Saturday, January 31, 2009

Hollywood Near Miss

In another Hollywood near miss, I was going to be the 4th lead in a movie written by a good friend of mine. It was based on her dad and about racing. The 3 other leads are people you have heard of and seen in movies for years and years. I was the only unknown actor in the project.

I met with the writer she was working with. We chatted for an afternoon and he got a feel for me and the way I talk. They were figuring out the financing and stuff like that. It was going to be a very cool project. Low budget. About 5 million or so...

Then the writer got cancer. My friend moved away. And life kind of happened in a way that made the whole project die. This still makes me kind of sad after 5 years since this all happened. It would have been a lot of fun to do, and I might actually have gotten noticed by the Hollywood machine...

If I win the lottery I'm giving her a call to revive this project...

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Dark Commandos


In my time here in LA I have gotten involved in some really cool projects. Probably my favorite was a web series called Dark Commandos. Vampires working as a black ops team for the government. What? you have heard of the premise before? This series originated in 2000 and shot thru 2001. All the other vamprie commandos out there now... got the idea from us. It's a shame you can't copyright an idea.

The series was shot primarily on a green screen. The creators were Tom Sanders and Ed Gross. Tom lives in LA and did 98% of everything. From the directing to editing to the post and all the animation. Since it was done on green screen, the backgrounds could be anything, and as freeing as that is, it's time consuming. So episodes didn't come out as regularly as the fans would have liked. We did have fans. From all over the world. It was amazing.

And people in the industry noticed. Buffy the Vampire Slayer people called up our makeup Goddess, Katt, and asked about the makeup for the vampires. She said, "pay me and we'll talk." They wanted something for nothing. The premise, vampire commandos was lifted by a comic book company for a book called CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations. How do I know they saw the book? One of their characters looked like ME and acted like Dreyfuss, my character in DC. Tom should have sued. But it's tough to prove they saw the series.

So what happened to DC? Life, work, etc... It was really too big a project for Tom to do alone. He needed help. And people would ask me after seeing the series, "how does it make money?" Well, that too is the problem with the internet. It didn't. Especially back then. Actor attrition was a factor. Out of 4 commandos, I am the only one still actively pursuing this career.

I mourn the loss of Dark Commandos. And I have been trying to 9 months to get the IMDb to list it. Their labyrinthian process for listing has been a problem, and so is the fact that we have to prove viewership and have media coverage in a major publication. It was 8 years ago. I know people saw it. I was at Comic-Con, bastion of all things Geek, and someone saw me and said, "Dreyfuss! I love your show!" That made my year. You have no idea...

I loved the character of Dreyfuss. I fought to keep him... pure. I've never had such an unrepentant killer to play. He didn't give a shit what anyone thought and would kill you if he felt like it. He was a vampire Wolverine. I'd play him again in a minute. For free...

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Headshots


I was looking thru a window of a health food store/ suppliment shop next to my gym at the headshots of actors on the walls. The owner waved me in to take a better look. He said if I give him a headshot he'd put it on the wall. Now I've been in LA a while, but I have never had my headshot put on the walls of any business. It always struck me as kind of silly. You rarely see anyone famous or that you even recognize. It's the people struggling that put their photos on the walls of the dry cleaner and donut shop.

But what I wondered at, why did he automatically assume I was an actor? I didn't say anything to him. I had just come from the gym all sweaty and grungy, so I didn't look very actory. (It's a real word. Look it up.)But looking at the pictures, and this is a problem with all headshot, they all look mostly the same. There's very little to catch the eye of the casting directors. It's a picture, the best one the actor has, looking very actory. So in a big pile of pictures, it's a bunch of good looking photos of good looking people...

So if I do it, I might give him the one above...

Funniest thing ever

This is star wars explained by someone who never saw the movie. Where was she? Don't know. Maybe in a cave with the Taliban.

This made me cry I was laughing so hard.

http://vimeo.com/2809991

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

History 2

The Inauguration was cool. Inspiring. I'm glad I got to witness it even if it was from my livingroom. This is a new start to the way things are run. I thought the speech was good. Some scathing things were said about Shrub without naming him specifically. But who else is there to blame for the past 8 years? The buck stops with him.

Let's get to work as a country and a nation to pull our asses out of the mire we are now in.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Am I ...

Arrogant?

