Day 218. My Day on Mad Men

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

*Note: I have not made a Monday post yet, but I am going to skip it to talk about Tuesday first.

Today, I became a man, a Mad Man. This was it, today was the day I was to make my premiere on Mad Men. Let’s do this sucker chronologically. 

5:30. Alarm goes off. I hit snooze.0.

5:45. I’m up.

6:06. I’m out of the shower and I shave and put whatever goopy junk I use in my hair. I look at myself in the mirror and remember that they told me to not have any goopy junk in my hair when I arrive.

6:08. I’m back in the shower removing goopy junk.

6:30. I’m driving to the studio which is located downtown. My call time is 8 am and I have no idea how long it takes to actually get there. All I know is that the longest it has taken to get anywhere in the city for me is an hour and a half.

7:10. I’ve arrived 50 minutes early, so I recline my seat and take a nap.

7:30. I wake up and there is a girl next to me who has pulled up in her car. Her hair is in hot rollers, indicating she is a female extra on the show.

7:35. After checking with security, I walk to a table in front of some trailers to check in. I’m still a half hour early, so the guy tells me I can get some food. The food is awesome. I had a breakfast burrito and fresh fruit (not just melons either. We’re talking pineapples and strawberries)

8:00. Wardrobe is handing me my costume and I walk up to our dressing room to change.

8:11. I’m dressing into the 1960s with a few other men. They are regular extras. Some of them know each other from working on other shows together. It’s a fascinating subculture. It’s just another day of work for them. Most of them are older than me and are joking about how they remember the fashion from Mad Men in real life.

8:18. I’m dressed, but crap, my pants look like capris, they’re way too short.

8:23. Back at the trailer, wardrobe agrees with me. They take them and I change into my jeans for now and head to hair and makeup.

8:28. Makeup only covers one blemish, and I had to point it out. Perfect skin. The hair lady kills the environment with hairspray to make me look right. It was a lot, my hair was crispy.

8:40. I’ve got my pants on and they’re the right length this time.

8:41. I find out that we’re going to be shuttled by van to a location, rather than shooting on set. While we’re waiting one of the older extras offers to take a picture of the girl we’re waiting with, so she can “show her mother and grandmother.” When he’s done, I ask him to do the same thing. He’s seems surprised. Apparently, he only takes pictures of girls. In retaliation, he gets his finger in each shot he takes.

8:44. They load us up. About ten of us in my van looking like we’re straight out of the ’60s. They drop us off at “holding,” a bar around the corner from the shoot. It just so happens to be the bar where I played in a ping pong tournament earlier this summer.

8:53. A we wait, a person comes in to take each of our pictures, so they can determine who they want sitting where. The scene is in a diner. There are booths along the wall, and a walkway, then a counter with a row of stools parallel with the booths.

8:59. They’re calling people together to send them up. I’m not in the first group.

9:04. I’m not in the second group.

9:05. There are four of us that remain. A couple of the old timers are certain that means that we’re not getting in. They don’t seem to mind, they’ll be somewhere else tomorrow.

9:16. Finally, we’re called up. We wait in a row outside the diner. There’s a ton of equipment on the sidewalk as well. Really, extras aren’t much more than equipment. Extras are props, and not much more. It’s just the way it is.

9:24. I’m totally convinced that I’m going to be left out like I was on the game show several months ago. I would just be left waiting.

9:33. Then.

9:33. A PA jumps out and says, “You!” He points in my direction and I follow him in. I’m to occupy the last booth. I’m supposed to be a guy who is waiting for a friend to arrive. This has never happened to me in real life. I’m always the guy that a friend is waiting for.

9:34. It looks great on the inside. They have decorated it with signs from the 60s. I even have a menu with meals for $.95. There is not a thing that indicates it’s not the 1960s in view of the camera. Outside the camera there are all kinds of lights and screens, and equipement, and people, so many people.

9:40. I suppose I can’t say much about the scene. There are two regular characters that are there. A regular walks in and talks to a regular at the counter. That’s about it. There are probably eight lines. It is amazing how much work and stuff goes into that one short scene. There are so many people, and so many equipment, and so many details paid attention to.

