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10:47 AM - FRI 11.19.21 (Just heard the news that Kyle Rittenhouse got off on all the charges against him. More than a little depressing, and a good reason to get off social media for a while. But anyway...) It's been a pretty busy week, audition-wise - had a commercial audition on Tuesday, a voiceover audition on Wednesday, two self-tape TV auditions on Thursday, and have a callback for the commercial audition later on today. Find myself dismissing the voiceover thing out-of-hand - I haven't booked shit since I started, so why start now? - but, off booking two commercials almost back-to-back a few months ago, the commercial thing feels very possible (And while the TV things feel like a taller order - haven't booked a TV thing off a self-tape in the COVID era - those don't seem completely impossible either). So far, I think the thing that's made me happiest in the past few days is having yesterday's self-tapes happen pretty smoothly. I worried, because I'd been gearing up to do one four-page scene yesterday morning (Which was due by Friday), then had another audition come in late Wednesday afternoon that was due yesterday at 1:00 pm (The voiceover audition also came in during that time, but it turned out to be nothing, and I was able to knock it out pretty quickly). And my friend Josh, who was reading for me, had only an hour to give (Which, don't get me wrong, should be all the time in the world to do this sort of thing. But with friendly chit-chat, flubbing my lines, watching each take and discussing its relative merits, deleting blown takes, etc, I can eat through an hour pretty quickly, when just doing one scene). But happily, I got them both done, with time to spare - I was pretty well-prepared on the first scene, and the second, while presenting some acting challenges, was much shorter (And they were both written well enough to not be very hard to memorize - It can be really hard to memorize lines that don't want to "stick" because they don't read the way people talk, or the way conversations actually go). And I set up my friend Mike as "reader back-up" in case I couldn't get it all done in an hour, so there wasn't any time-pressure (And I think the one-hour cut-off gave me "focus" - Since there wasn't time to fuck around, I didn't fuck around). That said, between setting up, recording the slates, recording the auditions, editing, uploading, and tearing down, I was really struck by what a labor-intensive process self-taping is, at least for me (started setting up a little after 8:00 am, and when the last thing was put back where it belonged, it was moving toward 2:00 pm). And after I was done, I felt both self-tapes were good - One problem I've had with self-tapes is "I don't know when I'm done". But in this instance (In both instances) I felt like I'd given it my best (As opposed to just stopping the first time I got from the beginning to the end without messing up, which I've definitely done at times). (It would be nice to be in front of Casting, and since they have a better sense of what they're looking for than you do, maybe get a redirect or two, maybe establish that you're a fun, funny guy who would be pleasant to work with, etc. But since that's not a thing that's happening these days, by and large, you do your best, on your own, hope you're in the neighborhood of what they're looking for, and "call it good"). A game I play with myself when I'm in this position - where I have a couple auditions that, far as I know, are still "open" - is to consider, if a genie said, "You can book one, but only one, of these auditions", which one I would most like to get, In this instance, they all have selling points - the commercial would (All things being equal) probably be the most lucrative, the primetime network TV show would likely be seen by the most people and would be a rare "dramatic" turn, and the kids show would be two days of work and probably be the most fun, While I'd be very fortunate to book any of them, in my heart-of-hearts, and somewhat to my surprise, if I got to pick, I'd pick the kids show. But I don't get to pick, so my fallback position is, "I'll take whatever I can get, and like it!". Till next time...
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