A Director's Perspective

Welcome to my new newsletter! The world is a mixed up crazy place where the artist has the duty to inject beauty for the mind, the soul and the body. It’s an effective and powerful counter to the cooky things we see going on. This newsletter is designed to assist you in the mission.

TO DIRECT OR NOT TO DIRECT

Is desire part of success? I think not.

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning there was desire. I knew not what lay ahead. I only knew, I wanted to be an actor. I didn’t even think about being a director. Why?

Looking back objectively, I can say that it was born out of wanting to be a somebody. No one around me in my later teenage years and early twenties was a somebody - at least in my eyes. I wanted to achieve something of greatness in the realm of what I loved most, movies. Acting seemed the most obvious.

My whole life I had been watching TV and going to the movies. Actors were the gods of 20th century. I am sure it is still true today, that whenever anyone thinks of movies they think of the actors that appear on the screen. I believe, though, that social media has knocked most movie stars down several notches below the level of being gods. That is a topic of discussion for a different newsletter.

There I was, full of desire and intention with absolutely no road map. And no one to consult. In fact, when I finally did verbalize that desire to those close to me, I was literally labelled “crazy” by all except my dear mother. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what to do or where to go either. Acting was what a very people did in the far off and weird land of Hollywood.

What I learned from that experience that I pass on to those who find themselves in similar circumstances is, be vocal about what you want in life as early as possible. I had been harbouring this tiny voice that wanted to get out and be in front of the camera for several years. I should have stated it earlier. Much earlier. It would have made more sense to those around me when I really committed to doing it. I wouldn’t have had to deal with their adverse reactions to what was burning inside my heart.

MAGIC

Since I was educated in the sciences in high school and university and not the arts, I started looking at the odds of how some people make it as actors and millions upon millions do not. This kind of freaked me out a bit. My scientific, logical mind fed me very depressing news while my heart was thrilled I was finally heading toward my destiny.

With absolutely zero knowledge of what acting was about and how to go about it and the odds being overwhelmingly against me, I figured there must be some sort of trick to it all. Some kind of magical actions I could take to rise above the masses and stand out.

I searched for it. And searched for it.

Was it religious dedication that a higher power would recognize my purity and thereby remove the obstacles in my way like the parting of the Red Sea? Was it tapping into the spiritual side of life that seemed to have a power that was beyond scientific explanation?

I tried all of these. One thing was for sure, I became very hopeful. And that hopefulness kept me going forward despite zero evidence I was actually making gains toward my goal.

I found inspirational quotes of mind over matter. I found books about the power of opening up to spiritual awareness.

There was no magic that worked. And there still isn’t. After years of searching, I finally found what worked. But before I did, I got side tracked. Well, at least at the time it really seemed to be.

SIDE TRACKED

I did the typical thing of finding my way to Los Angeles. The first time I went, I was a complete tourist. I went to Universal Studios and did the whole tour. Everything was still on the magical side.

At one of the events on that tour of the studio, I was singled out by the MC on the stage. There I was sitting in a very large audience and he pointed at me to come up on the stage and help act out a scene. Of all those people, they picked me. Right there in Hollywood. Right there in front of all those people. It was a sign! (I was really big into signs back then.)

However, I didn’t have any lines and I was basically a featured extra. But man was I flying!!

So I went back to Hollywood a few years later. I changed my job and pretty much gave up everything I had worked for priorly. I was determined to make it somehow, anyhow. Nothing really happened which meant, I knew I didn’t know what I was doing. I left.

Segue to a couple of years later after that. I found myself back in Hollywood but this time I found a job - a work/study job as an apprentice film editor. I had to survive somehow and it was in the same industry. I thought I will just do it for now.

Editing doesn’t carry any glory with it, so my identity as an actor was not being fulfilled. I did manage to get a few small roles but the majority of my time was spent cutting dirty dupes (cheap, black and white copies of film used in cutting), cutting workprints, filing trims, cutting and splicing film with a splice block and once in a while being allowed to make a creative cutting decision.

Editing back then was S-L-O-W and that’s being generous compared to how fast it is today.

I would often deal with the lab my employer used, Fotokem, who are, amazingly, still in business. I learned to love the smell of fresh, processed film out of the can. I could cut and sync dailies like it was nobody’s business. But there was something else that happened during that editing period of my life.

THE LOVE OF FILM

While learning the walk and talk of editing and turning a film into a deliverable product, I worked with someone who had this incredible love of the look of film. It was a love of the beauty of it. The aesthetic that film generated.

She worked with the timers (old way of saying color graders) at the lab. Her appreciation for the art of making a film beautiful hit me hard and I realized that there was more to film making than acting.

