Adventures in Showbiz: Mystery Edition
3After my last tale of boredom and career frustration as an extra, I immediately got four days (so far anyway, possibly more) as an extra on the Robert Rodriguez portion of “Grind House”. Sadly, I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement so I can’t actually tell you anything about it other than this has reminded me in some ways why I do this. It has been, for the most part, a very fun experience, though still tinged with the ever present frustration of being only only peripherally near the things I want to be doing (acting and crew work). At least this experience has been slightly more satisfying to the hungry beast inside me that craves the fruition of my dreams.
I think the most frustrating thing as someone looking for work as a Production Assistant (with my professional sights set on rising up to Assistant Directing as the next step) is that it doesn’t seem to matter what you’ve done as much as it just seems you have to “know someone” to get onto the big sets. I already have some Directing and Assistant Directing experience, but not enough to get those jobs professionally.
I really hope to make a career in Austin, as I love it here, and really do not want to live in L.A. I thought I’d use the recent layoff from my day job to channel all my efforts into pursuing acting, crew work, and music. Unfortunately, since these aren’t things you can make a living at overnight, I just might have to sell my body as a medical research volunteer for a while too…
I love Austin. Hopefully Austin will show me some love back! It’s time for my big break, Austin! Ya, hear me?
Adventures as an Extra: “The Hitcher”
4Last week I got the call to be an extra on “The Hitcher“. They wanted me to be a paramedic. Being the considerate guy I am I told them that I was pretty sure they had my out of date headshot where I was 60 pounds heavier and since I recently shaved my head for a role I wanted to send them a current snapshot to make sure they still wanted me. I emailed the snapshot and got the call back that they did still want to use me, but I would instead be a prisoner. Fitting, since I called this my “Prison Break” hair style, but kind of a bummer since I think the paramedic ended up getting used a lot more and got some good camera time. I’m not sure why they changed me since the paramedic didn’t look all that drastically different from me.
The location was down in San Marcos, about a 45 minute drive away, so I got up at 5:00 a.m. to be on set by 6:00 a.m. I was told that I’d be a “new prisoner” being brought in after having just been arrested so I should bring 3 changes of clothes for wardrobe to pick from. The location was the Hays County Law enforcement center. It was interesting filming there since they obviously couldn’t shut the place down, and periodically everything had to stop while an inmate was brought in or taken out. I parked my car and hauled all my stuff across to the catering tent they had set up outside where we’d be hanging out. I signed in and got some good food for breakfast from the table. After a few minutes I was taken to wardrobe. I told them I was a “New Prisoner”, but instead of keeping me in some of my clothes, they put me in the black and white striped prisoner clothes. Hair and make up looked me over and gave their approval, and I was off to the tent to wait. And wait. And wait.
Gustavo’s Theme
3I thought I’d post this little recording here in case anyone was interested.
I was finishing up a comedic short film that me and a friend had made when I decided to add some music underneath one scene at the last minute. I fired up the DAW and threw down two pieces of music really quickly for the scene. This was during the course of a marathon editing session in order to get this piece out quickly, so I didn’t have a lot of time to be my obsessive perfectionist self.
The playing is sloppy as **** , there was no effects or other post processing done to it at all. Just hit record and went. I pieced it together over many, many, many takes.
So as I said, it’s sloppy, unprocessed and unpolished, but without further disclaimer, Gustavo’s theme
As a bonus, here is the other piece of score I composed for the film.
Lex Luthor
3For our “Movie Musketeers” segment filming last night, we were interviewing viewers coming out of “Superman Returns”, so Larry once again got some more mileage from his Superman costume, Hillary was Supergirl and I was Lex Luthor. Hopefully I can get my hands on some of the many pictures that were taken of the three of us together.
Heathfucious say:
The burrito of opportunity is bigger than your face.
This has nothing to do with anything, but is just a bit of wisdom that I spouted the other day and I thought I would relate it to you completely free of context.
Prison Break’s newest inmate
0So I had always intended get rid of the mohawk and buzz my head for a Keanu Reeves matrix skit I’m filming, and then shaving bald the next week to get the Lex Luthor look for the “Superman Returns” premiere, but in light of my lay off today, I decided it was a good time to go ahead and buzz my head now in a symbolic new beginning.
Coming next week…total baldness!
Why working in the video game industry sucks
6Because there tend to be lots of layoffs. Like me. Today. Well, maybe this is my chance to once again try and use my new found contacts to get film work and such.
*sings*
Always look on the bright side of life
*whistles*
Save the internet!
1Everyone who likes to use the internet and access all websites equally should at least give a glance to www.savetheinternet.com. There is a lot of information and some handy links and such to allow you to easily send your representatives a message stating that the Internet should star neutral, free and unmanipulated by corporations who would love to have control over what websites get precedence.
Some Austin Movie Show segments
1I’ve uploaded some of the segments that we’ve produced for the Austin Movie show. More to come! Sadly, I can’t seem to get any better quality from my uploads, but they should suffice for now.
Amazing free home recording program: Reaper
2If you’ve been wanting to turn your home PC into a recording studio, but don’t have hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend on expensive program,s I highly suggest checking out Reaper. This program is currently in development and completely free. Its capabilities are absolutely amazing and can very much give extremely expensive commercial programs a run for their money. In fact in some ways, and depending on your personal needs, it may be better than some of the big fish. Don’t be fooled by its plain appearance. It may look a bit primitive, but really that’s a good thing. You’re not wasting precious CPU cycles on shiny pretty graphics and bells and whistles. Instead all your computer power can go into important things like processing audio. While the UI may not be the sleekest looking thing, it’s certainly functional and easily does everything you need to do.
Though it is technically “in development”, there are extremely frequent updates, and it is a solid program, not some buggy beta. With this one free program, you can have more recording power in your PC than The Beatles had during their entire career. Talent, however, is not included.