9:58. My back is to the camera for the whole scene, I’m probably not very visible. But, I was acting my heart out on the inside. Where is my friend? Why isn’t he here yet? Was he in an accident? Did the Commies get him, like they got Jimmy? I was worried sick. Sure, all you’ll see on TV is my back to the camera, but there was a whole back story.

10:46. They’re done with me for now. I go back to holding.

10:52. Probably the coolest part of the day. I saw what the industry calls “craft services,” otherwise known by what we call “food” in the normal world. It was a whole spread of food. I got taquitos and fruit mostly. Plus, they had these big bottles of Naked Juice, which is what I get at Starbucks all the time. They’re like $3.45 for 12 ounces. Here, I could have as much as I wanted. Also, they had Nutrigrain bars and other packaged items. Was I the guy who put a lot of that crap in my pockets? You are darn right I was. Probably not cool, but I never eat. It was like inviting a raccoon to a Golden Corral.

11:14. I’m talking to another extra. Talking to new people might be my favorite thing about all of these adventures. This guy lives in LA half the year and does background work when he wants to. The rest of the year he is a captain of a private yacht in Seattle. Apparently, he also lives on the yacht and just takes the rich owners out when they want him to.

11:39. The old timers are predicting that the shoot is probably done.

11:53. Nope.

11:53. The PA comes down to grab us again. We head up to take our spots. They’re still shooting the same scene, this time from another angle.

12:01. They supply with a friend who has arrived. The Commies had not gotten to him. Phew.

12:06. They change their mind with us. The two guys they had put standing in the doorway were too short. They switched us.

12:11. Now, I’m an entirely new character with new motivations. This time, I’m standing in the doorway with a friend and we’re talking about what we’re doing later. We’re holding briefcases.

12:14. They decide we should be smoking. We have the following conversation with the guy.

Guy: Either of you guys smoke?

Us: No.

Guy: Great, I’ve got the two coolest guys in Hollywood.

12:16. He lights our cigarettes, which are just herbal cigarettes, so I don’t choke to death. I definitely felt like I’ve made it because, not only am I on Mad Men, I’m also smoking in a scene while holding a briefcase.

12:22. They just keep shooting the same scene over and over. So, next time when you’re watching any show at home, think about how much time they put into just that one scene. This is probably true of even crappy shows too. Also, whenever you’re watching background actors, know that when you see their mouths moving that they aren’t actually talking, they’re mouthing the whole thing. I was mouthing about plotting a murder.

1:04. I’m back in holding thinking about what packaged food to take with me.

1:13. We’re back in the dressing room changing back to this decade.

1:15. My friend in the scene and I are talking. It turns out that he works as a character at Disneyland. He often plays Goofy and Captain America. How cool is that?

1:16. I turn my wardrobe in. It turns out I got paid an extra $8.00 because I was smoking. Bizarro world.

1:34. I’m back to this decade, so I decide to stay downtown and hang out. I went to a French coffee shop run by an Asian couple, and I fell asleep in a park. I’m a Mad Man.

Day 59. The Distance Shrinks

Thursday, April 21, 2011

I woke up this morning with the immediate knowledge that I had overslept. You know the feeling. There is no grogginess, no wiping of the eyes, only a glance to the alarm clock to have a third party confirmation of what you already know. 

I was indeed late picking Michelle up from the airport, so I couldn’t get any cool shot of her coming down the escalator this time.

One thing I learned dating long distance before is that every visit is not going to be magical, and that’s okay. It’s good now, but we had some things to talk out. I’ve wanted to be honest in this blog, so I am.

This is difficult for us. It’s difficult in both similar and different ways.

Here’s the deal. We don’t really have much of a plan. We’re not planning on her moving out here at a certain time and we’re not planning on me coming home at a certain point. It is as open ended as can be. As a result, we both struggle with the uncertainty and the loneliness. I’m realizing the baseline of stress this gives us at most times.

At times we have a tough time relating to the differences of our other struggles. I tend to struggle a lot thinking about the money. This is why I eat very little and am losing weight. Talking to Michelle made me realize just how much I think about it in the back of my mind. Michelle tends to struggle more with the uncertainty and the emptiness of the house when she comes home. At times, we fail to appreciate and understand the other’s struggles. At times we feel distant.