Hmmm...
I had someone call me arrogant recently. Okay, it was the uneducated, tweaker, noisy, redneck motherfucker from upstairs who told me I was arrogant. That was after a confrontation about him playing an electric guitar like he was in Dodger stadium. Um... Fuck you.

His reasoning? I don't want to hang out with him. I'm "just doing my own thing" and ignoring him. Um... I get to choose who I have as a friend, who I give a damn about, and who I would risk my life to save from a fire. He doesn't fall under any of these categories. Most everyone in the world, I would try to save from burning to death. Him and his noisy wife, not so much. Be an asshole to me for years and years, and I'll just elect to ignore you. It's easier than hiding bodies.

Would anyone really want to hang out with someone who has no education, no interest in the world and hear how awesome he is at work? I know what he does for work. He can be replaced by anyone with a strong back and a rudimentary understanding of the English language. Or pointing.

Does this make me arrogant? Just because we live in the same building doesn't mean I care what you do. As long as it doesn't bother me, knock yourself out. No, really. Take a hammer and bash in your skull.

Is that arrrogant? hmmmm.....

History

I'm not the type to get all misty eyed at things going on in the world, but the inaguration of Barack Obama has me aware of the "Holy Shit!" part of this event in History. A black man is going to be president. This is a huge change in the world. It shows that qualified, inspiring people can be elected to office. Kind of a shock after 8 years of Shrub, who, like a train on a single track, has run this country off the rails.

Obama has a hard job ahead. These problems will not go away on their own, and they won't go away quickly. But just putting him in the White House gives me and others Hope. "Yes We Can!" is a lot more inspiring than the politics of fear that we have been subjected to for 8 years. "If you aren't with us, you're against us." Well, Shrub, a lot of people are against us. But the damage you have done to the standing of America in the world may be fixed by a thinker in the White House. Going with your gut instinct might be a way to bungy jump, but not the way to run a country. And have some people with dissenting opinions advising you. Sinatra wasn't really that cool, but no one had the balls to say, "Frank, you are being a dickhead."

So I will watch the swearing in tomorrow with probably a billion or so other people across this globe, and be glad I voted for Hope. Not fear, and some airheaded governor from Alaska. Now if they could just pass a law forbidding her from ever running for a public office again that would be cool. Politics should be a serious business for serious people, and her 15 minutes are up. It needs people who think, and listen, and not rely on God to guide them in every decision.

God, Yaweh, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha... They are busy. Stop bugging them.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Hollywood Theory

Ok. I think I might have a line on Hollywood and an Idea at it's arcane works. I will be using some course language so fucking get ready.
To get a career going in Hollywood you have to be one of 3 things.

1. GORGEOUS. So good looking that Gods weep when they see you. So hot that people, all people, men and women want to fuck you regardless of your gender. If you have that then you can rule the world! For about 10 years. After that you have to come up with some kind of talent. Otherwise you are thrown on the scrapheap of Fame and become a "weren't you?" Be nice when this phase is happening. If you are hot and an asshole you can probably get away with it for the aforementioned 10 years, but once you are ugly, you are just an asshole.

2. TALENTED. You are so freakishly talented you can stand reading the phone book and be ENTHRALLING. Anthony Hopkins comes to mind. You don't have to be good looking, but it helps. Talent is a candle. Genius is a flame. These people will have careers until they die or get out of the business of their own accord.

3. WEIRD LOOKING. Hollywood has lots of space for the character actor. The peculiar looking guy. You won't be the lead in Oceans 14, but you will always, always be working and in demand. Steve Buscemi for example. Not an attractive guy, but interesting to watch on screen. Every movie needs the funny fat guy best friend. The bug eyed guy on the spaceship yelling, "we're all going to die!"

There are certain archetypes that will always work. When you see them come on the screen you instantly know who they are. So where does that leave me? Fuck if I know. I have a much better idea of the product I am selling than I used to have. But as far as looks go, there are a lot of white guys out there in my age range with much better representation. Sigh. I have talent, but I don't glow when I enter the room.

I was working a PSA Joel Schumacher was directing about condom use. A pretty red head girl was one of the principals. After she left he said "she is going to be a star." Really? Why? Yes I wanted to fuck her, but that doesn't mean she is going to be a star. I saw her in a couple of commercials and a couple print ads, but she hasn't become Julia Roberts. It's probably a good thing she didn't hear him say that.

So, what have we learned?

Fuck if I know. But it took a long time to learn it.