that accompany this new look. I'm getting more and more into filmmaking, so I will also be sharing resources along those lines. In short, I'm expanding beyond an entirely acting based focus. So LOOK OUT WORLD.