Saturday, May 20, 2023
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Being Human in the Age of AI
being human is big, bigger than we usually think it is
There is a lot of talk about artificial intelligence (AI) doing as well or better than humans at things. Machines have long out-performed people at a lot of stuff. And this doesn't just apply to complicated machines like cars, but simple machines, like a lever, have long amplified or done better than us. A pry bar is better at prying things than our bare hands. But humans have not, ever since the first person used a rock to make their efforts easier, been made obsolete by the machines we've made.
Sure, some things we have machines do that people used to do. But humans haven't stopped existing because of this. If anything, machines have allowed us to grow: machines and technology are part of why there are more humans currently alive than there have been at any other point in history. Humans haven't been made obsolete by tech.
So why is AI disrupting things typically done only by humans? Things like writing, art making, film-making and acting are starting to be threatened by systems, artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Why isn't it pry bars and not artists? Life and limb.
A self-driving car getting things wrong immediately collapses into the tyranny of atoms: concrete and often irreversible consequences come when a machine driving itself ends a life, or ruins someone's property. While self-driving vehicles may get to the point they are safer than human drivers, they will never be perfect, and this imperfection when matters of life and limb are involved, makes them hard to cheer for or even experiment with out in the real world.
Not so with media, entertainment and the arts. Artistic creations made by non-humans don't leave grotesque consequences if they fail: any bad movies, books, music and more made by artificial-intelligence (AI) will fade into the noise floor of un-celebrated human artistic attempts. No life or limb is imperiled if an artificial intelligence (AI) made film falls flat, instead bank accounts and careers get impacted (and disappointed audience).
This lack of life and limb involvement can make creative and artistic endeavors feel like the "consequence-free" world of software and web development: as if one can fail quickly and iterate in order to experiment in public and refine as one goes. However, the context of software and any context where life and limb are in play react very differently to things if one tries to fail fast. Experimenting and learning are invaluable, but at scale and in public, the tyranny of atoms makes doing so with self-driving vehicles, autonomous weapons and other life and limb scenarios far more dire than an unpleasing painting or a film that flops at the box office.
While many life and limb contexts benefit from the fact automated and artificial intelligence (AI) systems don't suffer from fatigue, emotional compromise or inebriation, some of the same things that drive humans to be tired, emotional, or otherwise not consistent are vital to make good decisions in other ways. Logical decisions with zero emotion can be low quality decisions (there are studies suggesting this is true, but they are beyond the scope of our discussion here).
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises the benefits of intelligence with none of the "downsides" like inconsistency or asking for a paycheck. Taking humans out of the loop may be possible, even beneficial in some contexts. But imagining an artificial system will benefit from all the strengths we take for granted in humans (or even see as liabilities) seems a mistake. Human are imperfect according to humans. What we find desirable and what the universe has evolved us into for our survival as a species are not the same. Eugenics makes many errors, this is one among them. Humans are great at a lot, even things we don't think of as great.
Being human includes the foibles and messy parts. It's not pre-Copernican to suggest that humans, after millions of years of evolution, are excellent at being human. This includes messing stuff up, hurting ourselves and also creating great things, beauty, connection, grace, mercy, cruelty: all of it. To imagine in the space of a few years or decades one can do what has taken billions of people filtering through millions of years of evolving is the magical thinking here. To fall so I love with human ingenuity and creation as to believe in a few generations time we can out create the forces of evolution over the timeline of geologic epochs, that is feeling to me like the fallacy in this.
Yes, AI can do, and maybe even excel at, specific human-like tasks. The question of what is necessary and sufficient for something artistic to be art, what is the essential that makes art in fact art is an entire branch of philosophy. There is little consensus on this, and what makes art human, or what human component is necessary for something to connect and resonate may not have consensus either. That said: I think saying there is an X factor, some amorphous and undefined thing, that is a cop out.
The generative AIs, both images and text, are sophisticated mirrors. Highly complex yes, but basically reflecting back their prompt and their training data is all they're actually doing. Often compelling enough for us to forget this, but that is what is happening even if the results feel like more.
So here goes:
It is the vast and minute combination of human intuition, rationality, emotion, fear, power, weakness, apprehension, insight and ignorance. At the risk of paraphrasing the dignity of man speech in Hamlet, we might sum it up as the human condition.
Wikipedia, a source of common meanings, sums the human condition up as "the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death." Mortality and love (not just romantic love) certainly seem to figure in to what I think the condition of being human includes. And how love and mortality figure into making art, or any creation in a way, is somehow uniquely human. We can probably spend a long time and many words defining, describing and discussing this.
For our purposes: knowing we will die perhaps underscores all our actions with a fleeting immediacy, even if that immediacy is an undercurrent and not the focus of what we do moment to moment, day to day. Does a machine have a functional life? Of course. But none of its activities are filtered, really in any way, through a lens of that mechanized mortality. Even in the back of our minds, under our awareness, the fact we may stop existing does inform in both subtle and bold ways how we do what we do.
Fictional characters are often revealed by how the do what they do. In many ways, how we do what we do is who we are. How the character says what they say, matters almost as much as what they've said. I leave the studies on non-verbal communication dominating the information exchanged between people for others to detail elsewhere.
How someone lifts a coffee cup can speak volumes about them, what they have done, are doing and will do. Does the way they lift it reveal the old injury from their time in a past captivity? Do they lift it in preparation to enjoy a moment's respite from current stress? Are they preparing to go without coffee as they are due too enter a coffee-less meeting? All of these options and a myriad more impact how the simple act of lifting a cup of coffee happens. They can be revealed and communicated in many ways like how quickly, slowly, angrily, happily and a bunch of other details that we all notice, even if not consciously.
And this rich, deep, full bodied (pun intended) action and all it communicates (literally, emotionally and maybe even spiritually) happens on some level even from this mundane act of picking up a cup of coffee. It can be filtered (pun intended again) through the whole of the human experience of the person lifting the cup, and also through the whole of the our human experiences as we witness it. With varying levels of awareness and attention, our neurology encounters and interprets what we behold in a rich amalgam of ways that help us understand, cognitively and otherwise, the world and those in it.
If all of this can easily become an overwhelming, almost unmeasurable amount of "data" were we to try to digitize it. Both the actor and the viewer are effected by it all and in turn effect the interaction in so many ways.
To imagine that we, in a handful of years, will be able to do this with a machine is folly. To replicate or emulate with a machine (let alone innovate) such a deep and complex moment as raising a cup of coffee is a little bit of hubris.
What's that you say? An mp3 compresses sound to about a tenth the size (in data) of what CD quality sound takes up by trying too remove what the algorithm imagines (was designed) to think we won't miss. And mp3s still give us the emotional and other impacts of the higher quality sound file? Our music on our phones and streaming services is still music, right? Yes, but if something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and isn't actually a duck it still matters if it isn't a duck. And some people do consciously hear the difference between an mp3 and CD quality music. The rest of us unconsciously hear the difference (studies of galvanic skin response suggest different audio qualities and film frames rates effect us differently physiologically).
