A Pearl

Currently I am doing a one-on-one coaching session with a Voice over expert.  He has a proven track record in town with advertisers and with other voice over talent that I know.  We just finished session two and it is impressive; what a difference it makes to follow his direction and technique. 

Then next month I am enrolled in a workshop for acting and auditioning, a major part of acting.  What will my approach be?  One thing for sure, my coursework has led me to the conclusion that preparing a monologue is best accomplished if one gets into character first and then takes on the lines as that character.  Coupling this with the techniques from Radio Joe should bring some better results.

I am still disappointed with the results of my video auditions.  I don’t believe the auditors when they say, “Great.” Or “That’s a good one.” I simply don’t agree with their assessment.  It isn’t from an unrealistic and idealistic standard being applied but more objectively assessing what I just did; if that’s even possible.  On the auditors’ side there’s the fact that they aren’t there to coach me or develop my auditioning skill but to take the info and send it on.

The only way around this conundrum is to do what I’m doing and add video recording of faux auditions here at home.  Who knows I may even post some of them on face book when I am satisfied with them or post them as a video blog on John Lina; that’d be cool.

There is no better time to begin this process than right now; so I’ll plan out a time and place to do it and what the heck do it and see what happens.  I may even keep them in files that would allow me to see the difference now and then.  But then that is counterproductive and only serves to feed the ego, or devastate it.

There are so many talented people who don’t perform because of a lack of strength in the self image department.  It seems to me that one has to have an almost indestructible self-image and self-confidence; to have walked naked down the street and suffered the cat-calls and insults of the spectators, the unflattering photos in the news, the reviews that call for him to crawl into a hole and pull it in after him, and persevere.

I think the biggest mistake an actor can make is to put any importance in anything anyone else says, good or bad, about his performance.  There's the story of the actor who, upon being booed for his portrayal of Hamlet said, "Don't boo me, I didn't write this stuff."

The only people he has to satisfy are the audience.  He gets help from the director, his scene partner(s) , and his sense of who the character is and how he portrays him.

To avoid an audition for any reason other than honestly not wanting to be a part of that theater company or that production is professionally destructive to the actor.  I’ll audition for any role except zombie horror movies.  I've done none of those and avoided them.

My Voice over coach has two axioms: (1) The second most difficult thing to do in the arts is to discover a system or process.  (2)The most difficult thing to do in the arts is to trust that system or process once you’ve discovered it.

This is good advice for any of my endeavors and I adopted it without seeing or hearing the words in several of mine and am searching for that which works in the others.  Trusting it once found is not easy, as the saying goes, but critical to success. 

Then understanding that the technique evolves and, hopefully, improves as one continues to pursue the skill, it is equally important to be aware of that improvement and call upon it when applying it.

Each of my endeavors has an elusive set of skills.  There are layers of technique that have to be mastered in order to consistently perform well.  My approach to some has been helter-skelter.  Just seeing the above advice has allowed me to begin the reversal to a more orderly approach to them all.

But then, almost every endeavor that I pursue or have pursued in the past has had an elusive process for success.  Once found, the allure of the pursuit often vanished and so did my desire to continue in that endeavor.  There seems to have been a hunger for accomplishment which was somehow satisfied and then I moved on to the next challenge.  My current endeavors still have the allure.

Every skill seems to have a fundamental set of processes that when provided or followed ensure success.  Artistic skills involve the emotional participation of the artist in his performance.  When these processes become second nature and the artist is emotionally involved in the pursuit of the endeavor, the results are excellent without exception. 

No longer are accolades necessary because the excellent results are routinely achieved.  Thus when the character is alive, a ride flawless, a rack of balls run, par after par achieved, the words evocative, a meal sumptuous and the spectators, in awe of the performance, are moved to emotional appreciation, the performer merely smiles and says, “Thank you.”

Audiences appreciate this level of perfection because they see themselves performing, vicariously feeling the success of the performance, the thrill of the moment.  Each member of the audience knows in his heart that he cannot do it but feels that he is while watching the artist perform.

The performer does it because he understands this and loves the feeling that a good performance has for him as well as for those watching. The secret of success for the performer is to share the accomplishment with those watching.