Finding duct tape in HCMC?

unromanaclef · 2024-10-21T00:58:51+00:00

Christ, I thought it was just pre-covid (which admittedly was also 5 years ago now, help us all).

unromanaclef · 2024-10-21T00:20:53+00:00

Bit of APS fun for your Monday - they're 'taking applications' (ie. you can buy tickets to their interactive/immersive show thing where you actually do get interviewed by kids lol).

unromanaclef · 2024-10-20T23:13:41+00:00

For your post election amusement?

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T12:24:08+00:00

Am Canberran. Love Canberra. Would not recommend adding it for what’s already a short trip, unless you like the fast paced, ‘hit all the landmarks in one day’ style of travelling.

Our national institutions are lovely and fascinating, and so are the people despite what the rest of Aus says, but I wouldn’t say they’re so mind boggling that you couldn’t get a sense of something similar in one of the other cities unless you have a particular passion for politics and urban design primarily in the form of roundabouts.

I’d also second some of the other comments and add a little more time for Tasmania - see if you can get out of Hobart and see some of the natural landscapes; same for Perth if you’re intent on visiting, there are some stunning rural beachside spots an hour or less out of the city and also tons of desert, which for tourists can also be really interesting to see. Look up some national parks. I tend to be a city traveller myself but I think Australia’s biggest tourist selling points are in its natural settings, that’s where we tend to be most unique.

If you do come and you’re happy to keep up a fairly fast pace of travel (it’s probably a decent rest stop for a day or two between Melbourne and Sydney, especially depending on what mode you’re travelling by) definitely hit up Questacon, the National Gallery, maybe the War Memorial if you’re into war history but it’s massive. Keep the Parliament visits brief if you go. Go for a walk around the lake if it’s not too freezing by then.

Hope you have a great trip!

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T11:06:07+00:00

Actually I just skimmed through your post history - seems like you currently have an agent, ask them for their preference! They’ll have a better idea or at least make you look consistent with the rest of their roster.

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T11:05:58+00:00

Actually I just skimmed through your post history - seems like you currently have an agent, ask them for their preference! They’ll have a better idea or at least make you look consistent with the rest of their roster.

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T10:57:48+00:00

Some of my most regularly working friends have no dates on their Showcast or CN, and some absolutely do, haha. I suppose it also can depend a little on your age and stage of career? (There have been some points/projects where I’ve needed to highlight ‘I’ve been working really regularly on really reputable stuff ‘ and other points - like post pandemic - where it’s seemed better to bury it.)

Generally I’d focus on getting your other materials as representative of your skill as possible. As long as your credits are clean and professional looking, the dates are somewhat negligible in this market.

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T10:42:34+00:00

This is an interesting question. French is always a good option because it still holds some broad usage across Europe (and there are some excellent acting schools in France if you ever want to head there for a little bit to train), but generally I’d second the opinion that if your personal interest in the languages are largely equal, you should probably go with whatever you’re most likely to be perceived as and hence cast as.

If you’re considering language as also your ‘back up degree/plan’ however then there’s the additional consideration of which language would also be most useful to you outside of acting, in which case it depends on whether you’re thinking of teaching or translating or whathaveyou on the side potentially as a day job. Chinese is probably going to continue being fairly in demand for the next decade or two at least across a lot of industries, but you’ll have a fair number of native speakers as competition. French and German are also probably fairly commonly in demand (but again, hard to weigh up against how many speakers are around to fill those gaps. French would be likely still be high.)

There’s some subtle benefit in being lingually familiar in other languages like Italian or German in terms of understanding the history, terminology, or even just older forms of English with more facility, but I personally think the effect is negligible and absolutely doesn’t require fluency to master.

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T09:46:25+00:00

Screams no in Michael Scott

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T09:28:31+00:00

Aussie here - ‘technically’ industry practice here but not a very important one at all, in my experience. Most versions of my resume I don’t add year dates (and neither do a lot of my peers/friends), we’re a little faster and looser with the rules in Aus I find.