That’s why you talk things out. It doesn’t change the circumstances, but it makes the distance shrink and the understanding grow.

Things are good. We had an amazing nap (I also sleep better with her around). We made dinner last night and watched TV. This felt great and ordinary, except the part where I helped to cook. Long distance makes you do strange things.

Tomorrow I’m going to film the deleted High Fidelity scene I mentioned yesterday. I got the part. This is a student project for a class that will be seen by tens of people in a class. It pays nothing. It may be silly to be excited for such a thing, but I am. Most everything I’ve done before is something I’ve been a part of creating, or something where someone has seen me performing improv before. This one, I just auditioned well. Hopefully, I will be able to add it to my reel (video acting resume), which needs to be beefed up.

Michelle has approved the content of this post.

Day 58. Say Anything in High Fidelity

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

I had an audition today on USC’s campus. It was for a student short. It’s not too big of a deal, but I’ve heard people say to do student films because eventually those students will be players in the entertainment industry. The USC campus is beautiful and I spent a lot of time walking around afterwards. The project the student is working on is an assignment for a class where they have to recreate a scene they haven’t seen before from a movie.

He chose a deleted scene from High Fidelity, a classic movie starring John Cusack.

I feel like I have a chance.

I’ve played John Cusack before.

When Michelle first came to visit me before we started dating, I took a chance. We had met at a camp two months earlier and she was visiting from Missouri to Traer, the small town in Iowa I was living in. I asked around and found out that it cost $35 to rent out the movie theater on the main street, so I got it out for us. We had the whole theater to ourselves as we watched Say Anything, another classic John Cusack movie. It was wonderful. It was an empty theater with just the two of us…and a high school kid running the projector.

As I recently mentioned, I was not a ladies man at this point at all. I reference, “at this point” to make you think I was at some other point. Keep that assumption. This was a big deal for me, I had never been bold with a girl before this at all. I don’t know why I chose to do it with Michelle, but there has always been something about her that makes me want to do those things.

Fast forward 4 1/2 years. I’m living in Springfield, MO, having chased Michelle there (another bold move). I’ve decided that I want to marry her and since I’m obsessed with surprises, so she has no idea. We never had the window shopping trips to jewelry stores or had conversations about getting married. Combine that with the fact that we had been dating a long time, I owed her a good proposal.

There was a new independent movie theater in town called the Moxie. I called them up and rented the theater for a night in early December. I got the ring, now I just had to stay quiet until the night came. This proved to be difficult when her best friend got engaged like ten days prior to my proposal. I have still not forgiven the proposer. I had to deal with a crying girlfriend in my kitchen while the ring was four feet away in a drawer.

Eventually, the night came and we watched Say Anything in an empty theater, just the two of us…and two twenty somethings running the projector. The movie is 3/4 of the way through when it gets to the iconic scene where John Cusack is outside the girl’s window holding a boom box that is playing “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. He’s wearing a trenchcoat, dark t-shirt, dark pants, and white high tops standing in front of a car.

http://movieclips.com/e/rxbG/

Boombox Serenade
Say Anything… at MOVIECLIPS.com

The scene shows him outside, then cuts to her inside, and then cuts back outside, only this time, on this night, in this version of the movie, the person now holding up the boom box in the movie is me wearing the trenchcoat, dark t-shirt, dark pants, and white high tops standing in front of my car.

Right before she looks at me to figure out what is going on, the words, “Michelle will you marry me?” come on the screen. Michelle freaks out screaming running up and down the aisles. I give John Cusack a mental high five and Michelle a kiss.

So, yeah, I can play John Cusack.

I pick that girl up from the airport in the morning.

Day 28. The Striving and the Rooting

Monday, March 21, 2011

I’m reading a book on writing screenplays right now. At the heart of all screenplays is story. A screenplay has to have a good story. You have to have a main character that is relatable and you have show who they are and what their life is like. Then, as a writer, you have to shake up their life in a meaningful way, and create their journey to try to get life back to normal as they encounter new and different obstacles along the way. As a viewer, you have to see the character striving for things. As we watch, we pull for them more with each new struggle. Good stories have points in them where the protagonist seems stuck and the story seems done. In those times, we root for them all the more not to give up. There has to be risk, there has to be reward, and in the end, we desperately want them to win. But, the protagonist, in the middle of the story, has no idea how it is going to turn out.

