Santa monica Demo reels

A Short Film by Elijah Dale (age 3.5)

santamonicademoreels — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:05:21 +0000

Cleaning up LA

santamonicademoreels — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:51:10 +0000

I have been working in Down Town LA, in the Arts district. nice place. I have been working with Sam, who has lived down town for twenty years and for most of that time a homeless guy kept an eye on the parking lot for the residents of the area. In exchange he got some hand-me-down clothes and on occasion food just before it went off. The homeless man was recently chased off, for good, by the cops in an effort to “clean up the area” . The cops patrol the neighborhood by bike in an effort to make down town LA look more like down town Portland. Trouble is, now that Sam’s homeless friend is gone. His car keeps getting broken into. Sam is so glad they are cleaning up the city.

Arron Shiver’s 3 minute demo reel

santamonicademoreels — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:57:16 +0000

This is a shorter version of his reel. I think I prefer it. However, Arron belives the longer one (with a slight modification) will be of more use to him. He never listens to me that willful young man, and yet it seems to do him no harm.

she’s a cunt for the butter

santamonicademoreels — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:38:18 +0000

So…. My brother Cort and I decided that we would have a little competition for the sake of SEO science, in which we would compete for a higher position on the google index using a random phrase. We asked my girlfriend Sarah Jane to supply us with that random phrase…

Like what? She asked
Anything. We said,
Anything? She asked again, perhaps not understanding the very public nature of our bet.

Then, Sarah Jane, who is always a lady, surprised us with:

“She’s a cunt for the butter”

Now, Cort has an advantage here because he knows much more about search engine optimization than I do. However, I know the source of the phrase and can tell the story of it’s becoming. Perhaps, just this once, content can be victorious over form.

The scene is as follows:

Sarah Jane is on a train going from Tralee county Kerry Ireland to Dublin City. The Irish country side is whizzing by, blurring all forty shades of green, and the conductor is announcing each stop in a country accent so thick, on a PA system so bad, that even she can’t understand what he’s saying. She over hears two elderly ladies discussing recipes that they picked up on Ireland’s most popular cooking show with the celebrity chef Darina allen. For the sake of this dramatization lets go ahead and say that the sweet elderly ladies names are Shevaun and Clair and lets say they are discussing a recipe for trout.

Shevaun: …well You clean the fish like any other. You’d want to Dry it with some kitchen roll. Season with salt and pepper. And then you set a big lump of butter right in the middle of the fish with a sprig of fennel for color, then you take some aluminum foil and smear butter on the center of it. Put the trout onto the buttered bit and fold over the edges. Seal it up. Then you bung it in the oven for about twenty minutes.

Just after having put the fish in you’d want to make the spinach butter sauce straight away:

Clair: Go on.

Shevaun: First Put the cream into a saucepan and simmer on low heat until its reduced to about 3 tablespoons. Then, on a very low heat like, whisk in the butter bit by bit, like you were—

Clair: She’s good Darina alright, I’ve used her recipes for years, so I have, but SHE’S A CUNT FOR THE BUTTER!

Click here for the recipe

Arron Shiver’s 6 minute Demo Reel

santamonicademoreels — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:58:09 +0000

Arron Shiver was the darling of his Calarts class, and a huge talent. I know this first hand as I cast him in my film String Theory which he carried on his back. It came as a shock to some ( or at least to me) that less that a year after graduating he and his wife decided to move from LA back to Taos New Mexico where he is from. They had their reasons. His wife was pregnant and they had the support network in Taos they felt they needed .

Naturally…

I over stepped my bounds as a friend and a colleague when I told Arron in no uncertain terms that he was making a mistake. A BIG MISTAKE!
You need to be in LA where the action is. I demanded.
What are you going to do in Taos?
Are you going to pay your student loans by doing community theater? I sneered.
People raise kids in LA all the time.
Please, don’t through it all away, I begged dramatically .

Arron did not listen to me, he never does, and moved back home. The result of not listening to ones slightly older and much wiser friends, is posted below. It is in the form of stats I got from IMDB

