Acting & Acting for the Camera Training

Kezarin

Space Monkey
space monkey
Joined
Apr 6, 2019
Messages
21
Then when I started acting lessons and began getting bit parts in independent films I was an actor. I wouldn't even mention my big name prestigious job unless I was talking to some super logical chick who wasn't taken in by "writer" or "actor", in which case I would just say "But I have an office job downtown that pays the bills" (at which point every super logical office chick would kind of sigh and go "Okay" and you'd see this relieved look on her face).

Chase,

could you elaborate on your acting gig? Think it's worthwhile to go to acting school or at least get a few classes, and land a few roles here and there? I'm thinking of going down that path and that would really help.

Cheers!
 

Chase

Chieftan
Staff member
tribal-elder
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Messages
5,484
@Kezarian,

Sure. I decided I thought it would be useful to be good on camera, in case at some point that was a skill I could use. So I looked to see what sort of acting classes were available nearby. Most of them were stage acting, which I didn't want to do; however, I found one entitled "Acting for the Camera", which sounded like exactly what I wanted, so I signed up.

90% of the students were college kids who were taking the class for a theater credit. Almost all of them were also drama majors and came from acting backgrounds. I, on the other hand, had but a single line in a school play (plus Rogers and Hammerstein's 10 Minutes Ago, which I still have memorized, and belt out occasionally for women if I really want to completely floor them... they never expect you can sing like that :D ).

Anyway, the acting teacher told me again and again my face was too wooden, and that it was a big change from her theater students, who tend to be too expressive. Many times she talked to the class and said theater students are TOO expressive, because they learn to be overly expressive so theater audiences far from the stage can read their expressions; meanwhile non-theater students tend to be too wooden. So this was my thing I worked on over and over for something like 8 months before she was finally telling me I was hitting the right amount of expressiveness.

What happened was that at the same time I was learning to be more expressive in class, I was also extending that to the field. I realized I was probably being too wooden when I approached women too. Because in the field, if you're in state, okay, you can do everything perfectly without thinking about it. But when you're not in state, you're acting. And most guys when they are not in state, if you will see them (and I've seen many when I was an in-field coach), they are very stiff and wooden. They're trying to emulate their in-state selves but not doing so successfully. Learning to control my face so I could be expressive at will and emulate a confident, relaxed, happy guy even if I wasn't feeling it meant I could go out to pick up even if I was in a bad state and still come across in-state to girls and get into great interactions (at which point you start to feel pretty good, and then before you know it, if you're not outright in-state, you're at least in a much better mood).

I drove up to Los Angeles to do a spate of auditions for roles in TV shows and other things but didn't land any. I didn't keep going because it was just too far... a two-hour drive each way from San Diego. Had I been in LA and could've kept going to auditions, maybe you'd be watching me on the tube instead of reading my stuff on the site.

Anyway, I got a few bit parts in indie movies, including one that aired on the silver screen in Miramar... unfortunately I got to the theater late (bad habit of mine) and missed myself on the big screen. Such is life.

For a while I was exclusively telling girls "I'm an actor" and forgot about telling them "I'm a writer" altogether. Some girls got REALLY into it... I had one chick I was seeing who just went around excitedly introducing me to everyone as the actor she was seeing. I had people I didn't know coming to me saying, "So, I hear you're an actor." I was like, LOL, I guess! I would actually tell them, "Yeah, I mean, I have a day job too," but nobody cared about that, they just wanted to know an actor.

We had a chance to get an agent via the acting class. We had to do two things: a film scene and a stage scene. The film scene I completely nailed; it was by all accounts a solid performance. The stage scene we practiced a bit, but unlike all the theater kids there I hadn't been on a stage in a few years (since my rap days), and when I finally got up there with the lights in my face and a theater full of agents and talent scouts I croaked and stumbled through my lines. The agents thought my film performance was good but me croaking on the stage meant nobody picked me up. Better luck next year they said.

My California project at work ended and the company started sending me on projects all over the US... Northwest, Midwest, down South, you name it. I wasn't able to be in town for the acting class anymore and I had to discontinue it.

I felt like, creatively, while doing it, while it was fun to learn, being an actor was just me acting out somebody else's story. I didn't like that side of things and felt like it stifled me. After I'd done a bit of acting I realized I would much rather be the one creating the stories than the one acting them out.

Though, maybe, someday, when I start releasing my fiction (I've written several novellas and one full-length novel already this year... working on another now... mostly just for myself as a leisure activity because it's fun and a good stress release, but maybe someday I'll get around to publishing them... no time for that with all my duties at GC though), if some of them get made into movies I'll freshen up my acting chops and sign up for a role in a film based on something I've written.

