There are days at the office, and there are days at the office. Then there are days when you get to run around in period WWII clothing, firing WWII Ukrainian-made rifles at Nazi Zombies.
Check out his little video that my friend Jake Akuna did with me, Yuri Lowenthal, Zero Kazama and Nick Gianforti.
If you like it, show some love on youtube and visit Group935 for more info!
This would be a great little series to shoot. <hint> <producers> <hint>
This blog was written for the RJCL Program and the Jewish Federation’s Centennial Mission to Israel.
In spacetime, the separation between two events is measured by the interval between the two events, which takes into account not only the spatial separation between the events, but also their temporal separation. — Wikipedia, “Spacetime”
We are walking the streets of Tel Aviv. I feel at home here. I always do. It’s my fourth time in Israel. I’ve done this before. I’ve seen this before. I’ve been here with my family, I’ve taken tours, I’ve been on Birthright. I am not easily impressed. But something is different this time. It’s just a feeling.
We go to Neve Tzedek, where Tel Aviv began. We go to Rothschild Boulevard and The Dizengoff House, where modern-day Israel began (declared by a Russian Jew named David Grun and I stand just feet from where he stood, listening to his words). We walk from the ancient port of Jaffa to our hotel in Tel Aviv; it takes half an hour, but we traverse a history of nearly 10,000 years.
I’m starting to feel it, the density. But no, not yet. It’s just a fleeting feeling and I return to my escape, hiding safely behind my camera. I take pictures.
An hour on the bus, and we’re in Caesaria, in the Roman Empire at its height. Our guide, Boris, points out the Cardo – the Roman “heartline” of the city. Another hour and we’re in Haifa, where my grandfather lived under Turkish rule in 1914. Then back to Jaffa easily in time for dinner. Israel is small. I know this. It’s nothing new. Two hours and we’re in Jerusalem.
It’s starting to form, this feeling. I take more pictures. I take 2,000 in the course of 8 days.
We walk to the Old City, where the first Jewish state began. I touch the Western Wall, but it does not touch me. I’m too far removed by generations of Sovietization. Too logical and skeptical. After all, this now-holiest site is but the outer wall to the complex built for the actual holiest site which is forever lost to us. Just a few yards away in one tiny spot fought over by nearly every major power in the name of their god and empire, lies the first piece of land created by God — a rock, if you will. I turn to go. Then I see the soldiers. Their large black automatic rifles bounce against them like toys as they dance and sing joyfully in a circle with ultra-orthodox men in their long black coats. I am touched.
There is no bus tour today. This day is Shabbat, the holy day of the week observed by our nation for millennia in this very city. Today we walk Jerusalem. Every quarter, every corner, every angle I can point my camera at has it. That feeling. Every story Boris tells us brings it into sharper focus. Construction-Destruction-Defiance-Survival-Reconstruction-Repeat.
It finally hits me. Not at a holy site, although every square inch here is holy to me. Rather, at
what might look like a ditch with columns. I take picture number 1,462. It’s not a ditch, Boris tells us, it’s the Cardo some 15 feet below “ground level.” In between where we walk and that ditch 15 feet below us is 1500 years of Jerusalem on top of Jerusalem. Of Jewish people living, building, suffering, surviving, rebuilding. 100 years of time per foot of space, with many more centuries below it. That’s density. That’s the feeling I’ve been relegating to the back of my mind and can no longer repress.
My physics lessons flood to my mind. Einstein taught us in the theory of relativity that time itself can appear to slow down dependent upon the velocity of the observer and the gravity (a function of dense mass displacing the fabric of space-time) of the area. He hadn’t been here yet, but surely he would have felt it here as I do now. In space, distance is measured in light-years – the 6 trillion miles that a beam of light traverses in the course of a year. In Jerusalem, one foot is equal to 100 years. Coincidentally, Einstein too, was a Zionist.
Now it all comes together. When we first arrived, someone told us that the distance between us and our ancestors – our families – that were driven from here in to the Diaspora is approximately 120 generations. My family may have left and returned multiple times, others stayed the entire time, but WE have been here for thousands of years. No. I take it back. We have not been here for thousands of years. This is not ancient history. We have only been here for 15 feet. Close enough to touch, see, feel and breathe the entire history of our people.
From the birth of our nation in Jerusalem to Mossada – where the last Jewish state officially ended in a heroic stand of defiance against the greatest power in the world – to the birth of our new state at Independence Hall – where proclaimed our right to have a home, not just some arbitrary place on this planet but in the place we created, built and lived in for thousands of years – we not just from here, we are OF here.
As the Romans had their Cardo – the through line of their cities – we have Israel: an unbroken continuum, the through line of our nation. Once again, and in a much, much deeper way, I am home.
