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5:29 pm - Mon 4.29.2013
My NEW Old Computer

My New Old Computer


(Watching Hellboy II, wondering why that was the end of the line for the series, cause I liked it. Did it not do well in theaters I wonder...? Anyway...)

Received my Teen Wolf check in today's mail, which was nice.

I was thinking about Teen Wolf when I shot True Blood on Friday - Teen Wolf paid "scale" for the day, while True Blood tacked on almost another third - and how there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to how much I'm going to make on a given gig (Though that said, Teen Wolf was a pretty easy gig. And while I have three lines in that episode - as opposed to one line over two episodes of True Blood - the True Blood shoot, as previously mentioned, was pretty challenging).

Often times, productions just say on the breakdown, "We only pay scale for co-stars, so don't try to negotiate with us".

Sometimes you can try for your "quote" - which is whatever your best payday's been for a similar-sized role in the past - but most times, it ain't gonna happen.

Cause really, why would it?

So I'm grateful to the True Blood folks for paying more than they strictly had to; I can certainly use the money, and now, for whatever it's worth, I have a new "quote" for co-star roles.

Speaking of True Blood, when I got up this morning and checked my email, I was surprised to see I'd been sent a revised script for episode 7.

...but not too surprised; it's happened before, where my name doesn't get taken off the contact list, and I get sent a script after I've already shot my bit.

I entertained myself with the notion that - who knows? - maybe they needed to re-shoot something, or wanted to stick me in another scene (and I'd certainly be up for another nice payday), but really, I just figured it was an oversight.

But a short time later, they called me, and for a second, my heart skipped a beat.

...but they were just calling about the "contract issue" (And the fact they'd forgotten to prepare my contract for episode 6 when I came in on Friday).

I'd been told at the end of the night on Friday that they'd FedEx me the episode 6 contract, and I could just sign it and get it back to them, which is what I said to the person on the phone when she asked if I could stop by the studio today to sign it.

While I want to be seen as an agreeable, easygoing guy, and today's my day off (so it wouldn't have been that big a deal to drive to the studio to sign the contract), it was their mistake, and I was told they would fix it, so I think it was only fair to ask them to send someone to me instead.

Which they did.

A young lady dropped by maybe an hour or so after the phone conversation, I signed here and initialed there, and we were good to go (Afterward I thought, "I sure wish I had people I could send out to do stuff for me. that would be the coolest.").

____________________

I have a new computer.

Well, new to me anyway.

In a previous entry, I mentioned my computer was starting to have "Thermal incidents"?

Well, I blew the dust off the vents, but that didn't seem to do anything, and I'm embarrassed to admit it, but the next step beyond that - opening the computer up and blowing the dust off the fan or whatever - was, I'm embarrassed to say, more than I wanted to deal with.

(Besides, it's an ancient machine, and I strongly suspected it was going to need a new fan anyway.)

So I took it in to Stan's Tech Garage on Santa Monica blvd, where he basically told me it wasn't worth fixing, and offered me an old computer that is something of an upgrade from what I'd brought in, for $100.

So I had him transfer my files, paid for extra-fancy virus protection (Cause I watch a lot of porn), and now I have what I keep thinking of as "a new old computer".

I've had moments of "buyer's remorse", because I walked out the door having spent over $200, and I'm guessing that might be halfway toward getting a low-end new computer...but I needed something, I didn't want to spend an arm-and-a-leg, and now I have something.

And it is an "upgrade" on the machine I had; it has a better processor, more usb ports, has Office, and I can watch/record dvds on it.

Still getting used to "the little differences" - I can't put this one on "hibernate" at the end of the night, which I liked doing with the old one, and its "standby" mode seems a little "wonky", and it has bursts where it starts making a bunch of noise, then eventually get quiet again (Stan guaranteed it for 60 days, but I'm hoping I'll get a lot more use from it than that) - but all-in-all "so far so good".

____________________

In the excitement of the True Blood shoot, one thing I haven't addressed in here is that I had a really fun commercial audition on Friday.

(Ended up getting calls for two auditions on Friday - the commercial audition at 10:30 and an audition for the Disney show Kickin' It at 12:30 - but couldn't do the Kickin' It one cause it conflicted with my call time for True Blood.)

It was for a Vonage commercial, and it had a serious amount of dialogue, which they actually had made available on the audition confirmation page...which I hadn't seen because I confirmed the audition with JS directly.

It's a union rule that, for commercial auditions, they have to have the dialogue on cue cards in the audition room, but it still would have been better to have seen the lines beforehand.

And I've sometimes actually been "messed up" by having the lines written out in front of me - there's kind of a "trick" to reading cue-cards without looking like you're reading cue-cards - but I worked on them before I went into the room (And they were pretty easy to remember), and when it was my time, the nature of the part (I was addressing a group of people) made it very "organic" for me to look in the directions of the cue-cards from time to time.

The camera guy actually took some time with me, gave me some direction, and I left feeling pretty good about my chances.

But beyond booking it or not booking it - and booking it would be cool, cause a national commercial on the heels of the successes I've just had would be fantastic - it was just fun.

To put it simply, I got to play.

And I miss having fun acting - It's pretty amazing that I make thousands of dollars a year from acting, but it rarely feels like "play" anymore...and that's the thing I want out of life. That's why I came out here, to get paid for something that feels like play.

Over and above the money, that's the big reason I want to "move up the ladder".

I want to act more.

Cause it's fun.

But in the meantime, I have to figure out more ways to "make things fun" for myself as an actor.

But I want to wrap this up, because I want to maybe try and do a YouTube video before bedtime, if possible...

See ya!


 

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