ramblings of a raconteuse

I ended my last post “Project Helenna - Part One” by saying that “I am now declaring my remainder of 2012 as the year of “Project Helenna.”  

If you’re wondering why, feel free to go back and read my previous post to get caught up.  For those of you looking for details on just how I’m going to get down to business, here is what I mean…

I am turning my focus back to the craft of acting and to a “holistically healthy Helenna: mentally, physically, and spiritually, to create the best actor I can be and my best self.”

How am I going to do this?

Since I have a producer type brain, I’ve laid everything out for myself as if it is a project I’m about to produce.  

Now, first off, in addition to producing content for the web I also have spent many years on the business of acting which is extremely important for any actor looking to break into the business.  I’ve educated myself in a very comprehensive way taking a ton of workshops and classes and seminars etc… I’ve studied with many of the leading minds in this field and have saturated myself with information.  

Secondly, as an actor, I’ve also filled myself with training in Vancouver as well as LA and again, I’m saturated. 

At this point, I’m bursting and prepared and I believe in my skill set.  I’m ready.  Do I still have a ton to learn?  Of course.  We never stop growing and changing.  But right now, at this stage of my development as an actor, I feel ready to really apply the training I’ve had not in a class but on set as much as possible. 

I’m taking everything I have learned and am creating a laser beam focus.  A lot of the time the best actions are the types that you would take if you were already “there” so that you are actually ready instead of preparing to be ready.  ”Project Helenna” for me means going about my craft and career as if I am already a series regular.  I thought it easiest if I laid out my guide of what I’ll be focused on to explain exactly what this means for me. 

1) Optimum Health and Fitness

I’ve often said that I want to be in the best physical condition possible because not only do I want to look fantastic, (after all this is Hollywood), but I want to be able to play roles where I’m kicking butt Lara Croft/Sucker Punch styles.  (If there is a comedic element thrown in there, all the better!) While I’m in relatively good shape, my goal is to get to the point where I could be called tomorrow to do training with wire work, or massive guns, or in some type of martial art, and rock it out because I’m in such a great state of fitness.  

I’ve started training with a friend of mine who has developed a great program for me in the gym in my building.  It’s taken what I was already doing for my workouts and refined it so that I feel like I’m properly focused.  This is a definite challenge to me, but one I am ready for. So far I’ve completed a week of the new program and I feel great!

2) Sharpen My Craft

I recently had to prepare 25 pages of sides (aka. “script”) for 3 different characters for a meeting I had.  This was an incredibly fun task, but also rather difficult.  One of the roles was a pretty big stretch for me and I had to do a lot of work getting myself to the place that that character lives inside of me and I only really had a day to do it.  

And heads up, tv auditions are nothing like theater where you have weeks of rehearsal.  You don’t have a ton of time to prepare and you have to be able to deliver a wholly realized character.  I ended up doing a stellar job, but it made me realize that having such a dense amount of material to prepare to the point where it’s “set ready” takes a focus on my craft that needs to be the norm.  

I realized that I need to make a list of all of the possible types of characters I can play and start researching them now as opposed to when I get the material.  That way, as soon as I see the type of character, I can access the information I’ve banked so that I have a solid starting off point and I’m not forced to begin with the base line of research. (ie)  a cop’s mindset vs a lawyer’s etc…)

Now this being said, in the past I haven’t really needed to do massive amounts of research for an audition because that character’s thoughts and words and feelings were like second nature to me.  But in this past case, I really needed to school myself.  The character was foreign to me and I was being held to a very high standard.  I was being truly tested to see if I was ready for the next tier jump.  I passed with flying colors. 

3) Balance the Mind

I’m very grateful for Jack Plotnick.  He is one of the acting coaches I work with and is all about affirmations. Thank God for that.  

Being an actor can be crazy-making.  We deal with ups and downs on a daily if not hourly basis in a way that the rest of the world doesn’t.  Rejection is inevitable and every day we are putting our emotions and the core of ourselves on the line.  For those of you reading this who aren’t actors, the best way to describe it is that basically, we are doing job interviews a number of times a day and the reason we don’t get a job could have nothing to do with our skill set.  The reason could be that we are too fat, too thin, have brown hair and they want blonde hair, our eyes are too close together, or perhaps the producer’s girlfriend is the one already favored for the role.  There are a zillion things out of our control and yet we have to deliver the goods every single time. 

