This is an update, a month’s update on the things that are occurring and occurred.

October, I feel, was very slow and quiet, but I’m alright with that. It has been quite difficult getting used to the change of weather, my bones ached and my teeth chattered in the early mornings before I drove off to work, and It’s been raining for what feels to be about a month. The month of October was the month of rain, the month of drifting. But yesterday I was driving to work to open up the restaurant and my mind felt a little more at peace with everything that was going on around me. It felt like I could accept in greater detail the fact that these new months are approaching, and the weather will change along with it. It’s not that I didn’t know this, but I was in fact waiting for my body to start knowing it too.

I’ll be auditioning for a musical this November, a show I very much would love to be a part of. I won’t say what it is yet, and I know I said I don’t like show tunes, but there are in fact exceptions, this being one of them. It’s a role I’ve always wanted to play and took me a long time to get a voice for it as the tenor line can be pretty daunting. I’ve been slowly and surely working on my audition of one 32-bar cut. I’m singing “Thin Air” from Amelie, which I find to be a perfect song. A great show of range and for the part I’m auditioning for, a bit ephemeral as it seeks and calls out to another.

I’ve begun my Modern Journalism course, there’s no real update on this, but I’d like to comment on the code of ethics for journalism. This is exactly the reason I took the course, I felt that there was a high standard to what an investigative journalist would put into their work, and I felt that transcribed neatly onto the role that an actor has for their character. These codes of ethics are standardized within the industry, and of course, rules can be broken, but it’s a decisive standard, but there’s no decisive standard for all actors. So I believe that it’s important to take that upon myself to hold myself to the standard, understanding that no one needs to be in charge of that for you. I take acting in such roundabout ways, but I feel it’s necessary to learn in allegory and similes to then come back to the actual practice, finding out HOW it’s similar and applying WHAT was learned.

I’ve taken enough time to play in a roundabout way. I’ve finally started an acting class. I decided on the Warner Loughlin technique, as I agree with a lot of the concepts in the book that I read about it. Most importantly, is that I agree with the fact that we’re bringing fully realized characters into the given circumstances of a story, not us and our past emotions and traumas into a given circumstance of the show. Acting has been a subtle journey of stepping aside from the ego, BUT I will argue out of pure experimentation and antithesis that the ego should be a partner in balanced proportion and conscious gaze. But this tactic itself comes from letting go of the self while also still protecting it. I believe it’s fertile ground for a co-existent self and ego relationship, not dependent on each other, but stronger together.

The technique itself is fairly grounded and pretty easy to explain, in theory of course. We utilize script study and behavioral prompts to get to the core knowledge of our character. When we find core knowledge we head backward to when our character first had memories, and what may have occurred in the circumstances surrounding their upbringing to find more core knowledge. We are somewhat raising our character to the present moment of the script itself. We are attending to humanity and allowing truth to form through a practical study of the human psyche. Which of course whets my appetite for even more psychological study. The first step is to search for the givens, the facts of the script. What is ACTUALLY happening? Then from there, we work from the beginning to the end of the script, finding the stimulus, writing that down by approaching it as “when…” then we write the behavior that seems to appear in our character “seems to…” then we discover why “because, perhaps…” Eventually, we build our core knowledge of our character working backward and creating pertinent events that occurred to them. That’s where we are currently, I don’t want to write more than that. That’s the more logical bit, the homework per-say, part two is the emotional work, or the saturation of the events for the character, the work into the subconscious. Not your own, but your characters.

Which leads me to my plan. I’ve been seeing a visual of a master of their craft, for myself, and have been building a schedule that aims toward that person.

A Master in the Craft of Acting Has These Qualities (For Me)

• Has a consistent conscious consumption of current great work and a regular review of that work.

• Also looks back at past great work and understands at least at a personal level why it was great.

• A daily practice of focused work in their craft for at least 2 hours on a rest day and at least 4 on a working day. Focused intentional work.

