I made it through the wind and the rain to my home once more. I am beyond pleased that the foul weather has put in an appearance again--now if only it would snow, and it would stay this way for a few months...
Class tonight went well enough, though not spectacularly. Our LA agent was a very nice fellow--he'd do perfectly as Christopher Guest's younger brother, and he was friendly and supportive. I did okay. It's hard because sometimes I do fantastically well, which means that when I'm just competent or close to, it feels like I've failed.
The tricky bit is, I'm never positive about what it is that makes the difference. In some ways I feel like I've plateaued in the voice work; I can do well with coaching and my instructors have been encouraging, but I can't seem to make the leap to doing a great job the first time out of the gate. And that is what the industry demands, because you usually only get a few minutes to look over the script, then have to jump into a booth and do the thing spot-on the first time before they usher you back out. Time is money in this industry, and a producer might read two dozen people for the same spot--and that just from your agency. The real professional is able to look at a script, figure out all its "beats" and turns, latch on to what the producer/writer/director/whatever is looking for, and is able to interpret the part terrifically, giving the creators more than they were hoping for and imparting a bit of the performer that is unique at the same time.
It's a tall order. At this point I can read a script and get a feel for it rather quickly, but it's figuring out what I bring to it that no one else can that's difficult, as well as making my performance match what I mean to convey. Samantha or other directors can coax it out after a few tries, but I have to learn to self-direct and get this on my own if I want to succeed. I don't seem to be getting noticably better at it. As always, I have to keep my eyes on God so that I don't become too attached to any particular outcome of any particular class.
On a closing note, I have discovered that the future Douglas Adams predicted has come one step closer to reality: tonight, I ran into a gas station pump with a Genuine People Personality.
No, really. Anyone who's read The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or even saw the movie, may recall that Marvin the paranoid android was a prototype GPP robot who was terminally depressed. If you recall, as he took Ford and Arthur through the Heart of Gold, he complained about the cheery personalities of the doors, which would thank the passer-by for allowing them to open and would hum with satisfaction for a job well done when they closed. Arthur reacted with horror to the idea of robots with personalities, and I could never quite figure out what bugged him so deeply about happy robots. Until tonight.
I had to fill the truck in Palm Springs, so stopped at Mobil station by the freeway. I was slightly annoyed at the canned Christmas music they were playing, which was bland and generic and was interrupted every 25.6 seconds for some smarmy announcement of snack items available in the Snak Stop. Then suddenly the recording started playing something along the lines of, "Hi! I'm your automated gas pump, and I'd just like to say it's been great to be of service this evening."
I almost screamed. It was terribly off-putting. I didn't know how to respond. Should I accept the gas pump's thanks? Should I ignore it? What part of it is the hose and nozzle, after all? And above all else, why in the world would we need a gas pump that was grateful for being used? Let's let inanimate objects remain inanimate, shall we? That way I don't risk offending my trash can for putting my garbage in it, or have to counsel my toaster about the sheer monotony of doing nothing but making toast. In the Hitchiker's Guide series, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation has to devote entire operations to the psychological counseling of neurotic machinery; let's not see that played out here.
1 comment:
Holy cow! I believe I would have had the same reaction. I also agree; I prefer to leave inanimate objects cold and indifferent, thank you very much. Any kind of personality I assign to things in my head comes from years of use, and even then it's mostly a feeling of familiarity above all else. I have no desire to chat with my gas pump as it fuels up my car. What if it starts insulting my car? I think it's already depressed enough. I'd tell you the odds of that happening, but you wouldn't like it.
Post a Comment