There is so much anxiety and fear that can arise from this business that you need to be grounded completely in who you are.  Someone told me once that contrary to popular belief, actors are the most sane people in Hollywood because we are constantly being faced with our own shit and forced to work through it.  This totally makes sense to me. I know that I can’t access all of the things in me as an actor if there is an emotional block in my way.  I also know that the nervous energy of a high stakes audition or job (aka. excitement without the breath), can be crippling.  I’ve know people who have intense fight or flight, myself included.  Even Pavarotti is known to have said “ok, little me, big me is taking over” before a performance to calm nerves.  

So all this being said, I’m going to continue “working through my shit” so that I can consistently be the most open vessel possible.  Whether that means as an actor letting the character really inhabit me, or as the working professional kicking butt at an audition or on set.  I’m committing to freeing my mind of the bullshit that I can so easily create for myself so that I can continue the journey to centering myself spiritually and mentally.  A good start to this for me will be finally reading all of the books on my shelf that I’ve meant to crack open for YEARS.  The first one I’m going to finish? “You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought” by Peter McWilliams. 

4. For Now, Working Only As An Actor

I’m going to focus on working solely as an actor for the rest of the year, with passionate peers and people at the top of their game who I can learn from and grow from. I’m going to continue to stay strong with this intention and embrace saying “no” to the things that will not serve me.  I primarily mean producing new projects.  I’m constantly getting new ideas that pop into my head that I want to go forward with, but as I explained in my last post, I’m letting go of that safety net for the time being and challenging myself to not get distracted from my laser bean focus.  Saying “no” is quite possibly the hardest thing for me, but I need to always ask myself “will this get me closer to my goal?”  And if not, I have to be comfortable letting it go. 

Luckily, I have a great manager who is helping me navigate my career and a lot of fabulous seeds are being planted.  Bit by bit, my career is growing and I’m excited to keep this laser beamed focus and see what comes to fruition. 

5. Know What Works For Me

And finally, I’m going to continue with the theory of focusing on what works for me and letting go of what doesn’t.  One of those things is knowing when certain information is useful to me.  Recently there are some resources that I feel no longer serve me and have stopped using them, but right now I’m addicted to these particular blogs/podcasts and highly encourage other actors out there to check them out:

The Working Actress  by Anonymous

Inside Acting Podcast by Trevor Algatt  and AJ Meijer 

The Actors Voice by Bonnie Gillespie

Secrets of Screen Acting by Patrick Tucker/podcast by David H. Lawrence Xvii 

and for those of you who haven’t read Jenna Fischer’s blog post from a number of years ago, I absolutely suggest reading it ASAP. 

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So with no further ado, development is officially over and “Project Helenna” has been green lit ;)  Here I go…!

Xoxoxo helenna 

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tweet me at: @helslevy

browse me at: helennasantoslevy.com

email me at: contacthelenna@gmail.com

aka) I’m the resident “artsy farsty nerd” ;) 

Recently a number of people have been asking me what my next producing project is going to be.  My simplest answer?

Me.

After having spent the last few years as what my friend Bonnie Gillespie (casting director/author) would call a “self producing actor,” I’ve churned out a heck of a lot of content.  From my web series pilot The Day Player back in 2009 to 98 episodes of my vlog “Helenna’s Tinseltown Tuesdays,” to my latest online project the animated comedy series “Girl and Boy,”  I’ve spent a lot of time and energy creating projects.  While none of them really “took off,” that was never my goal.  While some of the projects I produced were purely for the love of creating, some of them were solely a means to an end.  The goal for me was never to create a hit online series, it was always to use the projects I produced as a spring board. 

Since graduating theater school I have always been focused on being a working actor.  Ultimately, a series regular whose hiatus from her show is spent on film sets each summer.  

The reality is that this type of goal can take many many many years to accomplish, and for the majority of people it’s not a goal that will ever be attained.  Consistent financial success in this industry has so much to do with other people’s free will and the “Entertainment Gods” aka) fate.  You can be the most incredible actor that has ever lived but never catch a break or “get arrested” as Hollywood folk say.  This very reason is why so many actors, myself included, turn to producing their own projects.  It’s a way for us to take control over our careers while also allowing us to mold how we are seen by the decision makers and higher ups.

