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shadowkatFeeling a bit antsy tonight - or compulsive, that's a better word. Possibly a side effect of a)difficult work week, b)eating too much sugar (yes, I'm a binge eater...kill me now, which is why I don't buy too much), c)procrastination in dealing with crap (see difficult work week - should have gone to mediation open house, but really didn't want to lug self to city and deal with people. Should have looked at flats, but didn't feel like depressing self.
So...I've been watching tv, surfing the net, blogging, and well surfing - got compulsive about back-stage gossip on Buffy, info on Song of Ice and Fire, etc. Landed on a decent interview of Whedon (hunting for something else entirely) - in which he more or less nails on the head why I get twitchy watching certain types of tv shows.
"I was never that big a fan of reset television. Reset tv being all that we see is Murder She Wrote. We forget what's happened. She does the same thing each week. I kept imagining a woman sitting in a room overwhelmed by all these murders she'd seen. But nope, it's like she never saw one before, each week. The X-Files bothered me in much the same way, because Scully, she was in Murder She Wrote, while he (Mulder) kept growing and changing, she never really did. Each week, after she saw the monster the week before, she'd be skeptical of monsters existing. Sitcoms for the same reason never really resonated for me because it was reset television, wacky situation after wacky situation, but no on really grew or changed. And part of the reason may be that I grew up watching Masterpiece Theater and shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere - serialized television, where people did grow and change and are quite different from when and where they started. If we aren't changing and growing, and I'm pretty pedantic about this - if we aren't doing that, than honestly why are we here?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwnIdViJS0U&feature=related (where he says it better than I just did because I have 0 auditory memory. I can't take down exactly what people said to save my life. My visual memory is quite excellent, auditory not so much.)
At any rate - amen to that bit above and pretty much everything he states in that portion of the interview. I think and write the same way. I'm bored by reset tv and can't watch it. I've tried. I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with this writer and this writer's fandom. I do not see him as God or near perfect, and there are far better writers and far better tv series out there - that I've seen. But, in many ways...his cultural experience and liberal educational background resonate for me. On some weird level - I get where he is coming from. We grew up during the same decades and had similar "cultural" experience/background/education. He's only three to four years older than I am. We studied the same films and the same literature. Were both fans of the Western and Sci-Fi genre. Both studied Terminator and The John Ford/Howard Hawkes canon. And we are culture junkies - with a love of theater, books, plays, superhero comics (mainly Marvel and X-men), film and tv, and mostly serials, bad good, indifferent. Plus unabashed Sondheim fans. But, he likes horror better than I do.
Also watched some Marsters Q&A's - Marsters cracks me up. He's such an entertaining train wreck.
Reminds me so much of many brilliant theater actors that I've known. Also very informative on what it is like acting for a television series.
They apparently put in 12-15 hour days, five to seven days a week. He states at one point that he never felt exhaustion the way he did on Buffy and Angel. That because of the loss of time, the hard work, and the incredibly long hours - they did get on each others' nerves quite a bit.
Also they had very little time to rehearse or learn lines. If he got 8 hours with his lines, he was lucky. They never knew what their characters were going to do next. And he never ad-libbed. No one did. They weren't allowed to. If you got a comma wrong - they'd come and correct you. Tony Head taught him how to do the accent. Head literally sat down with him and went through the script word for word and line for line - making sure he pronounced it right. Which is why it's a North London accent - that's Head's. He and Juliet both knew punk rock music, and played Spike and Dru as Sid and Nancy - strung out heroine punk rockers. Also, Whedon hated him - according to Marsters. (I seriously doubt it, my guess is Whedon just found theater actors and actors in general annoying - most Hollywood writers do - and for good reason. The hierarchy in Hollywood - moneywise and powerwise is Director - Actor - Writer. And often Actor - Director - Writer. TV - writer's have a bit more power, but the writer is more likely to get replaced than an actor on a tv series. Also actors have a funky way of changing the story on you or arguing with you about how it should be done. Plus, Whedon has a snarky sense of humor. Like my current boss. Deadpan wit. I think deadpan wit goes over some people's heads. Also Marsters current take on this? Contradicts with all his interviews during the series, Whedon's interviews, and others - so it rings of current bitterness that he's not getting parts. Remember acting is a brutal field.