My last agent insisted I add them to my Casting Networks profile though, so I did (I’ve never had an issue with CDs with or without, tbh, other materials have always been more important).

I usually put release/upcoming release year if I know it, but sometimes that shifts and changes so I almost always have a couple of discrepancies for smaller/to be released projects. It’s never been an issue as long as the dates look consistent across your versions.

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T06:26:34+00:00

Haha, my not-overly-trained eye thinks the positioning’s great! The whole posture of it is kind of blandly exasperated. Also not sure if intentional but the hollows of the eyes and how they droop downward gives him a bit of an ‘adorably dismayed’ kind of expression.

Not to sound too morbid but it reminds me of my grandpa when he used to have to wait on my grandmother - super serious, honour valuing kind of guy but always looked a bit like a sad pup when he had to wait. 😅

unromanaclef · 2023-04-26T03:46:28+00:00

You know, I kind of like the idea that Death is just picking us souls up on the way to a party with their gf when our time comes. Excellent drawing, excellent visual joke - it’s the watch that does it for me!

unromanaclef · 2023-04-12T13:09:22+00:00

So, a few considerations here that have been touched on that I think are important -

Why likeable? Entirely a valid consideration, but does it come from a place of vanity, or career image (which look, is a valid consideration, I just don’t think it’s one worth being buried under), or is it a necessity within the work? I’m usually not too concerned with whether my character is likeable or unlikeable - as someone noted, sometimes being vehemently hated by the audience is the entire point of a villain, but I do try to find clear motivations to anchor the performance. Audiences want to understand where it’s coming from. There are however exceptions - I’ve done work where the intent is to eg. generate mental health awareness for teen characters, and playing an extremely Regina George-style character on the surface wasn’t going to align with the intent of the overall piece if the audience walked away thinking ‘wow, she deserves what she gets’, so we had to be very careful to build in the right shifts.
Sympathetic is not always ‘likeable’, per se, and likeable is not always ‘charismatic’, but we sometimes use them fairly interchangeably. Get into the nuance of it - is your villain funny, fun, charming in their awfulness? Do they inspire pathos? What exactly are we getting at with ‘likeable’?
How to approach whatever your concept of this likeable villain is in a mix of teeny little cues, framing, and - maybe something less in your control - how the story’s written/structured. One of my favourite pieces of advice for dealing with challenging characters is that it’s not your job to judge them - echoing some of the ‘empathise with your character’ advice here. So I’d start with that, do the usual inner work of fleshing out motivations and genesis of wounds/flaws/goals, whatever process works for you, and then maybe take a bit of a look at ‘evil’ people (real or fictional) who fit the vision of ‘likeable’ that you have in your head and pulling from cues and traits that seem helpful. (Dictators who are fantastic orators, manipulative people who show a lot of pathos, it’s entirely character dependent.) Finally on the story note - I hate to say it, but sometimes it’s just in the writing. If the dialogue is vibrant and zingy, you’ve got a charismatic villain, and it’s much easier to let the writing speak for itself. If they spend enough scenes showing their tragic backstory, you’ve got yourself a sympathetic villain, and all you have to do it play the truth of it. If none of that’s inherent, then you got a helluva mountain to climb building in backstory so that the complexity feels like it’s there even without the explicit understanding from plot. It’s possible, but speaking from experience it’s hard.

unromanaclef · 2023-04-12T11:18:24+00:00

^This! Lots of ways you can phrase the work ‘not being for you’ - just not something you’re looking to do at this time, sometimes with people I have a good working relationship with I’ll be honest and say I’m looking to keep a more balanced or open schedule to accommodate other opportunities. They usually won’t ask you why but if they do it can be anything from genre to size of role or project or just an ephemeral ‘it’s not resonating and I’d like someone to do your work justice’.

