Perfection Points PART 2: Perfecting Imperfection. Finding Process

There are no short cuts.  There are no quick fixes.  There are just as many valleys as high points.  There are more imperfections than there are perfections.  These seem to be things we all have heard at some point in our lives, yet we often need to be reminded of them.  We want the short cut.  We want the quick fix.  We want the high points.  We want perfection in most all that we do.  The problem: life doesn't work that way.  For some reason, we often mistake striving for greatness and our best work as striving to be perfect, flawless, or without mistake.  Life is messy.  It is rambunctious.  Yet it is also routine and cautious.  So how do we manage?

One of the driving forces behind this series on perfection is learning how we can navigate the ups and downs of our careers without burning out at the altar of being perfect in all that we do.  It is about learning to BEND instead of BREAK.  It is about learning to be flexible and not rigid with our lives and our art.  It is about saying YES more than we say NO.  When these things happen, life and art begins to be more satisfying, more enriching, and more authentic.  And when that happens, success usually follows.  Imperfections are seen as growth areas instead of failures.  Perfection starts to fade away, and PROCESS begins to come into focus.         

If we continue to follow the thought process that Wonder Russell shared with us last week (The Illusion of Perfection), what are we to do if perfection is an illusion?  If it is a myth, how do we drive ahead with our work as actors and creatives?  How can we begin to form an understanding of PROCESS over PERFECTION?    

This week, Jennifer Fontaine shares her perspective on these questions and provides insight into the importance of 'Perfecting Imperfection."

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-BH

Part 2: Perfecting Imperfection
By Jennifer Fontaine

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.


- Leonard Cohen



I view my acting career as a long and winding road towards perfecting imperfection. It took me many years to come to that understanding, but once I stopped trying to be perfect and started the arduous task of becoming myself, my craft took new shape. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no fault in striving for excellence, but know that nothing which is living is perfect. Embrace your imperfections and use them to your advantage.


This desire to be perfect is inherent in the profession we are in, simply because we are our craft. Our tools lie within us, our body, our voice, our being, our soul and in dealing with the feeling of rejection of our daily job, auditioning, it is hard not to fall into the trap of connecting our tools, our craft, ourselves to this rejection. ‘I wasn’t good enough.” “I wasn’t pretty enough.” “I wasn’t tall enough.” “I wasn’t thin enough.” 

Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art is a sort of career bible for me, brimming with humorous wisdom, frank advice and lots of food for thought like, “The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her. Her artistic self contains many works and many performances. Already the next is percolating inside her. The next will be better, and the one after that better still.” Early on, as most do, I fell into this trap of validating (or invalidating) myself through my work and I did myself a great service in finally being able to separate the two.

Getting the job or not getting the job will never be a true and honest reflection of the work you did in the audition room. Having been on the other side of the casting table numerous times as a writer and a producer, I can tell you that the majority of the actors that come in to the room are doing great work. There are so many different factors that play a part in who is cast, most of which are beyond an actor’s control. All of the "I wasn’ts" and "I can'ts" swimming around in your head are only making it more difficult for you to be who you are, tranquil and focused, when it is time for the text to flow through you. Be prepared, be professional and do your job; in truth, that is only two things: Commit fully to the words on the page, and then LISTEN.  Let that drive you towards excellence. 

Risk! It is what we do every time we step out into that dark spotlight in the middle of an otherwise empty stage; it’s how we can affect change in the mind of a filmgoer sitting in a dark theater in Tuscon, Arizona.  As an audience member and lover of transformative performance, it is abundantly more interesting to watch an actor take risks and expose flaws than it is to watch him meticulously hit his blocking.  As renegade filmmaker, John Cassavetes aptly put it, “As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all." Grab a hold of your demons, proudly wear your baggage as a badge of honor, stand in the middle of who you really are and use it!

Take all of that energy you’re consuming by trying to be perfect and funnel it into your passion, reserve a bunch for perseverance and channel the rest into determination. As you watch the curtain fall after a great performance, try not to obsess over every single beat of that night’s show, just take mental notes on how to make it better tomorrow, then go out and celebrate. 

