David John Clark (00:00)

Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to The Late Bloomer Actor for September 2026. Even though my shirt says Area 51, no, I'm not in Area 51. But as you can see, I'm not in my normal studio. Once again, I am in a hotel. The joys of requiring to travel for how many jobs do I have now? My main job that we don't talk about, my acting job, which I haven't been sent to a hotel yet for a job, but that's coming, of course. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. And,

my other job. I don't actually think I've discussed it, but I work as a contractor for a company called Axon. They're the company that provide police and security services with tasers for one thing. Most people will know that, and body cams. And I'm specifically doing some training for Axon in the world of body cams. Which brings me to this episode, this special episode.

We tend to call these episodes special episodes because they're different and it's it makes it sound good, but what it is really is that I wasn't able to get a guest on board this month, unfortunately. I did have some guests teed up, which pretty much leaned towards my Area 51 shirt, which was talking about UAP and disclosures and how that factors into the movie making world and how that affects actors.

So there's a little bit of a hint for you coming up, probably not till next year now, as we come into the end of season five. And what I wanted to do for this episode when I didn't get my guest on board was I was going to do a lead up to the end of season five and review some of the best moments that we've had over the five seasons. But no, that wasn't to occur. I ran out of time. So what do we do? Well

This will be a quick episode. I didn't want to leave you hanging. I'm there with my episodes every month. I try to bring something out and my off script episodes, even though I haven't had one of them for a little while. I didn't want to do this as an off-script episode. I wanted this to be the actual episode. And then something happened just before I flew up to Darwin, which is giving me the impetus. I hate that word, but I love that word. Hopefully I've said it right. Has given me the impetus.

I'm gonna have to look that word up. You can tell me whether I've said it right, but that's the nature of acting. We don't get everything right. Where was I? I'm so tired, the joys. I I've been thinking about where my career is as an actor. We've discussed this before, but certainly not just for me, but for many actors, the ups and down, the troughs and the highs. And I have been pushing this over

well, what are we? 53 years of age now. I think it was in my midlife crisis at 40 when I started. So it's been 13 years and still mirandering the journey, trying to get there. And this month was so busy for me and so heavy with so much happening and and taking on board things that was putting me into a new realm.

Training people and something that I'm very knowledgeable on, but standing in front of a bunch of people, I I've never considered myself a trainer per se, which is why I've never done acting training. But that has naturally started to happen anyway with Type Talent calling me on board for my experience and and my knowledge to teach acting, to talk about my acting career and also most recently to teach the actors about podcasting. So that was very good. So,

all positive things for what I was going to discuss is a negative thing. So anyway, here I was planning for all this training that I was doing, panicking about trying to get an episode out, submitting an audition last month or the month before that as auditions go didn't hear anything back. I'm currently doing Les Chantery again this month and

I chose the right month to do it, of course, because I'm so flat out. And unfortunately Les Chantery is is on Wednesday and I'm going to be stuck on a plane returning home. So I'm going to miss a class, but that's the nature of where it is. And I ran out of time to even self-tape and submit for him anyway. And then of course, and this happened last time we discussed this when I was from recording the episode with the Late Bloomer Fest guys out of Melbourne.

Audition come through. And what's happened now? Yeah. Another audition has come through for me. Fortunately for me, it's it's a short film, it to be filmed in Sydney. They've asked me because I fit the bill of the character they're looking for, and there's a bit of a window there to submit, so I'm not under the pump to do that one. But let's get to the crust of what I'm going to talk about for this episode, real quick, because it is 8 p.m. here and I have an eight a.m. start tomorrow training

all these people and I need to make sure I'm on top of it. And then obviously I'm gonna have to edit this and get it up and ready for you for release on the 15th, being tomorrow, twelve twenty-four hours from now to release. So anyway, as I said, I was feeling a bit down and out about my journey and about where things were going, and then I was listening to my wonderful podcast that I listened to, one of many, the crew at Buzzcast, which is the crew that

provide their own podcast there from Buzz Sprout, my podcast host. And they were talking about certain things that got me a mention and gave me a lift. So I'm really, really hoping that they have no problems with me replaying back the section that they had. I don't think they will, if they do, well, this episode will look much different later on when I edit it, but

it it was very good, not only of what they said about me and that they've called on me in relation to this this episode that they put out, and I'll explain that to you in a moment. It was very uplifting and has given me some insights into perhaps doing something. So, here we go. I'm going to explain to you what they were talking about and I'm going to play back their video anyway.

All right, so they had a very, very special episode come out on the 11th of September. Essentially it entitled "Your Next Conference Talk is Probably Hiding in your Podcast Transcripts." So Alban Brooke and Jordan Blair, who Jordan's been on the show before with me in my special episode about two years back, were discussing that as they were getting ready for the podcast movement in New York. Jordan was talking about

going through the BuzzCast archives and using Chat GPT to develop a session pitch that got accepted for her. Woo, Jordan, well done. And unfortunately, I can't get to podcast movement. That would be fantastic. And a great excuse to get to New York. So anyway, so she went through this flow of how she used ChatGPT to go through her transcripts of her episodes and and collate the information, what she was where her strengths were and and what themes that she was good to talk about to develop

a good speech or a talk to to give to the podcast movement. And she submitted that and got accepted. So yes, okay, it's a little bit of AI, but it's AI using your data. It's not generative. And she had to write her own speech still. And she's got to get up on stage and do the speech. So anyway, in her wisdom, sitting there late at night after she'd done this, she went through some other customers of Buzz Sprout and went through their transcripts and did the same process.

