I think Rhapsidiom’s comments in his post here are right on target. We exchange comments after his post.
Someone’s got a photo posted of me at the LDS film festival. They don’t know it’s me - I’m just sitting in an event. I’m sitting on the far right, and I look like a vaguely mopy dork. Britani Bateman (The RM, Mobsters and Mormons) is standing on the left.
I read this newsletter saying to market yourself as an actor using one or two “types” (mythical types probably based on Joseph Cambpell’s work). These are: The Innocent, The Regular Guy, The Explorer, The Sage, The Hero, The Outlaw, The Magician, The Lover, The Jester, The Ruler, The Caregiver, The Creator.
Kirby Heybourne I think would be an Innocent Jester. Britani Bateman is totally a Lover Caregiver. What would I market myself as? Lets work from that picture. Again, I look like a vaguely mopy dork. I think that translates to The Regular Guy, and mixing this with I’m guessing my often heckling reputation at this forum, I’m probably an Outlaw, too. This translates in non-mythical terms to “An everyday jerk”. I think I’d better change that 
but at least I can be relieved that the archetypes aren’t so specific as “Jerk”. Or “Obsessed Maniac.” I’m also that. Except I’m not - I’m a Regular Outlaw.
I’d like to work in elements of The Explorer, The Hero, The Sage, The Magician, and the Creator.. but then I’d have to cast off heckling pretensions! Ahem. I mean I’d have to cast off Regular Outlaw.
Until then, in this photo I’m smiling, at least..
I got a clip from HaleStorm entertainment of my scene. Here it is. But first, when I was converting it from .mp4 to .mov format, I got some weird warping effects on me when the process didn’t work because my quicktime pro was outdated. Here they are.
This inspires a character (brief audio clip). “Why don’t you take a look at me? Does it look to you like I don’t know the difference between an ogre and a human?”
Okay so here’s my clip. Do not watch this clip of me in Mobsters and Mormons. Go see the movie. DO NOT WATCH THIS CLIP OF ME IN MOBSTERS AND MORMONS. GO SEE THE MOVIE. DO NOT WATCH THIS CLIP OF ME IN MOBSTERS AND MORMONS!! GO SEE THE MOVIE!! HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO SEE A MORMON FILM TO APPEASE THE FILM GODS?! ALWAYS MORE THAN YOU HAVE, IT’S NEVER ENOUGH ‘TILL IT HURTS!! DON’T LIE TO ME LIKE I’M JUDGE JUDY, YOU KNOW YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT ENOUGH!
My self-review: I think I acted my first and second lines well, and the third maybe a little iffy. But quirky in an interesting way. I know in a marketing sense it’s evil to proclaim any potential flaw in what I do when others are involved. However, this doesn’t trouble me, because I’m evil.
The film releasing today in which I have my first lines, it’s time I followed up on my promise to write about what persuaded me to act. Following is an abridgement of previously unpublished writing about it.
In June 2003, I was reading a test preparation book which described methods to calm over-anxiety and free up energy to perform well. It suggested vividly recalling moments of past successes, times I did something really well. Doing this for an exam connects feelings of past success to the present, producing a calm confidence. This book asked me to list memories of when I did really well with something and felt really satisfied. Reflecting for a while I came up with many things I did just well enough, but not well, nothing I was satisfied with - until one memory came: haunting and thrilling at the same time.
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Last night I saw myself in a big movie, speaking lines with big actors, thus enlarging the size of my head. At least, my head was really big on a big screen.
I enjoyed the film a lot. I thought there were a lot of very funny scenes, that it was a riot on the whole, and also that it held together while being poigniant, which is a very difficult thing for a comedy to do.
Afterwards a friend asked if it was weird to see myself on the screen. Yes, it was disorienting - the shots for my scene were assembled with a timing and sequence different from what I imagined, and the improvised lines weren’t used. I was so distracted wondering about the cause it took me a long while to suspend disbelief again.
Good shots and lines can be taken out of films if they break editorial continuity - not matching other shots, etc. It can be painful but better the film.
I’ll look forward to seeing the official Utah premiere without my distractions, on the 7th.
I landed my small role in Mobsters and Mormons because I got to know the director - John Moyer - and kept in occasional email correspondence with him, which led to the auditon and the part. I got to know the director in an acting class that he and Michelle Wright ran. I also took a screenwriting workshop from John.
I have five lines if they use the take that I think they will. Originally I had three lines and improvised two more stupid lines in response to the lead actor ad-libbing. He may have add-libbed because my character was a fool for his character to prod and malign. After this add-libbed take the cast and crew laughed: that’s why I think they’ll use the take. That my character possesed me during my closeup, and the lead actor also drew more of it out of me, and that it all illicited laughter - this was very, very gratifying.
[I keep getting nasty trackback links posted to my entires that relate most closely to my creative ambitions. Someone out there wants to pollute that. No more luck for them. TRACKBACKS OFF.]
In recent years, various situations have impelled me to seriously reconsider a previously buried dream of being an actor, then revive and pursue it. I wrote scraps here and there about these experiences and owe it to myself (and probably the curiosity of others) to gather them into one. I’ll do that, revising this entry from time to time.
Meanwhile, I’ll recall one of the prompts: a sentence in a new-agy titled book:
“Make no decisions based on security. There is none.”
Strictly, I disagree with this sentence. I believe there are things about which we can be absolutely certain. The context in which this sentence was given may admit that (I don’t recall). But the point is that there is risk of failure and insecurity in everything. If we run risks everyday in a pursuit or occupation we don’t like, why not take (carefully planned) risks for an occupation we really want, instead?
A counter-argument is that risk is greater for artists. Barring situations with factors that truly cut off success for artists, I say that this is not so: only for failures on the part of the artist in self-marketing, self-development, business savvy, etc. Pointing back to the everything is a risk argument, these skills are necessary to every professional pursuit.
This philosophy is dangerous to folks of black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking (yours truly). No one should burn their life to the ground and hope that all their buried dreams will resurface in a new life instantly reborn. More on this later.
