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| NYSMF blogging I've posted news about DVD production for NYSMF at our official blog, http://www.nysmf.blogspot.com.
I've overloaded on blogsites again. Between here, myspace, friendster, my more or less defunct Mets blog, and the NYSMF one, I dont' have the time to fill all of them up with words! Probably I'll just focus again on the NYSMF one, since there's essentially nothing to blog about where the Mets are concerned. (They're winning -- what, should I just post "they won again" for every entry?)
Words words words. That's what I got my first college degree in: writing. It's proven to be a really useful credential, much more useful that freshman psych or sociology. I love to write. Write write write write write. Write.
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| NYSMF, NYSMF, NYSMFI'm a terrible blogger. I care and worry so much about every word that goes out under my moniker, that I tend to err on the side of extreme caution and retype and rewrite virtually every word that I put into the Blog Entry box.
I envy those Mets bloggers who write an entire ledger of stuff every day. Even those that are filled with typos, opinion backed up with unsubstantiated fact, wild rants, and so on -- at least they are actually WRITING stuff and putting it out there for people to read or simply ignore.
Six weeks of NYSMF have made blogging essentially impossible. Even now, I'm stealing a moment to write while I need to either a) sleep; b) prepare an agenda for tomorrow's meeting with SUNY officials in our 1pm discussion about the future of NYSMF; c) continue surveying this wing of the dormitory to check for cleanliness, missing furniture, etc; d) return to the NYSMF office and continue helping clean and organize that; e) arrange for a rental car so that I may actually LEAVE Oneonta sometime this week ...
And so on. Well, maybe I can just write the opening sentences of a blog entry here, and continue it at one of my other blogs ... hmm ... now there's an interesting and completely useless idea, eh?
NYSMF has utterly taken over my existance this summer. And perhaps my entire life soon. I do take some heart in seeing that I am within a few years of the age where the founder of NYSMC, Dr. Frederick Fay Swift, was when he started his camp in 1947. Perhaps it's just a midlife crisis averted by finding a purpose in life.
See? Now THIS is a bad blog entry. Sigh. Back to work.
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| AND ONE MORESheesh, I need to get down on myself more. Now I'm going to be in
a film with James Franco, the guy who played Peter Parker's best friend
in "Spiderman"!
The film (entitled "Grasshopper") is a short, running perhaps 12-15
minutes, and is being done through the American Film Institute AFI with
director Eric Kmetz. I get to play a waiter in a sushi restaurant.
Years ago, I would have prepared to audition for this small role in a
purely technical fashion. With only three actual lines, I would
have written in my script "tired - slow", or perhaps "happy - fast,
high pitch", and so on, coming up with specifically different ways to
say those lines. It would be just like putting on a different hat for
each line, purely a physical, technical, and easy way to act.
In many ways, that is not acting at all.
Thanks to my acting teacher Drew Snyder, I no longer look at my acting
jobs through such a black-and-white lens. It makes my life much
more difficult, but makes acting so much more fun and interesting!
For the audition on Monday afternoon in Hollywood, I almost forgot to
prepare, because the role was so small. But I realized I needed
to take the audition seriously, otherwise I would go in and come off
bored, uninterested, and lazy. And that would guarantee that I wouldn't get the job.
I began, after reading the script, by identifying some basic questions about this sushi restaurant waiter's situation.
- Where is this restaruant?
- Is it in a small town, or a big city?
- What's the date and time of this scene?
This is what Drew calls "finding the character's psychological
position". In this character's case, these were the four basic
questions I decided I needed to answer, and in turn, those answers
would naturally tell me WHO this guy was, and how he would behave.
For example: the answers are 1) The restaurant is in Castleton, New
Mexico; 2) it is a small town, and 3) It's mid-July, after 11pm on a
weekday.
These answers naturally lead to other basic questions:
- What the heck is a Japanese sushi waiter doing in Castleton NM?
- Does he like his job, the location, the hours?
As you can clearly see, the answers change the character's basic
psychology. For example, a Japanese guy in the American Southwest can't
help but feel out of place. And having to work a late night shift would
undoubtedly make him a little grouchy. And how the heck did he GET
there in the first place?
Isn't this a lot more fun than saying "I'll say this line with my left eyebrow raised, and then cross my arms"?
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| THE DRAKE AND JOSH SHOWI'm working again! What a relief, because I had been feeling
increasingly fretful about my acting career of late. I've felt that
I've not been spending enough time working on my skills, including
practicing, and practicing well.
I'll appear on an episode of Nickelodeon's "Drake and Josh" show, on
the episode "Josh Runs Into Oprah". I think that's all I can say
without risking a breach of contract issue, which means I would forfeit
my entire salary for doing this part. All of $152/day!
This gig is good for me mentally, particularly because it is making me
feel like a REAL actor again. I have worked with Drake and Josh before,
when I appeared on an episode off "The Amanda Show" as a sailor who
stuffed Drake into a trash can (and then, as Drake reminded me, smacked
him in the head with a lamp). So that was pleasant, reminding them and
the producer Dan Schneider of our history.
More unexpected was meeting actor Scott Halbertson, who is a recurring
character on "Drake and Josh." We also just worked together in
January, when I appeared on "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" -- we
were both members of the guest cast.
I shoot my role as "Mr. Hospital Administrator" on Tuesday. Most
excellent. Maybe Drake will share some more stories of his Dec 29 car
accident.
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| NYSMF'S BACK IN THE NY TIMES MAGAZINE TODAYThat's right, NYSMF has an ad in the special "Camps and Schools" advertising supplement in today's New York Times Magazine section! Personally, i get a huge kick out of that.
We're also going to appear in DownBeat magazine; JazzTimes magazine; STrings Magazine; TeenStrings magazine; the Juilliard Journal; the MTNA Conference Book; the NYSSMA School Music News; American Music Teachers AMT magazine; and on intergalactic television and radio.
Help us out, if you know cool friends who you'd like to see at NYSMF with you this summer, point them to us! We'll give you a few bucks as a "thank you", and maybe even a tee shirt ... hmm ... hey, that's not a bad thought at all ...
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