# Sex & Lies in Sin City (2008 (TV) (filming) …. Evan James
# Sex & Lies in Sin City (2009) (post-production) …. Bernard
# Spoken Word (2009) (post-production) …. Paramedic
# ,Brothers (2008 (post-production) …. A.J.
# Not Forgotten (2008 (post-production) …. Deputy Pratt
# Love N’ Dancing (2008 (post-production) …. Wedding DJ
# Swing Vote (2008 (completed) …. Greenleaf’s Aide
# Hamlet 2 (2008 …. Virgil
# Sunshine Cleaning (2008 …. Detective
# Love Lies Bleeding (2008 (V) …. Room Service Waiter
# “Comanche Moon” (2008 TV mini-series …. Stove Jones
# In the Valley of Elah (2007) …. Cop
# 3:10 to Yuma (2007) …. Bill Moons
# Naked Fear (2007) …. Dwight Terry
# Save Me (2007) …. Jude
# “The Lost Room” (2006) TV mini-series …. Counter Clerk
# Beerfest (2006) …. Strike Out Kid
# Believe in Me (2006) …. Johnny Price
# Three Wise Guys (2005) (TV) …. Wayne
# North Country (2005) (as Aaron Shiver) …. Young Male Doctor
# “Wildfire” …. Lenny Kellman (1 episode, 2005)
– Pilot (2005) TV episode …. Lenny Kellman
# “Into the West” (2005) TV mini-series …. Maj. Edward W. Wynkoop
# String Theory (2004) …. Johnny
# Elvis Has Left the Building (2004) …. Gas Station Guy
# The Missing (2003/I) …. Rancher
# 21 Grams (2003) …. Young Doctor
# Screen Door Jesus (2003) …. George Herbert Jr.

I would be willing to bet my next paycheck that Arron has worked more than any actor from his graduating class. He makes his a living as an actor (no mean accomplishment) and raises his son (with his wife, Anais) in Taos New Mexico. It’s true he got lucky in that New Mexico has seen an unprecedented amount of production in the last few years. It is not however a matter of luck that the very busy NM casting agent, Jo Edna Boldin has taken a shine to him. His success is a result of his talent that stands out no matter where he lives. So I was wrong. Sue me. Arron’s latest reel is below. I edited two versions, one six minutes and one three. I will post the shorter one tomorrow.

Just This

santamonicademoreels — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:41:23 +0000

The only person to find this blog yesterday by search engine, found it with the words”naked girls” … there it is again in case you were looking…. tomorrow…. Arron Shiver‘s reel.

The Oracle at Desktop

santamonicademoreels — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:33:13 +0000

I remember when Mark Miller from my block told me that it was against the law to lie on TV. I believed him. I had no reason not to. It made sense to me . It appealed to my idea of fairness. I don’t remember how or why I stopped believing it. However, it turns out that the notion that the TV tells no lies is wide spread… very wide spread! Adults, who hold down jobs and wield positions of authority still believe it today, or some version of it.

I often act as if it’s true, even though experience, and just plain common sense tell me otherwise. My computer monitor is basically square and emits light. It is the child of television, and more than believing that it does not lie, I have (in my behavior anyway) taken it a step further to believing that it holds deep truths and has the power to transmit those truths. I stare at it. All the time! I poke around on the internet, not knowing why or what I am looking for. If it were up to me they would call the NYT website, the New York( all the) Times. I find myself searching. Sometimes I look for clues to the mystery of me. I take the path of least resistance and google myself.

My brother showed me the Blog of his long time friend, Ashley Pond. His site is Sedition.com It’s a good site, entertaining and as deep or shallow as the reader is willing to go. Also, Ashley has published what I assume is the best of his query log. Just in case you don’t know what that means (as yesterday I did not), people type words into their search engine and when they are directed to Ashley’s site, he can see what words they typed to get there.

Most of the queries he’s published have a humorous element. Often proving that there is in fact such a thing as a dumb question.

Should the president be impeached?
is it correct young people donot pay attention to correct language?

but naked girls

However the ones that caught my attention were more heartbreaking than stupid, more earnest than salacious.

Why are some kids smarter than me?

It’s crazy to think that the answers to our deepest questions could be found on the internet. Or is it? It’s an old tradition. People have employed profits and oracles since before recorded history. Why should we be different? We do not come with instructions, and when we do they usually apply to an earlier model of humanity.

Maybe it is part of our nature to ask whatever oracle is available to us to favor us with a few answers to life’s mysteries, be it Delphi or Desktop.

There are those who believe that as human knowledge comes online we get closer to creating a real oracle, one small step from creating a god. Sure, some of the answers are false, most even, but it’s always been that way.

Ignore the man behind the curtain (he is no more than a man after all).

The Value of Brass part 2

santamonicademoreels — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:23:33 +0000

The first part of this story was posted some time ago, so here’s a link if you have not read it.

