It's Official . . .

My appearance on Heroes (a.k.a. "Redacted") will be Monday evening, April 13.

And just a reminder for those of you in New York: my first feature, Gigantic, opens Friday April 3 at the Village East Cinema. It appears, however, that it will only have a two-week run, so mark your calendars!

Other cities' opening dates for Gigantic can be found here.

Alice, Can You Fix Me Another Martini?

@ Hillhurst & Russell in Los Feliz.

With the wacky font and everything, I just picture this as the place where the Brady Bunch shops for hooch.

Alas, the sign used to rotate, but has been out of commission recently.

Oy Vey Iz Mir

It's been super-quiet on the acting front here for the past month. In fact, since my Eleventh Hour audition, which was February 3, I have had a grand total of TWO auditions.

That's right, two auditions in 6+ weeks. Woo-hoo! Both of them about three weeks ago.

The first was a pilot, my first and only pilot audition this year. Anecdotal evidence tells me that they saw pretty much everyone in town for this role. I know of three other actors (widely different types) who all went in for this same part, and that's a lot. It was an untitled sitcom in which I was to play the "divorced best friend in his mid-30s to mid-40s." Well, that's specific.

The CD kept telling me, "there's a lot of George Castanza in this role. A lot of Jewish neuroticism. You know how George Castanza has that angst?"

I resisted the urge to say, "Then why did you bring me in?" or maybe, "Perhaps you should hire Jason Alexander for this part."

(I say this not with bitterness, btw, just amusement.)

The other audition was for CSI:NY. It's funny, when I came out here, I thought I'd end up getting a lot of procedural auditions because of my Law and Order past; but it really hasn't been the case.

This part was something we almost skipped, and probably should have. It was T.I.N.Y. Two lines, playing the Jewish orthodox son of a watchmaker. Not the role I want I want for my one appearance on CSI:NY.

So we passed, and then they came back and said, "Does it make a difference that the watchmaker will be Ed Asner?"

We reconsidered. It was weird that they were kind of pursuing me. This didn't seem like a role that would be difficult to cast. But then we thought, maybe they're looking for someone with some training, because the script has a big moment at the end where the son sees his father being led off to jail for heinous crimes and basically disowns him in a long glance:

David looks up at his father: a myriad of emotions: shock, contempt, sadness..then simply gets up. Numb. Turns his back on his father and walks away.

Okay, we thought, this is a scene with Ed Asner and Gary Sinise. Maybe despite the low screen time, they are going to linger on this scene and are looking for a really solid actor to pull it off. Maybe they want someone who will have the presence to hold his own with these two heavyweights.

And I've clearly demonstrated I can play orthodox jews on TV. ;) So why not take a flyer?

So I went in for it, and SURPRISE! It was none of that.

They didn't even look at the end scene in the audition; instead they taped the only other scene, where the son is introduced and has two lines: "Everything all right?" and "Okay, Pop." They were running the session VERY quickly, about 2 minutes/person. Churning 'em through. There were 8 guys waiting when I came in, and probably another 10 waiting when I left. Not exactly a scenario where they were looking for the right actor for a "moment".

When you go in to read two little lines like that you realize they're truly casting about 95% based on the look. And as you all know, I can squeak by as Jewish on TV based on some acting and dialect work that I bring to the table, but when competing against, you know, actual Jewish actors, in a role that will be primarily about appearance, I don't even chart.

The role was for an orthodox kid who works with his dad in a watch repair shop. Not a hassidic kid from Crown Heights. So I literally stifled a chuckle walking into the waiting room. It was filled with guys getting their heavy orthodox vibe on for the day. Like a callback for the bottle dance in Fiddler on the Roof. There were black vests. There were yarmulkes. One guy was actually sporting tzitzis. I was half expecting the next to have clip-on payos or a shtreimel.

And from the lack of professional vibe out there (loud discussions of previous work and current temp jobs, nervous laughter aplenty) it was clear that most of these guys have not been in the big leagues yet. Or not for a long time. Many of them were comedians I think, based on the LOUD and COMEDIC energy in the room. Many of them were also guys who make a living out here doing extra work and co-stars, based on the conversations I heard.

So I kept my head down, went in and did my bit, and chuckled on my way out the door, knowing that this was three hours of my life that were gone forever.

