Life? Don't Talk to Me About Life

I apologize for my lack of postage recently. I had thought to get by without comment, but some parties have made it known that I am a bad person for not posting, and with that I cannot argue. I sort of let myself fall out of the habit--I was without access to a computer on Saturday night down at my in-laws', and Sunday night was simply busy and I am a bad person. Last night was yet another "fell-asleep-on-the-couch-when-I-needed-to-grade" evenings; this night is not so different, only I woke up when I was supposed to so now I can grade.

Nothing looks quite as bleak as a stack of essays that must be marked at 3:32am.

Class this weekend was a mixed bag. Saturday morning we had a booth director out from ICM, which is the talent agency that represents Samantha (you can take a listen to her demo, along with many another famous client (like Mark Hamill, Jim Belushi, and Kathy Najimy), here; check out Jim Cummings and Maurice LaMarche for familiar voices you may not have put a name to before), which was fun; I didn't stand out particularly, and the director was generally nice to everyone, so no breakout hit there. In the afternoon we had Ned Lott (he of Disney vocal casting) again, and we got to read from the script to the new Narnia movie, which was very cool (we had to promise not to show anyone the script until next week). Again, an entertaining time, but while I may be able to imitate Mr. Beaver's accent, I'm just not a voice match for him, so it won't be my voice you hear from the plush doll or the video game. The clips of the film he brought in, while rough, looked very cool.

Then I stayed on to engineer the evening class, a Scene Study acting course taught by Susan Blu (also previously mentioned; she was the Pillsbury Dough Girl [for those old enough to remember that--I'm not one of them] and the mother in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; she's also over at ICM). It was very small--out of eight registered students, only five showed up. Though I was only really opening the door and making the coffee, it felt strange and powerful to be the only one in the studio for a while there, and because the numbers were low I was allowed to participate in the class.

I am the first to admit I could be a better actor, and (believe it or not) since the heart of doing well in this business is being believable no matter what kind of kooky role you're asked to play, an acting class is definitely in line with what I need. I had to pray to make myself take it seriously, though, because I'm simply no good at acting exercises. I've got a built-in smirk that pops up when people are "playing" at acting, and something about most theater games makes them seem goofy and pretentious. It's also hard to imagine DeNiro pretending to be a rabbit or Judy Dench trying to really be a telephone (not that I'm on that level or anything). I did take it more seriously than usual, and the exercises Susan had us do were not of the silly variety, but a great deal of self-consciousness that I've not experienced at Voicetrax before did creep in. I think there's some real value in bringing your "real" self to the work, and I know I need that more in most of the creative areas of my life, so it was good; still, I was not overly sad when, because of the low numbers, the class was ended early on Sunday and I was able to head home.

Onward and upward. This grading should (should, mind you) be my last late-night session this semester, as this is the last week of the semester. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the break, busy as it will be. As always, I'm disappointed with my performance this semester and look forward to a chance to start fresh next time around. I do start my CCC class this Wednesday evening (tonight, actually), but that tends to be fairly small with somewhat more motivated students, so it's not as bad.

There--you asked for more posts, and you get this kind of drivel in response. I hope you're happy.