I'm done with the shooting. It was alot of fun. I got to point guns and drive police cars and run around with my gun and duck behind other police cars and say my (one) line and the DP complimented me, and the weapons master complimented my gunmanship (is that a word) and this may be one of the longer sentences I've written in a long time.

Needless to say, much fun was had by me.

me
Ha HA!

But technically, it's now my first paid movie gig.


Click to Embiggen.

Yes, that's right, High School Musical 3 is getting Theatrical Release, not straight to Disney Channel. That means I'm going to have to go see the thing in the theater instead of getting to sit home, alone with my shame, the remote, and some Ben and Jerry's. ;)

me
PAYD!

I've been kinda moody the last two days. While the photoshoot and the convention were both fun, being "done" with both events was a bit of a letdown. Not that I expected golden rainbows of opportunity to shower down upon me, but... it was exhausting and done, and I was pretty much spent.

So I left the house for the gym in an relatively sedate mood today. Then headed to get my haircut. After the haircut, I got a phone call from the guy who directed The Unwilling, asking me if I was interested in a bit part in a feature he's working on right now. Just a couple of lines, but hey, it's a couple of lines! So he gave me the director's contact info (he's starring in this one) and I have to call him back this afternoon.

So I get home, and in my Moron Life mailbox, I have an email from ABC Family asking me if I'd like to sit in on a conference call "press conference" with Javier Grillo-Marxuach (aka chaodai) about his upcoming show The Middleman (which you really should all plan on watching).

Now I have to get my Thursday morning shift covered.

Thins are lookin up a little today, I think.

me
Breathing...

( EDIT: Trailer for The Middleman behind cut )

6:30 Wake up/shower/dress
7:20 Leave the house/get gas/drive to SF
9:10 Arrive SF/Park/Walk to Casting Agency
9:20 Arrive @ Casting Agency for 9:30 Audition
9:25 Audition
9:30 Leave casting agency/Walk back to garage
9:45 Drive back to San Jose
10:45 Get Jamba and Starbux (for housemate)
11:00 Arrive Home
11:30 Leave for restaurant...

It's kinda cool when you're walking into the casting agency and the casting agent is coming down the stairs you're going up and says "Hey Clay! Glad you're here. We'll get you in before your scheduled time."

me
Auditioneer

Re: The project I can't talk about...

"Thanks for the [REDACTED] lines. They're perfect, and I think you've nailed them all."

me
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeheheheh!

So I had to put together a video reel for an audition. I should have done it a LONG time ago, but... you know, fear of success and all that.

Here's my first attempt. It comes in about 9 seconds longer than my casting agent's "recommended length" -- which means it's one minute and thirty nine seconds long. Not alot of time to show off your goods.

Not all the video is top quality. I need to get copy of more of my professional stuff. But it's a start...

http://reel.ClayRobeson.net

Enjoy!

me
AKTOR!

Holy crap, the audience... they LAUGHED tonight.

The show was fun!

That's a relief.

Closing Matinee tomorrow!

me
nearly done

It was an absolutely fantastic night in San Francisco tonight. Just cold enough that you need a jacket, but warm enough that once you're walking you really want to take the jacket off, but you don't, and instead walk with it unzipped, allowing the cool night air to intermingle with the body warmed air just enough to raise goosebumps across your torso.

The trees with the little, white, honeysuckle like flowers are starting to bloom, filling the air with a light, sweet perfume that makes you think you're in some amazing garden, even if you're standing in the middle of the street.

I found parking about 2 blocks from the theater, and the walk was the perfect length. My tummy was filled with burger, from my stop a King of Burger for some protein. It was there that I did my good deed for the day. As I walked into KoB, there was a young, scruffy kid dressed in a green hoodie and jeans sitting with his backpack and bedroll outside. I walked by and smiled, and he smiled back. He looked like he wanted to ask for money, but he saw the look of pure exhaustion that has been glazing my eyes for the last two days and instead just smiled and asked how I was doing. So I ordered and extra double cheeseburger and tossed it to him as I left KoB, telling him to have a good night. He made this huge smile, and armed with the burger, proceeded inside, where it was a little bit warmer.

As we were getting ready to start the Cue to Cue, the stage manager stopped, looked at me and asked, "Have you done anything with Un-Scripted?" I nodded. "I did the puppet musical with them last spring." She grinned and said, "THAT'S where I know you from! You were FANTASTIC in that. Really really funny!"

Needless to say, that got my night off to a good start.

Cue to Cue went well. The run through after went well. The drive home went well.

All in all, the evening was well. As am I.

Now, off to bed, to try to get as close to a real night's sleep as I can.

me
One-Actor

I haven't made a big deal out of this one, mostly because I didn't realize just how fast it was approaching. However!

This Thursday, I'm taking part in the second half of the Seventh Annual Bay Area One Acts Festival where I'll be appearing in a locally written one act play called A Toss of the Hat.

We run 3/6, 3/7, 3/8, 3/9 (matinée), 3/13, 3/14, 3/15 and 3/16 (matinée).