Keeping You In The Loop

First of all, a pic from several weeks ago:


This is from mid February. I snapped it during my ADR session for Lie To Me. ADR, or "looping" is when you go into a sound studio after something has been shot and re-record certain dialogue. It is usually done for one of two reasons: either because a line didn't come out clean (like, a plane passed during that moment, or another actor cut into the line), or because a line has been changed (to further explain the plot, or sometimes even to change it).

In this case, it was for clarification. My scene opened with a pan shot that, on its way to picking me up, passes over a waiter being interrogated in the corner of the kitchen. The director was afraid the audience would think the waiter was the one speaking. So to my original line ("If you're not part of the families, we can't give you the tapes"), they added the following for the sake of clarity: "We're professional videographers. We have rules. So....."

I guess the idea was that with the added line, the audience would realize that the waiter isn't a professional videographer! Brilliant!

ADR is nicknamed "looping" by everyone in the biz because in Ye Olde Days, the way they did it was to have an actor listen to and watch a "loop" of the same film clip over and over and over; after hearing it many times the performer was able to easily sync up with the soundtrack on the next "loop" and thus match his/her lips moving onscreen.

I've done a fair amount of looping on past shows and I feel like I'm pretty good at it. I've found that it's less about matching the lips perfectly (which comes with repetition) and more about matching the intention and intensity of the original scene.

In the case of this shot, there was no lip-sync to worry about: because my entire first line occurs during the pan, I wasn't even on camera until the very tail end.

A good production company will always get "room tone" at a location before they leave it. That's about a minute of recorded "nothingness" on the set/location that actually isn't nothing; it's whatever ambient noise exists that day: air conditioners, rain, even the hum of fluorescent lights. No matter how controlled your set is, there's always a little room tone to pick up. Later, if a scene has to be looped, they can mix the "room tone" under the new dialogue and make it sound more real.

Of course, there are varying degrees of success (or failure) at getting ADR to meld seamlessly into your final product. And as a viewer, once you're aware of looping, it jumps out at you all the time. Either because the room tone doesn't match well, or because even though someone's back is to camera, you can tell their cheeks aren't moving in sync with the dialogue (as was the case with me on Law and Order: Trial By Jury a few years back....but there was nothing I could do, because they were adding an entirely new line, so the synch would never have been right).

So now when we're watching TV, I'll often mutter "looping" when I see it.... much to Jody's chagrin.

Two Items of Note

1. I have confirmed with the producers that I made the final cut in Gigantic (yippee!), despite my absence from the cast and crew page on the website. Apparently I wasn't the only one left off, so I'm a little less offended. A reminder that Gigantic opens April 3 in NYC and April 17 elsewhere.


2. My episode of Eleventh Hour (remember Tom, the painfully shy neighbor creepy doorman?) was apparently on the fast track. It is scheduled to air Thursday night, March 12, at 10pm on CBS. Set those DVRs!

I was going to upload a bonus picture that I forgot the other day, but Blogger is not cooperating. So next time, I guess.

Catching Up Some More

Not last Thursday, but the Thursday before (February 19), Jody and I went to see the Deaf West Theater/ Center Theatre Group co-production of Pippin at the Mark Taper Forum.

The show was enjoyable, if bumpy; the two actors (one singing, one signing) who played Pippin were great, and Berthe and Catherine and Charlemagne were all wonderful. Unfortunately, the Leading player neither led nor played (I'm really surprised he was even cast), Fastrada was just okay, and the production design was both obtrusive and scattered.

Jody and I were visiting the Music Center (officially known as the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County) for the first time. The Music Center is comprised of three major performing venues: The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Ahmanson Theatre. The first building opened in 1964, and the latter two in 1967.

You might also be interested to know that the three main buildings at the heart of New York's Lincoln Center—Avery Fisher Hall, the New York State Theater (now the David H. Koch Theater), and the Metropolitan Opera House—were opened in 1962, 1964, and 1966, respectively....each building's execution occuring a year or two before its LA counterpart.

The Music Center buildings were all designed by Los Angeles architect Welton Becket. Not to take anything away from Mr. Becket, but do ya think maybe he saw Lincoln Center at some point during his planning process?