You are rejected daily and you don't know why. Or why someone like Whedon is picking certain people for roles and not calling you. I get that. Been there, done that. Can't let it screw with your head and you can't take it personally. But that's easier said than done. And as Marsters states in more than one interview - he's a train wreck, most artists are. We come from messed up families - he says. He took up acting at the age of 4 - to avoid his family who fought. He's charming, because he's so open and so honest, although I tend to take half of what he says with a grain of salt - hello, actor. Plus, he contradicts himself from earlier interviews. Although I think he's more honest now - because he seems to care less about offending certain people. An example - he used to say how great a singer Kai was and how great Joss was at playing the piano, but now? Totally different story. His story about the musical episode is a lot funnier than it was five years ago.) At any rate - his take on Whedon was that Whedon came to the set his second day and reamed him for being too pretty. And he hid from Whedon after that. (not true - he went to Whedon's house several times and did play readings, also he told Whedon that he thought Spike was in love with Buffy.).
He doesn't remember the show very well or the character - this blows fans minds. But people, think about what you do for a living? Do you remember every paper you wrote?
Every story? Every job? Clearly? I don't. I remember Hugh Laurie once stated that he couldn't tell fans what he did on each episode of House or what he said - because he literally forgot the lines after he didn't need them any longer. Had to do it - or he'd go nuts. We aren't robots. People ask Marsters to do Rest in Peace - and he can't remember the song or to do the accent, and it sounds completely off (of course it would - he hasn't done it in a while.).
He also states that the best thing about the series was the writers. That when he was on it - they had top 12 writers on that show at the same time - writers who are now producers and show runners of other top series.
(Martin Noxon was on Mad Men for a bit, Jane Espenson - Torchwood and Caprica and BSG, David Fury - Lost, 24, Drew Z. Greenberg - Dexter and Caprica, David Greenwalt - In Plain Sight, Moonlight, Ben Edlund - Supernatural, Stephen D. Knight - Smallville and others.) And it was when they were younger and unknown. Raw.
Also apparently Whedon told the writers to write about the most humilating thing they could remember, the most embarrassing moment, the worst thing they did to someone and put that in a script - then put fangs on it. So the writers would come to the set bowed over and looking a bit queasy. It was brave writing, raw. He also said that and David Boreanze echoed it - that they aren't friends with each other. They didn't hang out. After work they went home. You had to. You separated work and life. Sure you were real close at the time you working on it, a family, you'd love and hate each other, but after it was over? You never heard from these people again. (Reassuring that - since that's been my experience in my own working life - so no, it's not limited to showbiz or Hollywood. That's life in this day and age, unfortunately. Relationships, particularly friendships that sprout out of the workplace, tend to be transistory.)
What hits me as interesting is the questions asked over and over. As if the actor knows the answer. He doesn't. He didn't write it. He memorized the lines and created a part, fabricated from parts of himself. And heck it was over five years ago, he doesn't remember it - while we've rewatched it numerous times, he's been auditioning and learning new parts, new songs, and deleting Spike and Buffy from his brain. Marsters isn't Spike, he's just the actor that they hired to portray him for eight years. I'm not sure people get that. Sure parts of him are in Spike - that's a given.
But it was also five years ago, people do change. He's not the same person now. He's much older for one thing, and for another...his life is different, and his wants, needs are different. I doubt he remembers what he was thinking when he played the role any more than we remember what we thought back then.
He said regarding Seeing Red - that it would have worked better if they'd talked to him before hand, as they did Sarah - whose emotional state they were most concerned about. Big mistake that. Because I honestly think it is as hard if not harder to play the abuser and/or rapist as an actor as it is the target. Because you have to go to a dark place inside yourself. But as he stated, it was a brave piece of writing. And I agree. I perceived it differently than most of my flist did. To such an extent, that I no longer permit myself to discuss it online. I see where they are coming from. I found that sequence in Seeing Red impossibly painful to watch, to such an extent that I cringed and almost left the room or flipped channels during it. For a lot of reasons - it is a humiliating scene for both characters, places them both in a position that is horrific. Forces both to see something about themselves they do not want to see, and about each other and their relationship. Also, it is a sequence that has controversial connotations. We live in a culture where a woman is raped every minute. So rape...is not something that can be taken lightly. And I don't think it was. I think many people overreacted to that scene in ways that boggle my mind, particularly since other equally brutal and cringeworthy scenes didn't bug them at all on this show or others. This means that sexual violence is a trigger for them. It isn't for everyone. It's not for me. I have triggers - quite a few. So I try to be careful of others. But at times it can feel like walking through a minefield.