Waleed was in and getting in is hard. Everybody knows that, but what is important to this story is how Waleed behaved once on the other side. It can be summed up in the word “presence” . Waleed was in rehearsal as an understudy. Which meant that he had the hard task of rehearsing without rehearsing. Doing by watching. Taking notes. An understudy wants to perform but if they get to perform they will basically go on un or under rehearsed. While they ( most likely) have no ill will toward the actor they are understudying , how can they not help but to whish them a broken ankle or an aneurism. They are there, paid, and most of the time called upon to do nothing. The tendency I have observed is to disengage. To become separate from the project, and to become resentful because they have signed up for second class status. However, I remember how engaged Waleed was, and his lack of resentment, when he was not running lines with Omar, he was helping me with some Arabic translation, and every time I turned around he was there with a smile or a word of encouragement, yet he was not in the way. No easy trick.

Then it came to pass….

That we were having problems with the part of Saleem, Mahmoud’s uncle. In three productions we had not managed to get that part right. The actor we had hired to play Saleem was fine, yet somehow the very pivotal scene in which he played always seemed wrong. In a late blurry meeting over drinks Garry looked at me and said

“What if he weren’t the uncle but his older brother instead”.

We called in Waleed to read the scene with Omar and without changing a word it made more sense. A lot more sense. (in the sprit of full disclosure there are people who believe this was the wrong choice, and that the play was damaged by this move. They maybe right)

This was great for Waleed, who got out of being an understudy and got to sink his teeth into a meaty role, and not so great for the actor we had hired to play Saleem. However, that actor bowed out with grace and is also someone (should I ever get the chance) I would hire.

So there it is. Brass and Presence.

Ed Harcourt on the Tonight Show.

santamonicademoreels — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:09:01 +0000

There it was, great new music broadcast on millions of American televisions.

Because, I grow more cynical by the day, particularly in regard to the media industry, it’s important for me to recognize and acknowledge authenticity when I see it.

Sarah Jane and I were invited by our friend Raife to come back stage for the taping of The Tonight Show. Raife plays drums for Ed Harcourt, and they were the musical act on Friday night. It was nice to see them all a bit nervous before their number. We tend to think of musicians as some how being cooler than the rest of us, but it turns out they are people, the same as you and I and the rare opportunity of playing for millions of people at once was not lost on them. It seemed to me that their nerves were a good thing. Something to soften the glare of the spotlight. They played with grace under pressure. Playing with Ed Harcourt are:

Bass …Ashley Dzerigian

Drums…..Raife Burchell

Trumpet…Stuart Cole

violin .. Gita Harcourt

guitar .. Jeff Klien

Like Jay Leno says at the top of the clip they’re playing The Roxy on the tenth of July.

1:00 AM Santa Monica part 3 (the end)

santamonicademoreels — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:17:18 +0000

They did not take out their clubs and beat him but I did see through the tree limbs and the gaps between the cops, the man crawling on his hands and knees on the cold pavement stuffing his belongings back into the trash bag he was using to carry them in. When he had repacked, he scuttled off onto Lincoln Boulevard, baseball hat pulled low, trash bag on his shoulder. They let him go

As soon as he was gone the officers relaxed some. They stood around another couple of minutes.

Well, lets see, last time I saw you was at the thing for Francis, in the summer.
Is that right? Wow, it has been a long time.

They chit chatted in groups of two or three.
Then they decided almost at once, without a word said, to move on.
They all waved to each other and seemed genuinely pleased with themselves, and they got into their cop cars and drove away.

That’s it?
Yeah I guess.
I thought they were going to arrest him or beat him up or something.

I checked my email again for good measure.
Connecting securely to G mail.
Getting list of messages
1 message downloading…

I had an email! Something was coming in. It was taking a second to appear and in that time I allowed myself a fantasy;

Dear Eli,

I love this play… I read it, and was amazed by it and read it again, you are a truly gifted writer—

Human rights watch?
Human Goddamned rights watch!

I glance over what they have to say, Tibet, Darfur, the Soviet Union, The Palestinian Territories… all the usual suspects, all worse than ever. Things are bad out there.

I turned off my computer , and closed the shade. I brushed my teeth with my electric spinbrush™ by Crest, which almost a year on still does not fail to please me, and got into bed. I woke up some hours into the night and I wondered why the man who did not appear to be homeless was carrying his clothes in a plastic sack, and did he really love the woman or did he think she was a bitch or both, and did he feel humiliated as the cops watched him put his clothes back into his trash bag or did he feel lucky that they did not beat him silly. Did he get what he deserved? Maybe he deserved to be beaten and then sent to prison to be continually raped or maybe he deserved the dignity of a suitcase with wheels to carry his stuff in. Maybe he deserved a second chance at making love work, or maybe he had blown all his chances already.

I go back to sleep.

In the morning, I checked my e-mail while the kettle was still boiling but, Sunday holds little chance for validation. Validation never comes on a Sunday. They say it’s the Lord’s day. Luckily Monday always comes, with it’s dull glimmer of hope.