When I produced the 2 part web series pilot “The Day Player,” I had very specific goals in mind.  I knew that I wanted to showcase myself as a comedic actor.  I also knew that I wanted to get the project in front of people in “traditional Hollywood” so that I could open doors that had previously been closed to me.  This is something that I talk a lot about on the Geek Girls Create panel that I sit on; specifically that so far, producing for me has been a means to an end, and a successful one at that.  After all, it’s because I produced The Day Player that Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg were introduced to my work as an actor and planted the seed of what ultimately lead to me being able to audition for “American Reunion” and then book it. 

For me, this is a definite measure of “self producing” success. But this being said, I’ve made the decision to fly without my “self producing actor safety net” for the rest of 2012.  I say “safety net” because I’ve kept myself busy for a few years doing everything I could not waiting for the phone to ring.  As an actor in LA, I firmly believe that this is one of the best things you can do so that you don’t feel like you are being eaten alive by this industry.  It helped me feel a great sense of control in an extremely fickle business. 

Over the past few years I’ve also spent huge amounts of time absorbing information about new media and learning everything I could.  One of the biggest things I’ve learned? Researching and implementing social media strategies is a full time job. Producing content is like, 6 different people’s full time jobs.  And while this definitely kept me busy and feeling like I was feeding my creative self, it took me further away from the reason I moved to LA to begin with and made me feel like my brain was going to explode.  Is there a lot more that I could do to open even more doors as a “self producing actor?”  Absolutely.  But, I was spending so much time creating that I was overloading myself so much that ironically, my creative self was starting to burn out.  Being a burned out creative does not really support being a strong actor. 

In addition to the exploding brain factor, all of the projects I’ve produced including the musical series Songs From, The Ex-Convict’s Guide, my vlog, Girl and Boy etc… were projects I did because I loved the content and I loved producing, but I’ve recently realized that with the majority of these projects I was making lateral moves instead of upwards steps. 

I love producing and it is something that I will absolutely be coming back to especially since my husband and I share a production company, but I have decided that I’m shifting focus. The rest of 2012 is devoted solely towards upward steps in my career path; specifically, to Helenna the Actor.

So, what does this mean? 

I am now declaring my remainder of 2012 as the year of “Project Helenna.”  

Stay tuned to my next blog post (out Friday, May 4th) for the nitty gritty on what this means and to see my action plan…

Xoxoxo helenna 

______________________________________

tweet me at: @helslevy

browse me at: helennasantoslevy.com

email me at: contacthelenna@gmail.com

aka) I’m the resident “artsy farsty nerd” ;) 

Written for my weekly Friday blog post at:  

aka) I’m the resident “artsy farsty nerd” ;) 

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I’ve been choir geek forever.  I started singing in a group at my church when I was 5 years old.  I then joined a children’s chorus when I was 8, sang in every choir I could in high school, and then majored in “jazz voice” in college.  I am a full fledged choir geek and music nerd.

 Here’s a video for proof:

Part of my love for NBC’s “The Voice” comes from my background in music and the other part, the absolute pure joy of seeing people do what they love and chase their dreams.  I have the utmost respect for these people because as an actor, that’s what I do every day, and every day I get closer to my goals just like they do.

 I’m not going to lie, every single episode makes me cry and this is coming from a girl who really dislikes most reality television.  

But there is something about “The Voice” that’s different.  The show is about taking what is unique and amazing about someone and helping it flourish, not about forcing them to fit into some cookie cutter industry mold.  I absolutely LOVE it.  There is no finding the people that are the worst singers so that all of America can laugh at them.  No one is tearing these singers down, it’s solely about building them up.  

If you don’t watch this show, I totally suggest that you start…that you at least watch the “blind auditions” aka) first four episodes.  And no…I’m not endorsed by NBC or “The Voice,” I’m merely an uber fan who wants to share the love, happy tears, and some joyous music. 

Sing on Nerds! Sing on! 

oxox hels

tweet me at: @helslevy

browse me at: helennasantoslevy.com

email me at: contacthelenna@gmail.com