“Dennis Baker is well-cast and brings a really nice reality to this intriguing play.” – Tracey Paleo, GIA ON THE MOVE

“Dennis Baker does an excellent job turning his character into a complex, fleshed-out human being during the tight 90 minutes, and tension builds steadily throughout.” – Erin Conley, ON STAGE & SCREEN

Purgatory is a storage unit in rural Alabama for Ed and Lorraine, the gunshot-ridden corpses of a murdered married couple. Leah and Todd, their teenaged murderers, flee the state to Arkansas, haunted by memories and the unearthly talking dead. When Mara and Ethan, two recent transplants from New York City, take the young adults into their new home, the disturbing unfolding reality of the situation threatens to destroy the lives (and afterlives) of all involved.

I read a tweet once by an agent that said, and I am paraphrasing, “I can only do my job if an actor is willing to lose the job.” The agent meant that he can only properly negotiate if an actor is willing to walk away from the project. That can be scary for actors, but here is a great way to practice that…don’t sign the actor release form for student films.

As soon as an actor signs the release form, they lose all power. I recommend not signing it until the last day of production. If that is too uncomfortable, then start by writing an addendum on the form. Something like, “If the shooting script is changed in any way during production, this release is void.” I recommend talking with your agent to see what wording they would use.

This may require a discussion with the director on why you are doing this. Simply tell the director that it is not about them or lack of trust in the current project, but due to an unprofessional experience on a past project, this step is taken as protection.

Need an example of a past unprofessional experience? Here is the story…

I signed on to play the lead role in a USC graduate film. It was an interesting story and we would be shooting six days around LA and in the desert. In hindsight, there were some red flags in pre-production and production that I justified or shrugged off. One red flag was that the director sent an email out requesting cast and crew not to take behind-the-scene photos as there would be an official photographer. He stated that if anyone did take pictures they would be removed from the film. That language seemed extreme, but I justified it by thinking the director was just trying to make a point.

The graduate film was a 582 thesis film, meaning that the student raised their own money and held the copyright. USC also has the option where the student can use school money, but then the school holds the copyright. The director was also the executive producer, director of photography (with many shots being hand-held), and production designer. This was also a red-flag as it was clear the director was a one-man show. The only other producer was an associate producer, which was basically a gloried assistant. The associate producer had no say, power or input. Another red flag was the crew was all hired help. There were no fellow USC graduate students helping on this film. In all my past experience working on student films classmates crewed each other’s projects. Those other classmates obviously knew something that I did not know about working with this director.

It was the night before day four of shooting. I emailed the director and associate producer to confirm mileage reimbursement. Many student filmmakers ignore, or gloss over, the fact that mileage reimbursement is not deferred. The day rate is deferred, but not mileage reimbursement. After a couple of emails back and forth where I nicely pointed the mileage reimbursement out in the contract that he sent us, his last email stated he will mail me a check, that he was going a different direction in the script and I would no longer be needed on set. The director was not CCing the associate producer in the emails he sent to me. I called her and she knew nothing of this decision. He would not return my phone calls and the associate producer recommended I show up to set the next day so the three of us could talk. I showed up on set and the director would not come out of the building.

Through emails and messages with the crew I heard the director was saying I did not deliver. I had two artistic “conversations” with the director. Once was by email after a four person scene. I said that I felt like the end of the scene did not click until the last shot, which we shot in profile. I knew the last day was a pick-up day and I offered to shoot that last section again so the director could get close-ups, if he wanted. The director emailed back agreeing to re-shoot as he also did not like the blocking. The last scene of the third night was a scene between me and the actress playing my sister. At the end of shooting, he said we had good chemistry. That was the extent of his artistic direction. Nowhere did he ever have a one-on-one conversation with me saying that something was not working. There was no collaboration between the director and actor. No talking between takes to try it a different way. He did not have time to talk with actors as he was too busy being executive producer, director, DP and production designer.

One speculation I have is that we did not get the last scene of the film and he had to re-write the script. In the last scene, my character is supposed to run up to a gas station in the desert and shoot the bad guy. The bus got to set an hour late that day and by the time we shot that scene we only had enough daylight for one take. Due to camera placement and movement, we did not get the scene in the one take. By the time we shot it again it was completely dark and the scene would not match with the earlier footage. Again this is speculation, as I have no idea the reason for the director’s decision because he would not talk with me.

I reached out to the faculty advisor, who was nothing less than completely professional. He agreed the director was taking on too much responsibility, over-worked and did not conduct himself in a professional manner. After the faculty advisor was in contact with the director, I received an email stating that the production had no issues with me. The faculty advisor quickly responded that the director did not take his advice to offer to meet with me person-to-person and instead chose to talk as the production. After the director and faculty advisor met in person, I received a two-line email basically saying, “Hey, you want to meet in person for coffee.” I replied that I did not have the time to meet with him and the time to talk was the day on set when the director would not come out of the building. I stated the director’s request to meet was disingenuous and that it would not be productive as the director clearly did not understand how unprofessional he was. I never heard back from the director and the faculty advisor emailed me to confirm that my assessment was correct.

We had shot the beginning of the movie and the end of the movie before I was released. From what I heard, the director changed minor things in the script and somehow killed off my character. I also talked with a USC graduate film alumni I work with at my day job. He was shocked to hear this story. He said if the project was funded by USC, the director would have been assigned a producer. The producer would have fired the director for doing this.

