To Be or Not To Be
Many of you know I’m involved in the web video world, mostly from the perspective of behind the camera side. I’ve been doing PA (production assistant) work, been a 2nd assistant director (AD), and a 1st AD as well, in addition to editing and some writing and some producing. All of these have been great learning experiences and I have really enjoyed them. In addition to all the things listed, there is one more thing I enjoy doing, and even some of my web friends don’t know about this:
I want to act.
You can find my headshots/resume/reel here.
Let me start with a bit of history about me and the acting bug.
I’ve always been a pretty outgoing person and I like the idea of attention. That being said, I don’t think I’m a huge attention whore. I don’t need to be the center of attention everywhere I go, but I do enjoy being up in front of people and performing, making people think or laugh.
I dappled in acting while in high school. The school I went to even had a performing arts magnet, but I was in the medical magnet at the same school. Lucky for me, we were able to take courses across magnets, and I soon found myself in various vocal groups during my high school years, culminating in being part of the audition only, jazz group my senior year. I had always wanted to be in the school musicals, but due to me being a jack of all trades, sports always seemed to interfere with actually being able to have the time to be in a show.
Fast forward to college, I decided to double major in Theatre and Religion. I figured I was paying for school might as well take advantage and get my money’s worth and take a lot of classes. Within my first semester I had made the all-freshman theatre production and was taking an improv class and then soon was in both the improv class and the audition only improv group as a freshman. I auditioned for the fall play, and from what I heard later, nearly got the lead role in Brighton Beach Memoirs, but lost out to a upper classman.
I continued to take theatre classes and work on my skills as an actor and continued to perform with my improv group. I never was cast in a major role for any of the other plays, mostly due to my crazy schedule, (refer to my jack of all trades personality), I was involved in too many activities to make the time commitment to a full play run. I would do occasional one acts and other small parts, and even eventually got cast in a touring show, that ran for a month during our Jan Term, a month long intensive course. Which was a fun little ensemble show of 4 or 5 of us.
Eventually during my senior year, I decided to drop my theatre major down to a minor, which at that point, I had more than fulfilled the course work for. This decision mainly came from the notion that I more than likely would never pursue acting professionally and wanted to concentrate more on my (at the time) passion of going into ministry (that’s another post in itself).
I resigned myself, knowing how Hollywood works, that I didn’t ever want to put myself through the paces of being “a starving actor”. Though if the situation ever presented itself, of maybe being approached on the street and being asked if I wanted to be in a hollywood film, I would not turn them down. I knew that I’d have better chances of winning the lottery twice in a row, than that happening.
Flash forward to about 10 months ago, when my life dumped me into the new media world. It was being on set with Brett Register (who I just got done working with again on his new web series A Good Knight’s Quest, check it out, it’s fun) last fall while he was filming The Crew, one of my duties as the 2nd AD was to stand in and read lines for other people. A few days after that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I missed acting. I missed being in front of the camera and becoming someone else.
It would take a few months before I started to “pursue” acting, and I happened to win a headshot package in a charity poker tournament (a photo session and printing of headshots (a $600+ value)). If it wasn’t for that, it would have been much harder to even start on my quest to act.
That was last fall, though I decided to wait until the new year to really begin to seek out acting work.
It’s been fun, I’ve done a couple of smaller things, some background work on shows that I was crew for. I even have a small recurring role on Bumps In The Night, the web show I edit. Soon you’ll be able to see a little bit of me in the new web series The Webventures of Justin and Alden, (which I crewed on as well) I have a line and then show up later as part of a crowd.
More and more I’m realizing like any good business it comes down to who you know and how you network. And then there’s representation. Getting an agent and/or a manager is the first hurtle to even getting to auditions, let alone cast in anything. It’s not easy. Though I’m not giving up. I’ve been trading favors, for introductions and finding opportunities to meet people. All in all it’s hard work and will take time. I need to have patience and diligence and maybe a little luck.
More or less this post is to make a public statement that I want to take my acting career seriously and see where it takes me. It doesn’t mean I’m going to give up working behind the camera in production, but I want to make sure that over all I’m developing my skills as a content creator and I’m just adding acting to the pile.
If just getting an acting job wasn’t hard enough, race plays an issue. Asian males aren’t in high demand when it comes to the entertainment industry. It’s getting better, with people like John Cho, Masi Oka, Ken Jeong, Daniel Dae Kim and James Kyson Lee (mind you all Korean, like me, with the exception of Masi) they are proving that asian men don’t have to play stereotypical characters and can play normal roles, that aren’t race dependant.
I’m excited for what is next as I dive deeper into the entertainment industry, but I am also realistic in knowing that success is a hard and long road. My goal is to make a living doing something that I enjoy. And right now, I enjoy being creative. Creativity that is found in being a part of teams that bring content to the screen, be it the computer monitor or bigger.
There you go, I want to act. I want to be creative. I want to work with other passionate people. And in the end hopefully make a living doing it.
If you know of managers, agents, directors, casting directors, I’d love an introduction. I’m ready to work hard, and I’m ready to have fun doing it.
Again my headshots/resume/reel can be found here. Feel free to pass it on. Thanks for all the support.
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