I recently attended an Israel Advocacy workshop in which we discussed, among other things, how to talk to people whose opinions we…differ with. Personally, this is a major point of interest for me. As anyone who has ever disagreed with me on something I’m passionate about will tell you, I get emotional and have a hard time not revealing my disdain for what I assume must be intentional ignorance. Now, I can understand and tolerate unintentional ignorance, which is recognized and corrected in the course of the conversation or on one’s own thereafter. The type of ignorance where one speaks from lack of knowledge and insists–in the face of new and contradictory evidence–that his or hers is still the correct and rational argument regardless of being unable to support it with anything other than hearsay, “feeling” or conjecture, however, just elicits reactions in me ranging from vocalized frustration to the wordless-yet-pronounced disbelief at his or her depth of stupidity.
Needless to say, this has not gotten me far in life and should be a clear indicator that I should stay out of politics. Unfortunately, that is where my own emotions override logic. I can’t help but engage in the political conversation, especially those about Israel. Conveniently, this leads me back to the reason I signed up for the advocacy workshop in the first place — because sometimes I recognize my ignorance and take steps to resolve it. In this case I recognize that while I have won many arguments, I haven’t changed many minds, much less made any friends or opened long-term dialogs. Sometimes it’s even pushed people to dig deeper into their own ignorant trenches.
The workshop was just the beginning of the learning process, and while I didn’t walk away an expert, one thing stuck in my mind: the end. Not the end of the workshop, but the part of the workshop where we discussed how to end a conversation of opposing views. In this section, our presenter offered up an example of how a brilliant news commentator closes his more confrontational interviews. The commentator is Bill O’Reilly, and while his politics are controversial, in turn contributing to his success, his skill is incontrovertible. In this case, we looked at the final exchange between O’Reilly and President Obama in which he carefully, prescriptedly, explains:
O'REILLY: Well, that's our live part of this deal. And I have to say, I enjoyed talking to you. I disagree with you sometimes. I hope you think I'm fair to you, I try to be. But I wish you well in the next two years. OBAMA: Bill, it's always a pleasure. I enjoyed it. O'REILLY: It's nice to see you. OBAMA: Thank you so much.
Now that’s impressive. Sure, Obama has to be polite and respectful, but neither of the two men actually like the other. Yet, here they are, parting as if they look forward to the next round in their conversation.
On its own, this was interesting, but it would not have been as big a revelation as it was, had I not just recently been listening a freakonomics podcast about pain and how we remember it. Of that podcast, the lasting impression on me was the part about, well, lasting impressions. In a study of colonoscopy patients, it seems that the greatest determining factor of whether a person rated the experience as tolerable or even pleasant and was therefore more likely to return for future screenings, was not the average or peak discomfort throughout the procedure but the comfort of the final moments of the ordeal. In fact, extending the procedure (and the discomfort), but taking the time to make the extraction as pleasant as possible, made the participants rate their overall memory of the experience as more positive than those who had a shorter, but less–apologies here for the incredible pun–massaged ending.
With that confluence of worlds rivaling those days when you learn a new word and hear it ten times in the course of a day, the lesson was learned. Now if I could just learn how to *get* to the end of a conversation before one of us walks away disparaged or despondent over the fate of humanity…
As some of you know, I’ve been dabbling in the voice-over world for a few years now. I’ve been extremely fortunate to work on some of the most popular titles (the Call of Duty franchise, for one) and with some of the coolest directors/actors/etc. in the business.
Earlier this year, my friends at PCB Productions referred me to a voice over agent — Tom Lawless at Vox. Tom’s a pleasure to work with and has been submitting me for all kinds of great projects. Just yesterday, I booked my first one. It’s my first SAG TV voice over spot, and I’m kinda excited!
Thanks to Yuri Lowenthal, Tara Platt, Keith and Valerie Arem and all of my friends in VO for bringing me into this fun world of voice acting!
It’s been a while since I’ve updated my acting demo reel. I’ve had the good fortune of working on several projects since the last version over a year ago. A good demo reel is very important and very subjective.
On the one hand, you want it current with the “latest and greatest” work you’ve done, on the other, there’s often another great project already in the works or in post and you don’t want to have to update it again in a month. On top of that, you don’t want to make it too long by just adding everything you have, but you want to show a good range of character and acting ability. All of that adds up to the potential for paralysis by analysis (and my rather infrequent updates)
Well, with the airing of The Cape episode 3 - with my face opening the show, it was definitely time. Some old favorites had to go to make room for the newer clips, but I hope it’s a good representation of me and my on-camera abilities.
Enjoy and of course, feel free to comment.
I met many great people.
I made many new friends.
I finished a short film of which I am proud.
I helped others purely for the selfish reason that it felt good.
I talked to anyone who would listen, and listened to anyone who would talk.
I worked with friends and for friends, and even got to hire friends.
I made people laugh. I love making people laugh.
I gambled my heart and fell madly in love.
I was honest, open and gave freely what I had to offer.
I had my heart broken and fell apart.
I leaned on friends and family who propped me up and believed in me when it was difficult to believe in myself.
I found my footing and discovered the ground was always under me.
I started walking with purpose again. Sometimes I stumbled, sometimes I ran.
I took my father back to Ukraine and found the place I lived as a boy, then to Siberia to find the place he lived as a boy. I visited both of my grandfathers’ graves.
I celebrated my parents 40th anniversary with them.