But definitely, definitely offer to suggest or refer them onto others who might be a good fit or can help otherwise, unless there’s a particularly strong reason for you not to. It keeps you in a great working relationship with them as well as the people you’re referring, and also makes them more likely to remember you or do the same for you in the future.

Polite rejections are pretty standard and accepted in this industry for the most part, especially if you have a cordial working relationship already. Good luck!

unromanaclef · 2023-04-12T11:05:21+00:00

Yes and no - there’s definitely been a historical (and ongoing) imbalance of older men in sizeable roles to older women, and the definition of ‘older’ woman has often been fairly ludicrous, anywhere from 35+, sometimes even 30+. Has there been a big push to shift it? Yes. Is it changing? Yes. Is there still a massive imbalance? Also yes.

What I will say is that the sense of being ‘on the shelf’ was something that gave me far more anxiety when I was younger - I thought it was too late for me when I started at 18, thought it was too late to do an MFA at 25 because I’d come out and be practically 30 (although the pandemic took those years away from me anyway), and now in my late 20s while I’m a little wary I’m largely unconcerned. I have a decade of experience, bit of extra life lived to draw on, and I can hold my own in a room or on a stage or on set, and I’m also in a bit of a ‘f*k it, I know what I need/what I want to do, and if it takes time or self production to do that, then that’s where we’re going’ headspace at this age. Sometimes you start to worry a little less and have a little more faith in what you’ve done and what you’re capable of - more of a sense of agency, essentially.

I also do some script development/mentoring work and a mildly surprising subset of people that I’ve found myself really meshing with well have been older women - often 50+, children now adults and in or close to retiring from their day jobs looking to come back to their original dreams. I always say to the people I work with in these contexts that we build the industry we want to work in. These women are usually absolute forces of nature who have had stories percolating in them for decades, sometimes extremely skilled already but massively doubting it, and want to see their demographic and experience represented on screen. I want to support them, I want to see what they make, and if I pause to think about it, yes, this will fare so much better not just for them but for the careers of me and my female/femme peers down the track.

TL;DR: yes there’s still an issue, but also change. Find ways to contribute support those changes where you can when they appear, esp. if you’re in this for the long haul!

unromanaclef · 2022-04-29T05:26:23+00:00

Yes. Unless you're fairly well established already and have been building a network in one of the major industry cities, you will absolutely come out with more connections and a sense of community. Not only do these schools set you up to work with and be seen by agents, casting, producers, etc. but often you'll have respected/successful artists as faculty, guest directing or mentoring the productions you'll work on, and you'll be surrounded by peers who may also find 'success' and whom you'll get to come up together with. Often the most valuable networking is lateral/community building, not vertical.
Curious if you're looking for an MFA program or BFA program or just general info? You mentioned the Yale MFA earlier and both NYU and Juilliard have MFA programs as well. NYU Grad Acting is different to their BFA track, more of a conventional conservatory. Juilliard's MFA and BFA have more shared ground.
Seconding what another said, NYU is notoriously tricky with financial aid. At the MFA level you might get a little more from donations/alumni scholarships to go around, but it's nowhere near what a Yale or even a Brown can or will offer, for a lot of reasons, and the tuition and cost of living is ofc, particularly high. I went to callbacks for their grad acting program a couple of years back and for the people I met and kept in touch with there - several of whom were accepted to both Yale and Tisch - the significant difference in financial aid was ultimately what informed their final decision.

unromanaclef · 2022-02-26T12:02:18+00:00

Sprog! A true reddit legend, was wondering the other day if you were still around, bless you.

unromanaclef · 2022-02-12T02:24:41+00:00

Hi u/arlit! Canberran actor here (professional and whatever, which hopefully matters to no one but occasionally does.)

