Or, most likely the case, because most of the people I work with are pretty good about getting the promised material, is that the material will take forever to finish.
​
The nature of indie work is that the really tough part is in post production. Audio craps on you. Color correction causes a face or two to melt. The editor vanishes mid-project -- probably to take a (better) paying gig. The hard drive finds the only opportunity on the planet to land in a toilet or a bowl of soup. The backup hard drive starts smoking. Generally, it is a life fraught with disasters looming in the shadows.

So, my actor reel languishes for months as I wait for a couple of new pieces. I'll sit, waiting, for three new clips because, why change everything for one clip when I know it could be only a couple of weeks before the other two show up? And, then they don't ...

And, I wait...

And, I wait ...

Until I can't stand it anymore. Then, I break and build a new reel with what I have.

So, here's this latest reel. I'm hopeful I'll see a couple more clips before the end of August, but at least I have this.

Third-party hardliners have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Nice in a children's tale, but shit, or worse, destructive, when the dream is to build meaningful political change.

Rather than leading to a revolution or even meaningful change, it leads to the equivalent of a bunch of children in a grocery store stomping their feet and screaming about the candy bars they want, but that the parent honestly cannot give them. The children don't get this. They think they might actually get the candy bars, but that's never going to happen. Best case, they are a minor annoyance. Worst case, they get their asses beat right there in the store.

If you are one of these children, the phrase "that's never going to happen" has you screaming even louder, just like it does in a store where the parent says "You can't have the candy bar."

You/they believe the phrase is a lie. You/they believe if you/they stamp and scream enough, the parental figure will cave in and give you/them the candy bar. Or ... and this one actually slipped past me on an earlier draft of this post ... you/they just want to protest the general lack of candy in your hand, with no expectation that the situation will change.

You/they are thinking like children.

Here's the thing, children. We can't give you the candy bar. Are you listening? We can't give you the candy bar ... because the store doesn't sell candy bars. They are just for show.

Our political system doesn't let a third party in. The numbers just don't work. They never have and they never will. That's by design. It promotes political stability, which is actually a good thing even if you are, as I am, a flaming lefty.

If you are interested in why third parties are shut out of our official political system (Yes, there are mathematical, psychological and economic reasons for a two-party system), check out Duverger's Law, which is all kinds of academic blah-dee-blah that basically says in a system of plurality (50+ percent) winner-take-all where there is one voice/one vote, you are going to get a two-party system. 

The only mathematical chance a minor or new, aka "third", party stands in this system is for it to displace one of the existing big-two parties. Basically, to win power a third party must no longer be the third party. And, since third parties are always, by definition, on a fringe (if they weren't on the fringe, they'd be one of the big-two parties and therefore not a third party at all) they aren't going to gain enough support to hit the plurality and take the seat.

There is the remote possibility that a third party can draw enough votes off the other two parties to keep either one from achieving a plurality, but then the winner of the seat is going to be decided by an entity other than the voters ... an entity owned and operated by ... you guessed it ... one or both of the big-two parties.

This brings into play the psychological effect in Duverger's Law, which tells us that enough people who support a third party's ideology -- who are third-party supporters -- are not going to be third-party voters. They are going to do the math and step away from that third party when it comes time to actually spend their vote, thus nullifying the potential power of any third-party movement.

The third-party supporters do the math and it looks like this: "If enough of us vote for the third party, one of three things is going to happen."

1. We are going to throw the election to the tie-breaker entity to decide, which means my vote is technically wasted.
2. We are going to create a gap that could let the big-two candidate I hate more win, which means that my vote wasn't wasted, so much as it was stolen by the guy I hate more.
3. The guy I would have voted for as the lesser of two evils is going to win anyway, which means my vote is technically wasted.

In all three of these situations, the third-party supporter's vote would be wasted ... or worse. So, the rational thing to do is vote for the big-two candidate who is the least irksome, because while it isn't a perfect fit at least they get some value from their vote. If enough third-party supporters behave rationally, which is very likely the case because voters are rational even if you disagree with their conclusions, the third party can't gain the momentum to displace one of the big-two parties.

​Thank you, Maurice Duverger.

Assuming all this is true -- that the grocery store doesn't sell candy bars -- and if you stop screaming and hopping around for a second you'll realize it is ... does it mean there is no chance for a major political change?

Absolutely not. Change always happens. The question is more how do you make it happen the way you want.

Just ask the Tea Party. Those children got their candy bars by screaming in a grocery store that actually sold candy.

Before you go, if you've made it this far I would love to hear your opinions on this post -- for or against.  I might not have any candy bars, but sometimes if feels good just to scream.

If you are a moving-pictures actor and haven't watched the short video essays of filmmaker and editor Tony Zhou (@tonyszhou), you've slighted your education. 

The series is called "Every Frame a Painting." Check it out. It is brilliant.

The bulk of Zhou's focus is on the other side of the camera ... but since flimmakers wouldn't have anything to work with without you there in front of the unblinking eye, you can pull a lot of his observations out and put them in your tool kit.

