12 Things Every Aspiring Actor Should Know (and stop calling yourself “aspiring” — you’re either an actor or you’re not)

An interview with Troy Rudolph: Actor
article by E.R. Womelsduff

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The Don’ts

1. Don’t tweet privileged information about the show you’re working on.
2. Don’t give yourself a time limit after which you’ll give up and get a “real” job.
3. Don’t go into an audition without your sides.
4. Don’t piss off the people who do your lighting or your make up.
5. Don’t leave everything to your agent.

The Dos

1. Respect the crew.
2. Pick an eye and stick with it.
3. Hit your mark without looking.
4. Use every moment on a project as a learning experience.
5. Let the director direct you.
6. For the love of God, tell someone if you’re leaving set.
7. Understand that everyone in the audition room is on your side.

Troy Rudolph

Rudolph is, in his own words, “a clichéd struggling actor who pays the bills working as a background performer.”  His first industry job was as a locations production assistant on the show Viper in 1996, although when he was in high school his aunt got him a job working as a greensman for a commercial (basically he had to mow the lawns and tear down a barn house, but hey, it was technically a gig).  In college, he studied film production and dealt blackjack during the summers, but his first love was always acting.  

Actually, his first love was space and he wanted to be an astronaut, but his second love was definitely acting.  “I don’t understand why everybody doesn’t want to [act].  You get to be other people and exist in other places and live in other times and on other planets and do things no one gets to do in real life.  It’s the most completely fulfilling thing I can imagine doing with my life.”


His favorite memory is the first day he worked on Battlestar Galactica.  “I grew up watching the original series, so putting on the uniform and stepping onto the deck of the ship was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done.”  There is a pause as he thinks about it a moment longer.  “I guess working with Halle Berry was cool, too.”  This last in reference to the scene he shot with her in Frankie & Alice.

Rudolph opposite Halle Berry in Frankie & Alice

His worst memory was from his time working on a show that he’d prefer remain unnamed.  

I had the opportunity to audition for the show and I booked the role and there was some indication that the role might recur, nothing was said for sure, but there was the hint that it might.  A couple months later I was brought in to audition for what appeared to be a completely different role.  A few days later I’m doing my regular background work and I see the call sheet and my character’s name and another actor’s name next to it and I realized that they’d auditioned me twice for the same role and then cast another actor.  I didn’t find out ‘til I was on set.  I had to continue working on the show that day with the other actor there and try and bottle it up as best I could.

I ask him about the worst mistake he ever made on set.  I can hear the bark of laughter over the phone.

Oh that’s easy.  When I was working on Smallville as a stand-in I was tweeting about it, and I was trying to be very careful to never give anything away in regards to plot or story.  Every time I posted about Smallville I would gain 30 new followers, it was strange.  And I guess I said a few things that I possibly shouldn’t have and it came to the attention of certain people in power and I got in trouble for that.  I could have been fired but they fortunately liked having me around and I owned what I did and apologized, so I ended up getting suspended for a week, and really it was just me using poor judgment.  It was probably the stupidest thing I ever did, professionally.  I’m a lot more careful with my Tweets now.   Nobody was really prepared for how to handle this new social media phenomenon.  We didn’t really have a lot of rules in place for it.  I probably became a case study.  I’m sure I come up in meetings for other shows when they talk about confidentiality.

Troy Rudolph watching Bella Swan receive her diploma in Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1

As a veteran of background work, extras work, and the endless audition process, Rudolph tells me of a piece of advice he got early on that ended up ruining his shot at a few roles:

My friend once told me, ‘When an actor goes into the room to audition, they shouldn’t have their sides.  You should go in there, you should know it, and you should impress the hell out of them.’  I made the argument that in DVD extras, actors like Guy Pearce have their scripts.  He reminded me that I’m not Guy Pearce.  So I felt that I had to go in without the sides, and it...well, it backfired.  A friend of mine who is a well-known, established actor told me he goes in with his sides all the time.  So now whenever I go into an audition, I always have my pages with me.

When I ask Rudolph what upsets him about the film and TV industry, he laughs.  “Oh so many things.  It can be so frustrating, especially as an actor, trying to get your foot in the door and break in and you keep seeing the same people over and over and over again getting these opportunities and you cannot for the life of you seem to break in no matter how hard you try.”