Why does that matter? Because there are many things the simulacrum (the simulation or reproduction) of things do not have that the actual things do have. People still flock to see the Mona Lisa despite reproductions, even very high quality and faithful reproductions. Those reproductions may have a "better" viewing experience than traveling to Paris and dealing with crowds. Is that some sort of fame fetish, or placebo effect? Maybe.
The fact remains: when we have had whatever day we have had, and crave the comfort of stories, we often yearn to have humans help us make sense, not just of events, but of our own experience, emotions and spirituality from the day. We have done this as long as we have done anything, even if at first it used to only be around the embers of a fire in caves long ago. Now we use tech to send reproductions of people to the far reaches of the globe, but the purpose and our need for it is the same.
If people still care about an original painting made centuries ago, can we really assume they won't care about original people on screen made now? Can our creation with only artificial intelligence (AI) really out human our ability to human? No. It can enhance, stand-in-for and supplement humans. Much as shoes do for more the fragile soles of our feet than going barefoot does, so too will artificial intelligence (AI) allow us to do new things. And like shoes, or a pry bar, or any other technology, artificial intelligence (AI) will change things, even in ways we can't yet guess at. But it seems deeply unlikely any artificial intelligence will somehow, inexplicably, transcend the makers of it.
What feature could allow any digital or electronic system to suddenly cross the threshold of passing from not human to beyond human? Since we don't agree on what being human is to begin with, we may not even be able to measure or meaningfully discuss when something we have made is more us than we are.
Our imagining we already consciously understand the what and why of how we connect with humans and human stories may be the big fallacy of this. Can we make something that imitates human stuff? Probably. We can probably even make imitations that we will believe are the real thing, at least in some contexts. Will this somehow become better at being human, whatever that means to us, than humans are? Probably not. Whatever our weaknesses and strengths, we probably aren't going to buck or defy our own natures enough to make a more human-than-human non-human.
Labels: acting, artificial intelligence, entertainment, film, technology, trends, tv
this posted by David August at 5:20 PM - 0 comments - 
Sunday, May 07, 2023
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Hollywood Producers on the Brink: Why Making a Deal is Critical
Hollywood Producers' negotiating style threatens the industry
Hollywood producers are facing mounting pressure to reach a deal with striking writers, as more recognizable faces in the industry prepare to join picket lines once directors' and actors' contracts run out as well. Producers have only weeks to avoid a potentially disastrous situation, as audience backlash against intransigence could escalate. Economic uncertainty, compounded by a recent interest rate hike, adds to the urgency for producers to resolve the issue and maintain market stability.
Industry experts suggest that a deal with writers now on strike is a solvable problem, and could free up valuable resources to handle future economic challenges. With audiences increasingly interested in convenient, on-demand viewing experiences, any further disruption to their preferred entertainment could lead to lasting damage to brand sentiment and subscriber bases, ultimately resulting in a loss of customers.
While union-busting consultants may suggest a hard-line approach, the risks of such a strategy outweigh the benefits. As viewing habits shift rapidly, producers cannot afford to alienate their core audience by attempting to underpay workers, leaving them with no material to show. It is clear that producers must prioritize a deal with writers to avoid damaging long-term consequences and to maintain their market position.
As Hollywood producers continue to grapple with the ongoing writers' strike, they face the stark reality that long labor strikes can have disastrous effects on their companies. History shows that prolonged strikes can lead to financial losses, damaged relationships with talent, and negative public perception.
One of the most infamous examples of a long strike's impact on companies is the 1980 strike by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). The strike lasted for over 3 months, causing delays and cancellations of TV shows and films, and resulted in hundreds of millions in losses for the entertainment industry. The strike also included a boycott of the Emmy Awards ceremony by all but one single Emmy winner.
Another example of the potentially devastating effects of labor strikes on a media business is the case of the 1987 strike by the National Football League (NFL) players. The strike lasted for 24 days, causing the season to be shortened to 15 games per team. The NFL's total revenue loss due to the strike was estimated to be over a billion dollars, and it took several years for the league to recover from the effects of the strike.
In 2007–2008, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike for about 100 days, demanding higher pay for streaming content. The strike caused delays and cancellations of TV shows and films, and resulted in an estimated $2.5 billion loss for the entertainment industry. It also led to strained relationships between writers and producers, as well as a decline in public perception of the industry.
While these strikes were ultimately resolved, the importance of reaching a deal quickly to avoid long-term damage to the industry and to the companies involved is real and present tense. The past strikes highlight the potential risks to producers of a prolonged labor dispute.
The current negotiations between Hollywood producers and striking writers are particularly important, given the economic uncertainty caused by wider economic factors and the ongoing shift in viewing habits.
Beyond financial losses and damaged relationships, long labor strikes can also lead to negative public perception of the entertainment industry. Audience sentiment towards the industry is already fragile, with growing concerns over diversity and inclusion in Hollywood. Any further disruptions to viewers' preferred entertainment options could result in lasting damage to the industry's reputation and a loss of customers.
Finally, with these viewing preference possibly in flux, and fact technological hurdles to building distribution on one's own are lower than ever before, the producers risk making their own possible competitive existential threat a reality: the writers learning to finance, market and distribute their work themselves. Producers in the past could rely on big obstacles like access to movie theatres and broadcast airwaves to keep their position in the entertainment ecosystem secure, even during labor actions.
Today, most forms of entertainment can reach their audiences with out any involvement of theatres, broadcast airwaves or other technological bottlenecks. While it would take a lot of change for the writers to cut the producers out of the equation of modern entertainment, the longer the producers refuse to deal and the strike drags on, the higher the incentives for them, and their companies, to be circumvented entirely. Producers delays slowing a quick and stable resolution speeds up the process of their own obsolescence.
Ultimately, the success of the negotiations between Hollywood producers and striking writers will have significant consequences for the industry's future and the viability of producers' businesses as profitable, ongoing concerns. It is essential that a deal is offered soon to avoid long-term damage, and to ensure that the industry can continue to thrive in the face of ongoing challenges.
Labels: acting, contracts, entertainment, film, labor, tv, unions
this posted by David August at 2:12 PM - 0 comments -
Thursday, December 22, 2022
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Lights Out
ephemeral nature of our work
I imagine these same questions are what the Twitter alums are dealing with right now. It will be difficult for them, too. But this [company closing and turning off all the servers] is a necessary step in the career for anyone who wants to arrange electrons for a living. Because the things we make, the ways we express our creativity, none of it is tangible. It can all go away with the press of a button. And we have to face that part of the bargain with our eyes open. Making something lasting of our lives is difficult, and very few of us will ever do it. But making something lasting with electrons? It might be damn near impossible.
(from When the Lights Go Out).
Projects fall apart. We hate it when they do, but they do sometimes. Blue Sky is a movie made in 1991 that spent 3 years in a vault after the production company Orion's bankruptcy. Then, Jessica Lang won an Academy Award for her work in it after it was later released. There is a story I've not been able to confirm that Brad Pitt, before Thelma & Louise, was in a movie that was going to be his star-making turn, and the footage was lost in the scramble to evacuate from Yugoslavia as it descended into war.