I have an interesting friends list or readership. About 85% were fans or are currently fans of Buffy the Vampire Series. That's why I reference it so much. Of that percentage, about 8 people or 5% possibly less, love the comic books and love Joss Whedon. 40% are annoyed by Whedon and despise the comics. And the rest? Have just moved on. This poses a bit of dilemma in posting. I have to be careful...not go too snarky, not post too much about Buffy, not post too little...mostly? I just give up and post whatever I damn well please, until that is I get attacked by someone, and have no clue what to do. And attacked is relative. All a matter of perception. What I may perceive as an attack, you might not, and vice versa. I basically perceive anything that embarrasses me and sends my blood pressure up as an attack, but hey mileage varies. And I have a temper. I get frustrated and exasperated. It happened this week at work. I ended up sending an email, thought I retracted it, didn't - and had to apologize. Nothing horrible, no cursing. Just slightly crisp and sarcastic. Because I'd lost patience with the project manager. We were arguing about semantics - or the definition of a kick-off meeting vs. a meet and greet meeting. I swear nothing frustrates me more than arguments that go like this: yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is, no it isn't. Which basically is every argument I've ever had regarding semantics, metaphors, or contextual meaning. Proving that no matter how hard I work at being a good writer - someone is going to completely misread or misinterpret what I wrote. Usually, if I'm lucky, it will only be one person. Which brings up a question, assuming you've read this far - why do people respond to journals to quibble or mainly to quibble or argue? Not that they don't respond postively too, they do. But there's a lot of quibbling. I mean, what do you expect to gain by telling the person who wrote the entry that you dislike the show they just wrote a rave review on, or that you loved the actor or designer or show they ranted about for five minutes? I mean, outside of a very angry poster wanting to kick you?
I think people just like to argue and quibble personally. It's deeply ingrained in our DNA. Even the people who tell me they hate conflict, quibble.
Off to bed, have a lot to do tomorrow morning and I've stayed up too late again. [Not edited and the paragraph breaks are atrocious, here's hoping you won't hold it against me.]
So...I've been watching tv, surfing the net, blogging, and well surfing - got compulsive about back-stage gossip on Buffy, info on Song of Ice and Fire, etc. Landed on a decent interview of Whedon (hunting for something else entirely) - in which he more or less nails on the head why I get twitchy watching certain types of tv shows.
"I was never that big a fan of reset television. Reset tv being all that we see is Murder She Wrote. We forget what's happened. She does the same thing each week. I kept imagining a woman sitting in a room overwhelmed by all these murders she'd seen. But nope, it's like she never saw one before, each week. The X-Files bothered me in much the same way, because Scully, she was in Murder She Wrote, while he (Mulder) kept growing and changing, she never really did. Each week, after she saw the monster the week before, she'd be skeptical of monsters existing. Sitcoms for the same reason never really resonated for me because it was reset television, wacky situation after wacky situation, but no on really grew or changed. And part of the reason may be that I grew up watching Masterpiece Theater and shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere - serialized television, where people did grow and change and are quite different from when and where they started. If we aren't changing and growing, and I'm pretty pedantic about this - if we aren't doing that, than honestly why are we here?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwnIdViJS0U&feature=related (where he says it better than I just did because I have 0 auditory memory. I can't take down exactly what people said to save my life. My visual memory is quite excellent, auditory not so much.)
At any rate - amen to that bit above and pretty much everything he states in that portion of the interview. I think and write the same way. I'm bored by reset tv and can't watch it. I've tried. I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with this writer and this writer's fandom. I do not see him as God or near perfect, and there are far better writers and far better tv series out there - that I've seen. But, in many ways...his cultural experience and liberal educational background resonate for me. On some weird level - I get where he is coming from. We grew up during the same decades and had similar "cultural" experience/background/education. He's only three to four years older than I am. We studied the same films and the same literature. Were both fans of the Western and Sci-Fi genre. Both studied Terminator and The John Ford/Howard Hawkes canon. And we are culture junkies - with a love of theater, books, plays, superhero comics (mainly Marvel and X-men), film and tv, and mostly serials, bad good, indifferent. Plus unabashed Sondheim fans. But, he likes horror better than I do.
Also watched some Marsters Q&A's - Marsters cracks me up. He's such an entertaining train wreck.
