Down the Blogging Rabbit Hole

I started this blog to chronicle my journey through semi-professional acting for a number of reasons: to hold myself accountable, so that I didn't chicken out; to provide a glimpse into a smaller city's arts scene; to force myself to write regularly in a low-pressure situation; and, of course, to vent about things. Sometimes the frustration in my work comes from me, sometimes it comes circumstance, and sometimes it comes from other people.

At the same time, I'm sort of maddeningly non-specific about who I am and where I am. There's a couple of reasons behind this. The biggest one is cowardice. I know some people won't work with me if they find out I've said something mean about them or someone they know on the Internet. But also, I just don't like the idea of calling out somebody by name– after all, just as doing so could damage my own reputation, it could also damage their reputation, and I would feel like a bully. There's also the universality of the experience, making sure the stories are interesting enough without having to know the people involved– but the biggest one is I don't want to burn any bridges via blog. I torch 'em myself, in person, all the time, because my poker face is terrible and if I think you're being wanktacular, it shows. So that's my Bad Actress Manifesto.

One thing that I mentioned in a previous post was that I found out the lead in a film that I recently participated in has a blog. I've been reading it, of course. The blog takes the opposite tack of mine: it's very specific, filled with pictures and people's names and self-affirmation, and reading it is like watching a train wreck in slow motion: behold the awesome power of destruction, cringe at the impending casualties. I kind of wonder what the dude is thinking.

I first learned about this blog when I googled the project's name and my city. In it, he discussed some of the actors at the callbacks. Some of them he was. . . less than kind in his assessments of their audition abilities. In later entries, I learned that some of these people were cast, and he ended up having to work with them. If any of those people googled the project. . . can you imagine how hard it is to work with someone who you think thinks you suck? Or to work with someone who you know thinks you suck? Or to work with someone who you know thinks you suck because you read it on the internet, in their public blog? Erp.

On top of that, it seems the project has had some … organizational miscues. To me, that's what film is all about. I mean, not in the grand sense of "Gentlemen, this is why we do what we do: so that we can sit around for four hours because the lighting equipment broke and the PA had to drive twenty miles to get a replacement part." But it's what happens. You sit around a whole lot while things go wrong. And this guy has logged that he feels like he gets called too early to sit around. He even goes so far as to speculate on the quality of the finished product.

Two things on this: fun for the actors does not necessarily directly correlate to quality of finished product. That's why Ocean's Twelve did not win All the Oscars.

But more importantly: as an actor, your career grows through successful projects. The first result on Google is this guy talking about how the film's lacking in coherent vision. That is not very good PR.

Then there's the problem of the crew reading his blog, with his name and photo on it, and feeling really peeved because instead of, say, telling them that he felt that his call times were inappropriate and asking them to fix that, he told the internet. And he used their names, too.

And finally, he meticulously catalogued every compliment he was given and from whom on each day of filming. He may be a lovely person, but the inclusion of every "Great job" made him sound like he was really desperate for external validation. Hmmm. I kind of want to see if I can find a blog from someone telling me about what working with him is like. Now that could be interesting.