I spent nine hours on the set today working on the ColourTV video.

Being an actor is strange. I was involved in drama all through high school, but as soon as I started playing in bands I realized, “Hey, I can be up here on stage and I don’t have to pretend to be someone else.”

Writing is similar in a way: I have the skills to write fiction but I don’t find it as satisfying. Why should I go through all the tedious trouble of making shit up? What’s in it for me.

There’s definitely a certain ego element I have to get over in order to be able to play a role. For the first shot of the day the director said, “You’re supposed to be all nervous and frantic.”

I said, “Nervous. How am I supposed to do that. I’m never nervous or frantic.” The first few takes were pretty stiff.

Then it occurred to me, if I supposedly don’t get nervous, then it doesn’t make sense to be nervous about acting nervous. Once I loosened up a little bit I was able to relax and start to enjoy the role.

I pretended I was Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, totally cheesy acting. “Oh my god. What is happening to me. I’m going to die. Whoa! I know Kung Fu!”

Then the director of photography said “show me” and we rolled it.

[I just forgot the webcam was on and stuck my hand down my pants to scratch my nuts. I just totally forgot the webcam was on and spent an hour reading MetaFilter.]