Remember, the evolution of who you are makes perfection quite an elusive task and the resulting success you are looking to attain is only defined by you, so by all means, set the bar high, but not so high as to deny yourself success entirely. Study everything, people, life, the world, your craft and then go out and be inspired and inspiring and most of all be you.

About the Author
Hi! I'm Jennifer Fontaine! In addition to my newest title, Blogger, I am also a wife, a daughter, a sister, a cat lady, a chef, an actor, a film producer and a screenwriter!

Bio
Born and raised in New Orleans, Jennifer Fontaine has been in the entertainment industry, both in front of and behind the camera, for almost two decades. By 14, Jennifer's playground was the backlot of Universal Studios, Orlando giving her the unique opportunity to vigilantly observe the inner workings of production. Surrounded by many gifted and passionate mentors whose influences helped guide the development of her talent and professionalism, in 1996, Jennifer's dedication to filmmaking brought her westward.



Most recently Mrs. Fontaine enjoyed her starring role as Jodi McKenton, a driven war journalist in the Indie feature Aaseamah's Journey. Jennifer's propensity for realism brought her to the role of Louise in LOOK, a voyeuristic feature that captures the secret lives of people through surveillance cameras, directed by the creative Indie powerhouse Adam Rifkin, as well as the starring role of Detective Reynolds, in the film Drop Gun, a performance which brought Mrs. Fontaine a Best Actress statue from the Iowa Motion Picture Association. As the meddlesome private eye Juliet, in Lauren Hollingsworth’s Interference, audiences applauded her starring performance from Montreal to the UK, Los Angeles to New York and even in the Deep South and her first collaboration with, now writing/producing partner, Marlo Bernier on The Last Time We Were... won the duo a Silver Remi at WorldFest Houston 2006 for Best Original Narrative Short.

  

Jennifer also has a deep affinity for the stage, deviating from mainstream productions; she opts for creative transformations and diverse characterization. In 2004, Variety heralded her work as 'ideal' in the critically acclaimed production of Bogosian's suburbia at the Skylight Theater.  The LA Weekly deemed Jennifer 'Impressive and Moving' for her ballsy portrayal of Elly in Sunday On The Rocks. Backstage West defined her talent as 'Triumphant' and The Palisadian Post said '[Fontaine] embodied the Lucy-ness of Lucy' for her portrayal of Lucy Van Pelt in Janet Carroll's You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.

With a dedication to spotlighting new and emerging talent with visionary ideas, in 2001, Mrs. Fontaine alongside husband Kerem Hanci, founded Scorpio Rising Films, a film production company which remains committed to supportive collaboration with devoted and impassioned artists, encouraging original and inspired material. 

This duo focuses not only on achieving the highest possible level of personal performance but also on fostering an atmosphere of cooperative creativity in each project they undertake.

SRF has effectively piloted several projects, including Mementos, an award winning short spoof of Christopher Nolan’s thriller Memento and The Clown Project webseries, Season 2 of which, is currently in development. 

In 2004, they embarked on their first foray into feature producing with Scott Somerndike's romantic comedy 3 Wise Women and their film, The Last Time We Were..., was honored with a Silver Remi at the 2006 WorldFest Houston, which also played to packed houses at The Los Angeles International Shorts Film Festival and The Beloit International Film Festival.

Since joining forces with Marlo Bernier's Jackie Frost Films, Scorpio Rising Films has wrapped several meaningful projects including the heavy-hitting short Stealth which is currently being developed into a feature and the family feature Aaseamah's Journey, co-written by the duo, directed by Bernier and produced by Fontaine. 

Next in the pipeline for this team is the neo-noir crime thriller Glass Houses to be shot in New Orleans. Their development slate includes eight more features; The Blue Motel, The Taxi Bride, Liz, LA Talking, Thunder on the Mountain, Anna, Meat Men and Stealth.