Star Making Performances.
They're more common then you think.
There's a million of 'em you haven't seen.(.. and, I'm not just talking about Mexico. It's like a cute summer camp for non-english speaking actors, down there. A hot, sticky, smelly summer camp. They've got little cameras, put on little skits... all in their little nonsense language. Trust me, it's adorable.)
Watching 'dailies' in a trailer of a previous day's filming.... on the sofa in a palatial hollywood hills home, fast-forwarding through rough cuts.... in an editing suite, combing through the raw elements of a television pilot.... I can't tell you how often a director, producer or editor will lean across to the person in their immediate vicinity and declare in a whisper; "They are going to be a star. This is a star making performance."
Don Simpson (half of the 80's and 90's Simpson & Bruckheimer blockbuster production team that launched Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop" and Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" amongst others... and, the poster boy for hollywood's 'culture of excess'; read High Concept for all the salacious tales)... once claimed that, even for a notoriously indulgent Caligula-like figure, nothing superseded the thrill of sitting in private, looking at tapes and 'discovering a star'.
[... this from a guy who had a $60,000 a month drug habit at his zenith, and a well documented penchant for demeaning and sadistic sex parties with high class escorts. My personal favorite was a story involving two beautiful young call girls sequestered away in his bedroom... forced to eat several greasy BLT sandwiches, while Simpson looked on and rubbed himself.
On a personal note... if ever I had the money and means, I would totally try this; "Okay Kimber.... you're just as young and lovely as your blurred on-line portfolio suggested. At these rates, it says you're willing to do... well, pretty much anything. I'd like you to get into your bra and panties... climb up on the bed on all fours... and finish all three of these deep-dish pizza pies."
"Yeah..", sitting in my oversized chair, hand down my pants; "Oh, god yeah.... slowly.... slowly.... take your time.... twirl the cheese around your finger... yeah, you are filthy..... you are a filthy, dirty little girl....... No really, you've got tomato sauce all over your face. Use a napkin for christ sakes. You're filthy."]
There is an undeniable thrill to discovery.
Even those of us with less sophisticated palettes(.. those of us who haven't pored over tapes or, been blown by an aspiring starlet... at least, for 'star making' purposes) can identify a 'star making' turn, when we see it.
For instance... I have seen the next Conan O'Brien.
His name is Michael Swaim.(.. his stuff can be found at Cracked.com... and, his more personal, 'channel' Those Aren't Muskets!)
He hosts a recurring segment of viewer and forum member submitted/suggested video clips with commentary. Like the best of web content, what it lacks in polish and production value, it more than makes up for in being funny as fuck, see...;
The 7 Most Mind-Blowing Foreign TV Moments.... the 6 Worst 'Professional' Music Videos.... 8 Local News Segments Gone Horribly Wrong... 8 Least Necessary YouTube Tributes... To "Home Improvement"... and, the horrifying freak show episode, 8 Videos of People Who Look Like Special Effects Creations.
Y'know what, Don Simpson might have been right(... road of excess, palace of wisdom n' all that).... discovery might actually be better than wanking while watching whores eat bacon sandwiches.(.. I'm probably gonna have to look into that some more.)
Conan O'Brien(.. for those of you who don't recall) had never worked on camera, before hosting NBC's "Late NIght With Conan O'Brien".(... though he was probably a shoe-in, if they'd already settled on that title.)
Conan went through his awkward first steps on late night network television. Live studio and huge tv audiences all collectively howling and giggling and, in between, asking each other; "Who the fuck is this guy?"
NBC made him a star, then Conan O'Brien went out on air and made himself one.
Nowadays.... you get quiet, unnoticed bits of spun gold that bedroom and basement performers have spun themselves, Rapunzel-style, from straw.
Felicia Day made her own star vehicle with her on-line series about role-playing video game communities The Guild(... the whole series is pretty great)... then found her way into Joss Whedon's viral web musical Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog(... the whole series is better than great. It's pretty fuck-tacular.)
Josh Faure-Brac created a series of animated satirical shorts that became, SuperNews! (Note the exclamation point, telling you it's both super fun and yet pressing and important..! I should try to work that in, somehow.)
("SuperNews!" is designed for that future where 'broad'-casting is quickly dying... so, they partnered up with Al Gore's "Current TV" and now everywhere the shorts go, virally n' otherwise, they carry the "Current TV" logo in the bottom corner of frame.... "The Daily Show" and "South Park" do the same for Comedy Central.)
Of course, none of this would matter at all, if the "SuperNews!" creative team wasn't churning out cultural and social satire like Your Dad Asking Computer Questions, Trouble With Twittering, Celebrity Twitter Overkill.... and their chronicle of the Death of MTV.
Aussie comic Jim Jefferies has an HBO Comedy Special "I Swear To God" under his belt. He's been on the exceptionally popular and remarkably good Adam Carolla Podcast.(.. as of my writing this, the linked episode was his second time and that'd qualify as a 'star making performance' in it's own right.)
Still, the clip that made Jim Jefferies known... the bit of video that garnered him notice and netted him these bigger platforms, is this clip; Jim Jeffries Punched.(... it's exactly what it sounds like.)
A friend of mine works at Google in San Francisco, and discovered the Kasper Hauser comedy troupe as part of their 'Authors @ Google' series. The guys came in to do some combination of corporate seminar and public 'crazy' demonstration.(... then did so again, two years later...Kasper Hauser @ Google '09).
I told him that I'd long since been a subscriber to Kasper Hauser's comedy podcast... read their hilarious book, SkyMaul... and long been a fan through their exposure as part of The Sound of Young America (Kasper Hauser hour) family of comedy shows.
I went on to point out that his 'cutting edge' juggernaut of a company was laughably out of touch. We then argued on the obligation of a huge company to stay culturally relevant and then, came to the resolution that while I may be an embittered relative failure.... he, almost certainly, could never compensate for his micro-penis condition regardless of how high his stock options seemed to get and, that every woman he's ever been with, including his current wife, had only been pretending to have any interest him.
So, yeah... we both made discoveries in our own ways, on our own schedules. For instance, wediscovered, we never genuinely liked each other and didn't need to speak to each other any longer.
Point is...... who cares how or under what circumstances, you're discovered. Our future in an infinite content universe allows for infinite opportunities for discovering 'star making performances'.... and, that's infinitely thrilling.
"The Future Is Awesome!" is going to offer a platform for this thrill of discovery through it's recurring segment Dance, Monkey, Dance.(.. see the linked post, and the broader concept post;Dance, Monkey...)
Ask uber-producer and uber-lecherous and sadistic hump, Don Simpson... discovery is more thrilling than watching taut, beautiful, young girls seductively dripping mayonnaise on your 1000 thread-count, Egyptian cotton sheets.(.. turned on? Thought so.)
But then(.. if you read his posthumous bio and articles on his legacy), Don Simpson's dead naked body was discovered sitting slumped on his toilet, a copy of Oliver Stone's biography smeared with his poop and resting between his rank, distended thighs.... so, that had to be a thrilling discovery for someone too.
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