I Know What Directors Like...

Another post devoted to the late Short Ends Project. And my ego. That pretty much should be the name of this blog, Devoted To My Ego. Stroke it. Stroke it, I say! Saturday, August 12, 2006

At the last Short Ends audition, Annie approached me about playing a part in her short, the role of an over-the-hill porn star. All singing, all dancing, all sex lube. As I told Paul at the time, I can sing, and I can dance, but I can't sing and dance. And as for sex lube, well, I'll moderate my comments there. I suggested she find a real actor, and named a few who'd do it better than I would. I was concerned I'd screw up her directorial debut for her.

Afterwards, at Alibi's, I mentioned it, laughing, mostly because of the thought of me acting. (I'm not an actor.) But also at the thought of me playing Ron Jeremy, because... dammit, I almost did want to play a guy like that, it would be fun! But then Lanni said, her manner so matter-of-fact that she could not possibly have meant it as a compliment, "You're better looking than Ron Jeremy." Which is the damnedest sort of damning with faint praise.

Believe it or not, there was a time when I was more attractive than the hulk you find before you today. Just after high school. Younger, slimmer, even athletic, my face less lined, and less hairy. I lacked the devastating charm that comes with maturity, or my Clooneyesque salt-and-pepper hair, but in a general way, I was what the young people used to call a hotty.

I worked at the time, on and off, at a movie theater. The manager was an elegant fellow named Reed Chambers: not young, a little creepy, but fun enough to be around, in a Paul-Lynde-snarky kind of way. He was into me, on a level far from innocent, but not terribly serious. And while assuring him that he was sniffing around the wrong hydrant, I'll admit I was somewhat flattered. It was fun to get that sort of attention -- lord knows, I wasn't getting much of it from women. He'd try to convince me, young and impressionable, that I was gay. He'd leeringly inform me that sex with men was like none other -- men know what men want. It was my experience at the time what women had a pretty damned good idea what men want, too, and in turn, I was willing and happy to give them whatever they wanted, so his progress was necessarily impeded. Just wasn't going to happen.

But today, acting in Travis Thomsen's adaptation of Andy Miller's script "Joined," I thought of ol' Reed, for the first time in a decade or two.

As I say, I acted. And as I said before that, I am not an actor, and I am certainly not a good actor. But I was pretty good today, playing a pervy city councilman. I wore Erik's flasher raincoat, and a big black hat, and a pair of pop-bottle-lens glasses that kept slipping off my sweat-soaked nose. Seriously, it was sweltering today, insanely hot. Especially in that get-up.

But getting back to it -- I was pretty good. And the reason I was good wasn't because I'm talented (I'm not), or because I'd studied the craft (I haven't), or even because I was working with actors who made me look good (Dawn, Lanni, Josh, and Scott are all wondeful, but nobody's that good).

I was good because directors know what directors want. And need.

After you've directed (and especially edited) a few times, you start to recognize problems that come about with actors. Performers who do something different every time -- which is a gift, I really admire an actor who can give you a new trick each time out -- will make you crazy in the editing room. Although my character was twitchy as a three-day cappuccino jag, I kept my performance as simple as possible, and concentrated like a sumbitch on being in the same place at the same moment each take. If Travis has problems cutting this together, I told myself, it won't be my fault.

In a later sequence, tracking my shoes along the pavement, Travis was generous enough to adjust the viewscreen of his bad mammajamma camera (that's fun to say, try it!) so that I could see my feet, and I could easily stay within frame. During the day, I made a number of suggestions, some of them useful, many of them not, all of them annoying, but they were the sort of suggestions that could only be made by a fellow director, someone who has experience in the agonies that await in post-production.

I think it should be a requirement for previous Short Ends directors to act in the projects of the up-and-comers. Not only can we maybe help out, but we learn how the other half lives. Actors are impressive people, they do things I can't do, they expose themselves in ways I never could (or should).

Travis had a great crew (his menacing footman, Donny; the redoubtable talents of Cameo Center techie-guru donfox; and -- oh, was I jealous -- even a script supervisor in the form of the multitalented Amy, whose birthday snuck past me just yesterday -- Happy Birthday, Amy!). But a mentoring program wouldn't hurt things at all.

My feet hurt. A lot. Lots of standing in acting. And running. I'm glad I didn't take the role of the porn star. Hate to think what might be sore after that.