Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A whirlwind of activity and now the wait.....

I didn't get the "Louie" job. It's all good. I arrived 75 minutes before the audition time to work the script (they were really tight with the script and did not send one out prior). Can't say I didn't prepare. The day after the Louie audition I had another one for a Motorola commercial, that will be shown in China. Follow? OK. Now, I receive the NY Breakdowns every morning (what talent agents use) and I peruse them as soon as humanly possible. I'm always looking for roles that seem right for me. If I see a role that I am right for, I will either submit myself (if I know the CD well enough) or I will call up my agency and say "Hey! I think I'm right for this, can you submit me? Its the (blah blah) on page 12 of today's breakdowns. Thanks so much! Have a great day!"

That is what I did for the motorola commercial. The client was looking for people with fast hands at specific skills, rubix cube, coin flipping, speed chopping. Those that know me know that I used to earn money as a line cook and prep cook. Speed chopping is a skill of mine. So I called up my commercial agency and told them that I was right for the part and to please submit me. 15 minutes later I had an audition. This is the first on camera commercial audition I had been on since I started working with them (LAST AUGUST!) WTF.........cereal. WTF. The audition was over in 10 seconds.....as per usual. I had to speed chop a celery stalk. Normally not a problem, but the table was about 30" high and wobbly as all hell. So, I wasn't about to chop at full speed and slice off my finger tips with my crazy sharp 7" Japanese steel. The CD was very pleasant and we had a nice chat. I'm going to assume that I didn't get that one either. :-)

After the audition, I sent an email to the on camera assistant at my agency saying thanks for helping me get set up with the audition. In actuality I was pretty pissed that my only audition in 6+ months was SET UP BY ME. C'mon guys. C'moooonnnnnn. So I sent an email saying something like "It's been a long time since Ive seen all of you, and since we last saw each other Ive lost about 25 lbs, so maybe it's a good time for another 'meetup'". They agreed and met up with me the next day at 4pm.

Since I was gonna be literally down the hall from my VO agent, I scheduled a time to meet up with him too. This is a facet of the business that I didn't expect. I had always thought, albeit erroneously, that as soon as I had an agent it would be "audition city" and I'd be running around town like a mad man going from audy to audy. Word of advice for all you actors out there: don't wait for the pot to boil, fucking get after that biotch. What's the phrase? The squeaky wheel is the one that gets fixed? Or the axle? You know what I mean...bottom line is you can't just sit back and assume that some people have you in their hearts and minds, ya gotta get after them and literally spoon feed them shit.

Speaking of spoon feeding.....I saw an audition in the breakdowns that I'd be perfect for. It was this:

SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY ASAP
BY 2PM FRI 2/19 LIZ LEWIS CASTING PARTNERS
151 WEST 19TH STREET
THIRD FLOOR
Two hardcore stand-up comedy fans get together every Saturday to do play-by-play for the
match-up on Comedy Central. The only thing they love more than comedy is arguing with each
other, which they do constantly. They speak to the audience, but mostly bicker between
themselves. And sometimes bring in their correspondent Stu, and friend Becky.
All need GREAT comic timing and a 'regular person' appeal. The writing is a bit of a rapid fire
back and forth, so a good rapport together as a group is key. Looking for performers with solid
improv/sketch chops. Please notate any people who perform together regularly.
[GREG] 25-30, any ethnicity. A slightly pretentious nerd who leans toward underground comedy
such as David Cross, Patton Oswalt, and Demetri Martin. He liked the first Dane Cook special
when it came out, but he'll never admit it.
[MITCH] 25-30, any ethnicity. A guy who's motto is 'If it's funny, it's funny.' He enjoys in-your-face
comedy of bigger club comics such as Dave Attell, Kat Williams, and Larry the Cable Guy. He
prefers funny faces over social commentary.


I submitted for Mitch by myself. While I am a comedy snob of sorts, I look like I'd love Larry the Cable guy and hate Patton Oswalt. I met Angela Mickey at a networking event and fortunately enough she liked me as a comedic actor and gave me her card and told me to keep in touch. So I did. Whenever I had a show I'd send an email and every now and then I'd sent a quick catch up email. She is very kind, and apparently is a great judge of talent. Everyone that I know who knows her says the same things, she's really nice, really great at her job and has a knack for discovering talent. So while I do have a legit agency that represents me, I'm just freelancing with them, so I have no problems with submitting for things myself. But in an effort to make things fair in a cosmic way, I had my agency's info on my 3 headshots that they had me bring.

I got the script last Friday afternoon and my audition was for Monday morning. I worked that script to death. I put in a solid 15 hours on it over the weekend (which is a looooong time for Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy references). The audition went really really well. I made the CD (not Angela, one of her coworkers, Angela was not at that particular audition) laugh on 3...count em 3 (!) separate occasions. With the crappyish script factored in and the fact that the CD had heard the same lame ass jokes about 30 times before I felt pretty good my accomplishments. I was also paired up with a random actor there too. Luckily, the guy was pretty good, pretty prepared and we made an OK team if I may say so myself. It's supposed to shoot this Friday, so if I get it, I will hear by tomorrow (Wednesday) for sure. We shall see. @ the very least, I came 100% prepared and off book and made some intelligent choices, can't go wrong with that. All I can control is how prepared and technically efficient I am at the craft of acting and auditioning. The rest, is up in the air. We shall see.

Then today, I had a voice over audition for AMP energy drinks. AMP is like redbull only in a larger can and dare I say......more eXtreme!!!!!!!!! Ha. That audition went well. It was at Pirate Studios and I really like the CD there, Erik. He gives really clear direction about what he wants and doesn't want for vocals, energy, clarity, character and tempo. You don't know how refreshing that is. It's like a dip in a lake when it's 99F and humid as hell. Ahhhh. The radio spot is supposed to be the "A.M. AMP Energy Wake Up Call". Michael Buffer, the boxing announcer calls up unsuspecting people and asks them if "They are ready to tackle their dayyyyyyyyyyyyyy???????" It's actually a really funny spot. Erik told me that what I laid down was "what he wanted the spot to sound like." (!) So that's cool. At the very least I am improving and at the very most I booked something. This also records on Friday. Sidenote: what a great problem that would be......having to schedule around 2 paying jobs in one day. Wow. Ha. I'm tickled pink just thinking about that.

Then on my way home tonight I got a call from my VO agent's assistant that I have another audy tomorrow in-house. Meaning, I go to my agency and record with the in-house guy there and my agency sends the submissions over to the client. That'll be fun. Then after that is my weekly acting class. Wow, that is a pretty long entry, but a lot has happened. More info to come on tomorrow's audy and (fingers crossed....casting!).

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