This morning Michelle had to leave. She was here for nine days and we had a great time. We like being together, you know, like a married couple does. We were laying in bed and slowly rising when she checked her e-mail. She had gotten a response about health insurance back. See, I went on her health insurance right after mine ended for the downtime between when I left my job and when I was hopefully able to get individual insurance on my own. This was only meant as a stop gap measure, knowing we could not sustain it for very long because it’s a few hundred dollars a month. As I shared on this blog, I was ecstatic to learn that I got individual health insurance at the standard rate, despite my asthma and allergies. Great, right?

This morning, we learned that I cannot go off her insurance until July. My individual insurance is supposed to start April 1st. So, worst case scenario, I can’t push my start time back on my individual insurance and we’re paying for two insurance policies, when we can barely afford the cheaper one. Next worst case scenario, I’m on Michelle’s  for a long time and it is expensive by itself. Yuck, no other scenarios.

In all honesty, this morning felt like one of those moments where it’s too soon to go back, but I can’t figure out how this is going to work. The enormity of the task seems too big. My sinuses were killing me (I’ve reacquired allergies out here apparently), I had to say goodbye to my wife, and as we walked to the car I realized that I hadn’t moved the car on street cleaning day for a $68 ticket.

This whole thing kind of zapped my energy for my first improv class out here. I’m taking classes at Upright Citizen’s Brigade. We met in a small room nearish my home here. Improv is all about being in the moment, so it was nice to jump out of my head. The class was pretty basic, as I think all of Level 1 will be, but it was refreshing to do something here where I know what I’m doing. It was really my first experience with that. I’m looking forward to getting to know people in my class and be in an improv community. (28 affirmation points)

No idea how this is going to turn out.

But, I’ll keep pressing forward.

Day 14. Audition? Sure.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Today was a good day. I made a new website. This one is for my acting. It is JeffHoughton.net. You can check it out. JeffHoughton.com is all ready taken by my arch nemesis, Jeff Houghton. It is nearly completely done. I must admit, it is a strange feeling to be my own business now. It feels entirely narcissistic, but I think it is something I have to learn to be okay with. I was hoping that the website would look legit and look like it was done by a professional, not by a guy in a bed because he doesn’t have a desk.

That wasn’t the exciting part of the day. The exciting part of the day was while I was working on said website in said bed, I got a call from the folks at Community and they wanted me to come in to audition for a speaking role for the show. Say what?! What Up With That? It was just Friday that I dropped off my headshot. They wanted me to come by in two hours and asked if I was free. I tried to pause before I said, “Sure!”

So, they sent me a script and I went into the shower to practice it. There were only like five lines, but a couple involved yelling, so I tried to create barriers between myself and my housemates. Eventually, I arrived in the room where there were about seven others practicing the same lines. I kept wanting to ask the other guys questions about what we had to do in there. Did we have to have it totally memorized, or could we read from the sheet? Do they have to read everything before I say my line since it jumps around, or do we go straight in? What did people say their favorite food was before there was pizza? Yet, I asked nothing.

So, I went in and did it. It went pretty well. I have no perspective on if it was great or horrible, but it seemed good. They gave me another sheet of additional lines and told me to come back in with those lines when I was ready. That went fine as well.

Here are my thoughts on my first audition. Although I was a little more nervous than I would have liked, it was not scary or intimidating, it was just me with two other people in a small room. They were nice and I felt like I belonged. It was great to get my first one out of the way, now I want to do more, I just needed to have one under my belt. It really isn’t too bad. 13 affirmation points.

Exciting news number two. I heard back from the health insurance people and I got approved at their ‘standard rate.’ I was not anticipating that. It will save us a lot of money. 11 affirmation points.

Exciting news number three. I went to a show at iO West featuring my new friend, Dana. It was a great show called ‘Celebrity’ and this time featured Eric Stonestreet, who plays one of the gay guys on Modern Family. I talked to him for a bit afterwards. Then, I stayed and watched the next show which featured Tim Meadows.

I’d like to think that I play everything cool, but the truth is, this experience is such an up and down thing yet, so I might as well enjoy the ups.

