Campus Networking for an old guy

Times are tough for background actors right now. Production is down all around. More regular shows than usual have shut down production early and pilots didn’t kick in the last week of February as we’d hoped. But nearly into what looks to be the first real pilot season in three years, so all is not lost.
(Besides, those of us smart enough to have our bodies reconfigured for 3D anticipate scads of work.)

We background actors have to constantly find other ways to gain experience, make contacts or - best case scenario - make money. Toward the goal of gaining experience, getting free video for my reel and enjoying myself, I have specialized in student films over the last year.

For actors in my age range (45-60), student films are especially tempting because - once they’ve exhausted their parents (and believe me, some do) - students have a hard time finding older folks to be in their films.I’ve gained a reputation on campus for being agreeable, talented and eager to help out these kids who are trying to learn the business. Plus, my decades on set have made me production-savvy and an easy man with whom to work.

As I was negotiating the thick sand of Santa Monica beach today, shooting my final day as a co-star in Mitch Golden’s terrific USC student film, Sandcastles: A Mocumentary, with a cold wind a blowing, seagulls ignoring me and a small crowd of tourists watching from a distance, I was reminded of one reason I love this industry; it’s so cool to feel that you’re on the inside. Millions of people worldwide would give anything to be the focus of a movie camera.

Another providential thing about student films is the networking that can develop. I got the part of Jack “Sandman” McKee in Sandcastles because a girl on a film I shot last fall (The Grandfather Paradox) was drinking coffee and talking about me with a friend at a Starbucks near USC and a young producer overheard and mentioned me to a friend writing a film. Actually, my work starring in one early 2009 student film led to roles in four other student films, thanks to the co-directors of the first project.
In March 2009, CSUN co-directors Jessica Carr and Paul Arzoian guided me through a funny little film with a lousy script called A Taste For Danger. (I am not being mean. Screenwriter Sergio Serna actually blogged online about knocking out the screenplay in 20 minutes and not rewriting it. The evidence is on the page.)

A Taste of Danger gave me a good role; I played Don Romano, an aging Godfather whose son has been kidnapped by my rival Don Carlo. After consulting with my advisers, I go to Don Carlo’s office confront him, and - despite a few half-hearted threats of violence - we have a meeting of the minds.

We shot Scene Two on the first night, in the second-floor catering office of the Handy Market, reachable through a mini-warehouse and up a flight of stairs.

Burbank’s Handy Market - if you’re new in town - is a unique grocery opened in 1970 by Harry Arzoian (Paul’s grandpa). Harry’s son Alan, who still operates the market, created a crafts services arm in 1980 (Sunrise to Sunset Catering), and that’s the office in which his son, Paul, was co-directing me.

The next night, we moved to an office on the California State University at Northridge (CSUN) campus to shoot the FIRST scene of the film, directed by Jessica Carr. In that scene, in Don Romano’s office, I receive a ransom note from Don Carlo. (He has my son; I have his.) I talk to my adviser and decide to go over and face Don Carlo in his office (the scene we’d shot the night before). Since the scene was shorter with fewer inserts and more space for camera, sound and crew, we were done in just four hours. It was a great experience and - considering the poor script - I’m reasonably proud of the final product, which you can see here:

A TASTE FOR DANGER

I had just returned from a meeting at CSUN with Jessica Carr and Rob Fisher, the young writer and director of The Grandfather Paradox, in which I was scheduled to star a week later, when Paul Arzoian called and asked me to play Andy, a grocer, in Handy Market, a gentle comedy written by Crystal Rachal, which Paul was about to direct. I jumped at the chance to work with him again.

We shot the film one Thursday night in November 2009, inside the actual Handy Market, near the corner of Magnolia and Buena Vista in Burbank. I play grocer Andy Warholl (I know. I know. I made the obligatory joke about being an artist before I became a grocer and offered to paint some soup cans and got the expected laugh.)

With all credit to the crew and director, Paul Arzoian, it was a pleasant and professional shoot and I got home at 1am, proud, pleased and wiped out. (I am, of course, older than the rest of them.)
Here’s the finished film:

HANDY MARKET

As mentioned, one of the co-directors of A Taste for Danger, Jessica Carr, had already hired me to star in a student film called The Grandfather Paradox. We shot that film two weeks after Handy Market, in fall 2009.

My young co-star, (Jonnie Stapleton) and I hit it off immediately while filming Rob Fisher’s film about a young man who is forced to take in his grandfather (me) because, as my character, Alfred, tells him repeatedly, “Your grandmother has taken a lover!”
The Grandfather Paradox was a fun shoot.

The cast, although uniformly less than half my age, was friendly, cooperative and pleasant to me. The primary scene in the short film takes place at an outdoor backyard party. I have pressured Blake, my grandson, to bring me along as he and two friends go out for the evening. Eager to “get back into the dating game,” I drink a little too much at the instigation of Blake’s buddies and throw up on the shoes of a girl he’s trying to get to know at the bar.
Here’s that film:

THE GRANDFATHER PARADOX

If you’re keeping score, A Taste for Danger led to Handy Market and The Grandfather Paradox, which led to Super Rangers and Sandcastles: A Mockumentary.
There’s a lot of good student film-making going on in Los Angeles area colleges and I am delighted to be a “go-to-guy” when they need someone old. I am always up for a good role in a student film as evidenced by the fact that I will soon be going before the cameras in Super Rangers, a TV pilot co-produced by Paul Arzoian which follows five washed-up rangers, spoofing Power Rangers.
As Paul put it: “I am coming to you to ask if you would like to play our Rangers’ “boss.” “Here’s the catch: the boss is literally a head sitting on a table, so I’m not sure how you’d feel about that.” To which I replied, “Paul, for you, I’d play a nose.”