But less dramatically, sometimes funding falls out. Sometimes people withdraw, sometimes any number of things make a project stop, dead in its tracks. The lights go out.
What are we to do as actors, how are we to seek any sort of meaning, will our work even be remembered?
Even highly established actors may not be widely known in a generation. I once heard a story of a teacher in the 21st Century marveling that their students didn't know who James Cagney, Marlene Dietrich and other major 20th Century stars were. Their students simply hadn't been exposed to work by some titans of the industry, people who helped define what film is.
So what are we to do? If every project we are in can go into turnaround or stall out entirely at any time, and if our work can be forgettable in decades (or in the case of most films from the silent era, lost entirely), how do we cope?
How do we handle knowing our work is fleeting? We try to embrace it.
Life is fleeting. Don't stop reading worried I'm going into some woo woo jag, or worry I only mean "all we have is now." While life, and our work, does happen in the now, it changes everything. Everything. Our work changes everything.
The American people have spent more on entertainment than they do on food for over ten years now. More money than being nourished physically is being spent on nourishing our hearts and minds (with some distraction thrown in there too). People are arguing about media and entertainment's role in civilization as before, only now more loudly since the internet lets people's anger and joy find audiences like no generation ever before.
From the time when we all lived in caves and told stories around the fire at night, and someone stood up and acted out a sequence, we have needed entertainment. We have needed storytelling. We need it like we need air.
Not only is a whole hemisphere of our brains seemingly built to make narratives out of our experiences, but whole countries need stories to understand and invent who they are, their identities. A people need to have a story of how they are a group, and a person needs a story of who they are and how they're living.
We risk collapsing all of this into solipsism, saying that our mind is all that we can be sure exists. But story, the narratives of our lives, are central to how we do what we do, and how we understand the world. And actors are assistant storytellers.
My occupation is assistant storyteller. It is not "icon."
- Harrison Ford
So maybe it is perfectly fine if in a few decades strangers don't remember us. We still help tell the stories, we still touch the lives of those we know, meet, work with and love. If we make some great work, really truly great stuff, and if the world doesn't end up noticing, it hurts. It does.
It is not fun to do amazing things and have that stuff go away and seem like it never happened. But that's the thing. Since an early human acted out a story around the fire, an actor's work has been fleeting. For centuries, live performance was all there was. It was gone when the curtain fell, save for the hearts and minds it touched.
There could be paintings or sketches of an actor's work, but the performance itself: vanished.
Then photographs could capture fractions of a second of our work more accurately. Finally, film could hold the performance over time. Then something interesting started to happen: everyone could think something can be forever.
But maybe even then we're missing something, risking solipsism again. The performance never had substance in a tangible way to begin with. The film is not us, it is a representation of us. A reflection or sorts. Sure, films made today can be preserved and seen by people not yet born. Time shifting is compelling, but our selves, our bodies and minds aren't on that celluloid or in that binary data stored on a chip.
We can go further. The live stage performances didn't put us actually into the audience so much as move their hearts and minds. The early human acting around the fire did the same. We have always been touching the minds and hearts of the audience. That's the work.
Commerce and technology make it seem like our lives and the lives of those generations of pre-film actors are fundamentally different. Our need to light things well for a self-tape audition, so we can capture and digitize our image and voice, and then send them off to far places, makes it easy to think we're different than other epoch's actors. It seems like we're different than other epoch's humans.
But here's the permanence of it, here's the everlasting part of our work. It's not the disk drives, or the database entries that hold our work, that give our work substance. It's not the reviews and moldering stage costumes in theatres around the world that make our work real and impacting. It is the fact humans are the only part of the physical universe we know of that are conscious of themselves and we, actors, tell that part of the universe's stories.
You are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing.
- Alan Watts
If you think being a wave means having no impact, just ask anyone who's experienced an undertow, or been in a city that's faced a storm surge.
Actors absolutely have substance and our impact echoes through the ages.
Actors used to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart. Those people's performances so troubled the onlookers that they feared their ghosts. An awesome compliment.
- David Mamet
Our power and lasting permanence is in our ethereal and unbounded possibilities.
One only needs to read Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley to start to grasp the folly of fixating on permanence:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Our work may be fleeting, even if the technology of film and TV lets it last for decades or centuries. But the hearts and minds we move, and the way those people then change the world, those things will ripple on through to the end of time. And that is the un-substantive substance of our work.
Like lighting in a bottle, an actors work cannot be held: it is intangible. That's sometimes scary, and hard to get our minds around. Especially when we've bills to pay. That's partly why acting takes more than our minds to do. It's why getting in our heads alone usually doesn't get the scene or the moment the life it really needs. We are the squishy, and that's more than ok, it's good.
People talk about content often using that word in part to try to put a handle on something that cannot be contained. Sure, cat videos are content too, but at its most moving: our work is meant to be hard to hold in our hands, our minds and hearts.
It is part of why accidental behavior caught on film is often so compelling. Which is why having the illusion of the first time and being in the moment can be so vital. It is part of why facing uncertainty with courage is often something good acting (immediate, authentic, interesting and fun) has as part of it.
So between action and cut, or curtain up and curtain down, amid fake danger, courage and life is the order of the day.
Let the realm of paying our bills, grocery shopping and other concrete things get our attention when we seek the tangible, purely physical and logistic. But when we're acting, let yourself fly.
And if you want help flying, I'd love to work with you. I'll use this corpuscle of the physical, tangible and concrete to button up this post: my acting coaching website, that I put together in like five minutes when a friend asked if I had one, is here: about.me/davidaugust
Labels: acting, film, inspiration, money, process
this posted by David August at 1:54 PM - 0 comments -
Friday, November 18, 2022
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
How to Find Your Twitter People on Mastodon
people you follow on Twitter may be on Mastodon and you can find them
Trying to find people you connected with on Twitter here on Mastodon is complex right now.
I'm using the three tools to try to get people's handles over here on Mastodon off of Twitter. All of these are a little unstable right now since so many people are using them at once.
- https://twitodon.com/
You log into both your accounts with it, let it work, and then can download a file you can then upload to Mastodon to follow people. The catch: those people need to have used it too. - https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/
Lets you basically scan your Twitter folks profiles to see if they've left a Mastodon forwarding address for people. Then you can download a file you can then upload to Mastodon to follow people (or manually look through, which I recommend). The catch: if might get things that aren't actually Mastodon addresses, or their colleagues info scooped up instead. - https://fedifinder.glitch.me/
Like Debirdify (number 2 on this list), it scans your twitter folks profiles over there to try to find their Mastodon handles. It also download a file you can then upload to Mastodon to follow people (or manually look through, which I recommend). The catch: it also might scoop up stuff that isn't actually a Mastodon addresses, or their colleagues info.