• On working days a practice of reaching out to the outer world, making certain emails are sent, calls are made, agents and managers are spoken to, and the team is on the path toward the progression of the craft, and that this craft will be shown to the world.

• This Master has a team behind them to help them. Tasks not solely involved with the craft will be delegated with care and gratitude. These tasks cannot be fully separated from the self. The Master must be conscious and understanding of what is occurring in each area.

• Remains conscious of maintaining social diligence in modern society to…

  • A: Not be taken advantage of.

  • B: Not take advantage of anyone.

  • C: Advance and positively impact the current and future world.

• Must be well-read, reading current and past great works. Even if these books are over their head they will seek to understand, curious in the pursuit.

• Creates work patiently, as long as it must take. With a deadline and without procrastination.

• Works single-mindedly with great focus and intention, one project at a time.

• Receives material from multiple sources, cultures, and social settings.

• Obsesses over the work.

• Diligent, always, to positively impact the spirit of the character.

This is part of what a Master of Acting looks like to me, and as I step into this role I aim to find more for myself. I don’t think this is universal at all, mind you this is my own opinion, and the goal is to be my own experiment in this. But I do think writing out the qualities of the ideal you are looking for is quite helpful. Now I have three different schedules. I’ll write them out for you.

Without Project

5 days/wk

-7:00 - Wake

-7:30 - Morning Pages

-8:00 - Meditation

-8:30 - 1st session →

→9:30 - Break - Food/wash

-10:00 - 2nd session →

→11:00 - Break/lunch

-12:00 - 3rd session →

→1:00 - break/nap

-2:00 - Reading →

→3:00 - Gym →

→5:00 - Shower/cook

-7:00 - Movie/read

-10:00 - Write/read

-11:45 - bed.

NOTES

• People are important in each process, aim for 3 hours of focused work on material, 5 days/wk.

• 2 days can be 1 hour of focused work which friends, new people to meet, or interviews can fill the space left.

• I will only work out a maximum of 5 days/wk and I would like to run it parallel to the 3-hour session workweek.

• When not working out, add either reading or meeting people, nothing else.

• These sessions are filled with acting classwork, acting exercises, character buildings, or any coursework that you are currently studying.

• Aim to pattern your sessions with types of work so that your focus is carried through similar activities throughout the day. This, in theory, will help relieve the cognitive switching penalty

  • Kind of like themes

    • Writing focused

    • Acting movement

    • Voice and Speech

    • Script Study

    • etc.

With Project

N/A only because the schedule would be up in the air. But when scheduled, we’ll develop around that. Reading material is really important when it comes to building a character, surrounding yourself with evidence as much as possible to find connections, and interviewing will play a part in your schedule.

Rest

Without rest, there cannot be growth. Resting means conscious consumption of wonderful material while also creating radio silence. In an ideal, there will be a 2-week break between projects, at most a month, and then we would get back to work however we might do so.

Plan your rest, make it intentional, plan a trip, and do something, find moments of nothing, don’t miss out on them, don’t randomly consume a bunch of random shit, and don’t fall into YouTube rabbit holes just because it’s relaxing. There’s still work being done while watching those things. Take the time to do nothing at all. Recovery, yoga, meditation, nature. Low energy, priority on healing the mind, priority on wandering.

MY GOAL

My goal is to be the lead in a feature film by 29 and the directors I would like to work with are:

• Terrence Malick ⭐️

• David Fincher

• Christopher Nolan

• Michel Gondry

• Yorgos Lanthimos

• Greta Gerwig

• Paul Thomas Anderson ⭐️

• Charlie Kaufman ⭐️

• Denis Villeneuve

• Hagai Levi

• Richard Linklater

To get there, I must take action on the work for myself, hold myself accountable to that work, and become the master in my craft that I wish to be. I must find the team that is going to help me reach my artistic goal, and I must continue to communicate my goal effectively and consistently while maintaining an understanding of the self and what I feel I wish to accomplish.

Much love today and every day,

Matt Piper 🐅🌱