But perseverance seems to be Rudolph’s middle name.  In addition to his usual round of background work (“apparently I’m going to be on Fringe a lot this season”), he is tentatively attached to a science fiction series that is in development in Vancouver.  “I can’t tell you a lot yet, it’s in the very early stages.  I’m just hoping it happens.”  He has also written several features and is currently working on two separate web ideas, one an original and one a six-part Dr. Who series.  In his spare time, he makes elaborate costumes.  “My mother taught me how to sew because she didn’t want to make anything for me anymore and I took to it like a fish to water.  I’m working on a renaissance costume, a Death Eater costume from Harry Potter, and a Batman costume.”  He has promised to Tweet a picture of his living room for me, which doubles as a sewing room.

Rudolph wearing his Battlestar Galactica uniform on set.

When I ask him what he would tell people who are waiting for their big break, he gets serious.  

If this is the only thing you can imagine doing with your life, you have to be patient.  You have to self-promote.  Your agent can only do so much.  You have to be very hands-on. Keep trying.  I honestly believe that people who give up on their dreams were never really that serious about achieving them. I had a friend recently ask me, ‘Have you given yourself a time limit?’  And I said no, I’m going to keep trying ‘til I make it or I’m dead.

And he has kept this promise to himself. From 2007 to 2012 he worked on Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Defying Gravity, Eureka, Psych, and Fringe, not to mention the dozens of films and shows he's worked on as crew. He’s quick to remind me that actors like Alan Rickman didn’t get their big break until they were 45.  But a big break doesn’t just “happen.”  When people tell him they’re “aspiring” actors, he asks, "So what restaurant do you wait tables at?" I can almost hear his smile turn serious over the phone as the real issue surfaces:

Honestly, though, what are you doing to be an actor?  Are you doing student films, webs series, stage, classes, are you getting an agent, are you watching movies and studying performances, what are you doing to better yourself?  Or are you just sitting on your ass and every now and again calling your agent to check in?  If you don’t actively pursue it, it’s not going to happen.  No one is going to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Rudolph also believes that every moment is a learning opportunity, even when you’re on set for twelve hours a day as background.  

It’s important to know what the camera guys do, what the grips do, because everything they are doing affects what you are doing.  Everyone is on a film set to capture what the actors are doing. Don’t be a diva.  Don’t be a dick.  Respect the crew.  Respect the other actors.  Respect the background.  It’s a team effort.  You spend more time with these people than you do with your own friends and family.”

Smallville season 8

When I ask if there are any practical tips he can give to new actors, especially those coming from a theater background, he says, "Learn how to hit your mark without looking at it,” but quickly laughs as he thinks of a better, if more bizarre piece of advice.  “When you’re doing a scene with another actor and if it’s a two shot and you’re both in profile (or any shot when it’s on you) pick the eye of your co-actor that’s closest to the camera and stick with it.  Otherwise it looks like you have crazy eyes."

Having a degree in film production, Rudolph has also worked as an assistant director on shows.  I can hear the capitalized letters when he says, “If you leave set, LET SOMEBODY KNOW.  If you walk away from anywhere, let an AD know, for the love of God, where you’re going.”  He recalls times when production was held up because an actor had gone to the bathroom and forgotten to tell anyone, and the entire crew went looking for them.  He adds, “When you get called to set, go to set, don’t sit in your trailer for twenty minutes.”  That is, assuming you’re important enough to have a trailer.

He thinks for another moment.  “What I really hate is when the union background make it really obvious to the non-union background how much better they have it.  Because everyone starts out as non-union background and they know how much it sucks to sit there eating a hot dog when everyone else is eating steak and prawns.”

He stresses once again to use every minute on set as an opportunity.  

Watch other actors, watch them on screen and on set and how they go through their process.  I have learned so much from watching other actors making certain choices that may not have occurred to me and trying to figure out why they made that choice.  Or if they’re not doing well, how I would do it, how I would fix it.  I worked on a movie with Al Pacino once and seeing him deliver these amazing performances, it was like a year’s worth of acting classes.

LEFT: Clark Kent (Tom Welling)  MIDDLE:  Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum)  RIGHT:  Jonathan Kent (John Schneider)

LEFT: Boomer (Grace Park)  RIGHT: Green Arrow (Justin Hartley)

Having worked extensively as a crewmember as well as an actor, Rudolph has no tolerance for ego.

Be open to what other people have to say.  Never take direction personally.  Sometimes the actor will be correct.  But y’know what?  Sometimes you’re wrong.  And you have to accept that maybe somebody else has a better idea how to do it.  I worked on a film where I was the most experienced person on set and nobody knew how to say no to me and I had free reign and sometimes it worked and sometimes it was a steaming pile of crap.  Let people help you mold a good performance.  That’s what a director is there for.

