Archive for March, 2009
 Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Prologue: Met on the DIAMOND Princess January 2008, Came to see my show in Explores and then we hung out after the show and discussed people we both knew from Japan… Flash forward a year and I had the chance to shoot Alexander’s show aboard the GRAND Princess and the opportunity to do this interview… All is as it should be…
Stats:
Name: Jason Alexander Sitnick
Birthday: February 27, 1970
Place of Birth: Hollywood, CA, USA
Started Performing/Working in the Industry: 1984 at restaurants in the Orange County Area
Discipline: Illusionist
Websites: http://www.alexandermagic.com
Video Link: http://www.alexandermagic.com/videos
Venues Worked: Restaurants, Stage, Hotels, Casinos, Cruise Ships, Private Parties, Corporate Shows, Trade Shows, Magic Conventions
Hot 10 Questions:
- What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream and why? • Coffee ’cause a). I love coffee and b). I think it’s awesome in ice cream!
- Name one movie that would make it to your Top 10 all-time great films • ROCKY III – Because of this one quote in the film – “The worst thing that happened to you, that can happen to any fighter: you got civilized.” In a similar way I feel performers should always be hungry, trying to make their show the best it can be.
- What was your favorite toy from childhood? • Star Wars Tie-Fighter made by Kenner Toys – it was pretty much the coolest thing ever!
- Who were your biggest inspirations when you got started? • Definitely David Copperfield no question.
- From the world of animation what one character do you most identify with or see yourself in? • Batman, because I see parallel’s between magicians with props and Batman with his cool gadgets.
- Name something that scares you. • My Imgination… I’ve got a wild imagination and scare myself all the time..
- Apart from the entertainment industry, name one other job you’ve had. • Working as a salesman at Hollywood Magic
- What’s something you haven’t done yet that you’d like to try? • I’d like to try stand-up comedy. I’d love to exercise my frustrations in a funny format that would make other laugh – You know… A comic RANT!
- What’s your least favourite thing about being a performer? • People who drop the ball who are integral to making my performance a success.
- If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? • You made it…did you think you would?
The Nugget:
Pick one nugget of wisdom you’ve picked up from your career in Show Business to share with the World.
“Listen to your audience, they’ll tell you everything you need to know. No… I mean REALLY listen.”
–Alexander
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Posted in Interview | Comments Off on Alexander • Interviews from the Inside
 Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Blessed are those moments when the skies open up and inspiration strikes…
When I started this blog back at the beginning of January I wasn’t sure if I’d run out of things to say or really be able to figure out how to say it. Being somewhat obsessive/compulsive I set up a structure for myself with hints at what subject matter I should touch on for each day of the week and it’s certainly helped me keep the ideas and the content flowing…
I’ve been on ships a fair bit since the beginning of the year and because connecting to the internet is typically slow and a bit spendy on ships I tried to get all of my ducks in a row and sometimes upload a weeks worth of posts when I had a decent internet connection at one of the ports we were visiting.
Since I got back and this week in particular I’ve been waking up and deciding what I wanted to write about based upon the mood that struck me when I sat down at the keyboard. On some levels it feels a bit more organic to write the post of the day on the day, with the mood of the day being very much a part of the workflow… Imposing a topic for the day a few days out has worked for me and has certainly allowed me to keep the content flowing, but there’s something to be said for going with the whim of what strikes on the day itself…
And now for a complete left turn topic-wise, or perhaps just going with the whim that’s just struck…
Went out for lunch with my friends David Duchemin and Shawn Farquhar yesterday. David went from being a comedy/juggler/magician to being a full time photographer a couple of years ago and Shawn is probably one of the best (if not THE best) magicians in Canada. I had two topics of conversation that I wanted to touch on over lunch. The first being the mechanics of a standing ovation and the second being the concept of creating celebrity…
The first topic, the standing ovation, was something I wanted to pry out of Shawn’s brain as he’s crafted a show where the standing ovation at the end of the show is almost automatic. Now to be honest, I’ve never really cared about all that much about getting a Standing-O, but when you’re working on ships and reports are being written back to head office about how each act went over, having the cruise director say – ‘Dave got a standing ovation’ certainly looks very good in a report and can ensure long term employment.
