Less is more, more or less

Picking up where I left off last week, on Sunday I bundled Sophie onto a bus to the fabulous Getty art museum while I squeezed in a step class before rehearsing with Jerry again on his short film.  After a day of activity, in the evening we got too comfy to go out, instead improvising a hearty salad from leftovers in the fridge, washed down with a cold beer, trading travel stories with Gina.  Monday morning Sophie and I went to a diner for breakfast (french toast with bananas and walnuts - Sophie; blueberry oatmeal pancakes - moi) and then Gina took her on a tour of some of the leafy, monied parts of L.A. while I went to a Beaten Hearts rehearsal.  More fun with Murphy, finishing the choreography for Love Song in Black.  In the evening, Soph and I went out to the local Mexican bar, El Torito.  It's right across the parking lot from good old TVI (referred to by some as the Evil Empire), where I studied during my first visit to L.A., and is therefore a kind of personal, pop-cultural landmark.  Later that night I dropped Sophie at LAX from where she embarked on her next adventure. 

The rest of the week was a blur of rehearsals, production meetings and workouts, punctuated by a visit to my eyebrow lady for some maintenance.  Celebrity sighting for the week was Brian George, better known as Babu Bhatt from Seinfeld (he of the agile, finger waving admonishment).  He's looking more like John Mahoney these days than a hapless Pakistani, and "blessed" me when I sneezed - ah, hayfever!  On Sunday I completed my voiceover reel, thanks to the invaluable help of Regi; coach with flair, technician with mad musical skills, patient friend.  The reel sounds professional and pretty damn good; a mix of my natural accent and American samples with a variety of commercial copy from 'slice of life' to seductive to insanely, annoyingly happy.  Now the quest for a voiceover agent begins!

This afternoon - Sunday in L.A. - I attended a workshop with Alex, who had been invited by one of her acting coaches.  It was an on-camera class with a film director, a free sample experience before he begins a formal series of workshops.  He handed out two-person scenes, but due to the number of people in attendance and the time constraint (only two hours) not everyone got the chance to get up and work.  Alex and I did, however.  Now, I'm not a total novice to working on camera, but I've much less experience with it than on stage and I know I need more practice.  I sure felt it today!  The less you do, the better it looks - providing there is something active going on in your mind.  Thoughts read.  The audience might not know what the thought is, but they'll know you're thinking something, and that's intriguing.  Man, my face jumps all over the place; even when I think I'm doing nothing, it's too much.  At least it was today.  Alex, however, did great.  Unfortunately, in today's "sampler" class, we didn't have the opportunity of watching back tape of our work and seeing the adjustments made (as will be the case if we sign up for a series of classes) but we were able to watch everyone else who got up in front of the camera as it was being projected onto a sizable screen just above the actors' heads.  I want to sign up for this guy's class.