Day 13. My Dad

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Back in Springfield I used to get recognized a few times a week by people who had been to the Skinny Improv. Usually, they would say, “You look familiar,” and I would say, “I’m your cousin.” I would not expect that sort of thing to happen once out here. But, this morning I went to a church on Hollywood Boulevard. As I was walking out a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Are you from Springfield?” I carry around a Skinny Improv bag with me most of the time here when I ride my bike. He is an Evangel University student and he saw my bag. He is here for a semester who had seen the Skinny a few times. So, I guess I’m just another celebrity in Hollywood.

I also got my haircut after seeing Missouri State lose the MVC championship game while eating an overpriced quesadilla.

Here is the extent of the conversation I had with the hair stylist:

Jeff: I’d like some off the side and top, but nothing too drastic.

(25 minutes later)

Jeff: Looks good, I’m glad you used the thinning shears.

Sheila (I’m guessing): Yeah, your hair is pretty thick

And scene

This process of blogging is fairly narcissistic for me, so I want to also talk about some other people periodically. My dad is the tennis coach at the University of Iowa, as he has been since 1981, and today his team played #4 in the nation, Illinois, losing a heartbreaker 4-3. Iowa has had many good teams over the years, but this would have been the biggest team win in the program’s history. Many, many times the team has come close, but has never quite gotten over the hump in those really huge upset situations. I was getting updates from my mom as the meet went on and I thought, “This is the one!” Well, it didn’t happen.

I’m a big sports fan generally, but I don’t cheer for anything as much as I do for my dad. After pouting for awhile, eventually I saw the loss through a different lens, admiring the way my dad has managed to take setbacks like that, only to charge forward for the next meet, and more importantly, over the course of so over many years. It is inspiring for me at this time as I am attempting a big upset out here. I imagine I’ll have many, many setbacks before I pull an upset and I hope I have the fortitude, integrity, and outlook of my father. We may just get our upsets.

Day 12. Da Bomb

Saturday, March 5th

A few years ago during my blood center donor recruiter days I got the opportunity I would always strive for as a recruiter of blood donors. I got the chance to speak in front of a lot of people to tell them how great blood donation is and that they should donate at their drive coming up. It was at Ozark High School and the student council president had managed to get an all school assembly for me to speak at for a half hour. Two red flags. One, a half hour is way too long even if I was just speaking to five people. Two, I was in fact speaking to over one thousand students in the high school gym.

I just started in powered my way through it while an estimated 40 out of 1,000 students heard anything I said. Those who were listening could hear me laughing through my words as I enjoyed the absurdity of the situation.

I had the same experience today.

I was auditioning for a stand up club in Pasadena to get a spot in their Sunday night lineup. As with the open mic I did Friday night, I was performing to ten other standups who were also auditioning. It was fun to watch, many of them were really good. I honestly thought, I’m going to do really well still. Not the case. I got up there doing my nervous speech thing and they didn’t like it from the get go. I strive for awkward as a character and they gave it back to me tenfold. At one point the only audible sound after one of my jokes was a loud sigh. I found myself laughing out loud at the situation.

I was hoping that my awkward story for the experience was that I sat for ten minutes thinking I was in the right room at the club only to find out that I was sitting in the room waiting for traffic school to commence.

Here was the conversation I had with the women sitting next to me.

Me: “Um, excuse me, I parked in a two hour limit spot, do you think they check that a lot?”

Woman #1: Oh, I don’t know, I don’t live in Pasadena

Woman #2: Are you supposed to be in here?

Me (starting to dawn): I don’t know

Woman #1: This is traffic school

Me (dawned): Oh

Woman #2: Do we look like we would be doing stand up?

Me: I don’t know

Woman #2: There are a lot of rooms here

Me: The funny thing is that I’m doing traffic school online right now. Isn’t that weird?