Shawn had some interesting ideas to share about how he primes an audience during the course of his show, plants the seed, so that if the audience liked the show they want to give him a standing ovation… I’m going to need to work on some ideas of how I can do this in a way that stays in character with the persona I present to the audience on stage, but it was great to sit down and chat with someone who’s built the structure of his show to encourage a certain response and get my brain thinking about how I could craft things for my own show…
The second topic, creating or building celebrity, was something that I wanted to offer in exchange… Shawn’s won a ton of prestigious magic awards and has had a huge influence in the magic community and although he’s well knowing in the world of magic, he hasn’t tapped into celebrity much beyond the world of magic. When asked if this was something that he wanted, his answer was a resounding – YES. I was really pleased that David Duchemin was at this lunch actually because I’ve been really impressed over the years with his ability to build celebrity for himself and then beyond building the celebrity, figuring out ways to cash in on the celebrity status that he has created for himself…
I had to run before we’d gotten too far into the concept of building celebrity but the three of us agreed to hook up again in a couple of weeks to dive into this a bit more…
The conversation is still reverberating in my brain and inspiring me to look at my own show as well as look at how what I know can help others with what they do. Not sure where it’ll lead at this point, but it feels good to have stirred up the pot a bit.
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Posted in Thoughts | Comments Off on Listening to the day…
 Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
I’ll admit it, I was a fan of the first reality shows I ever saw which came from Japan. Contestants were given really bizarre challenges like being given a paddle boat shaped like a swan and asked to navigate from Osaka to Yokohama in the open ocean. Or fathers asked to perform a bizarre task like typing the lyrics to a song in a given time limit when they’d never touched a keyboard in their life before. Fun to watch because there was the element of human struggle combined with a really bizarre task.
In more recent years shows like Survivor, American Idol and America’s Got Talent started popping up and producer used slightly different techniques to create an audience for their shows. The creation of celebrity, the use of hype and sensationalism and the building of a great product for TV – reality shows went Hollywood! As an entertainer I certainly understand the techniques used to make the shows appear interesting, but never fully bought into it.
Then in November I got an email from the associated casting director for “America’s Got Talent” with an inquiry as to whether I’d like to submit myself for auditions for Season 4. I was a bit skeptical as to whether I really wanted to be involved with something like this and as I know a guy who was involved in the show last year I thought I’d fire off a quick email to get his thoughts…
Me – Got the an email today from Americas Got Talent and am not entirely sure what I think about this as an ‘Opportunity.’
There are pros and cons to this I think and before doing anything I wanted to get your take on your experience with the show last year.
Worth your time? A waste of time?
This is the response I got…
Doing this “talent show” is a real crap shoot. They may make you look very good or very bad, and I mean they when I say they. The editing on this show can really kill you. I saw acts that did very well in the audition but when the show aired the editing made them look like crap. The producers are in total control of how you look. They will edit audience reaction shots that are not even from your show, which could be good or bad. One thing you need to know is that if you do not have something that is totally unique and can showcase in 90 seconds, I would think twice about it. Even at 90 seconds they can edit that down to 20 or 30 seconds if they want to make you look really lame. The music acts do well on this show because they can fit into the 90 second audition slot nicely but the variety acts and comedy based acts have a lot harder time making that work. I strongly suggest that you look at some of last years acts on the NBC web site and see what worked and what didn’t. My human puppet bit worked well in the 90 second slot and looked unique to the judges compared to all the other vent acts that auditioned. That’s the only thing that I do that I think gave me a chance to get through. My goal was to get 5 minutes and that’s exactly what I got. It was a 50/50 chance of getting that and having them making me look like shit.
In the end I opted not to follow up on this chance to be on TV because I didn’t feel like what I do was going to be well showcased on the show. I also took a moment to look at myself as a product that could be turned into a story for Television and realized that I come from a bit too normal of a background to make for really interesting TV. I’m happily married, I’ve got two kids that I love, I work regularly and have made a successful career out of performing even if I’ve never reached ‘Star Status’ I do feel like I’ve reached a level of fame and respect with in the industry that I’m really happy with. There seemed to be more to loose than there was to gain. Add to that the fact that rumor has it that David Hasselhoff has a thing against jugglers and I decided not to shoot myself in the foot on this one.