It's a short (25 minute) Romantic Comedy, and surprisingly enough, I'm the romantic lead. And I do ALOT of talking. And I get to kiss a really really really pretty lady. :D

It's running at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco.

If you'd like to come, rock and roll! :D

me
Memorizing lines... oy!

i r the secksay, no?

I've got the "It's Joe Albertson's Supermarket..." song going through my head now. How's that for showing my age?

Fun shoot. I actually had a stand-in for a brief time, which made me feel oh so superstarish. Once again, great crew, fun time. It's nice to be recognized and greeted with smiles.

me
Stackin Bananas

Let's not talk about waking up late thanks to screwing up AM & PM when resetting my alarm clock (THANKS PG&E!!) and having to drive 85 the whole way to Pleasanton.

Oy.

me
in a Post-Adrenaline Rush coma

ps: There is video. Oh yes, video.

Hey Buffy fans!  Looks like I'll be working on THIS project.  As Angel.  I'm only in 1 episode in the first 12, so it won't be a big time commitment, but I'll likely get some incidental voices to do, too.  They just sent out the "do you accept you part?" email, so technically they could change the casting before the official cast list is posted if people turn stuff down, but that would just mean a meatier role...

me
Building up the Voice Work resume and being a fanboy at the same time...

So if you were me, dressed in a Banana suit, and you needed a KID APPROPRIATE name for yourself, what would you choose?

me
Dan McPeel just doesn't do it, although Don Popeel makes me giggle

This one won't make Wednesday... damn, I was going for a record number of posts today.  And I refuse to backdate. (actually, I really wasn't... I just had alot to post about... and still didn't get it all out).

Anyway, if you didn't get to see me on The Learning Channel on October 21, 2004...

http://actor.clayrobeson.net/media/pprop.mp4

It's not the full show.  I edited down to about 2 minutes of me time.

me
time

'Twas a good night tonight.

Another shoot for Safeway.  This one, while not a principal role, was a principal for the SCENE, which was a cutaway for a larger video entitled Professional Image.  It's all about making a good impression on the customers, and how to present yourself professionally.

I was one of the "Don't be like this guy" guys. :)

Yes, color me Bad Employee.

The first scene was me and another actor working in the produce department.  We were culling fruit bins (pulling bad fruit).  I had the cantaloupes, and he, the peaches.  While going through my bin, I found a peach.  Turned to him, whistled, and lobbed it his way, almost clobbering a customer in the face with it in the process.  Rather than apologize, I just smiled weakly and went back to my culling, then gave her a funny look as she walked away.

In the second scene, I was organizing salad dressing bottles on the shelves.  One of the bottles was covered in something sticky, and rather than removing it from the store floor, I just wiped it on my disgustingly dirty apron and put it back, looking around first to see if anyone was watching.

The cool thing about tonight was that it was the same director from the last project I was on, which meant alot of the same crew.  (Yes, aussieactor, Nichole was there)  I was greeted with a hearty handshake and "Hello, Klae!" by the director, outside the store.  Nichole, the makeup artist gave me a big hug when I arrived.  Even the Safeway official, who made sure what we were doing was "official" recognized me from a shoot I did MONTHS ago.  So that was a nice perk.

The other two Safeway officials were apparently THRILLED with my extremely animated facial expressions.  Bob, the director, told me we were going a little more on the funny side with these "bad employee" cut aways, so I didn't play it totally serious, and got a little expressive at times.  It really worked well, apparently.  The look I gave to the woman that I almost tossed a peach into (see, title reference #1 explained!) had the official folks roaring with laughter immediately after the director yelled cut.

For the dirty bottle scene, we'd shot it a couple times, and it was good, and we were about to wrap when one of the officials pointed out that my apron really needed to be filthy.  So Nichole perked up, vanished, and returned with carrot cake, which she proceeded to smear all over the apron, finishing it off with a light dusting of flour (see, title reference #2 explained!).  It was GROSS, but smelled very tasty.  The camera guys were joking that I was lucky to get paid to have a woman rub food all over my torso.  If only the apron had been a LIIIIIIIIIIITLE longer.  ::sigh::

But again, the non-suit-wearing "suits" loved my facial expressions, especially when I dipped my hand into the imaginary gross stuff, wiped it on my pants, then wiped the bottle with the carrot cake apron.  Much laughter ensued.

And the whole face thing ties back into notes I got from Joe Bill and Mark Sutton from the Annoyance Theater in Chicago.  They told me that I need to animate myself (face and body) more in the work that I do.  It's just that I've had it beaten into me to play "The Straight Guy" for so long, I instinctively DON'T go for overly animated characters (unless I'm playing a puppet).  So it was nice to see that actually working when I apply it. :)

Finally, I asked Bob what the chances of getting a copy of the Direct Deposit video (the one on the golf course) was.  He smiled, walked me to his car and handed one over.  How awesome is THAT?!?

