My acting career continues to advance at a breathtaking pace.
On October 13, I’ll finally get to see Lost 9, a new short film by Lindley Farley in which I have a small role. We’ll be screening it at a bar in the East Village. Lindley tells me the finished film will run about 15–20 minutes. If you’re interested in coming, DM me for details.
I don’t want to give away much of the plot, other than to say that it’s about a New York cop who loses his gun.
Lindley has made a bunch of shorts, as well as the feature The Bulls’ Night Out and The Fez Belcher Show, a web series. I was also an extra in his short Infer Red last year. I was officially listed in the credits as one of two "subway gawkers."
This is only the latest chapter in my distinguished screen career.
My film debut came in the 1999 indie film Auditions, where I was credited as “Man in Bar.” I was indeed a man in a bar. I was also barely visible. If you knew exactly when and where to look, and squinted, you could see me. Despite receiving an actual credit, I did not make it onto IMDb.
Twenty years later, I appeared in the straight-to-video film Being. I was not credited, but this time I was clearly visible, as one of a group of frightened townspeople gathered to hear what the preacher, played by Lance Henriksen, had to say.
I didn’t make IMDb for that one either.
There is a much better story about how I wound up in Being. After my father-in-law died, we were selling his kitchen table. The guy who bought it turned out to be one of the producers of the movie, who was running around acquiring props and other things they needed for the shoot. One thing led to another, and I wound up as an extra. In fact, I wrote about that experience here.
The table made the movie too. A couple has sex against it. But, sadly, the table also did not make IMDb.
Last year came Infer Red, and now Lost 9, where I have finally achieved the next great milestone in my acting career: Lines.
Only a couple of them, near the end of the movie, but actual lines.
Filming my little scene was also an education. There are three of us talking, and the finished scene will probably last only a couple of minutes. I naively figured we would go in, have the conversation in front of the camera, and that would pretty much be that.
Nope.
We did the conversation over and over and over again while Lindley shot it from different angles: close-ups of each of us, wider shots, different perspectives and everything in between. I assume the finished scene will be assembled from bits and pieces of all those takes.
Which, of course, is how movies are made. I knew that intellectually. It was something different to actually participate in it and see how much filming goes into producing a couple of minutes of finished conversation.
I was also around for the filming of a bar scene early in the movie. The very top of my head is visible in that scene if you know where to look. Fortunately, it is not recognizable as the top of my head, because having me visibly appear as two different people in the same 15-minute movie would probably raise questions that the plot isn't prepared to answer.
But the most fun I had on Lost 9 may have been helping Lindley shoot a car-chase sequence.
I’m not in the chase, but I did a surprising amount to help make it happen. I scouted around looking for a dumpster that Lindley needed in one sequence. I drove with a camera mounted on the hood of my car. I drove while Lindley filmed out the back. I rode in Lindley’s car shining a light on the driver. I drove parallel to other cars involved in the chase.
At first, Lindley would explain five shots we were going to do and how they would all fit together.
I would listen carefully.
Then I would have absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
Eventually we developed a much better system. Lindley would tell me one thing we needed to do. We would do it. Then he would tell me the next thing. We would do that.
That worked much better.
And afterward, it was fascinating to see the edited footage and realize how all these little pieces — which often didn't make much sense to me while we were shooting them — came together into something that actually looked like a car chase. Lindley had a vision, but I couldn't see it (until I could).
That may have been the most interesting part of the whole experience: getting a tiny glimpse of how a movie gets constructed. You shoot little fragments from different angles, sometimes in an order that doesn't mean much to anyone except the filmmaker, and eventually those fragments become a scene.
Lindley has also told me he’s going to give me an associate producer credit for my contributions to the film.
So, after 27 years in show business, my résumé now includes Man in Bar, and uncredited ccared townsperson, subway gawker, a character who actually speaks, and Associate Producer.
IMDb cannot hold out forever.
