Fortunately my schedule allowed me some time to talk with ANDREA SHREEMAN (@FearlessActress) on the phone about the present state of things in my acting career.

We talked for nearly an hour but her podcast is just under 10 minutes.

Some topics in the clip include:

• staying busy
• the hi/low experience
• and giving back

What’cha think?

Original post: http://fearlessactress.podbean.com/2011/12/02/episode-31-when-youre-hot-youre-hot/

Ahhhh! GO AWAY!

This has been bothering me for a long time and I was pushed over the edge last night. Junk mail, me, and the environment.

My present state of being…

GAAAAAAH!

As the saying goes, “Time is money.”

John Muir – a Scottish born American environmentalist, naturalist, traveler, writer, and scientist (1838-1914) – said this about trees and fools: (Emphasis added – you can skip ahead after the emphasis)

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed, chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. During a man’s life only saplings can be grown, in place of old trees — tens of centuries old — that have been destroyed. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods, — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ’s time — and long before that — God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods, but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.

I’m tired of the fools who continue to destroy trees in the name of… Waste. Yep, waste.

Profit, I can understand. If I’m a customer of a company and they have a product or service they want to sell me, well, they have my information on hand. Said company should make it possible for me to control how they are contacting me of course. Ahem… I prefer email. Snail mail doesn’t do it for me.

What is Waste snail mail?

Let me answer that with a question – How often do you receive snail mail for a previous resident of your address?

I’m looking at a piece of mail from Verizon for Thomas B. Jones. Who is TBJ? Verizon, yo, he’s lonnng gone. The previous owners were here for years and their name wasn’t Jones.

This is nothing but waste for me, you, and the environment. WASTE.

I hate it. It drives me over the edge. Why? You ask why?

WHY?!

I care about the fracking environment and will do what I can to stop this waste from arriving in the mailbox because it’s better for me, you, and the world. Yea, I flipping care so I spend my personal time on the phone with customer service reps, after I figure out how to reach a rep because I don’t have a gorram account number, and explain the situation so that the name(s) can be removed from the blasted mailing list.

There are organizations out there that make it easy to get rid of magazines but snail mail? Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. A big fat ‘нет’ (niet) awaits you in mother Russia. See you soon.

Uggggh!

Because I care about the egad environment I spend time, so much time!, contacting you, yea! that’s right you company XYZ, because you’re wasting not only my time but your time, your staff’s time, your money on wasted postage and paper, the USPS staff’s time in the office and out on the route. I can’t even begin to imagine how much lighter the carrier bags would be withe less waste junk mail. Heck, you’re wasting money on oil, water and other valuable resources because your flipity-flippin mailing lists aren’t accurate.

John Muir had it right.

Any fool can destroy trees but Uncle Sam can stop them! Calm down Teabaggers I’m not asking the government to grow but the marketplace isn’t sorting this kind of thing on its own so it’s going to need a push just like the credit card industry got kicked in it’s a$$ to protect the citizens of the USA.

Without a “Do Not Mail” registry, like the “Do Not Call” registry, we’re all forced to find alternative ways to stop this waste of resources and time without any certainty that it will be effective at all. I’m signed up for many but I still can stop a bunch of it. Capital argh!

How can you get rid of some of the junk?

Here are some resource to get you started :

• http://wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Junk-Mail
• http://donotmail.org/
• https://dmachoice.org/
• http://forestethics.org/
• http://volunteerguide.org/volunteer/fifteen/junk-mail.htm

There are so many sites out there trying to help people like me, and you right?!, so we can spend more time watching YouTube video of kittehs but there is still no single way… Yet!

Speaking of the National Do Not Call Registry, add your phone number here: https://www.donotcall.gov/

Ahh. Now imagine all the time you won’t spend on the phone with unsolicited callers. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the SAME option with your mailbox. Only the stuff you want will arrive. Well, that stuff plus bills, unless of course they have an ebill option.

Companies, please, PLEASE, stop wasting your money & time, my time, and most importantly, the Earth’s resources.

