First of all, I'd like to credit my dad with the title of this post… If you know my dad, this totally makes sense ☺.
The title also makes sense because that is exactly what I’ve been doing. I have managed to book 4 schmacting jobs and 1 acting job in, like, three weeks. Just like the old adage says, “it never rains, but it leaves me in a soggy, muddy puddle in the middle of the 101 North.” On the one hand, I feel great about it all, on the other hand I feel really broke, and so does my bank account. (It called me the other day complaining about how all I do its take, take, take.) You may wonder, “how are you broke when you just booked so many jobs?” As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t get paid for non-union work for three months! Mid July is gonna be awesome people, that is, if I don’t get arrested for robbing a liquor store in the mean time. 24601! That’s a little Les Mis reference for all my theatre geek friends. I’m such a Jean Val Jean type ☺.
Now to tell you a little about said jobs. The first was a low budget regional commercial for a jewelry dealership. Hardly my big break, but the shoot was actually really fun and I made connections with at really great production company. I’m always happy to work for nice people.
The second job was a web video for an apartment complex. This company owns 90 properties around the Irvine/LA area and they were making introductory-type videos for all of them. Lots of work!!! The shoot was super fast, (my hair and make-up took longer than the shoot itself!) but it was painful, and here’s why. One of the cardinal rules for a director is never to give “line readings.” What this means is that you should never ask an actor to simply imitate the way you’re saying something. The reason being, is that the director is a director, not an actor. He or she may think that what they’re exemplifying is what they want, but because they’re not trained as actors, it may look very different from what they meant to communicate. It’s much more affective to explain the objective of the piece, what you would like to communicate, give “motivation,” as it were. I know this sounds high maintenance, but it’s really to only way to accomplish quality work. This being said, the director of this web video stopped me after the very first line and immediately gave me the strangest line reading I’d ever heard. I would never speak that way in a million years, nor have I ever seen anyone else speak that, way on purpose, unless they were trying to be bizarre. It was so weird. Before we began, he explained that the piece should feel conversational, as though I was speaking to a friend and not selling something. It sounds simple enough right? You can imagine my confusion when he said my lines at me in an odd slow motion that reminded me of a cross between Mr. Rogers and The Riddler, from Batman, creepy. It continued that way for the next hour or so. He stopped me every other line, with an equally maniacal reading. I got through it, but I’m a little worried about how it turned out. I would hate for there to be a video of me, floating around the internet, eerily beckoning strangers to rent Irvine apartments like Snow White’s wicked stepmother temping with her juicy red apple.
The third job was for a communications company. This one, you might actually see! I think might be a funny one, but I can’t tell you anything about the concept for confidentially reasons. Fingers crossed! The shoot was very strange because I spent the better part of 8hrs making the same facial expression (shocked, surprised, happy) over and over again. When shooting a commercial, many times, there’s a director who acts as a middle-man for the marketing agency. The people from the agency sit in a separate room and watch the shoot on a tv monitor. The director has a wire in his ear so that the agency can tell him what they want him to tell me… You can see how this could be a disaster. What’s the phrase? Too many cooks in the kitchen, um yeah. Anyway, throughout the shoot, everyone seemed unhappy with what I was doing. They wanted me to, "smile more and laugh a little, but not too much. Don't move your shoulders, now you look stiff, don't raise your eyebrows, be natural but don't move. Keep your eyes focused in one spot but look around!" A miserable 8hrs later, I was on the shuttle that takes everyone back to the parking lot. Sitting next to me, were the people from the ad agency… They were beaming at me! “Oh my gosh you were so great!!! So funny! We’re super happy with what you did!!” Huh? I’m thinking wha???? Whateves. I was just so happy it was over with, I jumped in my car and zoomed home!
The fourth was a print/video job that will be shown at a major convention in Vegas. It was for a very large company that owns a tv channel, theme park, and much, much more. Just wanted to give you a bit of a hint. In this one, I was a young mom. I’ll keep it short as I know this is a very long post. I’ll just sum it up by saying as soon as I got there I was taken to hair and make-up. No sooner did I sit down, but the make-up artist said to me, “oh my gosh you look like poo!” Um, excuse me? She cackled like a crazy person and said, “oh no, no, I mean like Pooh Bear, Winnie the Pooh!” Cuz that’s better, right? WTF? I look like a yellow, crop top wearing cartoon bear? What is going on? This pretty much summed up my day. There were crying babies with over attentive, yuppy parents, khaki capris, and sensible button down shirts… That was about it.
I have a rehearsal for an actual short film tomorrow. Excited about it. Nervous that it won’t, actually, get shot. Looking forward to doing some real scene work. Very glad it’s here in SD and doesn’t involve adding more miles to my already creaking vehicle. I love you my little Elantra, you make me proud. We’ll hang in there together!
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