COUNTING DOWN NOW....ED IS MOVING TO CHICAGO SEPTEMBER 1ST!
I've found a smaller apartment in Palo Alto for my wife and daughter so that my daughter, Dagny, can finish her senior year of high school where she started, and I've signed a lease on a small place for myself in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. Though I won't physically be relocating for another month and a half, the phone in my Chicago apartment has been turned on.

Here's my new contact info, effective September 1st, if you maintain Christmas card lists:

452 W. Oakdale, #306
Chicago, IL 60657-5962

Home phone: 773-929-1667
E-Mail remains the same, edhooks@best.com

I'm still looking at potential acting studio space in Chicago, but I have strong leads on which to follow up, and I expect to have this bit of business taken care of shortly. Stay tuned. I plan to begin
my Chicago workshops mid-September. As soon as I get the chance, by the way, I will prepare a website photo slide show of my Chicago digs and neighborhood so my friends in San Francisco and elsewhere can have a look-see at the transition to the Windy City. I can already report that my new neighborhood is marvelous, walking distance to almost everything one could want. Fifteen minutes
walking south, and I am in Old Town, home of Second City Improv and, fifteen minutes walking north, I can go to a ball game at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. There are book stores everywhere, theatres like Victory Gardens and Steppenwolf, a cineplex, restaurants galore, and I won't need a car! No more hour and a half on the #101 freeway! What's not to like? (... I know, I know...the winters. I'm investing in a new parka.)

FINAL SAN FRANCISCO CLASSES
We still have time to work together if we get started soon.

*** COMMERCIALS -- July 28-29 and (the last one) August 25-26.
Tuition is $250 for first-time students, $225 for repeat students, TBA members and people who are in other of Ed's classes.

*** SCENE STUDY -- On-going in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday nights, 7-10:30, through the end of August. $135 per 4-week period. That's time enough to maybe work on a scene or two, and definitely time enough to work on some monologues. Join me!

*** Film Demo Workshop -- Starting a final five-Sunday session July 15th, and it appears to be a full class. If you are interested, let me know, and I'll check to see if there is any space remaining.
$600.

ONE OF THE GOOD THINGS ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO...
The Elite Cafe on Fillmore Street in San Francisco is a terrific place for a delicious and fun meal. My wife and I recently dined there in Art Deco splendor as guests of Elite Cafe manager Shawn
Paton (all classes - '97-'99). From appetizer to dessert, the Cajun-Creole food was creatively presented, and every course was a perfect Ten on the Hooks Taste-O-Meter. Highly recommended. When you go, try to score one of the restaurant's dozen or so private wooden booths, which are mucho intimate and perfect for conversation. And you MUST try the baby back ribs! Elite Cafe, 2049 Fillmore St., 415-346-8676.

CASTING CALL ....CASTING CALL....CASTING CALL....
Stanford University School of Medicine is hiring actors to work as standardized patients. Standardized Patients (SP's) are healthy people who are trained to portray actual patient cases so
realistically that they cannot be detected even by experienced physicians. SP's learn the history, physical exam and affect of the patient using National Board of Medical Examiners training materials and methods. In addition to playing the role of the patient, SP's also evaluate the student's performance using predetermined criteria. SP's need to have flexible M-F daytime schedules. The gig pays approximately $20/hr and requires about 30 hrs. of work spread out over Aug, Sept. and the first week of Oct. All rehearsals and performances will take place on Stanford campus in Palo Alto.If you are interested, send an e-mail to Julianne@stanford.edu.

ACT I BOOKSTORE IN CHICAGO IS A TERRIFIC SOURCE....
Next time you want to order a play for snail-mail or UPS delivery, consider ordering from Act I Bookstore in Chicago, even if you are based in San Francisco. It is an efficiently run, well-stocked
theatrical bookstore with a discount plan for regular customers. The staff is keenly knowledgeable about the drama, and they'll deal with you via e-mail. Located at 2540 N. Lincoln, Chicago 60614. Phone: 773-348-6757. Web site: www.act1books.com. E-mail: plays@act1books.com.

CHICAGOANS ARE DANCIN' FOOLS!
The event is held in August and is called LindyU. It's a weeklong Swing dance camp in Chicago. Organizers are bringing in some of the biggest names in the industry. If you're a dancer and are itching to move those feet, take a look at this web site: www.lindyu.com

BAY AREA NON-PROFIT LOOKING FOR ACTORS TO HELP WITH FUND RAISER...
Melanoma Research, Inc, an East Bay organization dedicated to the prevention and cure for skin cancer, will hold a fundraiser on Nov. 3rd. The theme this year is Medieval -- wenches, knights, serfs, etc. They want some actors to volunteer for the night. All proceeds go to melanoma research. This sounds to me like a good thing to do, especially considering the dangers of global warming, which will inevitably result in even more cases of skin cancer. If you can help, let the organizers know. Go to this web site for more info: www.bfmelanoma.com. Or call toll free: 1-888-88 2449.