Right, if you’ve gotten this far you see that I don’t actually hate caring about the environment but this type of time I spend doing what I can to care for it is not lovey-dovey time.

I think I’ll end with a question…

How are you peeps and companies addressing this issue?

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uzvards/2481348414/

Whaling City Film Project

I shot another short film! That was fast. Two films, two months. =D

Thanks to a great experience in August, I had the fortune to work with director Mehow Trzaska (Mehow Design) again. Though, this experience was a tiny bit different than the previous shoot.

“How so?”

Instead of a 2 day film competition… It was a 4 day film competition – The Whaling City Film Project based in New London, CT. Only 30 seconds of the completed film had to be shot in New London but we shot everything in and around downtown on Saturday and Sunday.

The Mayor

The Mayor follows two concerned citizens, in 1974 New London, who have the ultimate plan for a politician and his two goons.

Watch The Mayor, other shorts and clips here: http://garyploski.com/actor/media/video/

The Facial Hair

Since it was the 70′s I needed some inspiration for my facial hair. I could go with a clean shave but I wanted to give it an extra something.

After browsing the web and IMDb.com for a while (I looked at 70′s film and TV show photos) I found a pic that worked for the character and for my take on the era.

I could have gone with the ‘stache but it didn’t seem right for the character or the tone of the piece.

Thank you Dustin Hoffman. =)

What’s Next

I’ll be putting my time and focus into teaching technology to actors through Act Outside the Box, creating web content with Tango Dango, attempting to finish season 2 of Cast to Curtain (Post is full of “ARRRGHHH!”), and bopping about in the Intertubes. Say hello.

My Acting Resume...

A few years ago, I put my acting resume together for the web and I found that I was very frustrated with the presentation. It didn’t look the way an acting resume is supposed to look. So, I spent hours poking around the web looking for something that would present the unique format of an actor’s resume in a clean and simple way.

I found something but wanted nothing to do with it. Heck, I knew about it before I performed my first search. The <table> tag. There was no way I was going near that deprecated option.

If you’re a web person you’re hand is extended and I’m giving you the hi-5 you’re asking for. >SMACK!<

Tables do the job but they’re awful to screen readers and formatting the text, the columns, rows, etc. can be incredibly annoying. I needed something better, more versatile, more dynamic. I needed Cascading Style Sheets aka CSS.

What is CSS?

CSS is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language (ex: HTML). (Thank you Wikipedia.) In laymen terms, it’s the web tech (one file on your web server) that controls the color, size, font, background, etc. of your website from head to toe. Make a change in that one file and it cascades through your entire site. Hence the name.

“And then?”

Knowing I needed the code so I could apply it to my website was the easy part. There was one issue…

There was no code to be found. Why re-create the wheel if it already exists?

This meant I needed to create it. Now, I normally don’t create CSS from scratch so this took some doing and some digging. Thanks to the Google and the Intertubes I was able to make magic happen!

Here, let me show you…

Without CSS

What does text look like when there is no formatting applied to it on the web?

It looks like… Agh! My eyes! They’re bleeding! I can’t read that.

Click on the image to see how awful it looks.

Without any CSS everything is squished together. Smoosh!

With CSS

What does text look like when CSS formatting is applied to it on the web?

It looks like… Pretty! The spacing… =o Wait, this is the same text as above but with CSS? Yep.

Click on the image to see it in its full glory.

Ohh, la la. Now that is resume pr0n. Don't drool. =p

Let’s do this!

You’ve seen the before and after results so I hope you’re excited and ready to lose some weight. Some HTML weight. =D

Imagine it this way… Some time next year I’m going to redesign my website again. If I want my resume to look the way it does above all I’ll need to do is paste the CSS I made into the CSS file and voila. Once the file is saved on the server with the update the text will jump into place. It’s that fracking fast and easy!

Let’s step back to the HTML code where all my content is stored.

Sample HTML

Here is a snippet of the code from my acting resume. You can see it in the images above but it’s easier to look at only a couple line because there is a whole bunch that goes into just three lines of resume CSS bliss.

