The Alchemist

Watch for it on your TV. It’s running nationally right now! But in the mean time…

First They Came For… last night won the Audience Award at the 16th annual Indy Awards Festival!

“First They Came For…” is the story of a man’s struggle to defy an oppressive regime arresting its citizens and is based on the classic poem by the Reverend Martin Niemoller.

Congratulations to my director, Kate Chaplin, and everyone who helped us make it! I’m very proud of our film for its strong human rights message as well as technical excellence.

I just found out that I’ve booked the Wayne Brady “You & Me” music video. (I blogged about that audition here.) From the casting director:

Congratulations! We would like to book you for the Wayne Brady Music Video Shoot, You & Me. You were hand selected from the audition tapes from the Director, Wayne Brady and myself, Renee Garcia.

Especially after having met Wayne, I’m looking forward to it!

Hey all, sorry I haven’t been updating this blog regularly, but I’m transitioning many of my updates these days to my fan page on Facebook. Go become a fan!

Nevertheless, I’m post a photo here from my latest TV job for “1,000 Ways To Die” that will be airing on Spike TV this fall. If you haven’t guessed, I died from a javelin in the eye. (It looks pretty grotesque, but that’s kind of the point. :)) You can see the other photos on my fan page.

Oh, and IMDB has already listed the credit, so check it out.

Hey everyone! For those of you that are friends of mine on Facebook, you have a general idea of how awesome the last 7 days have been for me. But here are the details:

Thursday: I had 3 auditions (Autozone, Cranium, and Mini Cooper). A great day by all counts!

Friday: 4 (wow!) more auditions (A Playboy TV promo, a webisode thingy with the producers of LonelyGirl15, a host for something or another, and Big Lots)… but oops, I had to miss the Big Lots audition - rats. Fantastic!

Saturday: A callback for Cranium. Very unusual to have a commercial audition on a weekend! (Oh, and of course, as I do each Saturday evening, I worked on my super secret sci-fi series I’m help write and produce.) Yea!

Monday: Live Well Financial host and Legal Credit Cures host. Ok.

Tuesday: Post It Notes spec (where I’m an Apollo 13 astronaut - way cool!), and a callback for the Live Well Financial host spot. Nice.

Wednesday: First Bank, a callback for Playboy TV, and 1000 Ways to Die (a Spike TV series). Great day!

Thursday (today): Interrogation (a short film), and a callback for Post It Notes spec. Woo!

And now… the results (so far):

On Avail: First Bank (shoots next week)
Booked: 1000 Ways to Die (shoots next week)
Booked: Post It Notes spec. (shoots in a couple weeks)

Yes! Yes! Yes!

(Do you want more? Leave comments and I’ll try to give you more details.)

4 auditions today, 4 auditions tomorrow! Rock on!

It was so exciting to sit with my family and watch history being made last night by Barack Obama. I honestly had wondered if it would be possible for a black man to be nominated this year… but I couldn’t be more thrilled! And with his acceptance speech, he has shown again why he must be elected president. There are so few moments when you can feel the course of history being changed for the better by true leadership. I believe that Barack is a truly a great leader for our generation.

I’m officially scared for America.

I was recently disturbed by what I saw in an attack ad that (after taking Barack Obama’s words completely out of context) claimed that “Christ would never advocate turning the other cheek to terrorists and America’s enemies.” (By the way, this ad has been viewed on YouTube 1,366,432 times!)

Now, I’m not a Biblical Scholar - so some things are totally incomprehensible to me, but it seems to me that the war hawks that support Mr. McCain’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” policies should be reminded of Jesus’ actual teachings. They should reread Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and his reconsider Jesus’ action and admonishment in Gethsemane when Simon Peter cut off Malchus’ ear (”All who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”).

But there is something far more insidious going on than the deliberate misconstruing of Obama’s words by these “Christian” people. That video was forwarded to me by a woman that told me: “My heart tells me if he isn’t the antichrist that he will usher him in.” And come to find out, far from being a lone, off-the-wall crackpot, a large number of Americans today actually do believe that Obama is the antichrist! Holy crap!