So far, there is no single, easy way to migrate. That is kinda what happens when a single company with 7,500 employees keeping things working is no longer involved. Disappointing, but Mastodon can be an alternative and stop-gap right now; Mastodon may be able to grow into a more resilient option than Twitter or any other run-by-a-single-company social network ever has been. Right now, much of Mastodon is just struggling to accept the huge number of new people using it. Patience is probably a good plan. Good luck, and let me know if I can help you. I'm @davidaugust@mastodon.online on Mastodon and have other links on my linktree, and should always be findable through davidaugust.com.
Labels: acting, mastodon, technology, trends, twitter
this posted by David August at 12:24 PM - 0 comments -
Monday, November 07, 2022
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Posting Tweets to Mastodon
automatically have your Twitter post to your Mastodon
So maybe like me you're thinking of diversifying your social media presence beyond Twitter and onto Mastodon. I don't want to have to manually post on both right now, and it is too early to focus just on Mastodon since most of the people I connect with not there yet, they're still on Twitter. I want to build for the future now by posting my tweets on Mastodon.
One way to build a presence on any new site is to have what you post on an old site get posted to the new one automatically. That's where a tool that posts your tweets on Mastodon for you comes in. I was going to try 3 tools to automatically post my Twitter on my Mastodon, and review them all. But the first I tried seems to do the job; I haven't needed to see how the others work. I'll stay with it unless the first one goes offline or stops working. I'll mention the other two here in case when you read this one of them is a better solution.
Without getting too technical, these tools will check your twitter for new tweets, and then post them on Mastodon for you, automatically. That is what's supposed to happen; unless something breaks or goes offline, it should work as designed once it is set up.
Mastodon is not a central company, so everything that runs on Mastodon may not always run as smoothly as a commercial product. Mastodon also does not have a single place to seek answers if you need help or support. Your mileage may vary. So far things often load more slowly with Mastodon than they do with a site/app like Twitter that is run by one company.
Not every Mastodon tool will work with every other Mastodon tool and instance. Instances are what Mastodon calls the servers that run it. They are run by different people, unlike Twitter which is run by a single company. These different servers, instances, can talk with each other. That lets a post (Mastodon calls posts "toots") on one server be read and interacted with by people on other servers. This can delay things. Sometimes if a server is down or out of communication, then the delay can be more than a few minutes.
Every Mastodon server being run by different people can also mean their policies can be different. Different Mastodon servers allow different types of content sometimes, and each have their own privacy policies. The good news here is that there isn't a business model of Mastodon gathering and selling personal information. In fact, there is no single business model behind Mastodon. It is more a protocol than a company or product. Mastodon is like a way you to do what you have always done on social networks, except without single central company running it. It is more like software than a single service.
Here's how to post your Twitter posts on Mastodon.
Mastodon-Twitter Crossposter
The first tool I tried using to send my Twitter feed to Mastodon is the Mastodon-Twitter Crossposter and I set it up at https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/. It was recommended to me and seems to work well.
Upsides:
- It can post both ways, Twitter to Mastodon and Mastodon to Twitter. I have only tried having it post my tweets to Mastodon, not the other way around.
- It can post images you post on Twitter on to Mastodon too (not sure if it can do this the other way, but it probably can).
- The developer seems to be actively connecting with Twitter to make it work well; they mention talking with Twitter support as recently as two days ago.
Downsides:
- None yet.
Moa Party
I have not yet used this tool (at https://moa.party/), but Martin Fowler, whom I do not know personally, does and says his Mastodon-aware colleagues have used it without problems.
Linky
Linky is an iOS app (at https://pragmaticcode.com/linky/), that is intended to "Post to Twitter and Mastodon with simplicity." It may or may not automatically post from one to the other. It might be more about posting directly to your Twitter and Mastodon easily from your iPhone of iPad.
IFTTT
IFTTT is a service/site/app that allows many different websites, apps and devices to interact and do things automatically. They do not currently have a publicly available applet (what they call the small piece you can configure to do stuff for you) that will post from your Twitter to Mastodon. If you are open to some coding/technical configuration, you can make yourself a IFTTT applet to post to Mastodon from Twitter (or anywhere else). If you don't already feel comfortable using webhooks, or know what a webhook is, this may be a bit of a learning curve.
Please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions. My current links can probably be found on my linktree or at davidaugust.com. And I’m now on Mastodon at @davidaugust@mastodon.online too.
Labels: acting, mastodon, services, technology, trends, twitter
this posted by David August at 3:14 PM - 0 comments -
Sunday, May 24, 2020
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Actors Take Note
Take note of who is doing what. On-set safety counts.
There are some producers and directors who would rather get you and everyone you come in contact with sick than spend any more time and money to make their projects safe.
We all want to work. And we all want to say yes whenever work is offered that makes sense to take. We each have to decide what sort of actor we want to be and what sort of life we want to live. It is not necessary to give up basic safety in order to work, get paid and make things worth making. I know it can feel like it is something we must surrender. We don't have to. Most protective measures are reasonable, relatively low cost and only cause slight delays.
Will work that is rushed and cuts corners be good work that can move your career forward? Or is taking some extra time and money to insure the work is good (and those who make it are safe) better? I suggest the latter is the best way forward.
Getting paid matters; we all use money to exchange for goods and services. And getting paid does not require recklessness or taking dangerous risks. Nor does doing projects well require easily avoidable risk and facing injury or death. I can't believe I have to say that out loud.
Every year films and TV have ever been made have unfortunately included productions who hurt and killed cast and crew. Case studies of why rushing, cutting corners and ignoring safety are foolish are too many to name here and predate both 2020 and the pandemic by decades. The Twilight Zone movie (which killed and injured many people) and Midnight Rider (which killed Sarah Jones and injured many others) are 2 well known examples. There are many many others.
Film sets are largely construction sites and include risk independent of contagious disease. Preventable death is worth preventing. Working with people who will work to prevent your preventable death leads to career longevity, and for that matter life longevity.
Most danger on film and TV sets can avoided by taking simple steps. Many people do not take those simple steps. They will not take cheap and fast steps to make the cast and crew way more safe. There are no good reasons they don't take those steps. Impatience and laziness are not good reasons.
Good projects are not good by accident. Talented people working in unison to realize a good vision has always been the best bet to create good work. Being needlessly unsafe is not a wise path to creating good work. People who are worried on set will not do good work. People who are calm and feel safe, and are safe, will do better work. Being in danger does not lead people to be calm, nor does danger lead to people doing their best work. This is true of every department. This is true of every set. This is true of every job on earth.
Production insurance companies agree with me on this even if their arguments are largely financial. Lack of safety is more expensive than safety. Productions are already gambling whether or not the audience will show up and like the finished product. There is no good reason to gamble with having the production shut down and bankrupted by taking foolish and avoidable risks. There are no good reasons productions gamble foolishly. Ever. Impatience and laziness are not good reasons. Greed is not a good reason.
I am surprised to find myself writing this. I have also been surprised to see proposals for restarting production that contain next to no comments on keeping people safe. I am surprised to see people planning productions like it is 2019. Before this year it was stunning to see people take risks they don't need to take. It is still stunning seeing people take risks they don't need to now.
We do not want to work with those who rush. There is little upside. We do not want to work with those who cut corners. Cut corners diminish our gains. They ruin work. They break people. We want to work with people who are working to the best of their ability to do good work.