Reminds me so much of many brilliant theater actors that I've known. Also very informative on what it is like acting for a television series.
They apparently put in 12-15 hour days, five to seven days a week. He states at one point that he never felt exhaustion the way he did on Buffy and Angel. That because of the loss of time, the hard work, and the incredibly long hours - they did get on each others' nerves quite a bit.
Also they had very little time to rehearse or learn lines. If he got 8 hours with his lines, he was lucky. They never knew what their characters were going to do next. And he never ad-libbed. No one did. They weren't allowed to. If you got a comma wrong - they'd come and correct you. Tony Head taught him how to do the accent. Head literally sat down with him and went through the script word for word and line for line - making sure he pronounced it right. Which is why it's a North London accent - that's Head's. He and Juliet both knew punk rock music, and played Spike and Dru as Sid and Nancy - strung out heroine punk rockers. Also, Whedon hated him - according to Marsters. (I seriously doubt it, my guess is Whedon just found theater actors and actors in general annoying - most Hollywood writers do - and for good reason. The hierarchy in Hollywood - moneywise and powerwise is Director - Actor - Writer. And often Actor - Director - Writer. TV - writer's have a bit more power, but the writer is more likely to get replaced than an actor on a tv series. Also actors have a funky way of changing the story on you or arguing with you about how it should be done. Plus, Whedon has a snarky sense of humor. Like my current boss. Deadpan wit. I think deadpan wit goes over some people's heads. Also Marsters current take on this? Contradicts with all his interviews during the series, Whedon's interviews, and others - so it rings of current bitterness that he's not getting parts. Remember acting is a brutal field.
You are rejected daily and you don't know why. Or why someone like Whedon is picking certain people for roles and not calling you. I get that. Been there, done that. Can't let it screw with your head and you can't take it personally. But that's easier said than done. And as Marsters states in more than one interview - he's a train wreck, most artists are. We come from messed up families - he says. He took up acting at the age of 4 - to avoid his family who fought. He's charming, because he's so open and so honest, although I tend to take half of what he says with a grain of salt - hello, actor. Plus, he contradicts himself from earlier interviews. Although I think he's more honest now - because he seems to care less about offending certain people. An example - he used to say how great a singer Kai was and how great Joss was at playing the piano, but now? Totally different story. His story about the musical episode is a lot funnier than it was five years ago.) At any rate - his take on Whedon was that Whedon came to the set his second day and reamed him for being too pretty. And he hid from Whedon after that. (not true - he went to Whedon's house several times and did play readings, also he told Whedon that he thought Spike was in love with Buffy.).
He doesn't remember the show very well or the character - this blows fans minds. But people, think about what you do for a living? Do you remember every paper you wrote?
Every story? Every job? Clearly? I don't. I remember Hugh Laurie once stated that he couldn't tell fans what he did on each episode of House or what he said - because he literally forgot the lines after he didn't need them any longer. Had to do it - or he'd go nuts. We aren't robots. People ask Marsters to do Rest in Peace - and he can't remember the song or to do the accent, and it sounds completely off (of course it would - he hasn't done it in a while.).
He also states that the best thing about the series was the writers. That when he was on it - they had top 12 writers on that show at the same time - writers who are now producers and show runners of other top series.
(Martin Noxon was on Mad Men for a bit, Jane Espenson - Torchwood and Caprica and BSG, David Fury - Lost, 24, Drew Z. Greenberg - Dexter and Caprica, David Greenwalt - In Plain Sight, Moonlight, Ben Edlund - Supernatural, Stephen D. Knight - Smallville and others.) And it was when they were younger and unknown. Raw.
Also apparently Whedon told the writers to write about the most humilating thing they could remember, the most embarrassing moment, the worst thing they did to someone and put that in a script - then put fangs on it. So the writers would come to the set bowed over and looking a bit queasy. It was brave writing, raw. He also said that and David Boreanze echoed it - that they aren't friends with each other. They didn't hang out. After work they went home. You had to. You separated work and life. Sure you were real close at the time you working on it, a family, you'd love and hate each other, but after it was over? You never heard from these people again. (Reassuring that - since that's been my experience in my own working life - so no, it's not limited to showbiz or Hollywood. That's life in this day and age, unfortunately. Relationships, particularly friendships that sprout out of the workplace, tend to be transistory.)