He also says to make friends with the script supervisor and the AD, as they can “insulate you from all kinds of crap.”  As always, don’t piss off the make up artist or the guys who light you, for obvious reasons.  But the biggest revelation for Rudolph was not about set protocol or crew interactions--it was about auditioning.  It finally dawned on him one day that 

when you go into an audition you’re nervous and scared, but everybody from the casting director to the reader to the producer, they all want you to do your best, they want you to get this part. You wouldn’t be there if they didn’t.  That can be so liberating.  Because if you do an awesome job you make them look good.  They want you to succeed.  Casting directors are so awesome, they’re not going to try to make you look bad; they’re going to do everything they can to get you that role.

In the end, Rudolph asserts again that you have to love what you do.  “Whenever I hear that people want to be an actor, I always ask them if there’s anything else they’d rather do, because they should do that instead.”  He points out that corporate work has both structure and security, whereas the arts have very little structure and no security.  But for the people like Troy Rudolph who can’t imagine doing anything else with their lives, who find purpose in their work, who constantly push themselves to learn more and hone their talent, it’s the most rewarding career in the world.

Rudolph on Battlestar Galactica, Fringe, and Once Upon a Time

Troy Rudolph lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. His IMDb page can be viewed here:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0749003/

His acting reel can be viewed here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMR8mX5FnO4

www.erwomelsduff.com

5 Addictions That Will Make You a Better Writer

Jack Kerouac.  William Faulkner.  James Joyce.  F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Ernest Hemingway.

Brilliant writers. Raging alcoholics.

I’ve always wondered if I should cultivate an addiction—sex, gambling, cocaine, or the classic alcoholism to which so many great artists have surrendered.  The Libertine is a film entirely devoted to the drinking habits of 17^th century poet John Wilmot, and how he couldn’t write a single word while sober.  Perhaps I should buy a bottle of Jack Daniels and get to it, then.

Unlike these men of renown, however, I can’t hold my liquor.  When I drink, I just get sleepy and tend to find a dark corner to curl up in.  What then?  Even if someone handed me their life savings, I wouldn’t know how to gamble (card games are pretty much math puzzles—math and I don't get along).  I could start a string of passionate affairs, but then there’s STDs and babies and I’d have to shave my legs.  There’s always drugs, but which one to choose?  It would take far too much research to test them all, and there’s always the off-chance I might die, which would sort of negate the purpose of finding an addiction in the first place. 

What is left?  I could become obsessed with cooking, I suppose, but I don’t think that’s destructive enough to count.  It’s got to be really dark to make me a better writer.  After all, I must be unmade, broken down—I must despair, if I am to write anything worthwhile.  Because everyone knows that despair is the only emotion that makes writers honest.

In all honesty, though, do we need to be tortured?  I doubt these men sought self-destruction consciously, or for the purpose of improving their craft.  I glorify their addictions despite myself, and wish I could be as lonely and tormented as they so that I, too, could be a truly great writer, an artist above all others; my insanity praised as poignant truth!

But that’s stupid.  In the end, it is not the substance coursing through our veins that pours words onto pages—with or without a stimulant, we write what we know and we write who we are.  Addiction is a red herring—truth comes from pain and pain comes from love and love comes from us.  Alcohol is the smoke and mirrors distracting our eye from the source of the magic—the magician.  Alcohol does not wax poetic about the mysteries of life—writers do.

So writers, try not to pick up a bad coke habit or Chlamydia while you’re writing the next great American novel.  Maybe try some fresh air and sunshine.  Hug your nephew, climb a mountain, ride a bicycle naked through the streets of your hometown.  There are far better stimultants to prod your creativity to the surface.  And don’t forget: just because you’re a serious writer doesn’t mean you can’t love life.

You may well look back and regret those nights cooped up in your room wracking your brains for an original idea, or the holidays you missed with family, or the things you thought you had to do to succeed.  You may regret the lies you told and the promises you broke to yourself .  But you will never look back and regret having loved.  Anyone who tries to argue that doesn’t understand what it means.

Addiction and despair may make you infamous.  But love makes you (and by extension, your writing) worthwhile.

 www.erwomelsduff.com

10 Ways to Love Your Work (and if you don’t, quit doing it)

An Interview with Lauralee Farrer: Writer / Filmmaker
article by E.R. Womelsduff

1. Be calm and orderly in your life so you may be violent and original your work. [Flaubert]
2. Do not allow bitterness into your work, because your life will inherently become bitter.
3. THIS IS YOUR DAY.  These are the hours that comprise your life.  Love all of it.
4. Do hard work, and lots of it.
5. Be willing to do work that the dominant culture may consider valueless because it is unlikely to make money.
6. Understand that a personal career is worthless if it is not meaningful to you.
7. You must love in order to do great work and in order to survive. No other fuel is enough.
8. Do not forget that money is a tool for art, not a validation of it.
9. Don’t waste time sharpening pencils.
10. Don’t feel like you have to work “in the industry.”  That’s why there’s a thing called independent filmmaking.

