THE ROMANCE READER

I'm posting this for Forgettable, the genius who did "Robber's Apprentice," which I posted about last week. We're doing a YouTube video together and I thought he'd need to see the type of character I was thinking of doing.

There are a lot of flaws in this video, but it was a great learning experience and I wouldn't have missed it for the world!

AN ACTING THEORY PUT TO THE TEST

Have you ever heard actors say that all acting is reacting? I imagine what they mean is that everything you do or say on stage should come from your reaction to what someone else has said or done. Well, that's probably true. It must be helpful when an actor's trying to figure out what to do with his hands. Yeah, I can accept that.

The thing is, I can't help I can't help but interpret this more broadly. For me what's being said is that the reactor in a scene is more interesting than the actor. In other words, the person receiving the pie in the face is more interesting to watch than the person throwing the pie. If that's true then it says a lot about the way a scene should be written and set up, and what kind of actors you should use. With so much at stake I just had to test it.

That's what the five-minute video above is. I tried to make the actor and reactor equally interesting, and I gave them the same time on screen. I wanted to see whose role was innately more memorable, and who carried the weight of the scene. It's probably a silly experiment, with a predictable outcome, and everybody reading this is no doubt mystified about why I went to so much trouble, but it helped to clarify things for me, and now I share it with you.

The video is about 4 1/2 minutes. Sorry about the many, many flaws. I just didn't have time to fix them.

HOT PROSPECTS AT "MATCH.COM"

I got a great comment from Cynthia where she talked about both of us doing a parody of the match.com ads that are all over myspace right now. I looked up the ads and they were great! Match.com is now one of my favorite companies!

I can't believe how smart these ads are! They're funny, so they're viral, and they sell the product like crazy! It was a genius idea to get the customers to make short, silent films of themselves. How many times have you seen somebody who looked great with the volume down and who came off like a gorilla with the volume up? Let's face it, it's no accident that romantic film stars are always silent types!

When you speak, even if it's just a few words, you reveal your culture, income level, personality, education, sexual experience, philosophy...everything! There's bound to be something in there that's a turn-off to the person you're trying to impress. Better to sell yourself silently, and that's what the geniuses at match.com do!





Anyway, here's (above) my fake highlight reel of match.comers pitching themselves. Many thanks for the great idea, Cynthia!

A CHEWING GUM COMMERCIAL!

Here's a "tiurF yciuJ" chewing gum commercial done in the Kovacs style. Sorry for the bad sound edits.