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Pistons on a roll

I think it’s obvious that Detroit is the better team, but they still have to mark one more up against L.A. before they own the series. I said it before and I still think it’s true: if Detroit doesn’t win the championship at home, they won’t win it in L.A. That being said, I think Detroit will win Game 5 because they’re just playing too well and L.A. can’t keep up with them.

Regardless, I think Game 5 will be a great game. There’s a lot of pressure on both teams and the stakes are as high as they can be in the NBA.

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Rough week, great weekend

This was a tough week, mostly because I seemed to be constantly doing something. The worst day was Thursday, when I had my acting lesson. It was a great lesson and I learned a lot, but I was totally exhausted and the lesson lasted about two hours. Also, the scene we were working on was about 7 minutes of intense emotion–specifically, my character was angry and distraught–and that’s just a lot of work.

The good news is I’ve had a great weekend so far. I’m playing in a basketball league that begins next week and we had our first team practice today. There are seven guys on our team and I’d only played with two of them before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Turns out we have a well-rounded, solid team and I expect we’ll be very competitive in our league. This evening, a buddy and I grilled some burgers and watched Master and Commander at my place. It was relaxing and we had a good time just chillin’ and chattin’.

Tomorrow evening, some people are comin’ down to my place so we can all cheer for Detroit in the NBA Finals together. This is a “must win” for both teams, but L.A. seems to have a lot more on the line right now. Of course, based on my previous comments, if Detroit loses either of the next two games, I think they’re going to lose the championship, so maybe this game is just as big for them. Regardless, I hope they stomp the Lakers again… The Lakers are good at winning, but horrible at losing and I take great pleasure in watching them tank a game.

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2004 NBA Finals: Game 2

I only saw the last 6 minutes of regulation and then the OT, but I thought the Pistons looked great until the melt-down. Really, if they had played just a tad better for the last 45 seconds of the game, they’d have gone up 2-0 before heading home for 3 games. Instead, they sort of gave up the ghost both physically and mentally and left L.A. hanging around. I thought there were two big plays, both involving Shaq, that just didn’t go right for the Pistons: First, Shaq’s 3-point play shoulda’ never happened. He should’ve been fouled before he ever had a chance to get the first shot off. Second, every Pistons player should’ve had the following phrase in the back of his mind: “They’re down 3. If Shaq catches the inbound, foul him and we win.”

The good news is I think the Pistons can actually take the Lakers. They have three games at home and they can finish it in Detroit. I think they’re doomed if they have to go back to L.A., but I also think they can wrap it up by game 5. They’re defense is obviously too good for the Lakers. That was true for all but Shaq and Kobe for both games so far. The trick is they can’t let Kobe break out for 14 points at the end of the game and expect to survive. Keep the ball outta’ his hands, force him to take bad shots and keep Shaq as far from the rim as possible. It sounds simple, but the Pistons are one of the few teams that can actually do it.

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Working through the words

Last night, I wrote about how tough it’s been working through a couple scenes from Devil’s Advocate. While that’s still true, I feel like I made a lot of progress tonight and I’m feeling much more comfortable with the scene. Heretofore, I hadn’t marked up the copy at all; I had just read through the scene a few times and tried to get a feel for what’s going on. Tonight, I sat down and meticulously marked up the script and that seemed to really open it up for me. One problem I was having had to do with the scene’s length–it’s 11 pages. I kept getting lost in the scene and not being able to find my way through all the words to what was actually happening with the characters and with the movie.

Marking it up allowed me to break it down into sections so I could wrap my mind around what was actually going on. I’ve gotten a much better feel for how my character changes throughout the scene. His objective is always the same, but he realizes that he can’t accomplish it the way he thought; he has to change tactics and methods a few times. So, I’m starting to understand the scene, but now I have to figure out how to take my new understanding and translate it to physical action. That’s where I generally have the most trouble. I have a difficult time taking my understanding of the character and translating that character’s words and actions into my own speech and movement. The trick is portraying the character honestly because the camera will surely catch anything that isn’t honest–a fake move, a staged look, or anything else where I might be “acting”.

Slow and steady…

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Tough scenes

So far, I’ve really been enjoying my learning experience as I work towards being an actor. Usually, I feel challenged and fulfilled as I work through a scene and I get a definite sense of fulfillment after we’ve shot something and critiqued it. This week, I’m working on a couple scenes from The Devil’s Advocate and, so far, I’m very frustrated. The scenes are just difficult and I’m having a tough time connecting to the characters. I still have a few days (which is really a long time) to work on the scenes before we lay them down on Thursday, and I’m sure I’ll make great progress, but right now it’s difficult to tell if I’ll really be able to play the scenes well.