And put three of them in this episode and whoa I was one of them. Being a prolific, maybe, being a very big supporter of Buzzsprout and Buzzcast, I'm quite often submitting to their show and and putting pointers out and saying my thoughts and interacting. So Jordan, thank you very much, Jordan. It was very much appreciated, went through and had a look at me. And this is where we're going. This is what I

Not only is it put me in a stand that maybe I'll have to do a speech at the AACTA Awards next year if I'm subbmitting on time, but what they said about me and about my show and what I could do with the speech was very uplifting and very motivational for me as an actor, as a trainer, and maybe even now as a speech writer and a a a host for a talk.

So anyway, what we're gonna do is I'm gonna share my screen anyway so you can see them, but it is a podcast. So if you're listening to this, you don't need to see the imagery. This is just for the YouTube section. So I'll play this for you guys for a little while and it's self explanatory. You'll see what I'm talking about and then we'll we'll nut it out at the end and wind this episode up. So bear with me as I bring it up on the screen.

Right, here we go. I'm gonna sit here and watch it with you, enjoy and we'll discuss it at the end.

To me.

That's correct.

Might have to.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well there you go. There you go. Hopefully that's come through fine on the screen and you get get the gist of that. They are a great team. Guys, if you want to start a podcast yourself, make sure you check out Buzz Sprout. That's where I host. I'm very loyal to them. They're fantastic for podcasts. And look what they just did there and look what they had to say. So I'm on notice now.

Do I put a speech together and submit for the AACTA Film Festival? I think it's in January next year, so not a lot of time. What I wanted to take from that and what I'm hoping you took from that as well is seeing the bigger picture from what you do with your acting. All that work that we do in the training on courses and and speech and learning.

Accents, not that I've learnt my accent yet, but for the American accent, but we're getting there. And everything there, it's it's a bit the bigger picture. It's it's a marathon. It's the end result will eventually come. And there's other things that you can do to supplement your acting and to make it stronger and to make things go through. So I'd really be interested to hear what your thoughts are on that, both on finding

your niche and maybe doing a speech or speech writing yourself or what you took away from from that in a motivational concept about those moments that we have that when you think I'm gonna give it up I'm gonna give it up and I say that all the time I say that so many times I've just why am I doing this? And I've just did, as I said, going back to Les Chantery, who is fantastic guys, if you've never trained with him, do it.

I thoroughly recommend going to Sydney and doing the three day course in person and then signing up ad hoc for the four week once a once a week classes that I'm doing. I'm trying to do it once or twice a year. It's absolutely fantastic just to to cement your audition prep and to cement your acting and to keep those to keep you working essentially and to keep things going. So yeah, s as I said, that first week for Les Chantery

was encompassing all of this feeling that I had and I submitted my first self tape and yeah, nothing but praise to send back and positive and negative of course, which is fantastic. So guys, I'm gonna wind it up because I need to get this up uploaded for you and then I need to make sure that I've got everything prepped for tomorrow. What I wanted to do, and I hope I've come across and told and portrayed what I was trying to say is about when it gets tough.

Sometimes you've taken on too much, which is what where I am at the moment. There is a reason for it and you can push through it and get through those tough times, those heavy times, and the good times will roll, hopefully. And I will submit my self tape for this short film in Sydney and fingers crossed, it's in January, which coincides with me possibly doing the speech with the AACTA awards. So there we go, we're gonna get swamped again anyway. Guys, thank you very much. Look,

I haven't had a chance to talk about it a lot yet, and I really wanted to nail it down, but I'm expanded and I've set up my own web pages. So before it was part of buzzsprout.com stroke the late bloomeractor. That still takes you to that page anyway. But now you can find me at www.thelatebloomeractor.com. I think I've also got dot com AU, just in case you actually type that in, but just w dot.com.

www.thelatebloomeractor.com you can find the podcast there. And I've also got www.davidjohnclark.com, which currently takes you to my IMDB page. So the little things that matter. Something I've been trying to put together for a few years now, and now I've done it. I own the names. No one can take them off me. They can offer me $100,000 if they want.

TheLateBloomerActor.com or DavidjohnClark.com. That's fine. Probably we won't sell. Thank you guys. Absolutely fantastic. Please check out the webpage, especially thelatebloomeractor.com. You can register with your name and email address there, and you will get notifications of any new episodes that come up. And you can stay on top of where we are in this world. I'm pushing to try and do

my end of year episode, which will be for October 15th, to celebrate the five years of The Late Bloomer Actor Podcast. And going to try and reach out to all or most or some of my previous guests, either to bring them in live or to get them to submit a a video of some sort to say, Hey, love being on the show. Well, hate to being on the show, you've ruined my career. No. so look out for that in October.

Also with the Adelaide Film Festival coming up in October. I've been given media accreditation for that. So hopefully I'll be able to get along to a couple of the films there and do some videos as a off-script episode and punch them out like I did about two years ago now. So, team, thank you very much from Darwin, The Late Bloomer Actor, David John Clark, absolute pleasure. When you're feeling down, push through, find something that lifts you up and gets you through that.

Reach out to me if you want any help or if you want any advice or input from what I've learned. Or check the back catalogue because we this is all we talk about. Cheers, signing off my t shirt quote for this episode, Area fifty one. Enough said. Cheers guys. See you on set.