Farrer describes herself with brutal honesty in her article “Armor Up, Get On Your Boots”:

My personal life has shipwrecked not once but twice. I have been married for 20 years and divorced, found true love and lost it, been pregnant and am childless.  All who were on the inner circle of me are either dead, gone forever, or never born. I am over half a century old, I am a miserable sinner saved by grace, I have nothing to lose and am not afraid to die.

Lauralee Farrer

I order a raspberry Italian Soda at a coffeeshop called Coffee By the Books, a cafe frequented by the staff and students of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.  Moments later, Farrer arrives dressed in her iconic black dress, her white-blonde hair short and wavy and--I can think of no other word for it-- sassy.  

I’d first met Farrer a year before when I was going through a crisis of vocation, doubting my talents, my business savvy, and my will to constantly wade through the emotional abuse that Hollywood is famous for.  A film professor of mine had the wherewithal to notice my depression, and set up a meeting between Farrer and I, since we were both women, both Christians, and both writers and directors.  We talked for over two hours about my anxieties and fears and when I left, I felt more hopeful than I had in months.

When we get to her office, it is filled with abstract paintings done by friends of hers.  One wall is full of books and journals, which only makes sense as she has been the editor of publications for Fuller for the past nine years, the Artist in Residence at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology and the Arts for two years, and the president and principal filmmaker for Burning Heart Productions for five years.

Before I can even ask a single question, she looks at me and says, “I’ve been thinking about what I want to say for this article.  It should be called ‘10 Reasons Why You Should Love Your Work, or Quit Doing It.”  For the next three hours, all I can do is try to type as quickly as possible to catch every drop of information she pours out.  Her passion is incredible, but understated, and I soon understand why:  “Be calm and orderly in your life,” she says, staring me straight in the eye, “so you may be violent and original your work.”

This isn’t just a pithy saying--for Farrer, it’s how she has structured her life.  “I know how to live simply.  I am pleased to live simply.”  She tells me that David Lynch once said that he had a certain amount of energy, just like everyone else.  He wore the same things and ate the same things every single day so he didn't waste energy on non-creative pursuits, and Farrer instantly recognized this mindset.  Like many independent filmmakers, Farrer has a full-time job.  She just happens to write, direct, and produce feature films on top of a 9-to-5.  Seated across from her, she has the look of someone who has been pushing themselves not just for years, but for decades.  

Farrer on set.

But she wishes she’d known earlier on that it was okay to have a non-demanding day job.  She would spend so much creative energy at work that there would be nothing left for her own projects.  The balance that she has found now seems to be a delicate one that not many could maintain for any length of time.  But Farrer isn’t your average filmmaker.

And she stresses that she is a filmmaker.  She does not work in Hollywood, in the industry, or in the system.  She began working in the medium of film in 1999, but says that she’s been writing since she was a child, folding up text and drawings and stapling them to make “novels.”  In fact, she wrote her first real novel when she was 11.  It was 300 pages long.  At nineteen she got her first paid writing job doing an article about the Salvation Army.

She spent the next few years traveling the world writing for humanitarian agencies “back before it was popular and hip.”  Although she knew she wanted to be a filmmaker, she ended up being in “circumstances that were as far away from the film business as you can get.”  Despite that, she describes those experiences as seminal--opening up a wealth of stories and relationships and ways of thinking that were beyond anything she would have been able to expect in Hollywood. “I was in Germany when the wall came down, in Spain when Franco died, in Somalia when the war broke up, in Kenya for the two bad droughts in the ‘80s, in Leningrad when it became St. Petersburg again, in Moscow when the coup happened."

Working for humanitarian agencies, her travel expenses were barely paid for, and she thought that what she was doing wasn’t as important as writing for a company like National Geographic or Time Magazine.  She was almost embarrassed of her work because it felt like “getting a job at the local church.  It felt unprofessional.  But it was awesome work; I was just too ignorant to know it.”


By the time she got into the USC film writing department, she found that the classes "weren’t that helpful because I’d already had those experiences.”  I smile, knowing exactly what she means when she says, “That being said, I had a mythological idea of being 'discovered' as a filmmaker the way we used to think actresses were discovered."

It was at this point that Farrer had a vision and talent, but no idea how to get her foot in the door. It was decades before technology would make it possible for people to cheaply and easily make films.  So she wrote dozens of screenplays and waited.

