52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: Little Jimmy's Christmas Present

Little Jimmy's Christmas Present (#20)

Really had to hustle to get this one done in time. Because of a bunch of callback craziness, we didn't make enough atx videos to cover my whole vacation. So I scrounged up camera equipment from my friend's Dad, a dog from my brother's girlfriend, and my Mom and cousin last Tuesday and threw this bad boy together.

Yes, the lighting's not too great. Probably a combination of the equipment and my own incompetence. But if I may complement myself for a second here, I was pretty proud of my own resourcefulness. Glad I didn't just give up because it was too hard. 

God bless my Mom, who's never acted a day in her life, jumping in there and giving it heck. (My mom doesn't give anything hell.) Even though she's a noob, I think she has a natural sweetness that makes this whole thing pretty funny. And my cousin Drew's face while he's holding my dirty socks is pretty priceless.

Directing a dog was not much fun. We had like 35 takes for a 1:30 long video. The little guy kept freaking out, haha. Maybe he heard Mom say he was getting euthanized and decided it was time to take off.

52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: New Nanny

New Nanny (#19)

Brand new ATX contributor this week in the form of the very funny Candice Martin! I met her at Act Now and was thrilled when she agreed to hop on board with us.

We weren't sure how to approach this from a cinematography perspective, since the whole thing is pretty much just two people saying in one place, talking to each other. I thought of the Steinbrenner scenes from Seinfeld, and we figured we'd go that route. I like how that back of the head thing somehow gives my character this weird authority that he wouldn't otherwise have.

And of course, how can you go wrong with Zach as Mary Poppins? Sometimes I think my entire calling in life is to film that guy doing embarrassing things while wearing dresses as often as possible.

My First Novel is coming out soon!

Okay folks, so there's this horror novel that I've been working on for the past year or so, and I can proudly say that it's all done and ready to be released.

It's called The Scarecrow and I'm publishing it on ebooks in a little more than a week.

I'll definitely keep you posted as things develop and maybe talk more about it later, but for now, check out the current book cover (made by the awesome David Miller) and save up about four bucks for Dec. 21st. I'd love your support and I'm sure you'll love the novel. It's super creepy stuff, promise.

I Cry, Laugh, and Scream at a Total Stranger in the Span of Two Minutes Because Another Stranger Told Me To.

(EDIT: Just found out that I booked this gig!)

So I get called into an audition with this other young dude. I've never talked to him in my life. At this point, I haven't even said "Hi" yet. Don't remember his name.

Casting director says "You're best friends and you're watching a very sad video. Start crying."

Next thing I know we're sobbing into each other's arms, my face buried in his shoulder as we curse the world for being so cruel. "Why, God? WHY?!?!?!"

Casting director says "Video's over, and now you're both pumped up. You need to do something constructive. Build a fort."

There's a bookcase behind me. NOT part of our acting space. I grab some books out of it and we start making the crappiest fort in the history of forts. We smile and laugh at our stronghold of positive energy, still a bit emotional. "This thing is going to be a beacon for all of humanity!" I declare.

Casting director says "Now one of you makes an addition the other one doesn't like."

My best friend tries to add a secret door, which horrifies me. "This is a fort of HONESTY, man! Don't bring your lies to this sacred place!" I start building the fort in a way that blocks him from being involved. He gets mad and knocks the whole thing over, which causes a bunch of CDs that were in the books to come flying out to the floor. "YOU'VE SPILLED THE ARCHIVES!!!" I shout.

Next thing I know, we're screaming at each other at the top of our lungs and throwing books at each other, culminating in the other guy calling me something that rhymes with "stunt." The casting director says "Whoa, okay! That's enough!"

We stop and look up. They're laughing their butts off. I kinda forgot they were there. "Well... Didn't expect it to go that way," one of them says. "Thanks a lot!"

The two of us leave the room and take off going opposite directions, strangers again.

Dunno if either of us will get cast, but we definitely made an impression on those poor saps. Just
another job interview in Los Angeles...

SAG-AFTRA can wait.

So I'm in an interesting part of my career. I'm in the fun little category of being SAG Eligible. What does that mean, you may wonder? That means I can join the all important ACTING UNION whenever I want! Oooh!

When I was a humble Kentucky high schooler, I met a guy who showed me his SAG card. I looked at that thing as though it was one of Willy Wonka's golden tickets. "This guy has made it!" I thought.

Ha.

(Yes, I did think up this caption. So you know... dibs.)

Now, yes. Just about every well paying job that will get you any kind of notoriety in this town requires you to be SAG-AFTRA. So it should be a no brainer, right?

The problem comes from the fact that once you join the union, that's it. Anything labeled "non union" is off limits. To put that in perspective, every acting gig I've done this year (besides the Kia commercial) is non union. I wouldn't have been able to do any of them, for fear of getting caught and fined.

Once I join SAG-AFTRA, my opportunities for employment become largely dependent on how efficient my representation is at getting me into casting rooms. That, and my ability to beat out the thousands upon thousands of other actors clawing over each other to get a limited number of roles. Seriously, I know a lot of SAG actors who never get any work because they didn't set themselves up properly beforehand.

It's kinda like moving in with somebody after you've only been dating for a few days. Geez, slow down!

Right now I have a pretty solid comedic reel, but next to no dramatic material. Not to mention my lack of a theatrical agent/manager. So there's still plenty of work that I can do as non union member. Once I squeeze every drop of forward momentum out of being non union that I can, that's when I'll drop my 3,000 dollar entry fee (yes you read that right) and start barking with the big dogs. My goal right now is to be doing union work by the end of May.

Until then... I'll be doing more of this kinda stuff.

Student Film

Extra in Syfy zombie movie

Music video

52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: For Your Consideration...

For Your Consideration... (#16)

Okay readers, honesty time. Gonna tell you a little story.

It's 11pm on a Friday night, and we have no ideas for the next day's sketch that could conceivably be done in one evening. To make things worse, Matt was still working, so he was unavailable.

So I said "Hey, let's just destroy the apartment and film you throwing bread at the window."

Zach said "Okay."

And that's what happened. 

That being said, considering we probably did the whole thing in less than thirty minutes, I was very pleasantly surprised at how funny the end product actually turned out. There's a pretty cool Samuel Beckett kind of rhythm to it, especially the way he keeps forgetting to flip the knife. Reminds me of the first five to ten minutes of Endgame.

Funny how there've been a decent amount of people who didn't "get" the punchline, as if there was something to get. I guess it takes a certain kind of person to be comfortable with that anarchic kind of comedy.

And yes, we did clean the window afterwards.

52 Sketches in 52 Weeks: Vegan Food

Vegan Food (#15)

You know that you probably have the wrong kind of friends when you send them a script involving them eating poop and they respond with "This is awesome! I can't wait to do this!"

But that's the kind of trooper our friend Evan Nischan is. Evan eagerly brought his Meisner mastery to our humble little script, not to mention his apartment as a location. He also gets the honor of being the first guest star to appear in two atx episodes. (His other appearance can be found here.) Congrats, Evan! You should feel... proud?

Special thanks to this kid for an easy fake urine recipe. (Yes, all the food was fake, sickos.) It was strangely difficult to find a feces recipe though. Seriously, never type "Edible Poop" into Google Search. Zach and I pretty much just kinda had to wing it. It took us a good couple of hours to get those two little turds figured out.

And no, I have no idea if the ingredients were vegan or not.