Ready For My Close Up

How come, during all those years I did theatre, none of my fellow actors told me how much fun there is to be had doing films?

I wrapped up my little acting project today, and it was quite the good time. As I mentioned before, I did a couple of scenes from the movie Full Frontal for some student directors at the Academy of Art University, and here's what I learned about acting for film. You shoot your scene over and over again from a bunch of different angles, so it doesn't matter if you mess up a line here and there. You also have many opportunities to get the right read on your lines, respond to your scene partner and nail a moment. And since you do it so many times, you end up with a lot of different, but equally good moments and reads, and the director can choose the best ones.

All of that said, I am aware that shooting two very short scenes is probably nothing like acting in a full-length film. I have heard that true film work is very technical and often quite tedious. Nonetheless, today was still really fun. Plus, I got paid for this project, and it demanded very little of my time. I just rehearsed each scene a couple of times, did the shoot and collected my check (well, not really; they're mailing it to me) before moving on with my life.

Not bad, if I do say so myself. This experience may inspire me to become a hobbyist actor on a regular basis again. I do have about 300 headshots left from my first acting go 'round, and it might be nice to put them to use. Especially since my family and friends seem to have no interest in receiving autographed photos of me for Christmas and their birthdays.

In other news, I am handily getting over my cold, but I have been felled by some other weird ailment. I have some kind of soreness in my stomach/diaphragm area that has prevented me from going running today. It hurts significantly more when I move fast, so I got about ten steps into my run before I had to give up. I am not happy about that, but I will not be beaten by some little pain. Tomorrow I'm going to get up early so I can go to the gym and use the exercise bike, which is much easier on the abs. Don't worry, if the pain doesn't go away, I'll investigate the cause so I may seek the appropriate treatment, if necessary.

But for now, I'll just exercise around it. Ha!