Then there are the times when Zhou just dumps it in front of you, as in this love letter to Robin Williams.

There's also stuff in there for directors who want performances that are true collaborations. So, pay attention, people.

As great as it would be to wake up one day with enough money from theater (or film ... or television, for that matter) to not have to worry about a life-raft job, it is a long shot in this business.

It comes down to skill, talent, luck and, most important, someone else's choices. You can control the skill, you can exercise the talent, you can make your own luck, but the largest chunk of the equation is someone else's choices and you can't do a damn thing about that.

Or can you?

Risa Bramon Garcia, a coach and casting director, thinks so.

Here's a link to her aritcle, "How To Get Casting Directors To Find You," in Backstage Experts. Read it and find ways to live it, because basically, she's talking about the core of being an independent theater (or film/television) artist.

My favorite part of the article is ...

"... you must be doing your best work in a production, in class, and in a workshop because you love to act and you’re compelled to be in the work all the time—not because your goal is to book a guest star on a show. You have to wake up and fall asleep craving the artistry of it. You have to love it for its own reward."

Believe it.

I like simple statements, like four steps to getting things done. Of course, nothing is ever as simple as a statement, but they can make what you finally figure out a little easier to remember.

For example:

More than 40 years ago, my grandfather told me a parable about a turtle on its back on a fence post.

There are a lot of versions of this story, and thanks to the power of the Internet, you can look them up if you want too. 

My grandfather's was different and it went like this:

Boy, if you see a turtle on his back on a fence post, think "What the hell? How'd that happen?", then take a second to imagine what the turtle is thinking.

He added. "And help the poor bastard down," but he was talking about the art of logical empathy. I'm not (although it is a good thing to learn).

I'm talking about a one-sentence acting class.

Your character is a turtle on its back on a fence post. As confusing as the situation is to you, the actor, your job is to imagine what the turtle is going through and act that.

Sometimes, things are just this simple. Here's how to get things done  ... in four steps.

1) Decide what you'd like to do.
2) Decide it is something you might be able to do.
3) Know that you can do it.
4) Do it.

It is that easy, but you can get derailed at every step so watch yourself.

1) You have to pick one thing at a time and you have to stick with it all the way through ... at least the first three steps.

2) You must have the confidence and commitment to whatever it is you think you'd like to do. This is an act of soul searching and, finally, faith.

I'd like to be a stuntman, for example, but I'm not willing to spend the time and energy learning to throw myself safely off a building. (Oh, and I don't have the confidence either), I know this about myself, and as a result, I've resigned myself to a stuntman-free life.

3) This is where the commitment of time and energy comes in. You won't know you can do something until you've train yourself in the skills necessary. If you think you'd like to be an actor and are pretty sure it is something you might be able to do, then you need to prepare yourself to do it. And, you'd better prepare yourself well, because there are 100,000 people after the same thing.

Step 3 isn't about being perfect, but it requires that you know you can compete. Don't just believe you can do it. Know you can do it ... through training and confidence. This doesn't mean you have to be perfect

4) Don't wait for someone to let you do something. In theater, this is a dangerous trap. We keep going to auditions or submitting plays and we hope someone lets us play. The odds are not in your favor, so stop waiting.

Make opportunities for yourself.

Take your own risks.

Put yourself out there.

Childish, egocentric me thinks an audience of two is as important as an audience of 200, so I spend most of my premium brain-time making the show.

Theater needs to be entertaining, thought provoking, interesting and different or it fails. 

That's the hard part, right?

Only after I make the show, do I expend energy on building audience. 

Childish, egocentric me is wrong. Childish, egocentric me suffers from "Audience Afterthought Syndrome."

Theater needs audience -- even those two or three people -- or it is just deliberate insanity. 

But ...

... Making theater for less than 40 people a night is just debilitating insanity. There is no sustainability ... and theater without sustainability is childish and arrogant.

So ...

Why do people making independent theater suffering from "Audience Afterthought Syndrome?"

Because, building audience is harder than making theater. A lot harder. 

And, there's the childish arrogance. "What I make is good. Mommy likes it. Daddy likes it (well, probably not, but Daddy is a dick so it doesn't matter. Mommy likes it.) I'll make it and people will come. Then, they'll tell their friends, who will also come. Then, the critics will come and shout my praises. Then more people will come. Why wouldn't they? I'm precious."

It is crap, of course, but we still believe it because we are precious. And because if we make audience size part of our thinking, we have a metric to prove or disprove our preciousness. You can argue that an audience doesn't like your piece of theater because it isn't their cup of tea or it is over their heads, but with audience size in the metric, you can simply count the butts in the seats and measure your worth.

You have to start using the anti-precious phrase, "I failed." This is no reflection, necessarily, on the art. That might still be brilliant. But, if you can't get people in the seats, maybe you are in the wrong line of work.

Of course, I'm not talking about you, dear reader. I'm talking about me.

It is time I grew up theatrically. I'm not precious anymore, so I'm gonna figure out ways to build audience. I'll keep post my research here, so stay tuned.