Author Archives: thevsstudioblog

Don’t try to play or convey a mood when you’re acting. Mood spelled backwards is “Doom.” Mood always follows action.

“Sometimes, you just gotta say…what the f-ck.” -Joel Goodson, Risky Business Feeling scared about attempting something today? Wanting to take a leap, but fear holding you back? Take Ben Folds’ advice from the Ben Folds Five song “Do It Anyway”… You might put your love and trust on the lineIt’s risky, people love to tearContinue reading “Do It Anyway”

“The Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.” -Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop Just like a power plant generates electricity, your job–especially when producing a passion project–is to bring energy to everything you do and everyone you interact with. You won’t find itContinue reading “You Are The Power Plant”

There are no shortage of articles about someone’s process. How hard they worked. The steps they took. Their passion and unending dedication to the thing they wanted to create. These can be intimidating to say the least. Worse, they can cause us to shut down and never attempt the thing inside our head. (For example,Continue reading “Could, Not Should”

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” -Stephen R. Covey “Listening is about being present, not just about being quiet.” -Krista Tippett One of the great gifts you can give another artist or anyone who’s contemplating a project is to simply listen. Listen to themContinue reading “Listening And Downloading”

“I fear not the person who has practiced ten thousand kicks, one time. I fear the person who has practiced one kick, ten thousand times.” -Bruce Lee “Ready, Fire, Aim” is a popular business book. While I haven’t read it, the title alone is catchy and offers good advice. How often do we not startContinue reading “Start, Then Iterate”

And so should we. I watched this terrific documentary (available on Amazon prime) about the sculptor Elizabeth King. Similar to the Bill Cunningham documentary I wrote about and loved, it’s all about an artist’s process and how one is called to something. Combining intimate figurative sculpture, stop frame animation and the ritual of theater isContinue reading “Elizabeth King Loves Process”

What would happen if we took the amateur spirit–for me that’s process, doing something for no other reason than the pure love of the thing itself–and married it with the rigor, the discipline and consistency required of the professional? What would we choose to create? How far would we take it?

“A mirror will reflect all things perfectly, whether they are beautiful or ugly; it never refuses to show a thing, nor does it retain the thing after it is gone. The mind should be as open as this.” -Lin Ching-hsi One of the great reasons for art is that it’s a mirror. We can holdContinue reading “Art Is A Mirror”

Advice for the stage actor… What happens when you have a rough performance night? Meaning you didn’t feel good about your work. You felt like you pushed, you “schmacted”, you relied solely on craft and technique to get you through, you were constantly “in and out”, you were “not present”, etc… And there are people–maybeContinue reading ““Thank You For Coming””