Wednesday, 18 January 2012

The Kid In The Front Row Screen Acting School

1. Cinema has been around less than 200 years. No-one can claim any technique is perfect. The art is still developing.

2. Don't yap on about your technique until you're awesome. Nothing worse than an actor yammering on about some teacher with an unusual name, when they can't even remember their lines.

3. Turn up on time.

4. Don't make diva like demands, you're just an actor, and there is nothing inherently special about that.

5. And when I say 'just an actor' It's not a put down, It's just that It's just a job, a career choice, like anything else.

6. Be in it for the long haul. People want to be cast when they're 24 and pretty but there's nothing interesting about being 24 and pretty.

7. Watch films. No excuses.

8. Be careful not to zone out after three takes. Stay in the game.

9. Get clarity from your director.

10. Make decisions about your character, bring it to the table. A director has the vision but you have the inner life. The more you believe in it, the more a director will leave you alone to work.

11. Be the one actor on set at 3am in a frozen cold field who doesn't moan that It's 3am in a frozen cold field.

12. Find something about yourself that you love and don't let anyone shake it. Start at that very point whenever you feel nervous, unsupported or lost on set.

Main Points: Turn up on time, be in it for the long haul.

Care to share?

Sunday, 15 January 2012

New Ground

You reach a dead end. You have the same thoughts, same complaints, same answers.

You're torn between getting away from yourself, or fighting deeper into it.

Watch a film, go for a walk, read a self-help book, whatever you think will pull you through. But nothing you purposefully do, will.

Creativity is when you all your knowledge, talent, ambition and ideas find a new pathway. And then you're free, you can flow non-stop, and your complaints become opportunities, and life feels good again.

You can't force it, because you don't know where the path is. But without getting lost, you never find new terrain.

Care to share?

Friday, 13 January 2012

Band Of Brothers. Michael Kamen. My Grandfather.

He says it's nothing like the real thing, he dismissed it. Same with Private Ryan. But It's as near as I'll ever get to the real thing cause I'm just a lucky Kid who can sit around making lists of Top 5 War films. But he really lived it, and lost people.

'Band Of Brothers' was a profound show for me. It captured everything I love about my Grandfather and his generation. I mean, they stood up. They did something. It's immeasurable.

So I'm listening to 'Band Of Brothers Requiem' (composed by Michael Kamen) on repeat and it hits me on a level hardly anything ever hits me. The world is so different now. We're so lucky in Europe, and America, but how often do we really appreciate why?

Care to share?

Illegal Streaming of Movies

Some kid from the UK was running an illegal streaming site, called TV Shack, and he's in the process of being extradited so he can face trial in a US Court. Read about it here.

Now, that's fair enough. He broke numerous laws, probably lost the studios hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he profited through advertising.

So, he's the bad guy.

But watch what happens two years from now, when the studios make websites that look exactly like the illegal ones. Why? Because It's what the people want, and soon the studios will follow.

These kids who set up video sites are catering to what the people are demanding. The studios could do the same thing now -- cut prices and stream the films online. Give the public what they want.

That's what we learned from the music industry. The argument was "people just want to steal", but it wasn't true. People just wanted mp3's. And remember when they tried to stop music being on YouTube? They used to ban your account if you put a track online. Now they welcome it with a big advert on your video, because they found out how to monetize it.

I'm tired of this game. I'm tired of the crazy prices. When I was a teenager I saved up week after week to buy 'FRIENDS' on VHS. It was £19.99 per video. Each video had four episodes. I spent hundreds and hundreds.

And then the DVD'S came out, and they put eight episodes on a disc and a deleted scene or two. And we accepted it because the technology was better.

And then eventually they put it on a single box set, which cost a couple of hundred but now only costs £40.

But if I go on a website tonight and stream an episode because one of my DVDs won't play properly, I'm breaking the law?

Netflix just launched in the UK, streaming only, £5.99 a month. This kind of thing is the future, but right now their catalogue sucks, it's half-assed. Same goes for lovefilm.

But all the major broadcasters in the UK stream their programmes the next day online. And you can get them through your Xbox. Netflix is here from the USA and maybe someday we'll get Hulu.

The point is, everyone is coming up with answers, but the Studios sue the kids who supply them. But a year or two from now, they'll copy them. One way to look at the people behind these sites is as lawbreakers, but in my opinion, they're just leading the way. The studios will follow, right after they've put them all in jail.

Care to share?