Inside TVI Actors Studio

TVI Consultant books lead in feature film

TVI consultant Leigh Feldpausch will be spending the month of August in Muskegon, Michigan shooting a feature film! The tribal theme feature is titled Offspring and is being directed by Andrew Van den Houten. Leigh’s character, “Second Stolen” finds herself in a tug of war between good and evil. The concept sounds really crazy and interesting, I can’t wait to check it out.

Inside TVI Actors Studio

TVI Youth Acting School Student is a Working Actress

Jessica Carlson, TVI Actors Studio member, just completed work on the set of Cirque Du Freak, directed by Paul Weitz. The film is based on a book series for young teens by Darren Shan. The cast includes Salma Hayek, Orlando Jones, Willem Dafoe, and Jane Krakowski. Prior to filming, Jessica appeared in the “Angelgrove” episode of “Law & Order,” directed by Darnell Martin.

Entertainment Bleekly

Yours truly on primetime television

Hello true believers!  I’m exhausted.  Today is my day off from rehearsals on my new show.  To celebrate I got up at 3:45am to make it to a 6:30am call to shoot two groovy scenes for one of New York City’s hit primetime television series.

So much goes into a location primetime television shoot that I could probably fill up several blog posts about it and I have a feeling that’s exactly what’s going to happen.  Right now today, while I can still move my fingers, I want to concentrate on just on the on-set experience.

If you’ve never had the pleasure let me assure you– a shooting set is the absolute furthest thing from an ideal place in which to practice the art of acting.  It’s noisy, crowded, and everything happens at warp speed.  While the makeup professional dabs your face the director is changing your big line and the cinematographer asks you to turn your face into the light and the cameraman nudges your leg over.  The A.D. is ripping up your old spike mark and putting down a new one.  The producer wants to know what’s taking so long and the last two takes were ruined because a helicopter flew over or a Coast Guard boat flew by in the background and ruined the continuity.  The stuntwoman in the water playing the dead body can’t hold her breath any longer and the sun is going to come out from behind that cloud in 30 seconds and ruin the lighting so this is the absolute last take.  If you screw it up, you won’t be back again.

Ready?

Folks, this stuff is really, really hard!  You have to be on your game to succeed in this kind of environment.  I envy the series regulars.  When the environment I just described is your daily workplace I imagine you adjust to it.  For the rest of us, our only hope is to just flat out be the best we can be.  The necessary level of skill and confidence only comes through training– lots and lots of training.

To do less is to not take the profession seriously.

Australian Acting News

Award winning team pre-production feature

Abbie Cornish

A floating body in a Sydney park pond. That is how Sallie-Anne Huckstepp met her fate. Notorious prostitute, gansta’s mole, drug addict, police informant but few realize she was also a mother. And Sascha Huckstepp, a well known casting director, is turning her mother’s memory into a feature film - focusing primarily on Sallie-Anne being a mother.

Huckstepp is putting together an outstanding team with writer Ian David and Director, Cate Shortland (well known for the award winning “Somersault” - who bears some resemblence to Sallie-Anne and may be gold for casting).

But before Ozzie actors ambush their agents, the project has to be written first.

“We really need to get the writing done before we start having actors attached to the project. We have a deadline to have the film’s first draft ready by October, after that we talk to the talent and then we go out and source the funding,” Huckstepp said, adding that “there has been plenty of interest to produce the film for a long time. I wasn’t ready before now to do it … I feel now the time is right.” Sascha Huckstepp (click for full interview).

Australian Acting News

Look at moi!!! Kath & Kim set for US debut!

Kath & Kim, the well known homegrown Australian hit tv series, is being turned into an American version and is premiering in the US October 9th on NBC.

It’s hard to imagine how the US will take to this series but hopefully it will lead to the same critical success as the US The Office spin off starring Steve Carrell. It’s primetime slot follows right after The Office so that’s a good start.

Playing the lead characters in the title roles are Molly Shannon as Kath and Selma Blair as Kim. Apparently Blair had to put on 9kg for the role.

Sneak peaks are already being screened on US TV as NBC has put a lot of money into this one.

Let’s just hope US audiences unanimously watch and agree - wonder if we’ll hear the popular catch phrase with a US twang:

“Look at moi! Look at moi, Kimmy!”

Entertainment Bleekly

Why limit yourself by typing yourself?

Today I conducted the second part of an exhaustive course at TVI Studios on type as it applies to actors and the acting industry.   From experience, I know this to be a delicate topic with many actors.  We are naturally abhorrent at the idea of drawing boundaries around our work and recoil when somebody suggests that we limit ourselves in such a fashion.