I added a space between each so you can see each of the 3 lines easier. =)

I wanted to paste the code for you so you could take it and use it by filling in your own information but my CSS kept formatting it despite my best efforts with the <code> tag and playing around with the HTML. Hey! Stop frowning! I’ll post a comment with the code so you can copy it there. Mwahahahaahaaaaa! (That didn’t work either. If you’d like the sample code leave a comment below and I’ll send it to you.)

You got it, yea?

The title of the piece, the role I played, the production company, the director and the status of the project surrounded by a bunch of HTML. Easy stuff. Right?

Actual result

This is what the code above creates when it uses the CSS I wrote:

The code above might not be pretty but the end result, mmm mmm mmm, sure is good.

“All this talk about this magical CSS you wrote? Where is it?”

Fabulous question oh Interweb traveler. Voila…

CSS

Below is the additional CSS you’ll want to include in your CSS file for your acting resume on your website.

/* Acting Resume — START */

/* Theatre */
.t1 {
display:block; width:220px; float:left; }

.t2 {
width:235px; float:left; }

.t3 {
width:220px; float:left; }

.t4 {
width:155px; float:left; }

.t5 {
clear:both;}

/* Readings, Poetry */
.r1 {
display:block; width:250px; float:left; }

.r2 {
width:150px; float:left; }

.r3 {
width:190px; float:left; }

.r4 {
width:155px; float:left;}

.r5 { }

/* Film */

.f1 {
display:block; width:220px; float:left; }

.f2 {
width:235px; float:left; }

.f3 {
width:220px; float:left; }

.f4 {
width:155px; float:left;}

.f5 { }

/* Voice-over */

.v1 {
display:block; width:375px; float:left; }

.v2 {
width:220px; float:left; }

.v3 {
width:140px; float:left; }

.v4 { }

.v5 { }

/* Credit: Created by Gary Ploski of http://garyploski.com & http://casthim.com */

/* Acting Resume — END */

Enjoy.

Wrapping things up

There you have it. There isn’t much more I can say but you might have questions.

Please take this CSS/blog and share it with your friends. All I ask is that you include the ‘Credit’ line in any instance it is used.

Techys, have at it!

“Donations are most welcome.” – me

Please use the PayPal button below.

Disclaimer(s)

There is no support included with this CSS. I wrote it for my personal site and it seemed like a good idea to share it with the acting world because we’re all strapped for cash.

At no time should anyone be charged to use this code. I am providing it for free. If you copy this code and charge for it… Shame on you. If you learn that you’ve been charged for the code demand a refund.

I’m not a web developer by day and know, with absolute certainty, that this code can be cleaner but I know it does the job.

If you write CSS regularly and would like to suggest better I am listening. Leave a comment below. =D

Are you a WordPress plugin developer and have an interest in writing a plugin that would make this easier… Oh yea! You would make the acting community über happy.

If you do not understand anything I wrote above but you want your resume to look the way it does on my site on your site, send this page to your web site developer. They’ll know what to do with it.

I hope this is helpful in some way to someone.

Until next time.

Intertube Site(s) using my code:

• http://www.miksmith.com.au/cv

What you look like and when.

Stay with me.

Theatre

When working on a theatrical production it’s easy. Someone says “We need you to grow your hair (head or facial) out for the production. Would that be possible?” to which you reply “Sure, no problem,” and you begin the process.

I should note that not all men can grow facial hair so sometimes the reply is “Actually, I can’t grow facial hair very well,” to which the production gets into gear and finds the needed look in advance.

Whoohoo! Soooo easy. Right? Weeks later everything is in place and the production looks superb.

On-set

But, on-set it’s not so easy. And who is to say that what you looked like when you auditioned, met with the director, etc. you look the exact same? Maybe it’s the winter and you grow your beard as long as you can. Maybe you shave once a week because your skin in sensitive to the dreaded blades! Note: That’s me. Actually it’s more like once every 10-14 days.

Of course only a ca-razy person would change their hairstyle at random because of the cost to replace headshots, update websites, business cards, etc. Let’s not dive too deep into the waters. Let’s go back to shore.