One fun note: when we shot One Date in 2016 -- we were on the set every day 12+ hours a day, 2.5 weeks straight -- our director was over the top about how easy it was directing me... she kept saying "It's amazing! I give him a direction and he just gets it instantly and does it, and then he remembers to keep doing it. I wish every one of my actors was like that!" So while I may not have had an acting career come out of it, it definitely helped with seduction, and it helped later on with the video courses we filmed. I'm doubtless better on-camera for the GirlsChase.TV videos now thanks to that class than I would otherwise be (the GC.TV videos to me are just more training too... I don't know how successful that site'll be; I hope it does well! But it's just another excuse to refine my on-camera delivery... just one of those skills I feel is worth having in today's day and age of communicating with people at scale over digital media).

Chase
 

Chase

Chieftan
Staff member
tribal-elder
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Messages
5,484
note: split this off into a separate thread, so we wouldn't be derailing @DaVinciMatrixStyle's thread on professional jobs and seduction success (here).
 

Kezarin

Space Monkey
space monkey
Joined
Apr 6, 2019
Messages
21
@Kezarian,

Sure. I decided I thought it would be useful to be good on camera, in case at some point that was a skill I could use. So I looked to see what sort of acting classes were available nearby. Most of them were stage acting, which I didn't want to do; however, I found one entitled "Acting for the Camera", which sounded like exactly what I wanted, so I signed up.

90% of the students were college kids who were taking the class for a theater credit. Almost all of them were also drama majors and came from acting backgrounds. I, on the other hand, had but a single line in a school play (plus Rogers and Hammerstein's 10 Minutes Ago, which I still have memorized, and belt out occasionally for women if I really want to completely floor them... they never expect you can sing like that :D ).

Anyway, the acting teacher told me again and again my face was too wooden, and that it was a big change from her theater students, who tend to be too expressive. Many times she talked to the class and said theater students are TOO expressive, because they learn to be overly expressive so theater audiences far from the stage can read their expressions; meanwhile non-theater students tend to be too wooden. So this was my thing I worked on over and over for something like 8 months before she was finally telling me I was hitting the right amount of expressiveness.

What happened was that at the same time I was learning to be more expressive in class, I was also extending that to the field. I realized I was probably being too wooden when I approached women too. Because in the field, if you're in state, okay, you can do everything perfectly without thinking about it. But when you're not in state, you're acting. And most guys when they are not in state, if you will see them (and I've seen many when I was an in-field coach), they are very stiff and wooden. They're trying to emulate their in-state selves but not doing so successfully. Learning to control my face so I could be expressive at will and emulate a confident, relaxed, happy guy even if I wasn't feeling it meant I could go out to pick up even if I was in a bad state and still come across in-state to girls and get into great interactions (at which point you start to feel pretty good, and then before you know it, if you're not outright in-state, you're at least in a much better mood).

I drove up to Los Angeles to do a spate of auditions for roles in TV shows and other things but didn't land any. I didn't keep going because it was just too far... a two-hour drive each way from San Diego. Had I been in LA and could've kept going to auditions, maybe you'd be watching me on the tube instead of reading my stuff on the site.

Anyway, I got a few bit parts in indie movies, including one that aired on the silver screen in Miramar... unfortunately I got to the theater late (bad habit of mine) and missed myself on the big screen. Such is life.

For a while I was exclusively telling girls "I'm an actor" and forgot about telling them "I'm a writer" altogether. Some girls got REALLY into it... I had one chick I was seeing who just went around excitedly introducing me to everyone as the actor she was seeing. I had people I didn't know coming to me saying, "So, I hear you're an actor." I was like, LOL, I guess! I would actually tell them, "Yeah, I mean, I have a day job too," but nobody cared about that, they just wanted to know an actor.

We had a chance to get an agent via the acting class. We had to do two things: a film scene and a stage scene. The film scene I completely nailed; it was by all accounts a solid performance. The stage scene we practiced a bit, but unlike all the theater kids there I hadn't been on a stage in a few years (since my rap days), and when I finally got up there with the lights in my face and a theater full of agents and talent scouts I croaked and stumbled through my lines. The agents thought my film performance was good but me croaking on the stage meant nobody picked me up. Better luck next year they said.

My California project at work ended and the company started sending me on projects all over the US... Northwest, Midwest, down South, you name it. I wasn't able to be in town for the acting class anymore and I had to discontinue it.

