"Nick Vaughan?"

I finally got my new head shot order on Wednesday after waiting a week for the photographer to touch-up the shot and send it to Rocket Repro, and having my agent hound me.

This is how it's been for me: After getting my free photo sesh from the school, I printed two orders of 10; one bearded, one naked-faced. I got the bearded one first, but then I had the bright idea that someone might want me to shave it someday, so I had the second nudie-chin set printed. I should let you know now that each of these cost around $48 per set of 10. That's roughly $4.80 for a picture of my head. (I'd find out, as I was paying for my second order, that 25 shots was only about $60, but I didn't need that many. That's my justification, and I'm sticking to it.) So I put both of these into one package, and send them off to the agent I have today, who doesn't want to use either shot. In fact, he wants to get a new series done altogether, but doesn't want me to incur the expense at the moment, and I agree. So I used my certificate from VFS (another graduation freebie) get a whopping 50 printed (certificate expires in September, so I wanted to use it while I could.)

This will hopefully end this "starting-out" period. I expected that there would be a lot to take care of, but six trips to Rocket (seven, if you count the time I went there only to find the place closed at 5:45pm when the sign and person I spoke to said 6pm) even in the last four months is more than I wanted.

First, after the photographer sent the shot, I expected to "start my order" over the phone, but not having a credit card I would have to pay my deposit in person. Then, when I thought my glorious VFS certificate would be key to not-having-to-go-there-to-start-the-order bliss, I found out they need the certificate itself. Working at night, I find it hard to take care of any daytime business, so needless to say having to go there, place the order, and then have them call me to come in and pick it up gets tiresome, especially since I usually wake-up after they are closed.

But, head shots are important to actors, and I certainly can't blame my agent for being picky; the reason I only printed 10 shots of the two sets in the first place was me wanting to wait for my agent, whomever that would be, to help me chose one with which to start out. I'll just have to find something to do with the ones I have left.

I'll do that other photo session later, but hopefully much later, because not only do I not want to shell the $400+ for the photographer, I just plain don't like getting my picture taken. I'd say in my entire photo-taken-of-me career, 17% of the smiles are genuine. The rest just look fake and awful.

My agent was hounding me to get the new shots so I could drop them off at an office to be put in a database so he can start to submit me for roles. This is an office for a company called castingworkbook.com, so while I have a digital copy of the shot I can upload to their website from home; I needed to physically drop-off this physical head shot while my head got physical with a wall, wondering why I had to do this in person. Well, if this is what I have to complain about, I guess life's not so bad.

In more acting happs, I had my first "pre-screen" yesterday. It was a four-page read for one of the biggest Casting Directors in town. According to my agent, this guy rarely does pre-screens, but with nothing much going on industry-wise, I guess he figured on looking at some new talent (I'm not joking, me and five other classmates were all sent out for this same project).

A pre-screen is what Casting Directors use to determine whom they want to see for auditions, which I originally thought was dumb, that we're essentially auditioning for them anyway, but when I considered that a lead role audition is anywhere from 10-20 pages, while this was only 4, it made a bit more sense.

I arrived 45 minutes early, because I didn't know how long the bus would take or where exactly the office was, so I wanted to give myself some time. I just had a coaching that morning with a teacher who always fills me with confidence when I'm done with him. He coached me for my 16-page read with my agent, and was a big reason for me being signed. He's not doing it as a favour, believe me, he gets paid, but I'm glad that I have someone I can trust and work with, not matter what the audition may be, or how much time there is to prepare.

When I walked in, the waiting area was eerily silent, with a couple of actors quietly preparing to enter the dreaded room. From that dreaded room came the only sounds, an actor auditioning for a role different (and more shout-ier) than mine. I signed-in and noticed how early I was compared to the others on the list. I sat down with my headphones on, wondering how I was going to kill 45 minutes. I had already signed-in, so I didn't know if I could step out for a moment, or tell them "brb" or what, so I just stayed there, listening to my headphones (more specifically the music coming from them) and paused every time the reader would step out of the room, in case he said something pertaining to me, like "you got a life kid, or what?"

They called me in early, but they got names mixed up and asked for "Nick Vaughan". After me and Nick Whoever looked at the reader, he just said "Vaughan?" "Uh, that's me," I said, so I got up and entered this illustrious and important Casting Directors office for the first in, what I hope would be, many visits...

... only to be immediately shooed-out when they were really wanting this Nick guy with the last name no one bothered to know. So, I left, and went in after Nearly-Nameless Nick, and thought I did pretty well. I stuck to the choices me and my teacher made in the coaching session that morning, and was rewarded with a hearty "good, thanks." Ah, the feeling of a job well done.

The film is called "ALTITUDE" (fun story, I got a weird feeling on the bus on the way home from work that morning when I saw "ALTITUDE" highlighted on someone's page they were studying, obviously nothing to do with the project, but still) about some teens on a plane, some sort of teen thriller where things kind of go horribly wrong. I say teen twice (and now thrice) because the part I auddied for was an 18-22 year-old. My agent told me this going into it, and I wasn't really going for results anyway, I just wanted to show this guy what kind of work I can do. As an actor, you're not auditioning to get the role; you're auditioning to get another audition. If a Casting Director likes what they see, they'll want to bring you in the room again and again. Maybe you were edged-out for the role in other auditions, maybe you just weren't right for the role, but something will come along for you eventually. But you got to work for it.

Monday I have an audition that every Vancouver actor worth his/her salt has auditioned for: Stargate. This is Stargate Atlantis, a whopping two-liner, but I'll have fun with it. Much like the pre-screen, I'm treating this as my chance to show the Casting Directors what I've got. The first role is the hardest to book, and I'm not counting on anything for a while, especially the way the industry is today. All I can do is the best work I can with what I'm given.