Susanna Speier

Have you ever been to The Standard? It’s something of a Graceland-esque modernist bar/club/lounge restaurant/hotel West Hollywood romping ground for the swankily dressed and of course I fell totally in love with it. Fell in love with it to the extent that I had to go and check out the other Standard, the Kubrick-esque Standard complete w/ rooftop terrace w/ films projected onto adjacent buildings in Downtown LA, the very next night w/ my friends Cathy and Bob. Real gem of the place, of course, was the Jenny Holzer light emitting diode sign next to the exit in the downstairs lobby. What brought me there the first night, btw was the wrap party for the energy drink that myself and the peops in the photo’d just wrapped. Will loop back to that topic at the end of this blog entry, tho.

Okay, so while Hollywood is supposedly, officially more-or-less hiatus-ing during this oppressive desert season, it’s still a busy time for me. And I love being busy. Busy squared. Busy times a google-plex before the website hijacked the term used to describe a one with a hundred zeroes behind it and re appropriated it causing the literal and considerably more poetic connotation to morph into a mere secondary definition.

Where’d this thread originate from again? Oh, right, summer in the desert land. Heinous weather. Hot and dry and hostile ultra v rays and all. In other words, I would still jump at the chance to get out of town, given the opportunity & resources. Temperatures where I live in Burbank, in fact, been hitting 106 this week, casing my basil and mini roses to wither and the leaves of fikus to turn black all within a few days. My jade, however, (the only actual desert plant I have —the plant that required grow lights in Brooklyn to maintain— continues to thrive.

Writing-wise, I’m waiting for my writing partner, Barney Cohen, to finish his draft of our Cupid and Psyche script. I miss my characters and want them back but am trying to be patient.  Acting-wise, I acted in my first Webisode. It’s part of a series called The Director, created and directed by Michael Weinreich, and the role I played is way-improv-ie and inspired by/configured around a beautiful hand made dress that my sister-in-law brought me back from her trip to Tanzania. Will, of course, post the episode once its available online. Played a small role (also very improv-ie) in Ron Kraus’ short, Amexica, and acted in a couple of student shorts. Also, shot a commercial (the one mentioned in the beginning and then the end of this blog entry) Been doing a lot of background work, which is more-or-less the lowest rung of the totem pole far as acting work goes. You’re rarely actually have the opportunity to ‘act’ during the shoot and often your scenes are blurred and/or cut. Also, the pay is abysmal. At the same time, it’s a way to be on set everyday. When lucky, I can watch parts of the directing process. It enables me to familiarize with various lots and film sets, internalize the rhythm of the production process and, well, being on set feels –more or less– normal for me now. It’s also a way of getting into SAG.

Now, here’s the thing— writing is and always has been my major career focus. The craft of acting (and I do consider acting to be much more craft than art form), however, is something that’s I’ve continued to do, in one capacity or another, throughout my writing career because, well, because I like to do it. And if I wanted to intellectual-ify it, talk about how it augments my senses and sensitivity to the rhythmic subtleties of dialog and the twittering contradictory nuances behind text and subtext in character drives, then I suppose I could talk about that as well. Of how about saying, maybe, that maintaining this skills enables me to breathe more freely in and throughout the creation process, thereby bringing characters to life as I write them. Shakespeare acted, Sam Shepard did as well. Even Suzan-Lori Parks studied Shakespearean acting at a conservatory in London for a year after graduating from Mt. Holyoke because she said that she needed to be able to perform Shakespeare in order to be able to write

Scored my first SAG voucher playing a fire performer on CSI-NY. Other specialties I’ve had have been used for background, such as skating and dancing but neither of those has scored me a voucher yet. Most of the background stuff I do is period because I am petite and there is a really high demand for petites on shows that use vintage costumes because people were smaller way-back-when. Here is a photo of me a the Santa Anita Racetrack which was where we shot Public Enemy, a Michael Mann directed film starring Johnny Depp about a 30s gangsta named John Dillinger. I’m standing next to the Jockey of horse #7 in this pic. The Jockey, Chris Russell, is a regular jockey at the Santa Anita racetrack.

