Pittsburgh Audition and family visit.

I had a lot of fun.  It was really swell to see my cousins again and audition for a new casting director.  I took the megabus over there, it's hard to argue with a $35 round trip from NYC to Pittsburgh. You'd spend more money on tolls if you drove yourself!

So anyway I had a lovely time with my cousin Johnathan and his wife Jaynie.  They have a really nice home in Pittsburgh and his sister and brother in law came over with their adorable and hysterical son, Isaiah.  He is going to be an actor, mark my words.  His father enjoyed a nice career as well before making a career switch to youth ministry.  Johnathan's parent's came over too.  His mom is my dad's first cousin, that's how the relation works.  Pittsburgh is a really pretty city.  There are so many bridges and hills and it's just.....really really cool.  I suggest you head over there, for real. 

So cousin Johnathan dropped me off a few minutes before my 1pm audition last Thursday and I had a chance to relax, shake off the nerves etc.  I arrived there with sides for a different character than what I was auditioning for.  I was auditioning for "Sledge" a 250 lb gorilla who gets his kicks by working his job as an enforcer for a notorious mob boss, "Casket Mike", played by Eric Roberts.

When I walked in to the audition room, not only was the CD there but the director himself was there.  This guy, he was really laid back, cool and complimentary. He'd be great to work with, methinks.   The CD asked me who I was auditioning for, I told her "Sledge" and she told me that I was physically right for the role.  She also informed me that I did in fact have sides to read that are specific to my character.  For those of you who do not know, sides are bits of dialog for your character.  Sometimes it's just 2 sentences, like this one was, and sometimes it can be 5 different scenes, like the "Memphis Beat" audition I went on, (at the time called "Delta Blues".)

The CD asked me if I wanted to go over the lines for a second and come back in.  I thought to myself......Phillip, you're already in the room, the vibe is cool, you work on cold reading all the time, just do it.  I said "I feel comfortable cold reading it."
"Really?  Are you sure?" 
"Yes, you either think I am right for the role or you don't, you either think I can act or you don't.  I also don't want to hold up the audition times, so I am comfy going."
"Well OK then, slate your name." 
"Wait, am I looking at the reader or into the camera?"
"The reader."

I slated my name and I crushed it.  Totally.  My acting coach was right.  ("Like him" on Facebook! The widget or whatever you call it is on this very page.) If you just even arbitrarily assign guideposts to things and endow peoples names with some sort of an opinion and vary up your rate, inflection, pitch and dynamic......it will come across great.  They all told me that I did a great job, which they didn't have to say at all.  I left and took a cab to downtown Pittsburgh, met up with my super great and sweet agent, Tara.  We hadn't seen each other in 4 years!!!!!!!  Then I went to Primanti's for lunch.

Sweet googly moogly Primanti's is great.  They serve massive sandwiches with tomato, coleslaw and french fries in between the bun.  I repeat: in between the bun.  Hot DAMN!  And the place is covered in Pittsburgh sports memorabilia.  I am a ginourmous Steeler fan.  Check out the mural.

Then I was back on the bus at 5pm and arrived in NYC around 1am, got home to my wife whom I missed oh so terribly around 215am - damn you N/Q trains!  We woke up at 630 to go to Maine for a wedding and a mini-vacation.  That is for another blogpost though.  I am still digesting my trip.  Literally.  I ate half my body weight in lobster, oysters and clams. 

It was a nice but cramped drive back.  Pennsylvania is a gorgeous state.  I leave you with a sunset kissing the ridge mountains from my trip back......

El Boxeo

I realized that it has been a while since I typed to you about boxing.  I missed the last 1 1/2 weeks of classes due to work related stuff and weddings etc.  Yesterday I returned and promptly paid the price.  It's amazing how a week and a half of not working out and indulging a bit will kill your progress. 

We started off with some light jogging.  Well, not light in the true sense of the word.  We ran for 10 minutes, but with 5lb weights in our hands.  30 seconds with regular arm motion, 30 seconds with our arms extended in front of us, elbows locked and 30 seconds with our arms hoisted above our heads, once again, elbows locked. 

This left me a bit winded.  Then it was time to shadow box.  3 minute rounds of furious punching, breaks of one minute, we did this 3 times.  Shadowboxing is really hard.  Common wisdom claims that you spend more energy when you punch and miss than when you land a punch, and I believe this.  Shadowboxing is nothing but missing punches if you think about it.

We then did "one-two's".  That's when you square up with a partner and tap gloves at a furious speed (left right left right left right etc etc).  Hence the term.  You do this for four two minute rounds with a one minute break.

Then it was time for the slap games.  We pair up and stay on the balls of our feet hand in gloves at our hips and we try to throw a haymaker slap to the persons shoulder.....and sometimes face if its ok with both of you.  Ordinarily I'm cool with face contact, but I have my Pittsburgh audition Thursday and I have to look at pretty as possible.  We did this for 3 rounds of 2  minutes.  When the shoulder slap was over we took off our gloves and kept on our hand wraps and did the slap game with the inside of each others knees.  It looked like a lame version of the Kumatai from "Bloodsport". 

After this, it was time for conditioning.  We would take 5 lb weights and punch as fast as we can doing the 1-2-1-2-1-2 etc for a minute straight then do "down thrusts".  Normally, something with that name is pretty appealing, but not this time.  You fall down to all fours like you are doing a push up and thrust your knees up to your chest and leap up with your hands in the air and land on two feet and repeat.  We would punch for 60 seconds, down thrust for another 60 and rest for 30.  We did this 4 times.

I then went home, showered and passed out to the Jets and Giants game. 