I felt like, creatively, while doing it, while it was fun to learn, being an actor was just me acting out somebody else's story. I didn't like that side of things and felt like it stifled me. After I'd done a bit of acting I realized I would much rather be the one creating the stories than the one acting them out.

Though, maybe, someday, when I start releasing my fiction (I've written several novellas and one full-length novel already this year... working on another now... mostly just for myself as a leisure activity because it's fun and a good stress release, but maybe someday I'll get around to publishing them... no time for that with all my duties at GC though), if some of them get made into movies I'll freshen up my acting chops and sign up for a role in a film based on something I've written.

One fun note: when we shot One Date in 2016 -- we were on the set every day 12+ hours a day, 2.5 weeks straight -- our director was over the top about how easy it was directing me... she kept saying "It's amazing! I give him a direction and he just gets it instantly and does it, and then he remembers to keep doing it. I wish every one of my actors was like that!" So while I may not have had an acting career come out of it, it definitely helped with seduction, and it helped later on with the video courses we filmed. I'm doubtless better on-camera for the GirlsChase.TV videos now thanks to that class than I would otherwise be (the GC.TV videos to me are just more training too... I don't know how successful that site'll be; I hope it does well! But it's just another excuse to refine my on-camera delivery... just one of those skills I feel is worth having in today's day and age of communicating with people at scale over digital media).

Chase


Chase,

First of all, I wanna thank you for sharing your experiences in such an elaborate fashion!

Similar to the song you memorized, I also remember you getting into singing/songwriting and making your audience cry tears thanks to your music, which is also a very inspiring story.

Me personally, I've always been prone to spontaneously act out roles myself, of characters from movies or games. Even now sometimes I love to become a different character and just completely let loose - when nobody is watching, of course :)

This is why acting is so fascinating to me: Having all these deep emotions inside oneself, and then finally being allowed to let everything loose in a grand performance! You're allowed to be loud, or meek, or aggressive, or even batshit crazy if the script calls for it!

Recently I went to a free acting course, from a teacher who was searching for new talent for stages - same as you, I'd rather be on the big screen- but after the hour was done, I remember her repeatedly asking me if I was sure I hadn't done acting before and that my presence and projection were exceptional. That really lit up the fire inside and make me seriously consider this path ("she said I have talent - I can DO this!"). Add to that my appearance is quite pleasing I'm told, and the desire to make something out of this just shoots through the roof.

And same here, sometimes I feel that just acting isn't enough - but that I have to be the one writing the stories as well. This feeling compounds even more lately, whenever I watch a show on Netflix, for example, and think "Come on, why would they write it like that? It would have been so much better if they had done it THIS way! Why the hell aren't I writing a show?"

Thankfully I've found an outlet for that, through illustrating and writing comics and manga. Really takes the edge off! But I still believe I couldn't do the acting gig for very long if I only had to obey the director and had zero chances to provide my own input.

I see, so you might have been seducing the big celebrities in Hollywood had only the logistics been better? But I think you've changed people's lives in an even more impactful way, by building up Girls Chase.

But if as you said - you find a way to direct your own movie, make sure to shoot me a message if you need an extra or something! ;P

All the best!

Kezarin
 

Chase

Chieftan
Staff member
tribal-elder
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Messages
5,484
@Kezarin,

No problem, man.

I also remember you getting into singing/songwriting and making your audience cry tears thanks to your music, which is also a very inspiring story.

I had a lot of cheering, but not tears -- similar kind of 'emotional impact on folks' though, yeah.

Me personally, I've always been prone to spontaneously act out roles myself, of characters from movies or games. Even now sometimes I love to become a different character and just completely let loose - when nobody is watching, of course :)

This is why acting is so fascinating to me: Having all these deep emotions inside oneself, and then finally being allowed to let everything loose in a grand performance! You're allowed to be loud, or meek, or aggressive, or even batshit crazy if the script calls for it!

Recently I went to a free acting course, from a teacher who was searching for new talent for stages - same as you, I'd rather be on the big screen- but after the hour was done, I remember her repeatedly asking me if I was sure I hadn't done acting before and that my presence and projection were exceptional. That really lit up the fire inside and make me seriously consider this path ("she said I have talent - I can DO this!"). Add to that my appearance is quite pleasing I'm told, and the desire to make something out of this just shoots through the roof.

That's awesome. I'd pursue it then for sure.

Could be a fun career. Even if not, it's useful training for the rest of life, and a great experience.

But if as you said - you find a way to direct your own movie, make sure to shoot me a message if you need an extra or something! ;P

All the best!

Kezarin

I'll keep you in mind ;)

Chase
 
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