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Posted in Job Opportunities | Comments Off on Reality (?) Shows
 Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
OK… I’ll admit it. I’m an Apple/Mac Fanboy… Have been since I bought my very first Apple Computer on August 30, 1991, a Mac Classic with an awesome forty megabyte hard drive and a whopping 4 megs of RAM… I remember thinking that I’d never fill that hard drive when I first bought it… Ha!
I still have a Mac Classic with the same configuration of hard drive/RAM sitting in my office just as a reminder of how far things have come since my very first Mac… Total Awesomeness! I love watching technology advance, though my bank account could at times benefit from a little less tech lust…
Well Safari 4 Beta is one of those things that won’t have a huge impact on my bank balance, and even in the few days that I’ve been playing with it, I’m really enjoying! If you swing over to the ‘Features Page‘ you can go over the ‘150 Features – Leading the way with Innovation’ as Apple puts it, but the two features that really caught my eye and have already been very useful are –
1. Top Sites – This feature brings your 12 most visited websites onto a single page where you can click between them at ease. I was interested to see what my top 12 sites were going to be the first time I clicked it and a couple of them were the pages I had to use to log onto the internet when I was on the GRAND Princess last week… I’m sure over the next week or so those will drop off and others will take their place.
2. Full History – Again an excellent graphical interface that is very similar to cover flow in iTunes. The ability to scroll back and visually see the pages I’ve visited has been awesome as when it comes to things like websites, a quick snapshot of the site is far more useful than the name of the site. I may remember something I’ve read off of a certain page, but being able to see it in the context of the page it was a part of, to see the layout, to see some of the graphic elements makes getting back to a site I’ve visited but neglected to book mark a snap!
Oh… The fact that this software beta is available for both Mac and PC (Windows) is also pretty cool. Having used Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and others over the year’s it’s pretty cool to see a company make some really cool innovations to a web browser and even cooler that’s it’s not platform specific. Often Public Beta versions of software are riddled with bugs, but this one actually seems pretty solid and will only get better.
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Posted in Technical Tuesdays | Comments Off on Cool upgrade to Safari…
 Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Ok… I’m likely going to sound like an old man for a bit here, but I remember the days when you had to send out your promotional video on a VHS Cassette Tape. There… I said it. And even better than that, I remember the days before I even had a promotional video because the cost of making one and the technology were so far out of reach that the mere idea of having a promotional video was somewhat of a dream…
The first computer I ever bought that could handle video editing was an iMac DV Special Edition which I purchased on January 18, 2000. As soon as I had my hands on a computer that could actually handle non-linear editing I was hooked and was shooting videos, dumping them back onto VHS tapes and sending them to family members. The fact that I was a proud new Dad likely had something to do with it, but I also turned my focus toward the building of promotional videos as well.
VHS tapes got replaced by DVDs when easy DVD authoring became the norm and DVDs seem to be going the way of the VHS tape in that people are using on-line distribution methods to deliver their video content, but what compression method should you use and then there’s the question of Standard Definition (4:3 Aspect Ratio) vrs. High Definition (16:9 Aspect Ratio) that’s worth considering as well. Enter YouTube to level the playing field and create a standard that everyone accepted.
YouTube got it’s start A mere four years ago in February 2005 when three former PayPal Employees created the site and was purchased by Google less than a year later to the tune of 1.65 billion dollars… Yowza!
More than just a huge internet success story it has become, for many, an alternative to TV, a soapbox on which to stand and preach to the world, a resource for researchers, and an absolute necessity for performers looking to promoting their shows to buyers. “Do you have a video up on YouTube” has become such a common phrase that if you don’t have one, you’ve become the exception to the rule.
The vast discrepancy in quality of video content is staggering, but picture quality is less important than content as viewers have become accustomed to watching video of an inferior quality if the content is what they’re after. Come up with a funny idea and produce it cheaply and you could be the next video with a million plus hits or more importantly that on-line video could land you your next gig. In today’s age I’d say that a video that plays well on YouTube could possibly be the most important tool in your marketing arsenal – so get shooting and get posting, or if you feel more like watching than creating, head over to my corner of the youtube universe at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/checkerhead
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Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »
 Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
“All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.”
–Sean O’Casey, Irish dramatist (1880 – 1964)
Addendum…
“Still when the lights hit the stage, somehow it all seems to work out.”