Sometime later we can forgive those that are reckless now and still remember who they are. People who would be reckless with you and your cast mates' lives are unlikely to do good work. They are unlikely to move your career in a good direction. This may be true of them beyond 2020. This may be true of them beyond 2030. Find the people you want to work with, not only for your career but because your career is your work life. You only get one life and it includes your work life.
We can all be positive that good work is more likely being done by people focusing on all details effectively, including safety. Our careers are marathons and not sprints. Working well and doing good work are how we book more work and book better work. We make progress by not merely saying yes, but by saying yes well and wisely.
I know we all want to work. And we all have bills to pay. I am extremely eager to book work too. I feel desperation. And there is no good reason to be foolish or reckless pursuing work, pursuing our careers or pursuing our next paychecks. Desperation is not a good reason. Desperation is a feeling, and it is better felt than acted on. Acting out of desperation leads nowhere good.
Feel desperation, but try not to act on it. Be well. Work to thrive. Good luck and caveat actor.
If you are in an unsafe situation on set, you can contact SAG-AFTRA's Emergency Hotline 24 hours, seven days a week at: (844) SAFER SET / (844) 723–3773, and/or leave set.
Labels: acting, money, trends, unions
this posted by David August at 11:23 PM - 0 comments -
Thursday, May 21, 2020
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
How We Use Time Now
how productive is enough
pine watt/Unsplash
Let that sink in. Everyday you aren't sick is a good day. In a fairly objective sense we know this is true. I know it hasn't felt like that to me, but I suspect it is still true.
How could that not be true during a global catastrophe. Whatever the specifics of our individual situation, we are facing a world that's different than it was in 2019. As you may be acutely aware, our industry, both on camera and on stage, has been largely hollowed out. This isn't new, Shakespeare faced this too when the plague came to London.
But what do we do? I mean what do we do and feel we need to do now? I have felt alternately that I should be solving everything all at once, and also be content to do whatever I can each day and be ok with whatever that is.
Don't forget to be thankful for the time you have, and make use of those low moments. Feeling uncomfortable is great because it shows you all the things you can be, and what you need to be.
- David Bowie, as told to me by Joseph Dale Kelly
This does not mean you must "be productive." As Bowie says: be what you need to be. Surviving a pandemic is success. Having a pulse at the end of this is success. Have a pulse and then all your dreams can come true.
This may sound harsh, or reductionist, but couldn't it really be just that simple? Couldn't surviving a global pandemic be enough, and anything else is bonus? I think this is an uncomfortable and oddly simple truth. Thriving as we may all wish to thrive may be less possible now than at any other time in our collective lives.
This angers me, and my rage lands on the virus itself. Unfortunately, it has no face to punch, literally or metaphorically (though washing hands does help kill it). So in my distemper, what should fill my time, occupy my days?
There have been good things said about how to spend and even structure time during lock-down and quarantine, but what do we do as actors specifically? There are resources for financial relief (donate to the Actors Fund if you can, mail a donation for COVID-19 relief to The Actors Fund Home, 155–175 W Hudson Ave, Englewood NJ 07631 or visit actorsfund.org and click donate), and unemployment is also worth perusing. I am also seeking other options myself.
So step one seems to be pursuing financial relief. Step two probably can be seeking other income. This likely means seeking a non-acting job. Like anyone not doing what their career is, we are very allowed to be unhappy about it.
And there we land back on Julie Nolke's words: any time not sick is time well spent. As mentioned, having a pulse is now the bar for success and we have the gift of anything else. Seeking work that doesn't require going to set or stage isn't fun, but is worth doing anyway.
Maybe step three is to get ourselves creative sustenance. I'm not talking about paying acting work which is likely more scarce now than any other time in the last century. I'm talking about feeding our souls and using our instruments. Creative outlets now, as before, don't always require many others to participate or a hiring to happen first. We can do this without permission from anyone else. No guarantee it will always be satisfying, but it is possible.
Now may be a time we can work on a screenplay we have had on our back burner, or a play. But it's ok if we don't. Maybe we can join one of the online script readings by video chat. But we're fine if we don't. Maybe just cold read something. Or don't. There is no playbook for this or plan we have to fit. That doesn't mean we aren't pushing back against our own expectations. And one's own expectations can be oppressive.
Our own expectations do get dicey. Our own judgements often aren't particularly useful or helpful. That doesn't mean we don't have them or shouldn't have them. It does mean we are likely better served by not acting on our judgements or feeding them. Have I done all the things in an ideal world I would love to have gotten done so far during the pandemic? No. Do I gain by beating myself up for that? No. Do I beat myself up a bit anyway? Yes. It is also tempting to beat myself up for beating myself up? Also yes. I am reminded that it is worth remembering to breathe.
The Crux: the Sabre-Toothed Tiger
And here's the crux of it: many people feel uncreative right now. Many are unmotivated to work on acting things or really anything else as well. You are not alone. A metaphor I hastily came up with early on in this was that we're all trying to do everything we're trying to do with a sabre-toothed tiger in the room with us, looking on and ready to pounce. After all, there is a threat looming. Something that might hurts us and the people we love is, in a way, stalking us. This can't be comfortable. It truly cannot.
This can, all by itself, account for not being motivated. It can explain why creativity may be less accessible. And it is awful. Acknowledging the pain at least gives us some sort of handle on it even if it doesn't help it go away. Yes, Shakespeare wrote some great work during epidemics, but almost everyone else didn't. Almost everyone in the history of the world hasn't. Virtually everyone. And that does not make them any less valid of a human. If you have made anything, it's bonus. Our worth is not bound to our output. We do not earn the right to be ourselves through productivity. It is worth saying again. We do not earn the right to be ourselves through productivity.
And there's the gain we can have that Bowie name checks: this discomfort can show us all the things we can be. Yes it is awful, and the possibilities for the future are limitless. Still. These feel mutually exclusive but they aren't. It strains the mind to hold the ideas together at once: the difficulties we face now and our dreams coming true. We can survive this, and doing so is enough to achieve greatness when the threat has passed. Having a pulse at the end of this is exactly enough for us to thrive down the road. Yes, we'd like to thrive all day everyday, and often we may have been amazingly lucky to be able to. Right now, that is less possible. And that is the fault of a virus. Place the blame there, where it has been earned.
Maybe we can see things more clearly through this, even ourselves and our priorities. And maybe we can't. Either way is ok. Because simply being around tomorrow leaves us with options. So do that, and you're succeeding. Anything else is a bonus. Everything else is a bonus. Talked to a friend? That's bonus. Ate something vaguely healthy? That's bonus. Scrawled something down for a future project? Bonus. Read this paragraph aloud to check in with your cold reading and speaking of text? That's bonus too.
No two actors have the same career path. We're not lawyers, accountants or anything with a singular sequence of steps to take that lead to employment or professional development. We also get fewer road signs along the way confirming our progress is in the direction we want or that progress is happening at all. This has long been true.
