What's in a name..........

I received a call from my manager saying that the production office of “Ocean’s 13” called them to inform me that my character name had changed from Lone Security Guard to Guard Ortega. Cool.

In my view, this is nice in three ways:

1) On a smaller scale, it’s nice that my character now has a name. Yay! I know, I know….it’s not really a big deal. But you know what, I would rather have a name than not have a name. Let’s put it like that. Smile.

2) Looks like my scenes may have actually made it into the final cut of the film. For those of you who don’t know, that’s a big deal when you have a relatively small role. Some times even huge roles have been cut because they’ve gone in a different direction. Depending on how much strong, relevant material the director, editor and the producers choose to use, a number of scenes are often cut and never make it to the film. Hence the term “My scenes were left on the cutting room floor.” Sometime you’ll see them on DVD’s as deleted scenes, etc. Meaning that you’re not going to be seen and in most cases, not even appear on the credits. So the fact that my character is being given a name by the production company just a couple of months before the premiere (June 8th…by the way. Smile.) says that I may actually be on the movie screen for this one.

3) Finally, I often like to think outside of the box…and I say to myself that SOMEONE had to be thinking about yours truly! By this I mean…as I’ve mentioned before, when you’re done working on your scene for films and you have a relatively small role. It’s rare that anyone will even remember you when you’re wrapped….there’s just entirely too many other things going on with a film….the main stars/characters, editing, color correction, looping, marketing, premieres, etc. The fact that I’m being talked about (even if it’s just to give me a name) is a good thing. You want your name and/or your performance to be on someone’s mind.

So, I’ll take all of this as a good thing. It might not seem like a big deal to some….but I’ll take it!