That said, this is why I’m so excited about acting. This is very challenging and it’s been a long time since I had to work on something that I had so much trouble getting through. I love the challenge, I love the analysis, I love trying to learn something I’ve never learned before. This stress, frustration and anxiety is why I want to do something other than engineering for a career. With engineering, this sort of learning curve simply doesn’t exist. I may be challenged, but the assignments I would get as an engineer wouldn’t challenge me personally as acting does.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to grinding out these scenes and seeing what I can do. Right now, my confidence is low and I’m not sure I can play the scenes convincingly… and this is exactly where I need to be. I feel backed into a corner and that means I have nothing to lose. I feel as though I’ll fail and that feeling is only motivating me to give everything I have to try and succeed. I’ll know if I have succeeded at about 7:30 on Thursday evening.

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Weeks fly by

It’s really unbelievable how quickly time passes for me here. When I was in school, I generally felt time move in days and I counted down the semesters in weeks. Here, time passes in one-week increments and I’m counting passed time in months. I think most of this is because of my monotonous schedule: when I was in school, every day was different and ‘routine’ wasn’t part of my vocabulary; now, every week is similar and routine is the dominating characteristic of my life.

I guess this is ok for now, but it’ll drive me nuts if I’m this wrapped up in routine forever. I don’t know if I’ll be a successful actor, but if I am I’m looking forward to having unique days again. I’m sure there’s some monotony involved with shooting a film, but I’m betting there’s also a lot of variety and hopefully that’ll help time feel like it’s passing slower.

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Big ol’ Texas storm

I had dinner at my friends’ place tonight, but had to leave a little early ’cause there was a big fat thunderstorm headed my way. The drive home was on a main highway that’s pretty flat with few trees and buildings around, so I could see a lot more of the sky than I usually can in the city or on other highways around here. There are a lot of thunderstorms in Florida, and most of them have a lot of lightning, so that’s nothin’ new to me. But for some reason, the lightning that came with tonight’s storm was pretty impressive to me. I’m not sure if it was because I could see more of the sky than I usually could in Florida, or if the storm was just different than what I grew up around, but this lightning was really something. Lightning was streaking across the sky at a rate of about one bolt a second. Some bolts were horizontal, some vertical, some a single strand, some several strands flashing together. But the really odd thing was that there was virtually no thunder. I mean, some of this lightning was really bright and vivid, and (probably because I’m used to Florida thunderstorms) I would expect to hear a big boom after a particularly bright flash of lightning. But there usually was no boom. It was pretty eerie, but really beautiful at the same time.

I hope I get to see some more of this cool Texas lightning before I move on.

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Lazy weekend

Normally, I’d say a three-day weekend is super and then I’d talk about all the great stuff I did to take advantage of my extra day off. Unfortunately, I didn’t really do anything to take advantage of the extra day off and I wasted most of my weekend sleeping. I guess that’s not all bad–I hadn’t really had the chance to just sleep for no reason in a while–but it would’ve been nice to use the weekend for something productive.

I did play basketball on Saturday, but it was an all around bad experience. I didn’t feel right during the first game and then, about half way through the second game, I started feelin’ dizzy and my chest felt funny. So, I sat the rest of the game and decided I felt better. I played a few more games without any of those symptoms, but I also played at about half speed. I wasn’t really playing to compete, but just to see if my body was trying to tell me I needed to get checked out. After I played a few more games, I kinda’ figured maybe I just got started too fast or I was dehydrated or something. That was the last I heard of the dizziness and such. But then, half way through my last game, I jammed my thumb real good (during a dead ball, no less) and that’s probably going to keep me out of commission for a week or so.

So, I went home and slept and then watched a movie and then slept some more. Sunday was about the same and I slept till 11 this morning. The highlight for the weekend was my acting lesson. During my last lesson, my instructor said he was going to find something where the stakes were very high for me, emotionally. This time, he had a short scene from The Devil’s Advocate, which we cold-read, and a much longer scene that I’ll be working on this week. It was challenging and fun to work on the scene and I really had a chance to think outside the box and try to be present in the scene emotionally. I wasn’t completely satisfied with my performance, but I’m going to work on it this week and hopefully turn it into something good.

Work, work, work… blah, blah, blah

This is the part where I moan about having to get up early and go to work and all that. Mostly, I’m used to it, so it doesn’t bother me much. The thing that concerns me most is that I’ll have trouble getting to sleep tonight… I hope I don’t have any trouble because I don’t have any more Tylenol PM to bail me out.

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Almost done with Rich Dad, Poor Dad

I’ve only got about 20 pages left and I’m still wavering on how I feel about this book. I think it’s got good information, inspiring thoughts, nice anecdotes and other good qualities, but I’m having a hard time finding tangible ideas that I can use today. Maybe I need to find another book to address my particular situation: recent college grad with a pile of student loans to pay off, but also planning on trying to get out of my current profession and into the risky acting business.

Anyway, it’s definitely worth the $15 I paid for it, but I’m hoping the last 20 pages offer a little more practical and tangible advice.

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New music (to me)

I picked up a copy of Nora Jones’ feels like home and I’m likin’ it a lot. It’s good, soothing music and I’ve been reading to it, but I wouldn’t recommend using it as driving music or anything like that. Mostly, she just focuses on singing good lyrics over excellent jazz. It’s definitely a nice change of pace.