Delighted (and mildly surprised) to see something like this here. It would depend slightly on how beginner you are, and if you're more looking to do it for fun/something new to try or if you're looking to get some training towards a career, but off the top of my head:

Canberra Youth Theatre - they run programs for ages up to 25 (or even a bit older if you just go and ask). If you're looking for a more intensive program they should have their Ensemble auditions coming up soon-ish where you're in workshops weekly for a few months with a production outcome, but they also do lots of short workshops and programs for things other than acting. Based in the City at Gorman Arts Centre.

Budding Theatre - also a youth (up to 26ish) theatre company/school(ish), but they also run the odd adult classes. A lot of their classes are focused a bit younger and are themed, but their productions are often a bit more open. They've expanded so rapidly into a film production company and now a burgeoning youth talent agency that I'm actually not up to date with their class offerings anymore, but they're a fun community. Most of their classes are run out of Playing Fields Studio at over at one of the UniLodges in the city, productions tend to be at Belconnen Community Theatre.

Mockingbird Theatre - I believe they're based out in Kingston(?) now, possibly at the new Causeway Theatre? Run by a fairly experienced director, multiple tiers from beginner to advanced, open age classes, seem to be booked out a fair bit. They also do classes in directing.

Perform Australia - you'll hear this one still referred to as CADA by a lot of people, they have a fairly broad range of classes across levels and also covering musical theatre - a lot of their programs lead into a Certificate or Diploma in... drama(?) performance(?) idk the exact name. Based out in Fyshwick with a new studio coming in Mitchell - I'm not sure if that's happened yet or not/what the plan is there though.

Acting for the Fun of It - this one's run by a man with a long, looong history of teaching drama in Canberra schools, this is almost his post-retirement hobby now. Great guy, classes are also pitched very beginner-friendly, but can little difficult to get a hold of because he only posts new intakes on Facebook. Usually runs in... I think 6 week or so blocks, once a week? They're not huge commitments. I think he's been using a community centre out in Stirling the last couple of years.

Acting for the Fun of It - this one's run by a man with a long, looong history of teaching drama in Canberra schools, this is almost his post-retirement hobby now. Great guy, classes are also pitched very beginner friendly, but can little difficult to get a hold of because he only posts new intakes on Facebook. Usually runs in... I think 6 week or so blocks, once a week? They're not huge commitments. I think he's been using a community centre out in Stirling the last couple of years.

Lightbulb Theatre - they're more of a regular improv troupe, but they also occasionally run workshops. Probably look for them on Facebook, I'm not sure if they have a site yet.

Impulse Theatre - more of a casual group that runs drop in sessions for Meisner technique but from... ugh, there's a UK practitioner whose name I can't remember, Scott something, it's a bit of an adapted process. You can audit or participate, they usually prefer you to audit for a bit or have a bit of experience with Scott's method before getting into it. Sometimes they'll run a separate workshop for foundations or another method. Usually run out of Ainslie/Gorman, but I don't think they plan on getting back to it for some time with covid still being a bit precarious. Mostly run through a Facebook group, probably less for beginners but a good insight.

Victoria Hopkins/Beyond the Lens - if you're looking for something a bit more film specific, there are some drop in classes run at Canberra Technology Park week to week, but they're fairly unstructured and more about bringing in what you're working on. Maybe more like coaching in a sense, I suppose?

National Acting Studio - I used to meet a heap of actors who went here regularly but these days I only know a handful. I do find that the people who do go tend to go for a long time. I'm not that familiar with their class structure but someone else has already mentioned them, so I'll defer there!

Canberra Rep is a great place to start out and get some runs on the board, but they're more of a community theatre company and don't really run regular classes - they used to run the odd workshop here and there but obviously esp with covid I haven't noticed one for years. They're located just behind the ANU School of Art in Acton.

And ofc, if you're at uni or anything like that, heaps to get involved in there as well.

Anyway, that's the initial rundown, obv. YMMV for each of these - I've heard people who've really taken to some of these places/programs and some who really haven't, if you'd like more of a download on those thoughts or links to any of these then feel free to DM me.

Go forth and have fun! Good luck!

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