–David ‘checkerhead’ Aiken
I heard another quote from someone once about there’s not dress rehearsal for life meaning that you’ve got to make the most out of every opportunity that you’re given. I quite like the metaphor of life being a big performance as it seems to give me another excuse not to grow up… My body may age, but I hope my spirit never does.
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Posted in Quotes | Comments Off on Sean O’Casey – Quoted
 Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Prologue: I first met Al Millar in 1999 at the Ottawa Busker’s Festival… Man… The past 10 years have flown past… Al was, at that time, the new kid on the block a new generation of street performer who was balls-to-the-wall ready to be the next great thing! To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to make of this guy from Australia with the spiky hair and tattoos, but his show was certainly the strongest new show I’d seen in years, audiences loved him, and I was really pleased to discover that he was a really nice guy. We hit it off as friends right away and I have a vivid memory of getting hooked on Frozen Yogurt Cones thanks to Al while we were performing at the Ottawa Festival. Good times!
Stats:
Name: Al Millar
Birthday: April 19, 1978
Place of Birth: Sydney, Australia
Started Performing/Working in the Industry: 1996
Discipline: Comedy Juggler/Human Knot/contortionist
Website: http://www.thehumanknot.com/
Video Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4eOuc3fl1FE
Venues Worked: Street, Stage, Corporate, Festivals
Hot 10 Questions:
- What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream and why? • Chocolate of course, but now its soy ice cream, no lactose!!
- Name one movie that would make it to your Top 10 all-time great films • Fight Club
- What was your favorite toy from childhood? • My Matchbox cars.
- Who were your biggest inspirations when you got started? • Butterfly Man, Captain Keano, Lucky Rich, Jp Mck.
- From the world of animation what one character do you most identify with or see yourself in? • Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Name something that scares you. • The dentist
- Apart from the entertainment industry, name one other job you’ve had. • Paper Boy
- What’s something you haven’t done yet that you’d like to try? • Playing stadiums with my band HumanKind
- What’s your least favourite thing about being a performer? • Airports ugh!
- If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? • No one can touch you AL, now that your here we are switching jobs!
The Nugget:
Pick one nugget of wisdom you’ve picked up from your career in Show Business to share with the World.
“Smile, shave, slow down, if you wait long enough the world will fall at your feet. Keep it simple!!!”
–Al Millar
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Posted in Interview | 2 Comments »
 Where in the world am I today?: Woke up in Trinidad, will go to bed in North Vancouver
I posted recently about my email addiction but I think I could take this a step further and admit to being a bit of an internet-aholic. I’m so spoiled at home to have a flat fee 24/7 WiFi connection that, when I leave home for work and I don’t have, I somehow feel cheated and require a day or two to tone down my web dependency and get back on track with other aspects of life. Things like oh I don’t know… practicing juggling, working on bits for my show, enjoying the sights and sounds of where ever it is I happen to be, but it’s not long before the monkey on my back returns and I’m looking for my hit of internet-goodness!
On the contract I’ve just finished aboard the GRAND Princess you can access the internet, but you buy an internet card for twenty bucks and it comes with a pre-determined time limit and it seems incredibly easy to burn through those minutes at an alarmingly fast rate. Especially as the connection speed isn’t the fastest in the world you end up chewing up more minutes in the accomplishment of tasks that on a speedier connection take a fraction of the time. I try to limit my use of those minutes to the very basic essentials. Zip online, download new emails, send off any I’ve written while off line then disconnect. A to B To See you later – done!
Got to Aruba on the ship recently and walked off with my computer and my iPod touch and went for a bit of a walk around prospecting for WiFi. My iPod Touch made this a bit easier because, as a hand held device with built in WiFi, I was able to check for a signal every half block or so in the hopes of finding an connection I could free-base from… Crack open my laptop, tap into the connection and get my fix of internet until my laptop’s battery died.
There is an element of piracy to the affair and yet it seems harmless enough to track down a connecting that’s being given away and sneak aboard the WiFi Love Train… A modern day prospector for whom the pack mule and pick axe or yore have been replaced by an iPod and a laptop… There’s gold in them there ports I tells ya… WiFi GOLD!