What hits me as interesting is the questions asked over and over. As if the actor knows the answer. He doesn't. He didn't write it. He memorized the lines and created a part, fabricated from parts of himself. And heck it was over five years ago, he doesn't remember it - while we've rewatched it numerous times, he's been auditioning and learning new parts, new songs, and deleting Spike and Buffy from his brain. Marsters isn't Spike, he's just the actor that they hired to portray him for eight years. I'm not sure people get that. Sure parts of him are in Spike - that's a given.
But it was also five years ago, people do change. He's not the same person now. He's much older for one thing, and for another...his life is different, and his wants, needs are different. I doubt he remembers what he was thinking when he played the role any more than we remember what we thought back then.
He said regarding Seeing Red - that it would have worked better if they'd talked to him before hand, as they did Sarah - whose emotional state they were most concerned about. Big mistake that. Because I honestly think it is as hard if not harder to play the abuser and/or rapist as an actor as it is the target. Because you have to go to a dark place inside yourself. But as he stated, it was a brave piece of writing. And I agree. I perceived it differently than most of my flist did. To such an extent, that I no longer permit myself to discuss it online. I see where they are coming from. I found that sequence in Seeing Red impossibly painful to watch, to such an extent that I cringed and almost left the room or flipped channels during it. For a lot of reasons - it is a humiliating scene for both characters, places them both in a position that is horrific. Forces both to see something about themselves they do not want to see, and about each other and their relationship. Also, it is a sequence that has controversial connotations. We live in a culture where a woman is raped every minute. So rape...is not something that can be taken lightly. And I don't think it was. I think many people overreacted to that scene in ways that boggle my mind, particularly since other equally brutal and cringeworthy scenes didn't bug them at all on this show or others. This means that sexual violence is a trigger for them. It isn't for everyone. It's not for me. I have triggers - quite a few. So I try to be careful of others. But at times it can feel like walking through a minefield.
I have an interesting friends list or readership. About 85% were fans or are currently fans of Buffy the Vampire Series. That's why I reference it so much. Of that percentage, about 8 people or 5% possibly less, love the comic books and love Joss Whedon. 40% are annoyed by Whedon and despise the comics. And the rest? Have just moved on. This poses a bit of dilemma in posting. I have to be careful...not go too snarky, not post too much about Buffy, not post too little...mostly? I just give up and post whatever I damn well please, until that is I get attacked by someone, and have no clue what to do. And attacked is relative. All a matter of perception. What I may perceive as an attack, you might not, and vice versa. I basically perceive anything that embarrasses me and sends my blood pressure up as an attack, but hey mileage varies. And I have a temper. I get frustrated and exasperated. It happened this week at work. I ended up sending an email, thought I retracted it, didn't - and had to apologize. Nothing horrible, no cursing. Just slightly crisp and sarcastic. Because I'd lost patience with the project manager. We were arguing about semantics - or the definition of a kick-off meeting vs. a meet and greet meeting. I swear nothing frustrates me more than arguments that go like this: yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is, no it isn't. Which basically is every argument I've ever had regarding semantics, metaphors, or contextual meaning. Proving that no matter how hard I work at being a good writer - someone is going to completely misread or misinterpret what I wrote. Usually, if I'm lucky, it will only be one person. Which brings up a question, assuming you've read this far - why do people respond to journals to quibble or mainly to quibble or argue? Not that they don't respond postively too, they do. But there's a lot of quibbling. I mean, what do you expect to gain by telling the person who wrote the entry that you dislike the show they just wrote a rave review on, or that you loved the actor or designer or show they ranted about for five minutes? I mean, outside of a very angry poster wanting to kick you?
I think people just like to argue and quibble personally. It's deeply ingrained in our DNA. Even the people who tell me they hate conflict, quibble.
Off to bed, have a lot to do tomorrow morning and I've stayed up too late again. [Not edited and the paragraph breaks are atrocious, here's hoping you won't hold it against me.]
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Date: 2010-10-17 09:33 pm (UTC)and NYC Comic Con Q&A 2010, plus a really short interview after the show was finished with David Boreanze in which they both looked like they wanted to just sleep for days.
He has got to be the most entertaining of the actors I've seen do Q&A's. The only other people who are that entertaining and informative are Joss Whedon, Ben Browder (Farscape - highly informative and hilarious), and Claudia Black (Farscape.) Although, will state, that Charisma Carpenter during a Dragon Con 2009 Q&A with Julie Benze and Marsters was truly hilarious and fascinating.