You’re No Cary Grant

It should come as no surprise that Nikki canceled her "Hot Meal/Cold Read" session for that February, rather than allow me to come in and run roughshod over her poor aspiring acting students. She has since stopped the project altogether, but I don't think I can take the blame for that. This was from Saturday, February 09, 2008

I went to Thursday night's mixer at Ruta Maya with the sole intent of talking AJ out of his nutty bid to reboot the Short Ends Project. I left vaguely excited about the prospect, due mainly to his enthusiasm. I still don't think it has a shade of a chance of working, but if AJ's doing it, I'm in.

It's not that I don't think San Antonio needs a film collective. I do. In fact, I think it needs a more challenging one than we had, which is what I was trying to pitch AJ. My complaint about SEP was -- well, my list of grievances about that mess was longer than your inseam, but one of my primary grinds was that it gave filmmakers too much time. Three months, for the quality that was coming out, might as well have been three years, or three days. The average short for SEP was being shot in a weekend, with preproduction that could be kindly described as "lackadaisical," and even less effort spent in post. It could easily have been the work of a week, and more often than not probably was.

My campaign at the time was that we should have a monthly challenge, with a broader set of guidelines -- forget drawing a genre and a few descriptive words from a hat, instead make it a generic that fit the whole group and see what different ways we interpret it. Just say, for instance, music video, and come back in a month with something to screen. Don't worry that you don't own the music, just make it fast and have fun with it and let's all try to impress one another. The management of Short Ends dreamed of selling DVDs and marketing a television series (as pipe dreams go, the pipiest), and so thwarted my goals at every turn -- and hey, it's their game, why should they not thwart? -- but now that AJ holds the reins, I figured I'd give it another try.

No dice. He wants a six-month turnaround, with the expectation that the quality would improve with the added time. I'd predict instead that it'll just result in a five-month lollygag and a few weeks of frenzied shooting and cutting, but again, it's AJ's game. We'll see what happens.

While there, I got to see some of my favorite people. Carlos (who took my camera for his new thing), Chadd, Lee, Dar, Andy (on whose shit-list I believe I still reside). Nikki led us in a rousing chorus of the not-in-public-domain Birthday song (hope the Ruta Maya people weren't being visited by RIAA representatives that night), and much wise was cracked over Erik's birthday. Just a number, baby. You're still hepper than all of us. Then she asked me to do her a favor. Now, like most of you, I owe Nikki more than I can pay. And yet, it is a reflection of my callous bastardry that I asked what she wanted before I said yes. I'm going to do whatever she wants, why bother asking? (See aforementioned cold-hearted bastardry.)

I needn't have fretted. She wants me to lead one of her "Hot Meal/Cold Read" sessions, wherein local actors meet local filmmakers, at which time we give them hints about how to impress us in auditions. She's lining me up for February. Of 2009, that is. She's that sold out in advance, if you can believe it. Wow. Primadonna has it going on, as the young people say.

And so, I've been thinking of what I might say to actors about auditioning, and about their careers in general, on levels local or larger. And I'm brought back to a conversation I had a month earlier, at the last of AJ's mixers, coincidentally. Or maybe not, what do I know?

I was talking with photographer Christopher Viltz about certain local actors. (I should present forewarning here -- Christopher is himself a local actor, and I of course make movies locally, and therefore names will remain unspoken to protect him and me from getting our asses kicked by the fine and talented local actors we were discussing, at least one of whom was present while we were talking and was in fact part of the conversation.) Christopher, you'll note, has a rather unusual last name. I asked him if he, like so many of his fellows, had considered a stage name. No way, he said. His name is distinctive and draws attention. His talent does a lot, of course, to keep him out there. But the name doesn't hurt.

There seems to be a rash of local actors lately who are changing their names. Let me say this to you, local actors -- if you present yourself to me pretending your last name is "Marie," or something else that's clearly a middle name, I'm going to think you're an ass -- or at the very least, tiresome. I have to spend weeks or months or more working with you on a project. I want to know who you are. I want to respect you. If you've changed your name from Archibald Leach or Norma Jean Baker or Marion Morrison, I've got no time for you. The era of Hollywood glamour is gone. The world can accept something a little spicier than the traditional Anglo-Saxony. If Leelee Sobieski can make a very comfortable living with her name, what's your major malfunction, Mabel? Tony Curtis by any other name is… more interesting. Hey, I'm the last person to declare you can't change your name. Just make it more interesting, not less.

There's too much of that in this world, this blandification. Where are the accents, the buck teeth, the small boobs, the unwaxed hoohahs? I live and grew up in Texas, and still I don't know anyone with a Texas accent. I'm not talking about club feet or vestigial tails or even mustaches on women. If this minor change will make you feel better or improve your life, knock yourself out. But there's really no reason to snag yourself a tailbone tattoo. You're guaranteed to be embarrassed about it within two years, and it's not going to make you stand out in a crowd. It's going to make you look just like any other want-wit trendhopper at Polly Esther's. And the same goes for renaming yourself Trent Hudson or Holly Claire.

Jeez, I hope there's no Trent Hudsons or Holly Claires in town… I should check the databases of local talent agencies before I post this…