But she didn’t spend twenty years twiddling her thumbs.  Not knowing a soul in Hollywood, she began to research her favorite films and filmmakers, reading everything about them that was in print.  She laughs. “I was at the AFI library so often that the librarian asked me where stuff was because she thought I worked there.”

After doing her homework, she wrote letters, asking filmmakers to give her an hour of their time.  Out of 20, 15 said yes.  Farrer has a deep respect for people’s time, and made sure to only ask questions that could not be found out any other way.  “In every case,” she tells me, “I left the room with them saying they’d work with me.  But I was shy and had a huge ethic about not taking advantage of them.  And I couldn’t fully take myself seriously in that field. The one person that I did follow up with was Sydney Pollock.  He extended his generosity clearly enough that I said yes.  But it was bad timing; the film he was working on at the time crashed and burned and his studio contract with it--so we lost touch."

Farrer says her greatest regret is that she didn’t know how to take advantage of those opportunities.

She has tried to make up for that in the latter half of her career.  “I’m never not working,” she tells me.  “It’s not a very healthy answer, but it is always either in my head or I’m writing it down or shooting it or editing it or working on the next one.”  Oddly enough, there’s not much about the filming process that she likes to do in a vacuum--and she actively dislikes writing.  “I don’t like writing, I like having written.”  She’s the kind of person who must work, or else wonder “why I’m here at all.  The angst of that is intolerable.  Learning that was very destructive to me when I was younger and I lived closer to the edge of sanity than anyone should.”  

She says she must go somewhere deep to get material for writing.  “You can’t dive deep in the shallow end of the pool.  If you only have two hours at the end of the day, you’re not going to be able to get there.  It costs more than that.  Some material requires you to be in an altered state.”   

Farrer and her crew.

She says it is not her goal to stand in the back of a theater and watch a film of hers and say, “I did that.”  It’s too inconsequential.  She wants to see something happen in the audience that she can’t account for, that is beyond her, and to know that whatever it is going on in that moment, it’s transcendent, and she transcends with it.  “The hard work is worthwhile because life is worthwhile.  Therefore it must be worth it to grab your work by the teeth and drag it into existence.”

This seems to be the core of Farrer’s message: that a person’s work and a person’s art and a person’s life are their own responsibility.

“I’m not going to wait for anyone to give me permission or fund me.  I don’t have contempt for the idea, but I’m not waiting for it.  If a project doesn't resonate with me, I won’t do it just for money.  I don’t want to spend my life in pitch meetings.  The odds are too great against it for it to be responsible.  When I meet with God, I don’t want to say that I didn’t do my job because no one empowered me or funded me.  I am not going to spend all my time sitting in Starbucks talking about being a filmmaker.  Making films makes you a filmmaker.”

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QUICK ANSWERS

Was any of your family in the industry before you?
I was the first person in my family to be a filmmaker; no artists.

If not, were they supportive of you going into it?
I was such an anomaly in my family that I often heard my dad say, “I have no idea where you came from.”  But they loved me unequivocally, and made me feel there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do, which for the most part was a great gift.  But I grew up and realized there were forces out there that didn’t believe the same.

When you were a kid, what did you want to grow up to be?
When I was little I read in Ecclesiastes that the greatest thing was wisdom.  I thought that if I could get wisdom, I would “win.”  I was really young.  I always knew wisdom was more important than writing or art.  Took me a while to discover that love trumps even wisdom.

Brecht said, “Art is not a mirror of society, but the hammer with which to shape it.”  My dad was an English teacher and he loved his work.  I learned a love for that, too.  I knew that that kind of art was a vehicle for something else, it wasn’t a thing unto itself.

What is one piece of advice you received when you started out that ended up being totally wrong?
What I received from the American culture I lived in, and the religious culture, is that women played a certain role in society.  It wasn’t advice, so to speak, but more the zeitgeist.  I didn’t know how anything different could occur to me.  It didn’t even cross my mind.  There were eventually a series of “ah has” as I got older.  I had no role models that were women when I was growing up. I was 40 before I met someone who was a Christian and an artist.  Back then connecting art and faith was confusing to people.

What is one piece of advice you received that ended up being really helpful?
Sydney Pollock told me not to spend too much time sharpening pencils, by which he meant, “get to the writing, don’t worry about the rest.”

What are some of the stereotypes about Hollywood that ended up being true?
I remember the first time I heard that Hollywood was the only industry that eats its young.  There is an animosity towards the young, a competition; never let them see you sweat, don’t let people see you as human.  Luckily, that way of thinking is going the way of the dinosaur nowadays.