Jockey’s don’t require vintage costumes because, with the exception of padded vests beneath their jackets to protect their chest from horse hoof damage (should they get thrown), what they wear today is more or less the same as what they wore in the 1930s. This was, by far, the most meticulous wardrobe dept I’ve worked with yet. Everything that they put me in, down to the slip beneath the dress, was vintage. Okay, the sport bra they gave me to wear was contemporary but the goal of the sport bra —to flatten my chest— was done for the purpose of obtaining a more 20s 30s look. Several actors were sent back from set to get their hair re parted beneath the hats they wore because the parts weren’t far enough to the side, despite the fact that their parts were mostly covered by hats. Even our pantyhose were authentic w/ seams going up the back. Men were given haircuts and close shaves if they weren’t clean cut enough and bright red nail polish was passed down the line of women waiting in the makeup line. Complaints, of course, were abundant all around. Generally when an environment becomes overly complain-ey I focus my attention on whatever it is I’m reading or find some other way to redirect my focus, energy is so contageous in an environment like that. Besides, I didn’t particularly mind how detail oriented things were, In fact, I found it fascinating. Since I’m the same way when it comes to detail oriented perfectionism.

Went through a phase where I was really had to grapple with my detail oriented perfectionism. Was thinking it was counterproductive, getting me stuck, holding me back. The Doug Petrie, one of the writers for C.S.I. really validated this for me and convinced me that as a writer, you DO have have be “attached” to what you’re doing in order to do a good job. I saw things different, as a direct result of this conversation I had with Doug. He introduced me to directors, prop people and asked me to address that same question to them. Was getting too attached to your work something one needed to be careful of. The overall consensus, of course, was ‘no.’ That even if it meant being a bit on the obsessive side from time to time, getting attached and staying attached to ones projects was necessary up until those projects were completed. Being detail oriented regarding your work was the inevitable result of this sort of attachement. Granted when you’re done w/ a project you’re done. It’s also important to let go in the end but when you’re there, in the creative zone, you gotta fully attached. Okay, so that C.S.I. example, though contextually relevant, was actually a digression from the original trajectory which, was Public Enemy, this Dillinger story. So now, back to 1933. Or at least, back to the set of the 1933 horserace in Florida that Dillinger was betting on. Gangsters as well as legit gamblers are attached and detail oriented, obviously. As was the costume designer, Colleen Atwood, who, I later learned, had won two Oscars. One for Chicago and one for Memoirs of a Geisha. Things were done and redone multiple times. Women who had their hair parted too close to the center were sent back to hair and make-up and told to have their hair entirely redone. Call time was 3:00a.m. and we wrapped at 7:00pm, due to Michael Mann’s detail oriented style of directing. Can’t wait to see the finished product.

Within a week, was back to time traveling. This time, for the show Mad Men. The costumes for MM are equally detail oriented. Was utterly thrilled when Janey Bryant, the Emmy award winning costume designer (of Deadwood fame) brought on the black & white bow-front dress. The paraboloid bulleted bra, I’d initially been fitted in, was quickly swapped for a black corset and the waist and then hourglassed accordingly. In the meantime, Janey’s smartly groomed poodle as she (somehow I’m inclined to call her Lucy—though I’m not 100% sure this was the poodle’s name, I remember it was a girl poodle) wove in and out of these elaborate vintage clothing racks, occasionally trotting over to deposit a chomped up tennis ball at my feet and lick my face before I’d dutifully throw the tennis ball across the room, again.

Here is a picture of me holding my head very still, as instructed to do by the hairdressers who insisted I sit quietly and “try not to move (my) head so much when I talk.” I compliantly took seat and one of the hairdressers re-poofed my boof. It took me two hours of soaking in conditioner in order to be able to finally get a comb thru. Another hour conditioner soak and wash later, it’s not quite spray-free but certainly getting there.  These top-of-their-form hairstylists are all detail oriented perfectionists who get attached to their work, as well.

Okay, so, looping back to this commercial. It was produced for AFI as part of a competition sponsored by the makers of an energy drink. Although we didn’t win the competition, we did make it to the final round. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to collab with this really fun, clever, talented and well-organized posse of AFI peops. After an intense, day long shoot we wrapped and celebrated at The Standard in West Hollywood, which brings me back up to the beginning of this blog entry. And in the final shot, here we are, post wrap, at The Standard again. (See how I looped back just like I said I would?) Michael Gianini, the writer/director of “Use What You’ve Got” is the one behind me in the photo, wearing the sweaty, blue-t-shirt. The buxom blonde next to me is the producer, Ariane Von Kamp. check out the three min “Use What You’ve Got” ad we made and if you like it, please give it a good rating to punch it up in the YouTubeArchy….