But often our best work is when we, and our characters, face uncertainty with courage. And courage does not mean not being afraid. Courage does not mean knowing the outcome or forcing ourselves into some form of comfort that is known and straightforward. Courage does not mean feeling good about it and courage is not concerned with comfort. Courage is doing what we do anyway. Sometimes that thing we do is read a line, execute blocking, show up to an audition on time or play a role. Right now the "it" we have to do is have a pulse. Our task is to be. Our success is to look back on this pandemic and tell those unborn now what it was like back then. Back now.
We can act in faith or act in fear, but not both. Act in the faith that surviving now lets you thrive later. The thriving will come, as certainly as the sun will rise tomorrow. Right now, just be. And may all the time you spend be not sick and so well spent. And if you do spend time sick, may that time pass as gently as possible and return you to days well. Just be.
Labels: acting, inspiration, process
this posted by David August at 1:05 PM - 0 comments -
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Industry Standards for Intimacy Coordinator Use Unveiled by SAG-AFTRA
Today, SAG-AFTRA released a PDF and a video package of "Standards and Protocols for the Use of Intimacy Coordinators." This should make it even easier for producers to help performers and productions navigate highly sensitive scenes that feature nudity and simulated sex -throughout the entire production process.
Along with other anti-harassment efforts by SAG-AFTRA and things like their Code of Ethics for Personal Managers, on and off set we will be better off.
Labels: acting, trends, unions
this posted by David August at 10:56 AM - 0 comments -
Friday, April 05, 2019
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Work on Your Life
If you want to work on your art, work on your life.
- Anton Chekhov
Labels: acting, inspiration, process
this posted by David August at 4:56 AM - 0 comments -
Thursday, June 14, 2018
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Holding Sides in an Audition
Some 1 in the morning thoughts about whether or not to hold your sides during a self-taped audition, or really any audition.
Worth remembering an audition is not a memorization test, and yes, it is good to be off book so the character can flow and develop. Holding sides in some people’s opinions reminds everyone that it is not a final fixed performance, and can be changed. These opinions often hold that with no sides you will be un-re-directable, and you may also be compared to a final polished performance in a finished product. Holding the sides gently instantly reminds the viewer it is an audition, even if you never look down at them.
Whatever you do, have fun: the part is yours during your audition no matter what happens later.
Labels: acting, auditions, process
this posted by David August at 1:22 AM - 0 comments -
Monday, May 14, 2018
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
More Employees Fewer Contractors
A lot of people have been considered contractors instead of employees on sets and stages (and shops and offices too), and now that is changing, maybe. This could impact non-union acting, many crew positions in production and post, live promo work and even rideshare driving. The line between employee and contractor has moved:
In order to make the line clearer, the California Supreme Court just adopted a very expansive definition of employee in a recent case, Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court. Under this new test, a worker is considered to be an independent contractor only if all three of the following factors are present:
(A) The worker must be free from the control and direction of the payor in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract and in fact;
(B) The worker must perform work that is outside the usual course of the payor's business; and
(C) The worker must be customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed by the worker for the payor.
Applying this test, the court held that truck drivers were employees of the company they worked for. This new test casts a wide net that will result in many "independent contractors" in the entertainment industry being reclassified as employees. In particular, the second factor listed above could be used to argue that almost everyone in the entertainment industry is an employee.
(from Dynamex: A New Test for Employee Status, emphasis in original; thanks to James McMann for putting me onto the article). The fallout remains to be seen fully, but may be transforming how employment is across the industry. It could mean more workers compensation coverage (good in case someone gets hurt), and the rights of an employee to get paid in full and on time (the law tends to make it harder not to pay an employee than it does to not pay a contractor).
If you're an actor-producer, it has always made sense to use a payroll company to handle paying your cast and crew. Now it may make more sense than ever. I can get into why in another post perhaps.
I am optimistic this could be a good thing, for everyone, even for employers. Employers sometimes forget that treating people well is the easiest way to significantly, immediately and fundamentally improve the work itself, while it also avoids expensive things like fines, back taxes and jail time too. Yes, misclassifying employees as independent contractors can actually land an employer in jail.
this posted by David August at 8:01 AM - 0 comments -
Friday, April 27, 2018
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
It Is Not a Thing It Is a Process
Your relationship, your job, your career, the roles you book: none of these are static, fixed, set things like a book, a chair or a mountain are. Nor are those strictly permanent unchanging things either. They are all processes. Or if you prefer another word for them: a journey, a path, a story. Life is a process. Ongoing.
A romantic relationship may feel like a thing, and it can be tempting to think it's set-it-and-forget-it, that somehow it can reach a state of being exactly what it is now forever without modification. This is not the case. If you don't believe me, try it and you'll see how quickly stagnation will propel something to give.
So to with almost any task: you can make something fixed, unchanging, like:
- a meal worth of food,
- a presentation in an office,
- or a movie.
Once these things are made, once they cross the threshold of complete (a threshold likely placed where people find convenient or useful) they aren't the same as they were. Once
- the food is prepared to eat,
- the presentation ends,
- the movie is ready to distribute
it is different and we judge it differently; we use things and see them differently once they've "done," but they all still change. The
- food spoils or is eaten and integrated into us,
- the presentation either succeeds or fails to have the desired effect (or at least becomes less relevant as time passes),
- and the movie gets distributed or not
If a movie does get distributed, it either succeeds commercially or not in the various markets/platforms/ways it is released. A distributed movie likely evolves at some point into whether or not it will get sequels, re-releases or re-masterings and even novelizations, theme park rides and other possibilities. If a movie is not distributed relatively quickly, it may molder in a vault (physical or digital) waiting to either be forgotten, or for something outside of it to change, like the cultural currents, a performer's career arc, or something else. Then it is released and follows a new trajectory.
The point is, even though we think in the moment, we live in the now and think of stuff as fixed. It's very useful to think of them as things, they aren't: everything is changing, always.
(Note: yes, eventually the universe may even change its innate tendency toward change by going through a heat death, heat a proxy for movement/change here. This heat death sounds grim but is really just change itself changing into something else sort of [I'm wildly oversimplifying the current thinking on the cosmology of the universe which is a bit beyond what I want to focus on today]).
What does this mean for us as actors? What does this possibly too abstract and maybe rambling mean for us? Our roles, our work and our whole careers are not things, they are a process, or a bunch of processes; we are on a journey. We are following a path. Our path as actors, our character's journeys are not a thing while we are on them. Only looking back will we be able to sum them up in any way. We make sense and tell ourselves a story of what happened once it has happened, once it is "done." It might be cliché, but all we do as actors is more a path than a place.
Tempting to simply end this post with the glib "life is a journey not a destination," but there are two problems with that. One: it is boring, which is usually not a great choice for an actor. Two: it is passive. We are not simply along for a ride. We are actors. We act. Our very job title is entirely focused on us doing stuff, taking action. Whether or not the universe cooperates and complies with our desires, or gratifies our intentions with our chosen outcome, our task is about acting. Whether or not we get what we want after we do what we do, is not our responsibility.