I also thought when I was younger that I had to be accepted into the halls of power in a completely different way than if I wanted to be in any other industry.  I had to be “discovered” – in a way that was beyond my ability to achieve, it had to be done to me.  It’s not true anymore.  It’s a business like any business where you can start at the bottom and work your way up.  Be consistent, reliable, confident, show up, do extra work, learn, expand your network.

What upsets / angers/ depresses you about life in Hollywood?
What I hear from friends about how they feel about working in the big machinery of the studios.  They feel like they have lost their first love, like they’re working on shows or films the only saving grace of which is that people have heard of it.  They feel demoralized working on something that is not only meaningless but in some ways humiliating to them.  I have friends who started out with the idea that they had a love for art and storytelling that felt communal and exciting and they thought that was where they were going and now they just feel sad and bitter about the idea that any of that can come true.  “Why am I spending 80 hours a week away from my kids working on a show that I wouldn’t even want them to watch?”  It’s disturbing how much I hear stories like that.

What makes you hopeful about living in LA?
The capacity for the same bitter / repressed full-hearted person who wants to believe in community. It can be reactivated like a dried sponge meeting water.

People involved in industry films who want to do something with substance.    People that truly believe in the possibility of things.  It’s wrong for people to believe that people can be treated cruelly for the sake of creating art.

Can you tell me about some of your recent projects?
Not That Funny is in festivals right now.  Praying the Hours is in active production but will take another six months to complete. It’s not even on IMDb yet.

What would you tell people who are waiting for their big break, or waiting to be discovered?
Don’t wait.  There’s no such thing as a big break.  There’s no such thing as being discovered.  Just do it.

What would you say is a “good” reason to come to Hollywood?  And what reasons would you say are “bad”?
Bad reasons are fame, money, or running away from something.

Good reason: if being in Hollywood furthers your calling as an artist to contribute meaningfully to the culture, to your own life, or to your family.  If this industry is the way to do that, then come here, because there isn’t any other place in the world to do it.  Yes, you can make a movie anywhere you live, but LA is the place to be.  Resources are here. People are here.  Cameras and lenses and special effects coordinators are here. Everything you need. Times ten.

What would you tell independent filmmakers?
Don’t stop making films.  Keep doing the work.  You will get to an age where, when you look back, your only regret is that you did not do more of your art.  You will not regret that you didn’t get a yacht.  The thing that tyrannizes me most is that I don’t have enough years to accrue the experience to make films as I envision them, as fast as I would like. Ha. There's the tyranny at work right there.

What would you tell aspiring directors?
It’s important to know whether you’re a director or not.   In our hierarchical way of thinking, being the director is being the president, and we give it a value over other jobs that it doesn’t deserve.  Being a director is a set of skills akin to  someone being born a tenor or a soprano or a bass.  You either have that set of skills or you don’t.  And if you don’t that’s fine, there’s no point in you trying to acquire them. Find one of the other six thousand things needed by the process of filmmaking and learn that. Then come work with me.

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As president and principal filmmaker of Burning Heart Productions LLC, Director Lauralee Farrer is the creative energy behind the award-winning documentary Laundry and Tosca (2004) and the feature-length documentaryThe Fair Trade (2008)—launch film for the Film Baby, Ryko, and Warner series of “Powerful Films.” Farrer is currently writer/director on the feature narrative Not That Funny (2011) starring Tony Hale (www.notthatfunnymovie.com), and in development on narrative features Regarding the Holidays (2012),Praying the Hours (2013), and others.

Farrer was co-producer for Lovestruck Pictures’ award-winning feature romantic comedy The Best Man in Grass Creek and has been writing and producing professionally for over thirty years. Her first personal film project was Laundry and Tosca, which investigates the life of soprano Marcia Whitehead, and explores the idea of whether simply following a dream can be enough to build a meaningful life. An event combining the film screening, Whitehead singing, and Farrer speaking has been presented in the years following its completion; similarly, her feature documentary The Fair Trade has continued to have a rich life beyond festivals and international distribution. Events with various combinations of film screenings, music, social activism awareness, and Farrer’s public speaking have been presented in recent years at film festivals, panels, conferences, colleges, summits, churches, and professional and private environments which has increased the occasion for her public speaking.