Sure I knew before that, that acting was not the only thing needed to make a film, but working with this person woke me up to a love I had for a different department.

While dreaming about acting and getting a very rare chance to do so, I was learning to love the whole process of filmmaking without really being consciously aware of it. And, as any good editor knows, you really have to know the whole process of filmmaking in order to edit a film. This period of my life in film, although not the glamorous side I wanted and yearned for, lay the foundation for me to become a director.

I didn’t know it then. I thought I was just being side tracked. But really, I was being prepared. For a director who does not know the principles of editing will not be a good director.

I was not aware of all that then. Mainly because I didn’t aspire to be a director at all. I thought it was much too far out of reach and ability. But acting! That I could do and I was still focused on making it happen.

WHAT WORKED

I went back to Vancouver and continued to pursue acting. I started teaching actors about matched action and close ups and direction of movement - things I knew as an editor that many actors paid little to no attention to.

I was in demand as an acting teacher and had requests to teach actors more than just the on-set actions that help the editor. And so I followed through with that while finding people who really helped me move my career as an actor. There were basically three people; an agent, a writing mentor and an acting mentor who revealed the business to me.

The agent got me in the door to places I couldn’t possibly have done without him. I got a ton of commercials and some TV work consistently for several years and then a big change happened. I hooked up with two amazing mentors who changed my way of thinking.

Gary Goldstein taught me how to reach out to powerful people in the business. This intelligent and gracious man, truly loves the industry and has passed down his wisdom to many. I will be forever grateful to him.

The other mentor who, in combination of working with Gary, launched my career as an actor to a new level, was Bob Fraser. Bob revealed the producer’s viewpoint of actors and acting to me in a way that no one other than a producer could. Bob was kind enough to share his knowledge and experience and wake me up to what I needed to do and how I needed to do it.

Within months of working with these two gems, I booked The A-Team and did a scene with Liam Neeson. I booked Fringe and was directed by Academy Award Winning writer Akiva Goldsman, and shortly thereafter found myself being directed by Zack Snyder in Watchmen. Subconsciously, I was observing these directors and their every move and statement. Joe Carnahan was the director on The A-Team.

Help from people who had been down the very road I was on was the magic trick I was looking for. Doesn’t that sound bloody obvious?! Finding those people, the genuine ones who really wanted to help and who really knew how to help. took time. But it was truly the silver bullet.

MY FIRST DIRECTING JOB

During this advancement period in my acting career, I was not thinking of becoming a director at all. The possibility didn’t even cross my mind. Well, at least, not until it did.

Based out of Vancouver, I would travel to various cities across Canada doing acting workshops, training actors. One of those workshops was in Edmonton where I taught a very small class of actors. It was so small, I thought I would cancel doing it but decided to deliver what I had promised and went anyway. That decision to go when it was a financial loss to me, changed my life. Again. (I have had many life-changing experiences.)

In that class there was a Kenyan who was in Canada doing corporate work for financial institutions wanting to learn how to act. That person eventually asked me to train actors in Nairobi for an Mnet series based on the request of the Mnet executives based in Joburg, South Africa. That person then started producing her own series and asked me to train her actors. Out of the blue and with no pre-thought at all, I said, “I’ll do better than that. I will train them and direct the series.” She accepted.

My very first directing job of any substance - I had directed one commercial for a lawyer in Louisiana (long story there) and a play in the Vancouver Fringe that was a flop - was directing 13, half hour episodes of prime time, half English-half Swahili, Kenyan drama.

Was I nervous? You bet. Did I think I could handle it? I did. I had been coaching actors for 15 years to that date and I knew how to edit so I knew what footage I needed. The rest, I would learn on the fly. And I did.

The producer was so happy, she asked me to continue right away for the next 13 episodes. My very first directing job consisted of 26, half hour episodes of drama on a shoe string African budget for a national broadcaster’s prime time slot. It took me close to three months.

That same year I directed another 26 episodes of an entirely different TV show for the same producer and network. And I have directed a lot more since then. I have spent far more time on set as a director than as anything else; actor, props person (I did some of that), set deck (I did some of that too), etc.

It wasn’t my desire to direct that got me that career, it was my persistent willingness to learn from those who had walked before me.

My advice? Find someone who is willing to mentor and apprentice you in your profession. Be open to learning and changing your viewpoint about things and how you think they work. Chances are, your assumptions about the business may lead you into frustration and delay.

I do offer mentorships to actor every year and will be doing so for directors as well in the fall of 2025. Feel free to contact me. I want you all to make it in this magical but very difficult industry.

And, as one of my mentors said, “Nothing worth doing is ever easy. There must be sacrifices made and major problems solved.” Having a mentor is essential to your success. It isn’t easier it’s just more A to B.