I celebrated my birthday on two coasts with amazing friends.
I met people who helped my family and millions of other Jews leave the Soviet Union. I thanked them.
I made mistakes.
I hurt people’s feelings, though never on purpose.
I apologized to others and to myself.
I taught my nephew how to tie his shoes.
I danced with abandon.
I learned and became better.
From AllieCine.com:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Allison Vanore
office 323.540.4701
“PURGATORY, INC.” A slice of death office comedy.
Los Angeles, CA: Friday, June 25, 2010 – Award winning writer and director Boris Kievsky, award winning producer Allison Vanore and co-writer/actor, Konstantin Lavysh, bring you short subject film and back-door web pilot, “Purgatory, Inc.” Starring Lavysh as the Clerk and Patrick Cavanaugh (Mad Men) as Christopher McNamee, “Purgatory, Inc.” is a satirical comedy set in the ethereal world of the eternal bureaucracy that is Purgatory, Inc. – the IRS of the afterlife.
More now than ever, the issues set forth in this film, religion and gay marriage, are even more important. These topics were inspired by the discussion surrounding Proposition 8. Although the law passed, “Purgatory, Inc.” will not let the discussion die.
Synopsis: Clerk is your typical office worker stuck in your typical office Hell. Well, almost. Welcome to the eternal bureaucracy that is Purgatory, Inc – the IRS of the afterlife. When Christopher McNamee materializes in Clerk’s cosmic cubicle after dying in a freak accident, it falls to Clerk to sort out his afterlife. Christopher should be an easy candidate for Heaven, except for one slight problem: He’s Catholic…and married…to a man! Suddenly Clerk is forced to reconcile the wishes of his dead client with the policy of Purgatory, Inc: ‘We don’t judge…We process’. It’s just another day of deciding your eternity in this slice of death office comedy.
Kievsky comments: “Purgatory, Inc. uses its unrealistic setting to tackle some of the very real issues facing society today – much like Twilight Zone and Star Trek did their time, only with humor. Aside from corporate bureaucracy gone amok, the pilot has some fun with the hypocrisy of gay marriage rights in religion. I’m not interested in just telling a story, I’m interested in getting people to think, laugh and then think again.”
“Purgatory Inc.” enjoyed its premiere screening as part of Hollywood Shorts in Los Angeles and is available for festival screenings and distribution. Future episodes are written and available for production should the right opportunity arise.
A trailer for “Purgatory, Inc.” is available on the official film website http://www.purgatoryinc.com with team bios and additional information at www.purgatoryinc.com/thefilm. A private screener is available upon request.
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For additional information, contact Producer and Publicity Manager Allison Vanore and visit http://www.purgatoryinc.com.
I had to put together a bio for an exciting project that’s coming together (stay tuned!). I wasn’t quite sure the tone we were going for, so this is what I came up with:
Boris Kievsky: Boris began playing video games in 1982 and began writing them in 1983. He attempted to walk away from the geek life 10 years later to pursue a career in theatre as an actor and director, but the damned machines kept dragging him back. A self-confessed “recovering geek,” Boris now straddles the two worlds of technology and entertainment on a daily basis. In the last five years, Boris has focused his creative energies on acting, writing and directing for film. His first short as writer/director made the festival rounds last year. Currently, he has a webisodic pilot and a feature docu/mocumentary in post-production with other projects in development. He still likes to put on his Indian accent when he fields tech-support calls from friends and family around the country. Turn-ons include proper netiquette and long walks on the beaches of Pandora. www.imdb.me/boris or www.theboris.com
SOBAKA
Nicholas Mah, director of SOBAKA (which is now available via Amazon streaming, as well) is getting ready to shoot another project and has flattered me with an (instantly accepted) invitation to act in it. In choosing a spot in Hollywood for a meeting about the project, Nick closed an email with “Pick a place, it’s your city.”
I don’t know which half of the last two words made me chuckle more.. that it’s mine, or that it’s a city. I mean, c’mon.. I’m a New Yorker! I’m not a “Hollywooder”(?)! Right?? Wait..
Come to think of it, I’ve been in Hollywood for 5 years now… and considering how fast things change in NYC, I probably know the scene here better than there now… and I actually have been enjoying myself here for the last few months, as I’ve finally found my groove, got my projects into motion and — to be totally honest — got a life!
Alright, so maybe that statement wasn’t so funny. Maybe LA is becoming home. Ok, I’m scared — where’s my Yankees cap?!?
I got a fun email from a friend yesterday: “Your internationally famous!” Spelling mistakes aside, he was trying to tell me that he just saw me on CSI:Miami while on vacation in Uruguay. I don’t know about international fame, but that was a nice little ego boost.
I remember living in London, studying theatre, and turning on Ricki Lake on TV one day and seeing my childhood friend on the show pretending to be a vampire. Ok, that’s not how I wanted to be on TV, but I still felt a little jealous. Well, take that, Joey Kern!
Then I remembered that I’ve never been to Uruguay (or any other South-American nation) and thought it’d have been nice to see that one myself.