Much of the material from which her directing and screenwriting voice emerges comes from Farrer’s freelance work for humanitarian organizations. This work took her to Spain when Franco died, to Kenya during the droughts of 1981 and 1991, to Somalia when the war broke out, and to Uganda to write about early outbreaks of AIDS and the plight of its orphans. She wrote of the Sisters of Charity in Ethiopia, was in Moscow when the 1991 coup took place, and when Leningrad became St. Petersburg again. She was in East Germany before and after the wall went down, in Mexico City to write about cultures of poverty, and in U.S. cities like Philadelphia, Houston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Boston to write about American life. She lived in a Benedictine community in Denver, Colorado for three years—a providential experience that formed much of the basis for her current book Praying the Hours in Ordinary Life (Cascade Books, 2010) and feature film, Praying the Hours. She is the editor of journal Theology, News & Notes of Fuller Theological Seminary—a graduate institution for the study of theology, psychology, and intercultural studies. In 2011 she was named Artist in Residence for the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts.

bio taken from http://www.burningheartproductions.com/people/

Farrer’s article “Open Call for a New Amateur” can be found here:
http://cms.fuller.edu/TNN/Issues/Spring_2012/Open_Call_for_a_New_Amateur/


Websites for Farrer’s films:
www.burningheartproductions.com
www.prayingthehours.com
www.laundryandtosca.com
www.thefairtrademovie.com
www.notthatfunnymovie.com

10 Ways to Stick Up for Yourself Without Getting Fired

An Interview with Sheryl J. Anderson: Writer / Producer

article by E.R. Womelsduff

1.    Be willing to learn.

2.    Be active, not passive, about your work and your rights.

3.    Know what you believe in and what you will and won't stand for.

4.    Defend yourself, but not defensively.

5.    Be smart and constructive, but most of all, be right.

6.    Pay attention to what people in equivalent jobs are being asked to do, then compare it to what you’re being asked to do.

7.    Define your boundaries.

8.    Don't cry “fire” if there isn’t one.

9.    Don't complain. Instead, suggest a clear, helpful solution.

10. Remember, this is a step in the journey, not the end of it.

Before I can even fully stand, Anderson stoops to give me a hug. We are meeting at a French cafe on a typical, perfect day in Santa Monica. She immediately begins asking me questions, catching up on my life since the last time we spoke in-depth, nearly two years before, when, from the goodness of her heart, she helped me (an anonymous film student she'd never met before) find an internship because she is a longtime friend of one of my professors.

Anderson has been working professionally as a writer and novelist for over twenty years. She wrote for a number of television series, including Charmed, and has a successful book series.  Her father was a Captain in the US Navy and her mother stayed at home until she and her brother were in high school. Growing up on the East Coast, no one in the family had ever worked in the film business before.  Despite this, she says that “Other than brief periods of wanting to be a spy or a teacher, I always wanted to be a writer,” and her family was and still is supportive of her decision to go to Hollywood.  

After she came to Hollywood, she initially worked temp jobs.  One led to a job in investment banking, where her bosses worked 24/7, and expected her to do the same. When the company suggested that she get her MBA, it was the wake up call she needed to go out and do what she came to Hollywood to do: write.

The opportunity to take a step in that direction came with a job as an assistant at GTG Entertainment, a television production company. After she’d been working for him for a while, Robert Kaplan, then VP of Development, gave her a script and asked her to give coverage.  After receiving her notes, he sat her down and said, “This is exactly what the network told us.”  It was in that moment that she realized she was on the right track.

Success is often tempered with failures, however.  While still working at GTG, she’d been hired as a freelance writer to pen her first ever television episode.  Days before it was scheduled to start shooting, they called her and said, “The show's been cancelled and we’re not going to do your episode.”  Anderson was devastated, but Kaplan told her, “This stinks.  But it’s the first of many episodes you’ll write and you’ve got to keep going.”

Looking back, Anderson considers her time at GTG to be her “graduate school,” not only because she learned “more from the two years I worked for them than anybody else I worked for in my entire career,” but because of the mentor relationship she had with both Robert Kaplan and the legendary Grant Tinker.  She describes them as “brilliant, wonderful men” and smiles when she talks about them.  She is quick to add that she does not want to diminish what she learned from other people and jobs in her life, but that the “wealth of experience and generosity of spirit from those men” astounded her.

By the time GTG closed, she was the Development Associate.  Grant Tinker told her, “If you want to continue in development, I’ll help you, but that’s not what you should be doing.  You should be writing.”

At this point, Anderson realizes I don’t recognize Tinker’s name and tries to offer an equivalent. She looks at me over our plates of food and my awkwardly large laptop.  “What’s your favorite television show?” she asks.  Trying to choose quickly from a long list, I blurt out, “Sons of Anarchy.”  She nods.  “It’s the equivalent of Kurt Sutter sitting you down and telling you, ‘Keep writing.  Don’t give up hope.’”

But she hasn’t always been given such good advice.  When talking of her worst professional mistakes, she describes trusting the wrong people against her better judgment and listening to people tell her what to write or where to work next.  In short, “Trusting other people instead of myself.  I made that mistake more than once.”

