Secret Adventures

Los Angeles, California. The phone rang early yesterday morning and it was Julie from Adams House Productions wanting to know if I could come back to shoot another scene for The Secret Adventures of... Per my previous post, I had such a great time with the cast and crew on this project that it took me all of one second to say yes, followed by about ten minutes to make sure I could clear my schedule for the evening. So, last night I was back at the Linda Vista Hospital in Boyle Heights, along with Archie Tullos (my co-agent in arms) and a new super female agent, Promise LaMarco. Without throwing any plot spoilers at you, I'll just say that the crew really gave us a workout last night. Although we didn't work into the wee hours of the morning as on the previous night, last night far exceeded the first night in terms of being physically demanding. Basically, it involved a lot of running and throwing our bodies full force into a door, again and again and again. But you need to see for yourselves. There is a tight deadline on this project, so hopefully I can provide you with a link to the finished film in the not so distant future.

Accompanying this post are a series of pictures taken by Eric Thomas Harper (copyrighted). On the middle right we have a shot from night 1, in which I am listening to direction and preparing for the night's green screen shoot. And on the lower left we have the three supporting agents - (left to right) - me, Promise LaMarco and Archie Tullos.

Thanks again to Director Santiago Tapia and the crew from Adams House Productions for a fun-filled and rewarding acting experience!

New Shots

Marina del Rey, California. A few weeks back, I worked with Los Angeles-based photographer, David Noles, to create a new set of headshots for my entertainment industry work. David took several hundred shots and we have since been narrowing them down to a handful. After much sorting and prepping, I now have three shots ready to go. This includes the shot above and the first two below. I have also included a couple of additional, but not yet touched up, favorites below. I chose to go with David due to his amazing sense of light and composition. He is a talented artist and does a lot of work beyond headshots. I encourage you to check out some of his galleries at: http://www.davidnoles.com/ .

Checkmate Dianetics

Los Angeles, California. You may be getting sick of seeing my ongoing series of "Snows of Los Angeles" photos here on my blog, but I am not. And, well, its my blog so you'll just have to suffer through! Here are a couple more images of the local mountain range, this time taken from downtown L.A. I shot these yesterday, adjacent to the DWP 's John Ferraro Building.

Also yesterday, I participated in two back to back film shoots, completely across town from each other. In the morning, I performed as a Secret Service Agent for the American Film Institute thesis film, PAWN, directed by Jeremiah Friedman. The crew was amazingly efficient and we were in and off the shoot in no time flat. Following this, I headed down to Orange County for a project entitled Dianetics in the 50's, a short film being prepared for the Church of Scientology. I played a meeting recordist in a recreation of a lecture given by L. Ron Hubbard to his London-based staff in the early 1950's. The film was directed by Michael Gilchrist with Golden Era Productions. Again, it was a short and sweet shooting session, topped off with some great Chinese food!

My Little Mountain Town

Los Angeles, California. In keeping with my recent theme of highlighting the unexpected aspects of Los Angeles, I took a side trip today to the nearby Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. You may recall from an earlier post that I was working on a film called Ticket to Ride earlier this week. The film was shooting in this park and I was so impressed by the view of snow covered mountains (see my Snows of Los Angeles post) that I just had to come back for some photos. And the park has more to offer than just this view. It is a pleasant wooded hilltop area, perfect for a family outing and seems great for birds (I even saw a hawk on the shoot day). Of course I have to gripe about the abundant eucalyptus, not to mention the adjacent oil field (see oil well picture below) - although the latter is interesting in its own right. I did have one big regret of the day and that is that I have had some camera difficulty. While checking out the oil wells, I met an amazing musician by the name of Erol Griffin. Erol was camped out on the side of the road, right by an oil well, playing some killer jazz. The juxtaposition of the incredible music with the oil well was a sight to see and Erol kindly let me film a bit of his work. Unfortunately, the file ended up being corrupted, so I'll have to leave it to your imagination!


My trip to Kenneth Hahn was only the midpoint of a great Los Angeles Saturday. The cold spell we have been having snapped and temperatures were in the high 70s today. We also have a nice swell coming in, so I started the day with a little surf in Marina del Rey, just north of the Venice Pier. As I can't film myself out in the water, I went back at sunset to take a few shots for you. Unfortunately, the best surfing takes were among the files to be lost along with Erol's oil well jazz. However, I have included a little sunset montage here for you. The winds shifted onshore in the afternoon, so it doesn't reflect the beautiful glassy conditions from this morning - complete with dolphins and sea lions keeping us company in the line up!

Finally, after sunset, I stopped by my neighbor's art show. I am extremely lucky to live adjacent to some of L.A.'s most talented artists - including Dustin Otterbach, Cain and Pie's Little Army - and tonight was an open invitation for everyone to check out their wares on Catamaran. There is a video clip of this for your viewing pleasure as well!

The Snows of Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California. Towards the end of this past week, I made the final pull to move the rest of my stuff down from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The weather in San Francisco was horrendous, making my moving day extremely wet and unpleasant. However, I got it done and took off into the stormy weather by U-Haul. Driving south of San Jose, the weather thankfully cleared and driving was pretty good from there out.