You could think of it as above our pay grade as humans to decide entirely the outcome of anything. Results are not our problem. Results are more like things. The path leads to the results, the story leads to its end, and the journey, the process is our world. It's our focus, and where our roles, careers and lives actually happen.
We don't watch a film for just the last two seconds and the credits; when we focus on our process, or role in things, then we can make a difference. It is as I have said before: it is not our job to book, it is our job to do what we do. Focus on your process. Focus on what you can do.
Labels: acting, inspiration, process
this posted by David August at 12:28 AM - 0 comments -
Tuesday, April 03, 2018
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
When Things Are Broken, Act Anyway
The text of what I say in this video, in case you would rather read instead of watch and listen:
Sometimes things don't seem to be working the way that we imagined they would be if things were ideal. See, as an actor, it's very easy to use one's imagination to picture how things could be if only. And so, you can find yourself on a set that doesn't have the ability or the time to get the shot they wanted to get: so they have to make some sort of compromise. Or you can find yourself in your own life working on something and you have to compromise something, or for some other reason something's not working right. But the key is: we have to lives anyway.
See, this isn't something that just applies to acting this is something that can apply to everything you're doing. Like right now, there's the sound of a highway sort of in the background. I'm using this partly to, hopefully, make it not as easy to hear. But the point is: you're never going to actually have the ideal situation but you still have to try to do the best you can, (whether it's acting, or living, or whatever), even though things aren't going precisely the way you would have them if it were 100 percent in your control (which it never is going to be).
So basically... I'm reminded of a friend at a party. I saw this friend hearing another friend (really more of an acquaintance) sharing one of those pieces of Hollywood "conventional wisdom" that's more conventional than actually wise. And my friend, I noticed, immediately almost built a blind spot over what that person was saying. Just completely didn't give it another moment's attention. It was actually kind of inspiring, because they were hearing nonsense, something that was not useful, not constructive to hear, and they pretty much decided not to hear it. And it's made me think that sometimes:
- you may be in an audition and maybe one of the people in the audition's answering the phone (that's happened to me),
- or they're taking a lunch order,
- or eating their lunch during the audition,
- they don't seem like they're paying attention (which if you're doing a TV or film audition, they may actually watch the footage later and figure seeing it live, since they're not casting you to do a live performance isn't as important),
but whatever the case: you still need to do your work as best you can because you want to book the job. And it's not about booking the job in the audition, it's about showing them what you can do. Because if you end up on set who knows what other kind of chaos, ridiculousness, or highway noise there's going to be.
You still need to do the work that is your work to do, even if the world isn't entirely cooperating. You can even have an agent put tremendous pressure on you to book something, maybe because they're having trouble paying their bills, and your job is to go into that audition and show the people in the audition room what you do, not to actually book the work even if that's something your agent is all but insisting you do, and sometimes doing in the most unconstructive, unsupportive terms. (I mention this because many years ago I had an agent who had a habit of not insulating their talent from pressure.)
So yes, in a perfect world people configure things such that between action and cut, or between curtain up and curtain down, an actor can do their best work. But we aren't in a perfect world. So we have to try to make sure we do our best work even if the world's not cooperating. And this applies to life too: you have to try to be the best friend, the best parent, the best child, the best sibling, the best significant other, and so forth, whether or not the world is cooperating.
Because you're never gonna get this moment, this day, this year, back. The time is gonna pass anyway, and as an old mentor once said, your time is the sum total of all of your wealth.
So that is my vaguely deep insights on a Monday. And if anyone would like some acting coaching: let me know I'm taking new clients. Thanks for watching.
Labels: acting, inspiration, process
this posted by David August at 10:01 AM - 0 comments -
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Pressure
Performing under pressure is not easy, it's a big topic and I'm only going to glancingly touch on it here and in this video. Pressure placed on us from the outside is hard enough. Like a someone on your team saying (well intentioned though it may be), Let's book this one...
(as if you were aiming to do something else), but pressure you put on yourself is a unique challenge.
Pressuring ourself, riddling your own thinking with expectations and external goals, is not always fun. The pressure, well, the call comes from inside the house so to speak. How to react, how to respond, how to do our work even when we ourselves are pressuring us to accomplish a result not within our control? The answer may be in the question: the outcome is not in our power to define, even if our work may influence it. So our focus is best used on that which we do control, on doing the work.
Let that which is outside of you be outside of you. Let that which is beyond our power to rigidly decide and control take care of itself. Wishing people and things outside ourselves would bend to our wishes may do many things, but the wish alone doesn't actually bend them. Our task, even when the stakes are high and we really really really want the gig/review/role/accolade/date is not transformed by all the distracting things our own desired outcomes manufacture. Say the words, pursue the objectives, try to make the other characters do what yours wants them to do. Simple doesn't mean easy, but focus, patience and the calm of knowing you will (n a fundamental sense) be ok no matter what happens, may help. Don't forget to breathe, and have some fun while you're at it too.
Labels: acting, auditions, process
this posted by David August at 10:00 AM - 2 comments -
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
You Are Not Stuck
Change is coming, you are not stuck whether or not it feels like it. Often progress in an acting career is not obvious, then one day an opportunity comes that never could have come earlier, and everything for the past weeks/months/years is revealed as having lead up to that opportunity. However, between those flashes of clarity, those outside validations, we may struggle to continue to act in faith.
The work itself, and the process of learning lines, preparing roles and auditioning are our tasks. The world may not grant us what we want, or when we want it. And even as it affects our lives, it is kind of none of our business. Nor is Luck. I've written before about luck, but it is worth reiterating again here: Luck is out of your control. What you do isn't. Focus on what you do.
So take breaks, find stillness, and find a way to avoid bitterness. Our lives include our work, and nothing we do can guarantee what we want will come our way. We can work diligently to stack the deck in our favor, to run our race, but in the end: our professional lives may not be totally under our control. And that's ok. Not only was this always true, it would be true in any other line of work too.
Writer and producer David Milch once said, acting in faith is how to not act in fear,
and while he was speaking about life in a general sense, it applies to our work too. Fear has been called the opposite of love, and our work may benefit from loving our characters, our colleagues and ourselves.
If you are frustrated, feel frustrated, if you are angry, feel angry, and if you are feeling down and like nothing can improve, then feel it and also remember it's a feeling not a fact.
Keep doing what makes sense to do, take care of yourself, and those you love. Remember to have fun today, not just tomorrow. Let me know if I can help.
Labels: acting, inspiration
this posted by David August at 10:00 AM - 0 comments -
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Stillness
Sometimes "nothing" is the right thing to do as an actor, acting needs silences. Like a piece of music, with rests, our work is not all big apparent and obvious behavior. Life needs stillness too. Can you be still.
Speech matters, lines are important as is what we do. But also lines are not the be all end all of our work as actors; acting is not recitation and behavior alone. Who we are, our "being" is involved.
Sometimes the right move is not to move. I don't mean just freeze, but on camera just thinking a thought, or feeling a feeling, can be captured by the mics and lenses; the impassive machines will see and hear the things in front of them dispassionately, and we can trust that. We don't always have to feed them; we as actors don't have to exert effort to make ourselves be witnessed between action and cut, to make glass and diaphragms do their task.
