In the shortest way possible, I want to tell you who I am, why you should even give a flying squirrel, and what you can find here on my blog! Most likely this blog will only pertain to you if you are an actor or a human. Or mostly human. Or have human tendencies.
I am…
- An actor
- A father and husband
- An acting coach (in studio & on set)
- A filmmaker (writer, producer, camera operator)
- A photographer
- A human behavior connoisseur
- A relationship conversationalist and enthusiast
- A doggy dad
- A lover of love
- A truth seeker, spiritual student, lover of knowledge and conciousness.
As for acting, I started when I was a wee lad. By wee, I would say around eight years old. I started making commercials and skits with my sister and cousins; and I had a pretty killer Raid Roach Spray commercial making its way around. In reality, it was on VHS and my sister shot it. See what I did there. Killer spray?
Anyway, my first national commercial was for Chef Boyardee. It gave me enough money to move to Los Angeles, which I did. I must add here I had the full support of my family and that goes a long way.
I was 18 years old when I first moved to Los Angeles, and worked a lot as a model and actor. I also got into film production, as well. I lucked out and ended up at one of the most amazing acting classes I could find with an acting coach that believed in me enough that he may have only charged me for about 6 months combined … keep in mind, I trained with him for about eight years. That man’s name is Aaron Spieser. He owns the Speiser/Sturges Studio in Los Angeles. I would recommend him all day, so go check him out! It wasn’t until after training with Aaron that I figured out he wasn’t just teaching me what acting was, but he was also teaching me how to question life.
Feel free to go check out my IMDB if you would like to see a full list of Film and TV in which I have been; but here are some clips for now.
Acting Coach – man, was this a happy accident. I loved acting, I loved being in class, I loved being challenged, and I love learning new things about myself. I never planned on teaching acting. I taught privately in Los Angeles or if my acting coach ever needed me to help someone from class, I would. Well, a few years later, Michelle and I decided to move back to Louisiana, which is where we are both from. Turns out, the industry was growing significantly in the south and that was where our families were; so needless to say, we packed up the car, loaded up the pup, who you will meet later, and we headed to Louisiana. Once we got settled, I started looking for a class. I couldn’t find anywhere that was a challenge and felt comfortable. After having such wonderful training for so long, it was hard to not compare. I spoke with my wife one night; and we both decided I would start a small class. Long story short, it worked, I enjoyed it, and it kept me doing what I loved – human behavior. I will save you from listening to what acting is to me now. Keep your eye out for that blog!
Filmmaking came natural to me. I loved telling stories, I loved watching movies, I loved human behavior, and I loved to entertain people. I learned to DP and shoot photography mostly from the actor or models point of view. I paid attention to everything I could. I loved knowledge and still do. I don’t think we ever stop growing! Go check out End Trip (Trailer) and find us on all social medias under @Endtripmovie
Photography was the same way. I learned from one side of the lens until I got my own camera. YouTube is a great source to learn. Plus, I was never afraid to fail or do “not so great”. I also knew I wasn’t going to show anyone if the photos sucked! 🙂 If you haven’t learned already, my wife is a former Miss Louisiana USA; and then she started training pageant girls to prepare them for pageants, interviews, and, very much like me, she teaches and prepares them for life. Michelle and I both focus on the human being and bring the most of them out of the shadows to believe in themselves. Anyway, I started taking head shots for my students to keep it cheaper for them. Then, I started taking more glamorous shots for my wife and her clients. Now, I love taking photos of anything interesting. I also photograph my wife a lot for her fashion blog, TheMichelleWest, as well! Go check her out.
Human Behavior, I think. goes with relationship enthusiast, husband, lover of love, and life coach, which is a weird term, life coach. In the end, we are all on this earth together; and I believe we do things in life for a few reasons. We can choose to do things because of love or hate; and I tend to believe love is the right answer all the time. I think we do things because of pain or pleasure. Once you break life down to the simple fundamental needs and wants, it makes life a little easier to understand. Which in acting, we are always looking for our characters want or need.
Doggy Dad is a term I was blessed with when Michelle and I started dating. This is Roxy.
I grew up with dogs, but this was no dog. Roxy was maybe a pound. I have seen roaches bigger, but not cuter. I learned just as much from Roxy as Roxy learned from me. I learned to understand profound and unconditionally and gain another respect for animals, or remembered my respect for animals, either way. She learned that outside was a much better place to relieve herself, along with sign language of when to sit, lay down, role over, stay, and a few others (brushes his shoulders off). I am a pretty good dog whisperer. I would still say I learned more; but I am sure I have paid for it over the years. Soon after Michelle and I got married, we rescued another dog, Kajun. She was originally going to be a boy dog. I fell in love with this face and he became a she. She is a lab and pit mix. To be fare she is all lab for insurance reasons 🙂
Her personality is kind of like Eor and Garfield mixed together..
Then, two years later, we foster failed and ended up with the third dog, Bernie. He definitely chose us; but we wouldn’t change it for the world. I mean, we named him on the way home; so we should have known we were bound to fail as first-time fosters! Not only did we find out that Bernie loved bbq sausage weenies, which is how we got him to come to us the first time. Which would have been fine but I really wanted those sausages for myself at the time. Bernie knew exactly who to soften up to though.
He is like Yoda when it comes to making people fall in love with him.
We named him after that 90’s movie, WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S. Needless to say he wasn’t in the best shape when we found him. But that was 6 years ago.
A truth seeker, spiritual student, guru, creator, and, apparently, a blogger.
I did say I was going to make this short right!? In the spirit of short. Oh, I did it again. Spiritual, in the spirit? Sorry. I used to teach catechism for the Catholic Church; and it made me so curious about religion, which in turn made me interested in all religions. I wanted to understand spirituality; and through all of my research, or I guess just search, I was in search for the answer everyone inevitably asks themselves at someone point in your life, which is “why am I here?”. The question led me to dig into physics, metaphysics, the human psyche, and any conspiracy theory I could prove right or wrong. Through this search, I learned a lot about the world around us and a lot about myself. I also realized how much our beliefs affect us and as actors they affect us in a way that we can either use them to be free, or use them to be blocked up and locked down. After all that was said and done, I started teaching acting in a different way than I was taught; but at the same time, I was still doing what Aaron taught me, which was how to question life.
I look forward to getting to know you guys and I hope you enjoy this journey of life we are on. I hope in some way I am able to help you in your acting, your career and your relationships in life.
Dean West