Ho Ho Ho! Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday. Do you guys over in Asia celebrate
Christmas? If you don't, it's a big event over here in America.
Another big event here that's coming up very soon is New Year's Day. Now I know Chinese
New Year won't happen for another month or so, but the West is getting ready to toss out
the old and bring in the new.
With a new year coming in, there's always talk of starting over and making resolutions.
The key to making them work is setting reachable goals. The reason behind that is instead
of trying to lose 50 pounds in one year, try to lose 10 pounds a year over five years.
Keeping that in mind, my New Year resolutions are as follows:
* Eat more vegetables.
* Run two times a week.
* Practice JKD three times a week.
* Enroll in an acting class.
* Write in the journal every day.
* Smile more.
* Rewrite Mansfield Avenue (a screenplay)
* Write my next play.
* Start on the next screenplay.
* Submit my headshot/resume to 100 agents and managers.
* Volunteer my time and help others.
Which is harder?
While you can't really rate which job is harder to get and break into: acting, writing or
directing. All three jobs are artistic and you cannot objectively rate the value of one
against another. You can break down the process of each job and figure out which is harder
to get into.
3. Writing is the third hardest for the simple fact that you can write anywhere in the
world. You do not have to be in Hollywood to write. A man in a small shack in China can
be the greatest writer in the World and Hollywood will come to him. As long as he has a
great agent, he will never have to leave that shack. The difficulty lies in getting your
work read, bought and produced.
The key word is produced. You can have the best screenplay in the world, but if you have
no credits (screenplays made into films). No one cares about you. The guy who wrote "Dude,
where's my car" gets more work than someone who's written an amazing epic about a
handicapped goldfish.
2. Every writer in Hollywood wants to be a director. You do the math and that makes it
the second hardest job to attain in the film business. In fact, every other actor in
Hollywood wants to be a director.
The job is so coveted because the director controls what goes on the screen. The producer
may have all the money and runs the show, but you control the world and life of the movie.
The film is your canvas and you decide what goes on it.
There are three methods to becoming a director. One is to start at the production assistant
level and work your way up. This takes anywhere from years to lifetimes. Two : make your
own movie, music videos, and commercials and impress the film community enough to give you
money to make more films. Three : have a script that everyone wants to make into a movie
and attach "yourself" as the director.
Sly Stallone did that with Rocky, but had himself attached as the lead actor. Bryan
Younger wrote Boiler Room and turned down millions so he can direct it.
1. At every audition, actors are deemed too fat, too short, too tall, too thin, too dark,
too light, too skinny, too ugly, and too pretty or too good. Regardless of the reasons,
when you do get pick for the job, you have to perform on the spot. As someone famous once
said, "Talent keeps you working but luck is what gets you there".
There are hundreds of thousands of actors in Hollywood alone. Only one percent (I do
apologize for all the numbers in this column) is working on a regular basis.
Until next year, have a Happy New Year!
Written by Charlie Cheng
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