NOTICE TO CHICAGO ACTORS
After a two-month hiatus, my professional-level scene study workshop will resume on January 8th. We meet at The Acting Studio, 10 West Hubbard Street #2E, in the Loop. Hours are 7-10:30 on Thursday nights. It is free to audit once, and you can start at any time. Tuition is $135 per 4-week month.

HAPPINESS IS CONTAGIOUS The British Medical Journal recently confirmed something your mom probably taught you when you were five years old: Happiness is contagious. From an evolutionary perspective, that makes perfect sense, as would the proposition that fear is contagious. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/jobs/07pre.html?_r=1&8dpc

Anyway, this study happily underlines the tribal nature of us humans. As I have been teaching for years, Actors are Shamans. http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-happy5-2008dec05,0,5449915.story

CRAFT NOTES
The Actor’s Landscape 2009
Screen Actors Guild’s negotiators are missing the bigger picture. The Internet is not simply the new Television. More significantly, Digital is the new Acting.

The change should have been apparent to them by 1990, when the World Wide Web first appeared, if not earlier. Step back and look at this thing with a fresh eye. Yes, the legitimate theatre remains the mother ship for actors, standing as it always does in closest proximity to its historic shamanistic roots. Actors will always first be trained to act for stage because that is where the theatrical transaction is purest. But it is almost impossible now to earn a decent living from acting on stage in the United States. Unless you are a star, even a Broadway contract is not likely to fetch more than $1,500 weekly. That is barely enough to survive in New York City.

We live in an era in which an actor’s performance can be transformed into a digital clone, or one million of them, with zero percent loss of quality. How does one control compensation for that on a pay-for-play basis? At Osaka University in Japan, live actors are actually working on stage side-by-side with robots. And take a look at this stage-to-digital company.

And while much of the pre-strike talk has been about the Internet revolution, I have heard very little about the implications of the technology which led to the creation of Gollum in the movie “Lord of the Rings”. Want a glimpse into the future? Take a look at these links:
Mocap for “Monster House”/Sony
Andy Serkis/Gollum/”Lord of the Rings”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbW-Zv_kR5Q
“The Emily Project”/Image Metrics
Image Metrics/How-To Facial Capture

Acting and digital technology are standing at the altar as I write this, and they are getting ready for their wedding night. Meanwhile, Screen Actors Guild’s leaders, with these strike proposals, evidently believe they are only dating. At this rate, there will be great-grandchildren before SAG acknowledges the marriage.

For comparison, notice how the publishing industry has changed because of digital technology. I have written several books, and you can find free digital pages from most of them on-line. Huge publishing companies are merging or collapsing. Newspapers are phasing out hard copy news in favor of digital.

A few weeks ago, I gave a half hour speech at an animation event in Swansea, South Wales. Yesterday I received – from a friend in China – a very nice unauthorized digital recording of my entire speech. It is not surprising that movie producers lose so much from film piracy. It is simple to operate a digital camera now. Your grandmother can do it!

According to the Los Angeles Times (Dec. 3, 2008), 146 million U.S. citizens – fully half the population – is watching on-line video already. And by 2012, some estimates are that advertising on made-for-web programs will top $1.5 billion. Actors in all the performing unions would be wise to take compensation formulas back to the drawing board and re-think them. Pay-for-play is as out of date as a Nehru Jacket.