Your Travalanche Daily Digest for October 27, 2026
10 hours ago
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Angela Hahn books a role in an indie feature
The film is a low budget, feature length film by local film maker Dante Oliviero called Ozu. He describes it as a "horror/thriller" but without a lot of blood and guts. It's about a girl who thinks she's being followed by a ghost and turns to a ghost hunter for help. It's written in "the spirit of Rashomon", from 4 different characters' perspectives..and it's up to the audience to decipher the "real story". In any event, I wanted to audition for the role of one of the detectives...but he had everyone use the same scene for the audition, which was a scene between Catherine, the girl who thinks she's being followed, and the ghost hunter. He thought this scene would give him an idea of everyone's acting ability.
Initially, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't read "as the detective" and was worried that I wouldn't be able to play "the scared girl" who thinks she's being followed. Even though I had very little information about the character and the story, I approached it in the way that I have learned in your class...to the best of my ability, I developed a "Who Am I?" for my character, what were the given circumstances, what had happened immediately before the scene, where do I live, where does the scene take place, what time is it, etc, and I really tried to personalize what it felt like to think I'm being followed/stalked. I also worked on developing the relationship with the other character in the scene, what was my objective, what do I need from the other character. During the audition, I reminded myself to "throw the ball" and try to receive what was coming at me. After the audition, the director commented that he could really tell that I had "done my homework and created a backstory for the character and the scene." About a week later, the director called to let me know I got the role as the detective.
Congratulations Angela! Sounds like a FABULOUS project!
Monday, October 18, 2010
listening to liars
[One researcher] says lying executives tend to overuse words like "we" and "our team" when they talk about their company. They avoid saying "I."
She says there's a reason for that: "If I'm saying 'I' or 'me' or 'mine,' I'm showing my ownership of the statement, so psychologically I'm showing I'm responsible for what I'm saying."
Useful to know if you are canvassing CEOs, but it's interesting for actors because this sort of precise attention to the nuances of language is essential for finding our way into a character's psyche. Ludwig Wittgenstein observed that any child of 12 is a virtuousic user of her native language: she is capable of making distinctions and expressing herself with the level of nuance that we associate with virtuouusic performers of music. In these nuances, we reveal ourselves constantly, so by paying careful attention to the precise way in which characters express themselves, we have one of our best hopes of finding out who they really are.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
the tallest tale of them all
This particular story is an incredible yarn about a hedge fund that seemingly single-handedly inflamed the recent financial crisis.
Actors can learn a lot from Ira's determination to understand what happened, and why.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Saturday, October 09, 2010
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