But how do you trust yourself when you’re just starting out?  And more importantly, how do you stick up for yourself?  Industry newbies can either come across as arrogant and entitled or pathetic and easily manipulated.  Where is the middle ground?  

In terms of the non-production work environment, Anderson suggests asking very clearly, “What are my daily and/or weekly hours?”  She says to commit to the hours that are reasonable for the job, and the hours that your boss expects you to work (which should coincide).  Develop a sense of when work is over, and when people are just hanging out because they don’t have anywhere else to go or anything else to do.  Her father used to tell her, “Never work for a man who doesn’t want to go home at night.”  

She goes on to offer a rule of thumb:

When you’re starting out, pay attention to what people in equivalent jobs are being asked to do, then compare it to what you’re being asked to do.  Don’t compare the hours of a studio job to an agency job, or either to a production job: The hours are going to be different because the demands are different. As in any relationship, you have to define your boundaries.  You don’t want to tell a boss, 'Well, I can only work from x to x' but you also don’t want to create the impression that you only live to work for them.

Anderson remembers one of her first jobs (not in the industry).  Her boss told her, “You exist to make my life easier.”  She left shortly thereafter.

But life in production is different.  “For shows,” she says, “you have to be there to make the deadline.  Some nights you’re going to be there ‘til 2 am, sometimes you can go home at 6.  In production, the monster must be fed.”  She remembers when she was on a difficult show, she would tell her friends, “I’ll see you during hiatus.” 

In the course of your career, you may have a wide range of bosses, from the impossible to the fantastic. But when confronted by a difficult situation, Anderson says that you have to be smart, you have to be constructive, and most of all, you have to be right.  Take a stand, but make sure you’ve done your homework first.  She warns that if you feel like you’re being taken advantage of,

A) you probably are;

B) look around and compare your situation to make sure you are; and, 

C) find a constructive and helpful way to suggest a solution.  

She points out ways in which you can take advantage of opportunities:  say you’re an assistant.  Your boss doesn’t want to hear, “I don’t want to stay tonight.”  They want to hear, “Would it be all right if I took this on as my project?” or “Would you mind if I worked on this in the morning while you’re in meetings?”  Or say you’re doing coverage on a script.  Saying “I don’t like the script” isn’t helpful.  Saying “I can’t invest in the script because of A, B, or C” is helpful.

She smiles as she takes a sip of tea.  “It all comes back to the saying: ‘You catch more flies with honey.”’

When asked what makes the long hours worth it, she doesn’t reply at first.  I can see her processing the question, thinking back through twenty years of a career.  Finally, she replies, “You get paid a ridiculous amount of money to produce a premium product and that’s worth some late nights.”  But even more than that, she believes the gift she has to tell stories is a blessing.  The fact that she is able to use her God-given talent to entertain people and make a living at it "is about the coolest thing ever."  She quotes William Faulkner: “It is a writer’s privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.”

Knowing she must leave soon for another meeting, she wraps it up:  

“I can sit and moan with the best of them about times I’ve been shafted and opportunities missed and mistakes made, but at the end of the day I’ve seen people laugh and cry because of words I put on the screen and it still gives me chills.”  Anderson says she can’t think of a job she’d rather have.  “I’d love to cure cancer, but I faint at the sight of blood.”

At this point, our interview had to end.  Anderson was gracious enough to answer the following questions via e-mail.

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What is one piece of advice you received when you started out that ended up being totally wrong?

Only the work matters.

What is one piece of advice you received that ended up being really helpful?

Write every day.

What are some of the stereotypes about Hollywood that ended up being true?

Hollywood is filled with broken people. 

The weather is ridiculous. 

Television is high school with money.

What are some that were total lies?

...ummm...You'd think there'd be some, right?...

What upsets / angers/ depresses you about life in Hollywood?

It's hard to make plans. Good people get hurt and bad behavior is rewarded. (On the other hand, that's life...)

What makes you hopeful about living in LA?

Some of the best people I know live here.

Can you tell me about some of your recent projects?

I"ve sold a pilot, details forthcoming. And I'm out pitching others.

Where do you see the industry in 10 years, either in general or as it specifically pertains to your job?

Given how quickly things have changed in the past 10 years, I can't imagine where we'll be in another 10 -- writing for platforms that haven't been invented yet, I suppose.

What advice would you give to aspiring television writers?

Don't think it's going to be simple. Understand that you will have to pay your dues. Be patient and keep writing, making sure that every script is better than the one before it.

Sheryl J. Anderson's novels can be purchased at Amazon.com or through her website: http://www.sheryljanderson.com

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