I coach actors (please let me know if I can help you) and sometimes our task includes finding how to help the actor let all the externals, the extrinsic motivation (I want the part, I want my work to be well received, I want them to like me, etc.) go, and simply focus. Not always easy to do this, and even more challenging depending how your day/week/month is going. Faith that it will be ok can help. Sometimes it is breathing. Sometimes something else. And sometimes there is not a special tactic, or secret move to make. Sometimes existing is the right thing, the only thing, the main thing.
So breathe, relax, and let a moment happen. Not every instant works because we exert our will on it. In life and work, being engaged with right now, and open to the world, is often the best course to follow.
this posted by David August at 10:00 AM - 0 comments -
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Acting with Uncertainty
Feeling that we know exactly what is perfect to do as an actor may be a first clue we are missing the mark.
It is worth noting: our work as actors is always meant to have an infusion of doubt, or uncertainty. Those aren't the right words for it, but total control and design is not quite what we're ever meant to do; facing uncertainty with courage has even been called our main task, and with good technique brought to bear we do have more options. That good technique can mean greater mastery of our instrument, but it shoudn't be a substitute for the immediacy of the moment. Work well, have fun; good luck.
this posted by David August at 10:00 AM - 0 comments -
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
June Gloom Means Good Filming
"June Gloom," is a good chance to take advantage of the natural diffusion and longer daylight that nature provides right now, and film things with your smartphone.
Have good shoots, and share with me what you end up getting shot. Maybe put it on your reel and share it on #DemoReelDay too.
Labels: acting, technology
this posted by David August at 10:01 AM - 0 comments -
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Demo Reel Captions on YouTube and Facebook
You should add captions your demo reel on YouTube and put your demo reel on Facebook in a good way. Uploading your demo reel video well is your last mile, your last step, of getting your work where it needs to be. If your demo reel (or showreel if you're from the British Commonwealth) is uploaded well, then it can to lead to good things for your career.
Today I'll focus on YouTube's captions and uploading to Facebook. I can delve into other areas, like demo reel titles and descriptions another time. I can also cover other places, like casting sites, another time if you'd like.
Sidenote: in 5 months you'll want to know how to post your reel on Twitter so you can be a part of the #DemoReelDay event I created and host. #DemoReelDay is a great free chance for actors' work to get seen. Last month's #DemoReelDay, during pilot season, had great success: agents, casting directors, producers, and multi-hyphenates watched our reels, engaged. New friendships, collaborations and fresh connections were forged on the first #DemoReelDay March 29, 2017:
The next #DemoReelDay is September 13th, during episodic season. On #DemoReelDay, uploading your reel directly to Twitter will make it easier for industry to watch it, and for your reel to be a part of other features like moments. End sidenote.
Today, I'll touch on YouTube captions and uploading your demo reel to your Facebook page.
YouTube takes a little while after uploading a video to make automatic captions, their computers' best guesses. Here's how we make captions work for us:
- Correct and replace the automatically generated captions. I used their built-in tool for this.
- Watch your demo reel, with the captions on, to make sure they are right. We are helping search algorithms and people who can't hear the video understand it with captions inside the video.
- Download and save the .sbv file of your YouTube captions. This file will be useful for uploading elsewhere, like Facebook, and you don't want to lose all your work making them right.
Now to upload it to your Facebook page (not your personal profile, but your fan page). I posted mine in a post like this:
And here is how we make it work for us:
- Upload the same video file you uploaded to YouTube.
- Fill out the fields on the basic tab, and add a custom thumbnail. I used the same thumbnail image file I used on YouTube.
- In the Captions tab, you'll need to upload your captions from step 3 above as a .srt file. Use a website that can covert your .sbv captions file into a .srt captions file. Facebook may complain about your .srt file unless it is named [filename].en_US.srt (I'm assuming your reel is in American English, if it isn't and you want guidance for yours, let me know).
- Don't need to do anything with the Advanced or Crossposting tabs.
- Watch your demo reel, with the captions on, to make sure everything is right. We are helping people and machines understand your video, and captions will display when people are scrolling through their Facebook feeds, making it immediately more intelligible.
That should put your demo reel on Facebook in a pretty good way. Hope this helps and let me know if you've any questions in the comments, on Twitter, or something like that. Good luck!
Labels: acting, technology, trends, youtube
this posted by David August at 6:01 PM - 0 comments -
Thursday, March 23, 2017
As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!
Study Your Lines and Be Able to Fast
Peter O'Toole is right about studying lines, and further:
Only when you can say your lines without thinking, almost in your sleep, can you then move past that "mechanical" stage and really ACT. That's what happens when the lines pop naturally into your head as you think and pursue your needs and desire onstage [or on screen], while focusing completely on who you're sharing that stage [or screen] with.
This is what young student actors who think that they can learn their lines at the last minute, and still act well and truly, don't understand until after they've had some years of experience. They think if they know the lines too far in advance they'll become "stale," they'll "peak too early." If you're a true artist, you can't "peak too early" because you know that you can never "peak." You're climbing that mountain from your first read-through of the play on through your final performance - your last "rehearsal" that you share with onlookers.
It's what separates the pros from the amateurs.
(by David Montee, and thanks to my friend Emily Randa for bringing these to my attention).
We know our lines must become natural, usually to the point of not feeling written. A messenger in Shakespeare reading a message is one example where they do not need to feel unwritten, but otherwise our words are meant to feel spontaneous. Hard to imagine doing that without knowing them inside and out, without being a bit more than off book. Thus study, not merely learning.
Our work is not a memorization test; we do more than just recite. Yet, sometimes we are handed lines moments before they must be delivered. There is a story that on the set of Gone with the Wind: sometimes script pages were being rushed from a trailer to set as the shots were being set up. We can't always bask in a lot of time to prepare. Is something lost when we are rushed, possibly. Is being rushed always avoidable, probably not.
To find faster methods of study is one of our tasks. Our working methods must be able to scale in time, as the needs of each project dictate, or even as each moment we are playing demands. At the risk of being to self promoting, I can help you to hone and increase your ways of doing this, and there are many memory techniques (for acting coaching, let me know how I can help). Perhaps we rehearse a fight sequence to be in an open space, and the production loses or changes locations: now it's in a hallway. All the better that you and your scene partners know the fight cold and can adapt moves and spacing. Maybe it's opening night and the playwright re-wrote the entire last third of the play. While it is stronger now, a speed through backstage is all the cast has now before curtain. Either of these scenarios is not ideal, but they have happened and, as other time compression has, they will happen again.
We must face uncertainty with courage in our work, and one of our few defenses against how disorienting and stressful this can be is preparation. Absorbing our lines can be key. I'll finish with an adaptation of what I think started as something the US Marines say, it came to me from a 2nd 2nd assistant director friend and used "planning" instead of "preparation":
The 6 P's of Production: Proper preparation prevents piss poor product.
this posted by David August at 1:18 PM - 0 comments -