To be fair to the Bible, this kind of thought is far less based on that book than it is on the otherwise seemingly innocuous “Left Behind” series of fiction and Nostradamous‘ unintelligible ramblings. However, it seems increasingly apparent that many “Christian” Americans simply don’t have the faculty to separate fact from fiction or even the book of Revelations from other random prophecies.

A TIME/CNN poll finds that more than one-third of Americans say they are paying more attention now to how the news might relate to the end of the world, and have talked about what the Bible has to say on the subject. Fully 59% say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true, and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the Sept. 11 attack. - Time Magazine

Worse than what otherwise might be simply accidental mingling of information, however, it appears that Senator John McCain (or at least someone in his campaign) is aware of this trend and may even be attempting to take advantage of these misguided folks in his “The One” series of attack ads. Yet another frightful sign from someone who has a fighting chance of being the most powerful person on our planet in just a few months!

All of this nonsense could be chalked up to just a bunch of fascinating human psychology - if the fate of the country, and indeed the world, didn’t hang in the balance. But given the stakes, it leaves me with this sobering thought: Christ may or may not be returning, but if some of these people have their way, the end times will be that much closer.

Hey all, many of my friends on FaceBook and MySpace noticed my enthusiastic status message yesterday of “Scott Ganyo just met Wayne Brady!” and have demanded the story. Well ok then.

Yesterday I auditioned for a music video for the song “You and Me” from Wayne Brady’s new album. Now frankly, I don’t normally submit for music videos (they just don’t interest me very much), but when I saw that it was Wayne Brady, I decided to make an exception. The guy is just too fun and talented not to pass up a chance to work with him! And good news! They granted me an audition.

There was no script, just pure improv based on a scene description for the opening scene of the music video. I was to be a news reporter on the scene outside the courthouse prior to Wayne’s divorce hearing. I was a little nervous as I wasn’t sure what to expect at the audition, but I had done some research and filed away all the important details (names, locations, etc) to work into my improv when I ran it. (No, I didn’t write myself a script. I wanted to preserve the improvised feeling.)

I arrived at the audition (exactly one day after I mistakenly showed up for the same audition on the wrong day - sigh) at some seemingly hole-in-the-wall dance studio - but one that apparently has had a lot of celebrities come through - judging by the number of autographed photos on the wall! I found the room and began waiting in line in the cramped hallway for the chance to perform for the casting director (Renee Garcia) to put me on tape.

So I’m standing in line with a few other people when lo and behold, Wayne Brady walked up with his cute little girl, Miley and said hi! He was extremely gracious and took the time to shake all of our hands and thank us for coming to audition. It was right about then that I started to get nervous. I had definitely not planned on doing my improv in front of a guy so well known for his fantastic improv work! Needless to say, I felt the stakes go up considerably! Well, after the pleasantries, Wayne disappeared into the audition room leaving me to my musings. He quickly emerged a short time later, however, and left.

It was my turn after that, so I entered the tiny little room. It was bare except for a little table behind which Renee was sitting with a little camcorder. Stark. I introduced myself and chatted with Renee a little bit and learned that Wayne had completely unexpectedly stopped by just to tell her hello. (What a nice gesture!) Renee then slated me then announced, “Ok. It’s your show. Action!”

Well, I won’t even try to remember what I actually said and did, but was some wild mix of breaking news, Wayne Brady, divorce, Summer (his ex) and Miley arriving, some pantomiming of trying to get an interview with her over crazed paparazzi, and finally failing back to my viewing audience.

Overall, I’d say things went well. Could it have been better? Of course! But did it embarrass me? No. Which is good, because Renee said that Wayne will be reviewing the tape…

So that’s the story. Next chapter: How I worked with Wayne Brady. (I hope!)

By the way, now that you know how nice a guy Wayne is, you might appreciate this sketch he did on Dave Chappell’s show. It’s one of my favorites. (But it’s not safe for work or kids.)

Hey everyone, I’m on the hunt for a good theatrical agent in Los Angeles and I need your help!

If you know anyone or know anyone who knows anyone that has a relationship with an agent here, I could really use a referral to help get some attention.

Please let me know. Thanks!