Women sit in silence

Me: Well, I hope I’m funnier in there…gulp

Here’s the great thing. It really didn’t bother me to have a bad audition. One, I know that I’ve done the exact same jokes before and they’ve gone over well. Two, I really do cherish awkward situations that I’m in. Three, all my eggs are not in the stand up basket. I’ll try it some more places and if it doesn’t work I’ll adapt, or focus on other endeavors. It was really nice to feel okay with doing poorly actually. The worst that it is going to feel like is indifference. I won’t see those people much or at all after this. So, I might as well cherish it and blog about it. It would be remiss of me to not include that it is disappointing and on my mind a bit, but I’m still choosing to move forward. The truth is I haven’t auditioned very much for things, so it is nice to experience that bombing isn’t all that bad.

Yesterday, I talked about getting affirmation points. I think when things go bad, I will call them, “crapfirmation points.” Today, I received 3 crapfirmation points at the stand up and 1 at the traffic school. I think I’m still ahead though.

After that I had a good talk with my friend, Andy, and went to a party where there were a couple people that I knew. That was nice.

Day 10. A Starbucks Day

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Have you seen my other funny blog? The Mystery Hour. Go to there.

Today, I spent a large chunk of time in a Starbucks. I just silently sat working on things. There was only a homeless guy there who lasted longer than me. He was ripping sheets of paper and putting them in between the sheets of his book. I was researching open mic nights and not eating food. It’s true, I have not been eating that well, and it is also true that food is what gives you energy. 

You know what else is true? There are a ton of young good looking people in Los Angeles, and specifically at the Starbucks I go to. I was giggling to myself as each time someone new walked in the door they were better looking than the last person. By the end, there was just a brilliant shining orb entering the room.

I can very easily get stuck in research mode when I have something big to do. I think it comes from a fear of going in one direction and having it be the wrong one. Sometimes, though I just need to say, ‘screw it’ and move forward. I know all I need to know about open mic nights, now I just need to do it. It is an odd thing, however, to just be on my own doing it. I tend to overtalk things out with people, mostly Michelle, and it is strange to not have someone to do that with face to face. It makes it seem a little less real.

That is an interesting thought. Who we are and what we do becomes more real when there are people there reflecting those things back to us. That’s why we only allow those things to be shown to people we trust. Those we trust we give bigger mirrors to.

Tomorrow I’m heading back to the Paramount Lot to drop off my headshot to the casting directors I had met the other day. Very exciting. I will give them a small mirror for now.

Day 8. A Nice ‘Community’

March 1, 2011

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the generosity of people with their time in helping me out when I’ve been out here. Friends of friends and friends of acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances have been willing to sit down and talk to me and share advice. I think it’s because everybody who has succeeded out here was once in my shoes. It is a pretty neat deal.

Today, I had two examples of that.

I had lunch at Fuddrucker’s today. Yep, they have those here too. I ate with a guy named Ryan and a couple of his friends. Ryan is a friend of a fan of The Skinny Improv/Mystery Hour, so our connection is fairly small. Ryan is an improviser and actor and has been doing it for awhile now. He and his two friends were the kindest guys. Oh, and my lunch was paid for, crazy-kind for a guy with a small connection to me.

I have this whole long story about a woman I met on the plane when I first came out here in October to visit. Anyway, she works for the show, Community. She’s a great lady who has seen me do improv now and is just super helpful. Today, I went to the Paramount lot and got to see some of the show being filmed and got to talk to the actors in a crowded hallway right before they were getting ready to shoot. I played it off like I was cool, I hardly talked about local Springfield history at all.  One of them even recognized me from when I visited in October. I walked around the set, through the study room and cafeteria. There are just so many people involved in pulling off shows. Here is a blurry picture of me in the study room. The sound stage was also where they filmed Citizen Kane back in the day. A few steps down was a legit looking New York City block. They filmed the Godfather there and a number of other movies. 

The coolest thing may have been that my friend took me in and we talked to the casting directors for like a half hour. I played it off like I was cool, I didn’t talk about my love for foreign nationals at all. Casting directors determine who gets cast in shows, so they’re kind of a big deal. They said to send them my headshot. I said, “Oh my God.”

Also, Glee shoots on the same lot, so I saw some of the cast walking around with lunch. I requested a mashup of some kind to no avail. I feel very fortunate to have such nice people helping me out, it is definitely a highlight of my time so far.

Then I came home and had dinner with my landlords/roommates/childhood soccer coach/friend’s parents. More kindness.

Just playing it off like I’m cool.