David Chiu

It’s 10.13pm and I’m stuck in the office fixing programming bugs. I’d rather be stuck on a movie set somewhere doing a 16-hour day.

It’s gonna be a long weekend - but not in a good way. Tomorrow I have class for most of the day then Sunday I have to do a make-up class as well. Yes I love being at the acting studio but I also need time to relax and hang out with my wife.

Yesterday I met with our CPA to do our taxes. Every year at tax time I tell myself that THIS year I’m going to be more organized and save every receipt and track every expense. So initially I always have a good start saving my receipts in a folder, tracking travel time - I even had the idea that I would scan every receipt and save it digitally - this does happen for 2-3 months, then I get lazy and it all goes to pieces. Luckily we use an online billpay service which categorizes all our expenses so this helps, but we could do better (me particularly).

So now I need to find more deductions to lower my taxes. I know I have receipts for business equipment purchases somewhere… I also will need to go through old bank statements… It’s sad because I also realized that last year I made ZERO dollars as an actor. But if I look at my acting “career” overall I’m still in the positive. A few years ago I earned $12k from acting and commercial print work.

Speaking of acting, I’m still waiting for my theatrical agent to make a choice on my new headshots. I also need to show my commercial agent the proofs as well. I need to get this all done so I can get the photos developed and duplicated and I can get my new photos out there. I know I will get auditions from these photos I just need to get them out the door…

Last night Michael Fredrick subbed for Tom in class. Michael isn’t necessarily an acting teacher instead he teaches Alexander Technique. Alexander Technique is a method for releasing tension in the body and helps actors deal with movment and stage fright. At the beginning of class Michael spoke about actors and the process of emotional preparation, “Most actors look like they’re taking a $hit.” He said that actors need to learn how to relax and connect with the emotion instead of trying to force it.

Very funny and true.