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Good Little Soldier

22 Mar

Last year I took an on-camera commercial audition workshop. It was kind of a fluke that I got into it, but I benefited from it greatly nonetheless. I gained an awesome friend who is now helping me with the producing of ShortLived, but I also took away some great tidbits– not necessarily just for commercial auditions, but all auditions in general. One of those tidbits was: be a good little soldier.

Josh Rappaport, the workshop instructor and working casting director, gave this piece of advice to the class the very first day and it stuck. Our jobs as actors is to wait outside, be quiet, obedient and patient until the moment we are called in. Then we do the best work we possibly can, say thanks and leave. We are not to cause any drama, any problems or any trouble. It’s true… we can complain all we want about the inefficiency of an audition process, the crapiness of the sides, or whatever but is that going to change anything? No. It just shows you got a shitty attitude and who wants to work with that? We can use other arenas to vent (a blog, our best friend, our boyfriend, our actor friends), but not the casting office itself!

This really came into play today when I was waiting at CAZT for an indie-feature audition yesterday. The girl who was two spots ahead of me started talking to all of us who were waiting outside of the casting room about how she’d been waiting there for over an hour, how it’s so ridiculous and she’s so sick and tired of these non-union projects disrespecting actors, not valuing her time, abusing their privileges etc etc. My time is precious, she said. It’s not fair.

She’s right. It’s not fair. I’ve had those complaints myself. But I would never voice these rants outside of the room I’m about to step into for the audition! It’s bad vibes for the waiting room. It’s bad karma for you. And it’s just bad manners. We just need to show up, do good work and leave. Then we can let it all out!

Just Breathe

19 Mar

So I missed a day. It was bound to happen. But I’ve been such a stress case lately that the whole day went by without realizing that I didn’t write a post! In fact, I was so scatter-brained that even forgot about a rehearsal for MY OWN SHOW! How does that happen??? I totally thought I had some time to myself yesterday, feeling a moment of calm thinking about the nice things I would do in my little spare time, when I get a text from one of my scene partners regarding the rehearsal– I immediately go into a panic. Rehearsal? What rehear– oh my god I have rehearsal. Holy shit. What day is it. How could I forget. I’m such an idiot. It’s my own show. Shit, now I have no time. I wont even make it there with enough time left in the rehearsal for the drive to be worth it.

This anxiety rolled right into the rest of my day. And today.

Now, at 10:30 at night I’m going into another anxiety attack thinking… it’s late, I still need to finish up some work, I need money after all, if I ever want to get out of the valley, but I also need to tend to some actin related correspondence and that’s my career after all but right now I need to get to bed to be up early and not tired in the morning to make it to call time to do a run thru and then to perform a show and then to go to an audition and to nail the audition and then to read a screenplay for a table read and then to

Yeah. I know. Just Breathe!

What a simple little thing to remember but how easily I forget. This week is the prime example of how not keeping yourself in check can let your mind get out of control. And feeling that anxiousness affects the other aspects of your career. The more grounded you feel, the better your work, your performance, your focus on your goal. So, as I gear up for this busy weekend I am going to tell myself… I am grateful for the acting opportunities I have this weekend, I am prepared for them and therefor I don’t have to worry about a thing.

The Cost of a Career

3 Mar

I like to remain positive about my career and all that comes with it.

But, let’s be realistic… sometimes you just gotta vent!

So we all know we have to be on those casting sites, mainly LA Casting and Actors Access and perhaps Backstage and Now Casting. This costs money.  We all know we have to have a headshot and this, also, costs money. How about putting these wonderful expensive headshots onto your monthly/ annually paid for sites in order to get more work? Well, you guessed it, that costs money too.

Where does this money come from? I don’t know.

So I finally got my brand spanking new headshots, which I love and am going to ignore the pretty penny I had to pay for them with, and decided to give myself a clean slate on all the casting sites by taking down all my old non-professional pics to upload all my new awesome ones. However, having to enter in my credit card information a gazillion times totally zapped all the fun out of putting up my new pictures!

For LA Casting it costs $25 to upload any initial picture and then $15 for each additional picture (only if you do it all in the same session). So, I decided to narrow down my 5 new pics to 3 and yet that cost me a lovely $55. Moving on…

For Actors Access it costs $10 per picture, not as bad, but still adds up. So for the 4 pics I uploaded, that cost me $40.

That’s $95 just to put a couple pictures up!!! Not to mention the $10/mo for LA Casting and the $65 (?) a year for AA. I don’t even remember anymore. Plus the cost of those headshots in the first place, and the makeup artists, and the retouching, and the formatting and the printing. I’m scared of the grand total.

BUT, it’s okay. This is my investment in my career. These are the steps we need to take, just like for any career. If I wanted to be a doctor I’d be thousands and thousands of dollars in debt just for med school. These are the dues we pay, but to have the career we want to have (not should have) is priceless. =)

Audition Flop

11 Feb

Don’t you hate that feeling when you walk out of the casting room and you know, you just know you blew it? It sucks. But, I’ve noticed something… I feel like that only happens when I kinda know the person I am auditioning for.

Yesterday I had an audition for a SAG Ultra-Low Budget Feature and it was the director herself who called me in, thinking I fit one of the female lead roles. I was flattered and excited, but really nervous– and I’m not generally the type that gets nervous for auditions. I’d say I’m pretty good at the whole- walk in, give it your all, walk out and forget about it-thing. But this time it was different. You’d think actually knowing the person would help, right? Like, actually calm the nerves. Nope, not at all.

But there must be a way to turn this around… Use the fact that I know them to help improve my auditioning skills, not hamper them. I dunno, sometimes I feel like auditioning is like the SATs. SATs don’t show someone how smart you are– they show someone how well you take the SATs. Auditions don’t show someone how well you act,  just how well you audition.

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