Here is where the release comes in. If I did not sign the release, the director would not be able to use any of the footage of me and would have screwed himself over by firing me. Since I did sign the release, he can use the footage of me however he likes. I will now be in a movie that I did not originally sign on to be in. Not signing the release (or writing in an addendum) protects an actor from a director going rogue and changing the script half-way through production. Nine times out of ten will this happen? No. But there is a chance. An actor needs to set-up protections of how their image and voice will be used.

Work Backwards

What is the deadline of your first audition? Work backwards from there. I usually recommend a minimum of four meetings with your audition coach, more if you do not have any monologues prepared and memorized. Those four meetings could be in a span of four to six weeks. After the first two meetings, I sometimes break with the student for a couple of weeks so they have time to memorize. The last couple of coaching sessions are not productive until the student is off book.

Be Well Prepared

The four to six week schedule is for students who comes to the first meeting well prepared. Being well prepared is when students have done the initial monologue research and have narrowed down their selection. I recommend students have four monologues prepared: a dramatic and comedic contemporary and a dramatic and comedic Shakespeare monologue. It is even better if the students have one or more of these monologues memorized before the first meeting. Many students feel the monologues they have already used in auditions are stale and they should look for new ones. If it is a contemporary monologue that is overdone than maybe it is time to get a new monologue. But many times working that “old” monologue with a coach can help bring a new life to the performance. Do you know if you have an overdone monologue? Sign up for the FREE overdone monologue list I provide and find out.

Experience with Shakespeare

What is your experience level with Shakespeare? Many students contact me for Shakespeare coaching because I use the First Folio. The First Folio technique is a great tool that aids the actors in accessing the language through clues Shakespeare left in the text itself. While a student does not need to know the first folio technique to work with me, it is helpful to have some experience with Shakespeare.

If you ares still not sure, I would recommend reaching out to an audition coach a minimum of eight weeks before your audition. You might not have to start a session right away, but at least you can chat with the audition coach and work with them to create a plan. It doesn’t hurt to be early, but it could hurt you if you contact a college audition coach too late.

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Season 9, Episode 16 “Gabby”. Written by Erica Messer and Jim Clemente. Directed by Thomas Gibson. I had the pleasure of working on CRIMINAL MINDS in January and the episode aired February 26, 2014. Below is the breakdown of working on the show.

The Audition

I received a direct audition notification from casting and auditioned on December 13th. The part was initially in the breakdowns for a 40s Asian lawyer. That obviously changed. The part was of the character Austin Leland, a public defender who is called in to represent a suspect. The scene consisted of a five line exchange with Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson). The Criminal Minds auditions are held on the same lot the show shoots their interior scenes I got the call a couple of hours after the audition that I booked it and it would shoot in January.

The Table Read

The table read was about ten days before I was scheduled to shoot. The guest actors were invited on the lot and we sat around with the series regulars and production crew as we read the script. It is a quick forty-five minutes as the reading is scheduled during the lunch break as they are still in the middle of shooting the previous episode. Many one hour television shows do not do table reads so it was nice to have the moment to meet everyone and see the faces to all the roles.

On Set

After the table read, I had a quick costume fitting about a week before the day I was scheduled to shoot. My call was for MLK day Monday, January 20th. Arrived at my call time of 9am on the same lot that the audition was on. I settled into my dressing room, had some breakfast and there was plenty of time before I was scheduled to be on set. I had two short scenes to shoot and the call sheet had them about half way down the list of scenes due to shoot that day. I was called to set about 11am and the cast/crew were in the middle of shooting the previous scheduled scene. In all the bustling around, Gibson said hello from across video village. He said thanks for coming and they would be at my scene momentarily. I took a seat and watched from the monitor. I was able to catch up with Jim Clemente a little before they were ready to move on to my first scene.

My first scene consisted of one line in reaction to Gibson’s character confronting my client with a new piece of evidence. There were only about three set-ups and it all happened fairly quickly. Like all one-hour dramas the pace is fast as they have to shoot an average eight pages a day. There were about three to four takes each and that took us to lunch. After lunch, there was another scene shot and then it was my second and final scene. The final scene consisted of a two camera set-up on me and the actor Tysen Fraker, playing Ian Little. In viewing the final cut, I was bummed that two of my lines were off camera, but when I saw the two camera set-up I had a feeling that was going to happen. My character was giving exposition about the other person in the room. It made sense that instead of showing me they would show that character.

Lessons Learned

I think the biggest lessoned learned was the approach I took at the audition. As an actor one is naturally excited about an audition, but that excitement was not going to fit the tone of the scene. As a co-star you are there to give information. Therefore, with the motivation of this being a small part of this public defender’s long day, it caused me to settle into the scene and keep it simple and straight-forward. For the character this is something he does multiple times a day. It helped me to not over play the scene.

Another lesson learned is that breakdowns change all the time. I saw the original breakdown for the role when it was calling for a 40s Asian man and dismissed it as I did not fit the description. All this to say, the change was not made public and probably due to this last minute change, casting decided not to release a breakdown but call people they knew in directly. I read for this show over a year before and had not been called in since then. It was to the point that I thought maybe they had forgotten about me. It was clear that they were waiting to bring me in for the right role.