Oh, and the PA bought me Starbucks.  Sugar high WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

me
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Eventually, I want to have swami_bob do a real Headshot photo shoot for me, but that won't happen until the Summer of Starving Artist is over.  So for now, I play with my camera in the back yard and hope for the best.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the attempt at self portraiture today...

( Go figure... )

I want to preface this with the following statement:  If you're not watching "The Riches" on FX, you should.  DAMN good show.  Eddie Izzard is awesome, and this may be the best thing Minnie Driver has ever done.

So tonight I was catching up on The Riches when all of the sudden I saw a face I recognized on the TV screen.  Teresa Huang, pictured at right, was in one of the NY Film Academy films I was in, and now she's got a recurring role on The Riches as Kimmie, did a bit on Ugly Betty and also on Studio 60.  I like it when good people do good.  Too cool.

me
One Step Closer to being Kevin Bacon

So I woke early this morning and was out of the house by 9:30 for my 10:45 call at the golf course.  I wasn't sure how  bad traffic was going to be, but I had to go 39 miles, and stop and Jamba, so I wanted to be sure I had time.

I arrived at the first location shortly after 10:15.  The crew was unloading equipment from the truck.  Bob, the director arrived a few minutes later, and I wandered with him over to the putting green to look at the space we'd be shooting in.  Once the makeup/wardrobe lady arrived (she actually remembered me from the last shoot I did down in Salinas, which was cool), I unloaded my clothes from the car, we set up shop in the board room turned green room, and once my partner in film arrived, we picked out wardrobe.

The day was a hell of a lot of fun.  This director and his crew are a total blast to work with.  They know their shit, and they get it done quickly.  We shot on the putting green from about 11:30 till 3:00ish.  We should have been done about a half an hour before that, but I was having trouble sinking the 12 foot put.  Once we cut it down to a six footer, I nailed it, first try.  Please remember that I've only ever played one game of non-put put in my life.

Nicole, our makeup lady (who is totally awesome), was constantly making sure that we (the Talent) were doing okay.  Sometimes I forget what it's like to be in front of the camera with no behind the scenes responsibilities.  So when I was hauling my own golf bag back to the pro shop at the end of the afternoon, she offered to carry it for me and I laughed.  She smiled and said, "Working in Hollywood has trained me to be way too nice to the Talent."  To which I responded, "Producing my own stuff has taught me that you can never be too nice to your crew."  She smiled, and we went to break down the green room.

The crew and I (my partner was released after the golf bit, it was just me in part two) headed over for a really tasty Hunan lunch around 4:00, and made it to the second location (the Bank) shortly after 5:00, where the extras for that scene were already waiting.  Now Wendy, my casting agent in Mountain View, generally casts really cool people to be extras (me being one of them)... these folks came from some other agency, though, and while they were nice PEOPLE, they were really crappy extras.  They were really snotty about the fact that we were running behind schedule, they were totally unsatisfied with the craft services selection (it was a big basket of chips and other snack items with water and Gatorade), and were all around "put out" with pretty much everything that happened.  Now, I realize that craft service is something that's generally included with most shoots, but I'm also of the camp that believes "crew first, talent second" when it comes to this stuff. And if it's not a huge spread, I'm cool with that.  Hell, I was ready to buy my own lunch, but Bob insisted it was on the client.  These guys, however, dove on the basket like they'd not eaten all day, complaining the entire time.  Seriously, their call was 4:30.  That's too early for dinner. And we were scheduled to be out of there by 7:00, so it's not like they were missing a meal to be there.  Even our makeup lady (who still works feature films when they're anywhere within 100 miles of SF) was shocked by just how demanding they were.

I, however, continued to have a great time hanging out with the crew, and the extras were surprised when they found out I was the principle for the scene.  They thought I was an assistant producer or something.  It's funny how their friendliness towards me ramped up once they realized that I was the actor getting paid the most for the shoot.  Heh.

We got through it, and I made the crew laugh alot (which was good, because Bob wanted to have fun with this part of the piece).  On my closeup I revealed my penchant for being a camera whore, and said as much out loud, making kissy faces into the camera as they were framing the shot.  Tom, the cinematographer laughingly agreed with me (and the extras looked shocked that he did so) which caused me to do a little victory dance, much to the sound guy's amusement.  But we got everything done pretty quickly, and wrapped by 7:15.  Luckily Bob got back from making an Arby's run for the extras (yeah, they made the Producer/Director go get them food after we wrapped) before I took off for the day, so I got to say goodbye to him.

Hopefully I'll get to work for with them again really soon.

me
The Talent

So Monday I hoofed it up to Menlo Park to see Wendy, my casting agent up there.  It was a quick read for another Safeway internal training video gig.  Now usually, I end up as a background extra in these bad boys, but this time, Wendy put me up for a principal speaking role.

And I got it!

The cool thing, though, is that unlike the other Safeway shoots, this one won't be taking place at 2AM in the store, but rather, all day Thursday on a golf course.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!  Sunburn, here I come!

me
PAID Actor!