Sorry for the delay. I had my last day at Basic Cable Competition Show two Fridays ago, and last Monday I started at Network Documentary-Style Drama. Logging. It indeed was a significant blow to my ego to go back to logging, something I hadn't done full-time since mid-2003. I started logging on Basic Cable Competition Show, but it was with the understanding that I would be moving on to doing more things there, and that's exactly what happened. For Network Documentary-Style Drama, I'm logging. Well, transcribing a lot and also logging. There are two big differences with this: I'm back to an actual 40 hour work week, which I haven't had in reality TV since 2002. AND it's the best money I've made for logging and transcribing ever. I'm getting more than $15.60 an hour, which is pretty flippin' impressive -- at least in my history. I'm on this gig for the next 2 to 4 weeks, depending. (It's leaning more towards 4, since we have at least 3 and a half more episodes worth of material to receive, and the show debuts in May.) I really can't talk about the show, due to the big NDA I had to sign, but everyone that I work with is very nice. I am easily the oldest person in the logging room (yes, we have our own room, away from the executives and producers that stalk the halls), which only seems to be a problem for me.
I also had to swallow my pride with my session with my acting coach. To make a long story short, we worked on a scene from a sitcom pilot, and he videotaped my take on it. I felt pretty good about what I did, and he said that there were times where he didn't believe me. Translation: I was big and rather fake-y. Unfortunately, my ego got irked and went into defensive mode. My coach Jason then played back my read, and he was indeed right. There were times where I felt I had to spin a line to show what I can do with it, and it came across as me trying to show off and it ended up being fake. My neuroses got the better of me, and I kinda shut down. I couldn't argue with what Jason was saying. He was right and there it was, captured on film. It really showed me that I really have a long way to go, even though I have come a long way. This experience hit a soft spot with me, which means that I'm going in the right direction. A horrible part of my psyche is that deep down, I hate being wrong. I hate being told what I'm doing isn't enough, 'cause that make me feel dumb. I'm wrong a lot -- like everyone else, I make mistakes. But this was me making a mistake about what fundamentally is part of my identity - acting. It was a great learning experience, but at the same time, rather grueling. I'm on the right track -- I can tell 'cause it's very difficult.
In more positive news, I'm most of the way through Lent, having given up all potatoes AND all tortilla chips. It's actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Katie is having a more difficult Lent than I am. I at least can have chocolate, the poor thing.
My taxes are done, and God bless my accountant, I'm getting a good deal back from both the Feds and the State. A huge sigh of relief -- I can pay off a good chunk of my credit card debt, so that's cool.
One final note: this pilot season sucks. All around. Again, more celebrities are jumping in to do pilots, which is squeezing the rest of us out. That's rather annoying, but there isn't much I can I do about it.
More later.
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