We would like to believe that as trained artists we are capable of a broad range of roles.  And the truth of it is, we are.  Unfortunately, however, most industry professionals (producers, directors, casting directors) aren’t particularly interested in  our range.  These people tend to be very focused on the project they have at hand.  They want to find actors that fit each role perfectly.   Let me give you a personal example of how these two perspectives (ours and theirs) clash:

I used to audition for “The Sopranos” on a fairly regular basis.  The casting directors there liked me and liked my work.  Unfortunately, most of the roles that fit my age range were attitudinal young men with strong “street” looks and accents to match.  The scripts called for either sleeveless leather jackets and slicked-back hair, or for gaudy pinstriped suits and wide ties.  The characters usually threatened people.  Sometimes they subsequently killed them!

Am I capable of performing well in one of these parts?  Absolutely.  The problem I ran into was that every time I went in on one of the above-described roles I would sit in a waiting room full of actors that, quite frankly, were in real life almost exactly like the characters!  (minus, I hope, the homicidal urges).   Who do you think had the competitive edge in those situations?  I’ll give you a hint– “The Sopranos” is not on my resume!

“Type” is about identifying the most marketable version or versions of yourself, and then concentrating your marketing efforts towards those roles.  It’s about understanding that industry professionals are more interested in solving their immediate problems than in heaping praise upon you for your broad range.

I help my TVI members and our program students identify and aggressively market for their type every day.  If this is an issue you have yet to address in your own career please contact me so I can help you too.

Actor-Preneur

Google and Seth MacFarlane of ‘Family Guy’ make deal

Web search engine Google and TV producer Seth MacFarlane are creating an animation series directly for the web, called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.”

Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men.

Advertising will be incorporated into the cartoons in several ways. In some cases, there will be “preroll” ads, which ask viewers to sit through a TV-style commercial before getting to the video. Some advertisers may opt for a banner to be placed at the bottom of the video clip or a simple “brought to you by” note at the beginning.

Seth who will receive a percentage of the ad revenue,and has created a stable of new characters to star in the series, which will be served up in 50 two-minute episodes.

Los Angeles talent agency Endeavor talent agency negotiated the deal with Google and Mr. MacFarlane.

So as working actors, you need to contact your agents to see who is casting the voice overs for this new project.

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casting directors, animation casting, voice overs

Actor-Preneur

New York Talent Agent dies at 97

Retired New York talent agent Deborah Coleman died of a heart attack Feb. 16 in Boston. She was 97. Ms Coleman represented actors such as Imogene Coca, George Balanchine, Jean Stapleton, Dick York and Hal Linden.

She founded the Deborah Coleman Agency in the late 1930s.

She was involved in TV shows such as “Your Show of Shows,” “Omnibus” and “All in the Family” and Broadway’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “Bells are Ringing” and “No, No Nanette.”

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talent agents

Remote Possibilities

George Carlin

There has never been a more prolific stand up comic than George Carlin.

His body of work, his routines, his HBO specials, his books, will live on for ever. When he died suddenly on Sunday night, he left a hole in the world of stand up that will never be filled. He was the perfect combo platter of comedy writer and rubber faced comic. He had just the right voices and comic inflections to straddle the line between goofy and intellectual.

He did 14 HBO specials. Fourteen!!

There would have been no observational comics like Jerry Seinfeld and Ray Romano without George Carlin.

71 is way too young to die these days.But at least we have those 14 specials to watch. And HBO is airing a bunch of them this weekend.

When I was young I knew the entire “7 Dirty Words” routine verbatim. I still do. And it still makes me laugh.

Pick A Little Talk A Lot

Summertime Primetime TV Shows

Hot time, summer in the city . . . As summer kicks off I have to scramble to see the shows that are soon closing after the recent Tony awards and I am wondering what we will be watching on TV. Showtime has very thoughtfully arranged season four of Weeds featuring New Yorker Mary-Louise Parker who is often seen roaming the West Village in person and now in larger than life sized posters on the sides of New York buses. I read some mixed reviews of the first episode but found it fascinating myself as the house, setting and town for the series went up in a blaze. Obviously, a Hollywood face lift this season.

Law & Order Criminal Intent has finished its season of shooting on the streets of New York and is running new episodes. I may have to check out NBC-TV’s Nashville Star to see if it compares to American Idol.

I am eagerly awaiting A & E’s The Cleaner featuring Brett De Buono as Benjamin Bratt’s son. I first met Brett when he attended the TVI Actors Studios Young Actors Professional Intensive which we have each summer. He is an extremely talented young man with a supportive family.
Above all, I want to know how I can get my fellow workers on “The Singing Office” the new TLC show hosted by Mel B and Joey Fatone of “Dancing with the Stars” fame.

All in all, it looks like a fairly decent television summer.