Facial hair. It can be your best friend if you’ve grown it out. Use it to your advantage. Here’s how. =)

It’s simple, before the shoot takes place, email the director a picture of what you look like at that present time and a picture of your headshot with the opposite look. You have longer sideburns now? Or maybe a goatee? Who knows, you may have been having fun and grown a mustache.

“But Gar,” you ask “how does this help me?”

Directors, love, options. Love, love, love, love, <3. Give them the option that gives back. Did I just type that? I did and I’m running with it.

Recently, aka about 2 weeks ago, I took part in a 48 Hour Film Project. I sent the director, someone I’d never worked with before (To learn the complete history of my relationship with the director read this blog I posted yesterday),  a picture (using PhotoBooth) of what I looked like saying:

Question for you regarding my look. At the moment I look like this (attached) but when shaved I look like this (also attached).

I’ll hold off on shaving until late Friday/early Saturday morning if you’d like a clean look or I simply won’t shave and you’ll have the non-shaved look. =)

The (shortened) reply:

Nice, thank you Gary for this Email… I would keep the current look and we’ll see what your part will call for on Friday evening when we write the story.

What I learned from the email:

1. I gave the director two options
2. I shouldn’t shave
3. The director appreciated my reaching out to him

All good things.

Did I shave or did you keep the facial hair?

Both. “Both?” Yep, both. In spoiler free order?

These two screenshots from “Objects of Time” (aka the winner of the New Haven 48 HFP for: Best Film, Best Directing, Best Acting, Best Writing, Best Editing, Best Cinematography and Audience Award) will show you how we took opportunity and pwned it. (That’s not a type-o.)

I digressed a teeny bit didn’t I. =) How could I not? Best Film! Best Acting! Boom!!!

As you can see, both options were used.

On-set the order of how things are shot isn’t important but the opportunity to shoot something IS!

I offered to shave my hair even shorter than it is in the screenshots if it would help the film. The offer was welcomed but we didn’t have time..

Looking back

• What would have been done in place of the facial hair option if it wasn’t available?
• Would we have found another way to do what we needed?

Unanswerable questions. But questions like these are the things we ask ourselves after shooting. “Ugh, if only blah blah blah.” Hindsight, right?

In summary, a TL; DR, blurb to think about…

When you, good sir, have any type of facial, hair email the director, etc. you’re about to work with a photograph of your present look and ask if you should keep it or remove it.

To repeat for emphasis, ze-roh, zero.

The director, Michal Trzaska, of Mehow Design, and I met and talked for about 5, mayyyyybe 10 minutes, at a Film Industry Mixer (FIM) in CT on April 16th. I knew I wanted to work with him just after speaking with him and was locked into that idea after viewing some of his projects.

Thank goodness I screened my acting reel at the FIM. That’s how he learned about me. Actors, yoo-hoo! – over here, screen your reel at every and any event possible when they ask for submissions.

While on vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine I saw, I think on Facebook, that the 48 Hour Film Project (48 HFP) was going to take place in CT for the first time. I clicked to the page and saw that it was taking place in New Haven. “Wait, what?! New Haven!? Connecticut? That’s awesome, finally, I wonder how many teams have signed up.” (click)

I found myself on the 48 HFP New Haven page. What did I see? To my astonishment a name I recognized… Michal Trzaska. I was on vaction but there was no reason to rest on my laurels so I shot off an email and hoped that this would offer me an opportunity to work with him.

Little did I know what would unfold.

The days leading up to the competition I was in the loop with everyone but nobody knew what would be shot because of the way the 48 Hour Film Project works. We would be told our genre, prop, character and line of dialog Friday evening. With so many variables in play who knows what will happen.

The evening before the shoot I went to bed early with no knowledge of what I’d be doing the next day. After waking up I saw two emails from Mehow, aka Michael, saying:

11:30ish PM – We have a part for you, keep the facial hair we will have you shave on screen.

