Keep On Keeping On

Before shooting the student project of There Will Be Blood, I was contacted by an old co-worker from Universal Studios about being in a short film that he wanted to make. I told him I'd be happy to do it. I was to play his son in the film and was a supporting role. We ended up shooting in Los Feliz, a ritzy neighborhood just North of Hollywood. The shoot that I was at was a huge manor that belonged to a Columban Father and a group of missionaries. The shoot was a lot of fun, and my friend that wrote, directed, and starred in it is from Wales and has an Irish theme to it. I met a lot of cool people and it will be fun to see the finished product. My friend Michael Patrick Breen has made his own Myspace for it and can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/thehollywoodset You can even look at production photos from the photo album there. It's Michael's first film and I hope it turns out well for him.

After a week of preparation, I went to the Ivar Theatre in Hollywood for a short rehearsal before our There Will Be Blood shoot two days later. It went as well as I could have expected, and then the following Monday I showed up for our shoot. I was under the impression that we were just going to be shooting on an actual stage but to my surprise they built an actual set of a church. The actor playing Daniel Plainview actually turned out to be a guy that went to UW:Eau Claire at one point when I went there and he said he even saw a couple shows I was in... what a small world? He admited he wasn't an actor, which didn't make me too happy, but once we started shooting and I gave him stuff to work off of, he turned it up a bit and wasn't too bad. We had a full crew on the shoot and the day went great. We did many takes/setups and towards the end of the shoot, there was a tour of people that came through, so we kindly asked them to fill in as part of the congregation and they obliged. Hopefully this is good karma. :) After the shoot was done, I was proud of what I did and was told that I could expect a copy in a few weeks. All in all, it was a great learning experience for me and will be great footage for my demo reel.

Just a day after the shoot, I got a call from the director of the music video I shot for The Cab a couple months ago. He explains that he wants to do reshoots for the video and he wants to bring me in as a featured extra. I of course oblige and tell him I will be there later that week. I showed up at the same studio as before in Hollywood not knowing how many people will be there along with me. I was the first to show up and the director (a young guy in his mid-twenties from Australia) tells me that it's just going to be me and three other girls. I joked with him saying, "ok... if I have to". One of the girls ended up flaking out at the last second so she was replaced with the husband of one of the other two girls. It was clear early on that the shoot was going to be very laid back as they did a starbucks run for all of us, provided a lounge with a flat screen tv and leather couches to relax on between takes, and provided a great lunch. Throughout the day we did different shots, and closeups on different actors each time. Towards the end of the shoot we had another paint fight and was a lot of fun, just as before. It was a great time, and I'm looing forward to the finished product, especially since I should get some good screen time in a shot or two. I talked to the director and went to The Cab's website and found out that it will be released the first week of October. Also on their website they are showing behind-the-scenes videos every Thursday until the video is released: http://thecabrock.com/ Also, this Friday I'll be shooting a commercial for State Farm and all I know so far is that it's going to be "stadium scene" whatever that means. Hopefully it will be somewhere cool like Dodger Stadium or Staples Center.

Besides acting stuff, my brother Seth and I got in a big argument the other day (it's bound to happen time and again when you live with a sibling). In the middle of the argument he mentions that he's thinking of moving back to the Midwest when our lease is up in December. After talking about it off and on for a week, he has decided if there's nothing really going for him here, that he wants to move back to the Midwest where he's more comfortable. He's at a crossroads in his life because he wants to write, but he also wants to be a journalist but the market is pretty bad right now, and he also has a hobby of cooking. He's thinking of going to school to be a chef or possibly going to graduate school to become a teacher. When it comes down to it, I just want him to make the most of where he is, and not settle in life like I believe most people do. The hardest part of all of this is that I will have lost a roommate. It's not set in stone that he's moving, but in the event that he does move, I'll be on my own. We were planning on moving to North Hollywood after the lease is up and I still plan on doing that, but I could never live out here on my own. It's just too expensive. That's where it gets difficult. I knew that something like this would happen sooner or later, and I just look at it as another test to pass on my way to success. My plan is that I can find someone from work at Universal that wants to room together and everything will work itself out from there.

Besides that, I'm thinking of selling my car. The transmission is a little iffy at points and I think it would be smart to sell it and get another car before it goes on me. I talked to my dad and he said that a possibility is that when I visit them this winter that I could switch cars with my sister and take her truck back to LA and use that instead. It's in great shape and would be a perfect match for me. The hard part about this is that I would have to drive it back to LA from WI which is over 2000 miles. That's about $500 in gas alone just to drive back and I don't think I'd be able to afford that.

With all that's going on, I know that there is never going to be a let-up for me. I chose to move out here and live this lifestyle and have to live with the sacrifices I have to make. I struggle a lot with the fact that so much of my focus is on my career and I wish I could just be a "normal" kid sometimes with more short term goals, going out with friends, dating, being with my family, etc. Unfortunately I know that this isn't quite in the cards for me. I know that if I'm out here, I'm here for one reason and I need to keep this focus to have progression rather than just settling for "good enough". At the end of the day I think there is only one thing to do:

Keep On Keeping On.

Movie Reviews of the Day:
High School Musical 2 - 4 stars
In Bruges - 5 stars
National Treasure: Book of Secrets - 3.5 stars
Rebel Without A Cause - 4.5 stars
Tropic Thunder - 4 stars
Super Size Me - 4 stars
Mission Impossible 3 - 4 stars
21 - 3.5 stars