Being on the set of comedic webisode, Zombie Break Room, as an executive producer and an actor taught me a lot of new things. More than anything else, it helped me realize what most of my cronies and colleagues have repeated over and over: The business has changed.

Whenever I heard this, I always want to ask the next natural series of questions. “How has it changed?” and “How can I jump on board with all that excitement?”

You talk with the young pioneers of technology (that are barely legal ) and hear things for the very first time. By the next week, those things are becoming obsolete.

What’s hot? YouTube, video games, apps like Instagram, streaming live and, yes, you can shoot a movie with a camera that looks like the battery pack for cameras that I grew up making movies in front of.

So when my good friends, Patrick Carson and Chad Hawkins approached me about the Zombie Break Room script, a story written to humanize the characters of Call of Duty – Black Ops Zombies, I wanted to stand in front of that downsized camera and give a pulse to Tank Dempsey (my character).

I also wanted to collaborate as an executive producer, so I could wrap my brain around what’s current. I’m glad that they brought me on board. Would love to think it was because of my good looks (lol!) but I am flattered that they saw the value in my years of experience and my passion to bridge the old and the new.

The script is chock full of irony. Video characters like Tank, who a gamer electronically manipulates, leave the game site and transform into human beings who have regular dialogue in a break room. These are everyday conversations we can all identify with.

I had a good time. As an actor, my involvement was a fun exercise. And to experience a medium that, in its nascent phase is vastly ubiquitous and bubbling with energy was definitely cool.

This is what I learned:

1. What has not changed about the business is that every brilliant script still requires a pulse so we can relate to one another.

2. Technology may have changed the way we communicate, but we still communicate on a very human level. Even zombies.

3. There’s no longer a massive wait time in post production. The link is available now. Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/user/zombiebreakroom/featured

(Feb. 2013)