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Posted in Thoughts | Comments Off on Prospecting for WiFi
 Where in the world am I today?: At Sea aboard the GRAND Princess, The Caribbean
Through the years I’ve had the opportunity to perform at a number of Music Festivals. Way way back when I used to live in Ottawa and shortly after getting my first car I’d throw my props into the back of my Austin Mini and zip over to Montreal to perform on the Streets at the Montreal Jazz Festival… My appearances at that time were completely impromptu and the money I collected in my hat at the end of the show was the full payment that I received.
Since that time I’ve been invited to a number of great Music Festivals including:
Being a non-musical act playing at an event which is predominately all about music is a mixed blessing. I always feel a bit like the odd man out when I’m at a Music Festival, but the very fact that I am different seems to at times be an advantage because it gives people a change from a strictly musical diet.
My ability to grab a few bits and pieces and play for the crowd while change overs from one band to the next are taking place has also been a huge bonus both for my exposure at these various events and for keeping stages alive even when there’s a break in the music.
The four events listed above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the possibilities out there. Type in “Folk Festival” or “Music Festival” into your favourite search engine and you’ll have a huge list to choose from. Start making a list of the one’s you’d like to go to then find out who the Artistic Directors of each event is (often listed on the websites) and send in your stuff, follow up the mailing with a phone call and see if you can get yourself in…
I’ve had a blast performing at Music Festivals and am a huge music fan, so when the chance comes up to perform at a Music Festival I usually jump at it.
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Posted in Job Opportunities | Comments Off on Music Festivals
 Where in the world am I today?: Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, The Caribbean
No that’s not a big bag of cocaine from my last visit to Columbia, It’s a small baggie with laundry soap in it. I picked up the idea of traveling with a bit of laundry soap from my good friend Iori Mikumo from Yokohama, Japan. Back in Summer of 2002 when Iori and I were sharing a room while performing as The Executives at the Edmonton Street Performers Festival I observed as Iori would hand wash some of the clothes he used daily in the sink of the bathroom and hung things to dry in the evening and work up with clean dry clothes the next morning.
I’ve been working a lot on cruise ships in the past few months and usually there’s a laundromat aboard the ships, but I still like carrying the laundry soap with me because sometimes I don’t need to do a whole load of laundry and it’s just more convenient to wash things by hand and hang them to dry in my shower. Especially with my performance shirts which I usually dry clean, the ability to give them a more delicate treatment than the onboard ship washing machines might provide is comforting because I know I’m not going to destroy one of my custom made shirts by sending it out to be cleaned.
The other nice bonus about having a bag of laundry soap is that I’ll often put it at the bottom of the closet with all of the clothes hung above and undo the ziplock seal to let the smell of the soap act as a sort of clothes closet air freshener…
Not rocket science, but it certainly is nice to be able to put on a clean shirt before your show.
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Posted in Technical Tuesdays | Comments Off on Bring some soap along…
 Where in the world am I today?: Aruba, The Caribbean
Making yourself available to shake hands and sign autographs after your show leaves a lasting impression not only with the people watching your show, but also with the people who hired you to do the show in the first place.
I was talking to a country music fan who what a huge Garth Brooks fan. In part because he really likes Garth’s music, but also because of the way Garth took the time to sign autographs for anyone who wanted one after his shows. The word that came up during the conversation repeatedly was ‘Class’ – Garth was a ‘class act’ for taking the time to acknowledge the support of his fans.
Now admittedly I don’t have the same sort of star status that a celebrity like Garth Brooks does, but the lesson that can be learned from this is clear. Acknowledging that people might want to come up and shake your hand after your show makes the performer/spectator relationship somehow more real and your willingness to make this connection leaves a very positive lasting impression.
I think this is one of the things I really like about doing busking festivals and street shows. When people come up to throw a tip into your hat, it’s not just that they’re acknowledging that they enjoyed the show enough to pay you for it, they also want to make a personal connection with you – person to person.
In other venues, I try to find a way to allow for this to happen. The picture above was shot at a consumer trade show in China, following my shows in this venue I handed out trading cards just so I could make that connection. When I’m on cruise ships, I make a point of getting to the entrance to the theatre as people are exiting my shows so that I can shake hands and thank them for sharing their evening with me. I’ll often hand out free souvenir postcards as well just to leave a positive and lasting impression and get my web site information into their hands…
Ya just never know who’s in your audience and taking the extra time to connect with people may well lead to other performance opportunities.
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Posted in Marketing | Comments Off on Pressing the Flesh…
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