At about 2am, I went over the 6000 ft. pass on Route 5 that brings you into Los Angeles. Even in the middle of the night, this was spectacular! All of the mountains were covered in snow and shimmering in the moonlight. It was very hard to believe this was LA! The next day, I had a couple of auditions in Hollywood and was

once again amazed to see the snow covered mountains rising above the city to the east. I have been told that this is an unusally cold winter for LA, so perhaps this explains

my surprise of seeing snowy peaks rising behind the Hollywood sign? All of this is just further instilling in me that LA is not the city popularly portrayed by the media, but rather a whole universe of micro-cities, wilderness areas and endless possibilities! The pictures here are from Saturday, the morning after my drive from San Franicsco.

Back To Nature

Los Angeles, California. Recently I have had a number of blast from the past visits from old Palm Beach friends. Neil/Tim Aho visited over New Years, Justin Kesl has been in and out of town on State Farm business, and Rob 'Rabbit' Schaffer came for a fun visit this past Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend.

The visit from Rabbit in particular was a catalyst for getting my butt back into nature! The first morning here we got up early and hit the waves off the Venice pier. From there, we decided to explore nearby Temescal Gateway Park in Pacific Palisades. Only five minutes from downtown Santa Monica, this is one more example of just how off the pervasive perspective of Los Angeles actually is. Climbing into the Santa Monica Mountains, Temescal is a true slice of nature. There are hikes of up to 8 miles in length and the woodlands are home to a fascinating flora and numerous wild animals. We chose a shorter loop hike of about 2 miles, complete with stunning vistas of the ocean, downtown Los Angeles and even a waterfall. On Sunday, we opted for a roadtrip up the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping to check out popular surf breaks along the way. We spent the night in Santa Barbara and then continued up the coast to check out the Point Conception area. We ended up missing any decent swell for this region, but the coastline and vistas of the Channel Islands were spectacular. And to make up for lack of surf, we opted to drive into Los Padres National Forest, where we went bouldering on steep mountain cliffs. A day in Los Padres is a perfect reminder as to what a stunning and diverse state California really is. Living here makes it difficult to imagine ever returning to live on the east coast of the U.S.!

Rabbit and I wrapped up his trip with more surfing in Venice and finally a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits. Our final surf session was graced by a super curious little harbor seal, who spent nearly the entire time with us, competing with our duck dives and sneaking up behind our boards when we were not looking - such a great animal! For those of you not familiar with La Brea, the tar pits are located in central Los Angeles and are considered the richest deposit of Pleistocene fossils in the world! It has been a dream of mine to visit this site ever since I was little kid reading books on mastodons and sabertoothed tigers. Check out the short video clip here to see methane oozing from the surface tar!

On a side note, I just want to extend my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Heath Ledger. His death is a tragic loss to our world and he will be missed greatly. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Going to Jail

Los Angeles, California. This is my first posting of the new year, so first of all - Happy New Year! Thanks to all of you out there following my blog - I hope 2008 is an exciting and productive year for you all. I haven't posted until today because, frankly, there has not been a lot to tell. I have been busy settling into my new home in Marina del Rey, but otherwise no excitement here.
Today was the first day with something interesting to report. I worked on the set of a short, independent film entitled An American Journalist. The film follows a journalist as he interviews a death row criminal just prior to the man's execution. I was originally booked to be an audience member at the execution, but that scene was canceled and I was transformed into a prison guard, walking the prisoner to his execution. This was more fun for sure. The real excitement was that the shoot was set at the Lincoln Heights Jail in downtown Los Angeles. This is an actual historic jail, no longer in use, but commonly used by Hollywood to shoot jail scenes. It is an aged and rotting structure, very creepy and full of a history that might be better left untold. It was an interesting experience at the very least!

On a final note, the "What Should Arlo Do in 2008?" poll has been closed. After a long run with "Act in More Movies" in the lead, a last minute swarm of votes changed the outcome altogether.

You Voted:

1. Lead a major international expedition.
2. Become a bush pilot.
3. Act in more movies

and tied for last:

* Write a Book
* Help establish a new Marine Protected Area

I'll take your opinions into strong consideration!!!

The Rains of Astoria

Alameda, California. Great News! I just got a call from L.A. and I have been cast for the part of Colt in The Rains of Astoria - a drama feature film!

I had originally auditioned by video for the part of Matt - Colt's work buddy and a much smaller role. Well, I guess the Director liked what he saw because they asked me to re-audition for Colt - a substantially bigger part. The following are monologues I had to perform for these parts. The first, from The Beach, was for Matt. The 2nd, with a scene from Frankie and Johnny and another from Gangs of New York, was the Colt audition.

Filming will be over weekends in late October and November.

Scene from "The Beach"


Audition for Colt

A Night With The Braman

Los Angeles, California. On Saturday, I took a last minute flight to LA and had my first audition actually in Hollywood. It was for a television pilot called Run Riot and I auditioned for the part of a burnt out music magazine editor. It was loads of fun and I saw the Hollywood sign for the first time ever. In LA, I had some serious Deja Vu resulting from a dream that I had about four years ago and wrote down! I had never even been to California at that time, but had a dream that I was driving by LA through fields of oil wells. I saw the exact images from the dream driving down La Cienaga in the heart of LA.

After the audition, I headed over to Venice Beach, to hang out with my bud, Scott Braman. When not selling real estate in Costa Rica, Scott is the Comandante of a great website project called Venice the Menace - check it out! We headed over to a local Venice party, where his buddies' band - the Quick Six - were playing. Great music, great people - I am seriously considering moving there...

Also, if you haven't done so before, check out Uncontacted.com. This is a site done by a cool young explorer named David in support of the Huaorani - a people very close to both Scott and my hearts.

Oh, and today is my birthday. Thanks for remembering...