HOOKS STUDENTS WORKING
Congrats to ALEX BARKER (comml - '01) who filmed his first national commercial, for American Express. (Cookies and milk will be compliments of Alex next month.) NICOLE DOHERTY (comml-'99) is in "House of Blue Leaves" at the Hillbarn Theater as a Nun. The run dates are Aug-24 Sept 16th. She also was cast in "Mortified" and "Stalemate", both indie films. Nicole is also in the English as a Second Language Series (ESSL) for KDOL Channel 13 in Oakland and she I recently completed a film short called "Palette Lost". LISA WISEMAN (s.stdy - current) is in Tina Howe's "Pride's Crossing" at the Western Stage Company in Salinas. ALAN QUISMORIO (s.stdy - current) appears at San Francisco's Venue 9 in "A Few Gay Men". He's also been cast in Crowded Fire's next show, a new play by Trevor Allen titled "The 49 Miles" which opens at the Exit in October.
JENNY GARCIA (s.stdy - current) shot a ~25-30 minute short called "What You Want?". She was also cast in a short entitled "Ode to Donut Shops" and a feature length indie, "Le Tambour" . In this
last one, she plays her role speaking Spanish! DIANE TASCA (s.stdy - current) and JAXY BOYD (all classes - '94-'96) appear in an all-female production of "The Comedy of Errors", presented by Woman's Will. The show runs from July 14 thru August 19, with most performances being on Saturdays and Sundays at 1 PM. For info: www.womanswill.org, or call 425-567-1758. DEE ANN WEIR (comml & f/tv - '98) is appearing in The Queen's Company, all-female production of "The Duchess of Malfi" in New York, through August 5th. For info call 212-647-0202 or, online at www.here.org. SUSAN GARD (s.stdy - current) appears in "Los 7 Magnificos" (in English),
at the Phoenix Theatre in SF, through August 25th. For info, call 415-289-6766. JEFF DE LUCIO-BROCK (all classes - '98-'00) filmed the lead role of a neurotic filmmaker in the indie feature "Not Today," and also filmed the lead in the indie short "The Jackass." HEATHER HARTMANN (all classes - '99 - '00) has been very busy shooting indie films: "Mortified", directed by Shawn
Hazeleur, "Tina", a horror flick, and two 30 minute shorts, "Conversations in Silence", directed by Jeffery Crane, and "Dead Flowers", directed by Farhad Parsa. Go, girl! TERRY LAMB (f/tv-'97)
is appearing in "Deep Cut" by Karim Alrawi, through July 29th at Thick House in San Francisco. Reservations/ Info: 510.986.9194 RAY RENATI (s.stdy - '00) shot a commercial for the World Wrestling Federation.

CRAFT NOTES
"Are Digital Actors a Threat?"

Tom Hanks was quoted in a New York Times article last week as being concerned about the increasing number of digital actors in movies. Like in "Final Fantasy", for example. Director Steven Speilberg, on the other hand, considers the whole thing to be a non-issue. Some folks are talking about creating entirely new movies with digitally re-configured images of Humphrey Bogart, Clark Cable and Marilyn Monroe. Directors of major movies nowadays are routinely making full-body digital scans of their lead actors, adding to the anxiety. What are they going to do with those scans? Is it possible that the actors may show up in some future movie, their lips in sync with
someone else's voice? All of this is the stuff of science fiction, but I suggest that it is too soon to panic. The livelihood of actors is not going to be threatened by digital actors any time soon.

Actors are connected to their audience via emotion. We humans empathize with emotion, not thinking. If you are happy, I feel happy, and if you are sad, I feel sad. If I touch your arm, the
sensation evokes an emotional response. Mothers empathize with their babies; lovers empathize with one another. In the legitimate theater, actors and audience are in the same place at the same time for a common purpose, connected via empathy. They breathe the same air, feel each others' presence. This is an essential characteristic of the theatrical experience. When actors perform in front of a camera for eventual exhibition in a movie theater, they are still communicating with the audience via emotions. A person goes to see a movie and knows that the images on screen are photos of real actors.

The presence of a digital actor on screen, no matter how realistically rendered, demands too much suspension-of-disbelief from the audience. Watching a movie with digital actors is a kind of carnival sideshow, a trip to Imax or Cinerama, a weird experience. It may be fun and kicky, but there is not a possibility that the audience will forget that the images on screen are fake. Indeed, most producers go to such trouble to produce these digital images that they want to use their presence as a sales tool in movie promotion. Instead of encouraging us to forget, they are banging us over the head with it.

Technology being what it is, we will definitely see increasing use of digital humans on screen in the future, and some of them will be so life-like they will be eerie. Don't worry about it. Digital images
will not deliver the same aesthetic as live action movies or, say, an animated feature like "Toy Story" or "Snow White". Cartoons are not trying to fool anybody. They're cartoons. Digital humans are designed to trick the audience's eye.

Welcome to the future, folks. This technology isn't going away. SAG and AFTRA are going to have to deal with it and find contracts for it. At the end of the day, however, actors are still shamans, and
they are still talking to the tribe. Anything that moves too far afield from that basic aesthetic experience is not a threat to actors.

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