I’ll be writing another blog soon about the facial hair (aka giving a director options) thing. Done…

Male Actors, Give Directors Options with your Facial Hair
http://garyploski.com/male-actors-give-directors-options-with-your-facial-hair

and

2:24 AM – We are finalizing the script and we have a great part for you. Lead part.

Emphasis added by me.

I had hoped for “a” part.

You know, one where you get to work with someone and say to yourself “Cool, I worked with so-and-so.” And for those not feint of heart “Now I know if I want to work with so-and-so again.”

So, there I was, arriving to a relative strangers house to shoot a film. What was going to happen?

When I saw the two, yes 2, Canon 5D Mark II’s I knew the picture could, not would, look awesome. Little did I know that the DPs were über talented. Could? No. Capital would with an exclamation mark dropped in for good reason.

I also learned, late in the day, after we shot if I recall correctly, that many, if not most, of the team did not know each other. There was a core group of people who knew and worked together but not everyone. Someone from Minnesota(!), Evan Taylor, flew in to join the team. His story about joining this team is far more interesting than mine.

All that said, I was thrilled to be on-set and to have a solid (2 page) script in my hands. The day went exceedingly well. We wrapped principal photography in about 12 hours leaving our two editors nearly 19 hours to edit. They did need to sleep so that probably trimmed some time off the clock. Hehehe.

On August 11th all the teams came together to see what had been created during the past weekend and votes were cast on the Audience Awards. Two judges would handle the 48 HFP awards. Yesterday, Saturday, the announcements were made.

Epic. That’s what the results were for the team I worked with – Clear Lens. Epic!

Our film, Objects of Time, won big!

How big? A sweep kind of big.

• Best Film
• Best Directing
• Best Acting <– That’s me! =D
  
• Best Writing
• Best Editing
• Best Cinematography
• Audience Award

All day team Clear Lens was plastering the news all over Facebook. I also hit up Google+, Twitter, Stage32 and my acting site. I think everyone was on the phone. It was a magnificent team and is a fabulous film. I cannot wait to show it to you!

My hat is off to team Clear Lens and all the other teams who competed in the FIRST 48 HFP in Connecticut! =D

It was also an experiment to stream line my CAST TO CURTAIN webseries workflow – primarily the editing part of the processing.

The film, A-1 Quality Entertainment, is in post-production and will be completed (hopefully) before the year ends.

The program has run for 4 years at QU and appears to be on the chopping block due to budget issues in CT. If you are a resident and believe that filmmaking is important to the future of Connecticut’s economy please contact your elected official by phone, email, mail, etc. to tell them you support the program. Without the support of CT citizens the program will be likely be cut from the next budget.

Fore more on what the CT FITP is please visit the CT FITP website.

Without further ado…

A-1 Quality Entertainment On-set Day 1

A visit to the birthday party set and meet Angelo Di Giacomo (camera instructor). http://www.imdb.com/name/n​m0223859

Click here to view the embedded video.

A-1 Quality Entertainment On-set Day 2

A sneak peak of the make-up and meet our make-up artists – Jackie Zbuska and Kellyann Parrillo Milkowski

Click here to view the embedded video.

A-1 Quality Entertainment On-set Day 3

Meet our awesome costume department and also some mime make-up by Jackie Zbuska.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A-1 Quality Entertainment On-set Day 4

Step on-set into the offices of A-1 Quality Entertainment at the end of the day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A-1 Quality Entertainment On-set Day 5

My final shot of the week… Up against the A-1 van!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo by madelineyoki click image for credit page.

Hollywood has done something in plain sight and everyone is eating it up.

All seemed right in the world.

For years and years film and TV have moved farther and farther away from the actor to the pretty face, and sometimes the pretty face actor. Special effects and Photoshopping (aka post-production work) have helped to improve the look of men and women alike. Things not there magically appeared and vice versa.

There does appear to be a shift in some parts of the industry where talent is taking precedence over looks.

GASP!

What a baffling concept.  This is a exactly what the average, everyday actor should be paying particular attention to because it means you absolutely don’t have to try to fit into a mold.

Enough is enough.