Good times good times

So the aforementioned conference call went well.  Nothing is official yet, and I never consider ANYTHING official until the check is in the bank; but, the conference call seems to have yielded some fruit and by that I mean money, moolah, wampum, scratch, papers to be stacked et cetera.  This development kicked off the weekend in glorious fashion.  Celebratory BBQ with Gut Punch and friends, back to NJ for a pool party and then back to NYC on Sunday to film a very funny bit with Gut Punch. 

We should have a rough edit in a day or so.  It's a spoof on the Incredible Hulk and Snooki from "Jersey Shore".  We cast a young lady from my acting class to play the....let's call the character...."Incredible Guidette".  She worked out great.  We are very excited about recent events. 

So, I'm in NYC today and tomorrow, leaving for Pittsburgh Wednesday AM, returning technically speaking Friday AM around 1, and leaving for a wedding in Maine this weekend the very next morning.  Moral of the story is, don't be expecting much in the way of new posts after tomorrow until next week. 

Gut Punch Greatness and success

A few posts ago I mentioned how we missed the boat on an e-mail as it went unchecked for 4 months.  I also mentioned that we shot an apology video to send to the client.  Here it is:


Fashionably Late Reply from Crandall Miller on Vimeo.



Funny huh?  Why, thank you.  And guess what?  It worked!!!! HAHAHAH.  The client wants to have a conference call at 2pm today.  This of course is subject to change.  Stay tuned for updates. 

Update:  Conference call at 4pm.  Fingers crossed.

EPA 2DAY 4 MOV (Updated 8/12)

That's code.  Code for what?  Code for "Equity Principle audition today for 'Merchant of Venice'".  That's what!  I am excited.  I got my trusty if not lucky 2:50 audition time.  I like that time.  It works well with real estate showings.  A lot of people like to see things on their lunch  break or after work, so consequently, 2-4pm is kind of slow, and at times, dead! 

I'm very excited for this audition.  I believe that I am right for the role of "Lancelot Gobbo", and a previously aired shakespearian monologue on this site was indeed Lancelot Gobbo's.  So, wish me luck.  But also, wish that the role is not yet filled.  That's the tricky thing with Equity auditions.  They by union rules have to hod auditions.  This remains true even if the role has been filled.  Often times you have no idea, until you walk in the room and there are 8 people (role is up for grabs), or there is 1 person, usually an ASM, and the role is painfully so, already cast.

Oh yeah, a few days ago I mentioned that I joined twitter.  Well, yesterday I canceled it.  Meh.

UPDATE:  The audition went really well.  I had her laughing, smiling and genuinely enjoying my take on Lancelot Gobbo.  However, it was just a casting associate; who knows if the role has/hasn't already  been cast.  She was very kind and created a supportive environment.  I'm officially putting it out of my head............now!

Two pickets to Tittsburgh please!

I mentioned in this post that my PA agent was going to submit me for work in Pittsburgh.  I asked my loyal reader(s) if they would go to an audition in Pittsburgh.  There was one response involving my childhood station wagon.  Needless to say this was not the deciding factor for me to choose to accept the audition time and go to "The Mighty Burg".  Some deciding factors are: I need to get something under my belt ASAP, the role sounds like a juicy hamburger, the CD is LA based, I have family in Pittsburgh and Megabus only charges $35 for a round trip.  Additionally, my wife thought it was a good idea.  On top of all of that....it's not like I'm exactly swamped with auditions at the moment....so, why the heck not?!!?

The audition is on the 19th, so I'm heading in on the 18th.  After the 7 hour and 40 minute bus ride (!) I will stay with my cousin Johnathan and his wife Jaynie.  I also get to see my agent, Tara!  She just got a new office in Pittsburgh.  I haven't seen her in maybe.....4 years? I look forward to all of this!

The movie is called "New York Heartbeat".  It's about gangsters in the 1950's.  The director looks pretty great too.  This guy has directed a lot of stuff but this will be his first bigtime movie.  I'm excited.  I'd eventually like to entertain the idea of doing the bi-coastal thing, and an LA based casting director could serve as a catalyst.  Sidenote: I love the word catalyst.  (one more time)....CATALYST! I'm going out for the role of "Sledge", a 250 lb gorilla.  An enforcer who takes pride in hurting people and get his rocks off when he does well for his boss, whose name is "Casket Mike".  That role is gonna be played by Eric Roberts - really cool.

Gutpunch is meeting up tonight at 6 to film our apology video.  I look forward to this. 

Gut Punch evening

In a rare instance of life imitating art (obnoxious hint: it's usually the other way around) actual companies have been contacting Gut Punch for advertising work.  Most of the time, the companies are in on the joke, but sometimes we are not so sure.  Tonight we are going to reply to a new business lead we have.  The only problem is, and I find this to be a rather hysterical problem, we are four months late on this response.  Ha.  In typical Gut Punch fashion, since we all had access to the general e-mail account, no one actually bothered to log in and check messages.  So here we are, 120+ days after the fact about to reply to the query.

Needless to say, a simple email back to the guy will not suffice, we have to make a video to send to him essentially apologizing for the egregious fuck up.  We have a few ideas, and all of them are funny.   I'm pretty excited about this.   UPDATE: Because we have such an amazing group mind, filming has been pushed to Monday,  more updates to come. 

After that Mrs Philly Ray and I are going to the RUMBLE ON THE RIVER!  This tough guy I have trained with and have sparred with, Sergio is going to box tonight.  He is making his amateur debut.  Guy is really really good.  I outweigh him by probably 100 pounds, and he destroyed me on the reg.  Anywho....tickets are free, its on west 44th street and the West Side Highway and tickets are free, should be awesome. 

I joined twitter.  If Troy Polamalu can tweet, I suppose I can too.

Small thought: The 7 train is like........the Noah's Ark of people.