• The surgeries, they need to stop.
• The people selecting actors, they need to focus on talent.
• The actors, they need to be true to themselves.

Spike Lee was interviewed recently and had this to say on actors in general…

“You’re out there buck-naked and that is hard. The reason why actors are f—ed up; can you imagine having a job where someone is, ‘No, no, no. Your butt’s too big. Your heads to big. You’re too skinny. Your nose is too big?’”

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/spike-lee-why-i-havent-207371

He doesn’t mean to say that actors are not wearing any clothes. He’s saying something very insightful. Actors are revealing who they are, their fears, their dreams, their desires, etc. to complete strangers and they’re being told that they don’t look like Woman A or Guy B or that they aren’t, yep I’m going there…, perfect looking.

Of course actors don’t look like they’ve been Photoshopped… They’re human beings with flaws, just like the audience!

This is important. Why?

• Relatability – Nobody is perfect. Nobody. Why pretend that everyone is nearly all the time?
• Social impact – Who would you want your son or daughter to see overcoming challenges?
• Variety – Look around you… Exactly.

If you’re an actor, please, please remember that you are who you are because of everything that has happened in your life and you are amazing just the way you are. Consider this, the odds of you being born are practically 0%. Read “The Chances of You Existing”

Sure, there are times when a cosmetic change is necessary (due to pain, etc.) but please do not let the glitz of Hollwood change you just because of a look that is “in” for what could be a year or 5 or 10.

Spike Lee’s quote stood out to me and I find it important to bring what he said to the entertainment community at large. Of course, a living healthy lifestyle is a related topic to image though I should extend the idea via another blog.

Have you…

• been told to change the way you look?
• felt that you need to change something about yourself to fit into a look?
• contributed to this image issue, intentionally or unintentionally?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and have a discussion on the topic.

It was an awesomely cute, funny and sweet OS X Preview edited photo of me that she really (really!) likes. I’m standing in the woods looking out through a tree. Stop that with your mind going to places non-cute-funny-sweet related. =p

When it comes to my birthday I usually don’t do anything or ask for much (if anything). This year I hinted to emma that I’d be thrilled if a Canon T3i magically appeared on my birthday.

Of course, I knew it wouldn’t and couldn’t happen. We’re struggling financially after our move into the new house and have had a large, read that in a 72 font and it’s about half way to the size of what it is, expense land in our lap. But I digress. A T3i was not going to appear. Where is Santa when you need him? “Alooooo, Santa?”

Click image to visit HEART

I thought it over and decided that I wanted this year to be different.

Instead of being given something I wanted to ask people to help give to an organization I am consistently blown away by called HEART (Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers) – http://teachhumane.org.

With that in mind, last night I recorded a video and wrote up a blurb and posted it to Facebook and YouTube:

I’m trying to raise money for an awesome organization called HEART (Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers). It’s my Facebook Birthday Wish.

Info here: http://wishes.causes.com/wishes/319080

Please consider sharing this video, the causes link and/or contributing to an organization full of Win. Thanks peeps. =)

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, yea, it’s now officially my birthday. I can say this because me mudda called at the appropriate time – 10:53 AM – and sang me Happy Birthday. Things are good in the world.

The day isn’t over but I would like to thank <Rent-musical>you and you and you, you and you!” </Rent-musical> for all your kind thoughts of me on this the 13th of July! =D

Err…

I should probably note that his drive and ambition, well, they aren’t traditional.

His ‘thing’, food, money and his hat are all incredibly important to him. Oh, his hat!, with magical powers – shh, don’t tell him I told you about it – gives him the “perfect” Jamaican accent. Un huh, “perrrfect.” It’s not actually a magical hat and he should probably practice his accen… Have to run, Gil just woke up. Enjoy the short! =D

To Dye For is a story about three loser roommates, the party they throw one night, and the two women who capture their hearts…

Written by: Marty Lang
Directed by: Richard Dobbs
Starring: Marty Lang, Greg Nutcher, Gary Ploski, Michael Barra, Leah Deveau, Emily Morse, Matthew Giovannucci