A Stupid Clock, Playing Stupid Clock Games

Oh God, not again.

It's the worst feeling in the world. Luckily I've only experienced it a few times, in grade 12 math and when I was working on a student film late last year.

My call time for the general audition today was 9:50am. I set my alarm for 8:30, and off to a restless sleep I went. Wake-up ... 9:35am. The alarm was set for 8:30 ... pm.

I shouted a word that rhymed with "duck", which had nothing at all to do with the enigmatic water fowl. I had no time to think so I just slapped on some presentable clothes over my still-haven't-showered-from-the-gym body and bolted it. I mean, I ran, and I am not a runner at all, but thankfully the little cardio I do at the gym seemed to pay-off this day.

Luckily again, this building was downtown, only a few blocks from where I live, so it was bolt-able. I bumped into a guy I knew from VFS, and breathlessly told him what agent I'm with after he asked. He knew where this office was, and I followed him there, and opened the door to see my great friend Sara, whose call time was the same time I first looked at the clock after dreaming about eating a giant marshmallow (still don't know where my pillow wen- oh look, a feather. Odd).

What a relief. Then, to relieve myself further, I took the fish-key chained key to the little actors room, where I got walked-in-on by a guy in a business suit. It's just going to be one of those days, isn't it?

I went in the audition room, and met the Casting Directors. Like I said, this was a "general" audition, which means they weren't casting for anything specific, they just wanted us to bring a scene we'd be cast for and show our stuff ... and then act (rim shot). I did one of the scenes from "House Party" that I would be taping later (looked like I was the first to do it, as my roommate told me they seemed tired of hearing it by the time he got it in the afternoon). Well, something has to go my way.

My other great roommate went with me to help me put this "House Party" scene on tape. One of the Casting Directors (the people casting for "Altitude") let us use their room and camera person. Putting it on tape was great, no Casting Director to impress there, it was just me, the camera man and my reader, whom I rehearsed the scene with beforehand, so we had a good report (sorry, rapport). I did a couple takes of each scene, which was a bonus, and then I got to watch the tape back, which was another bonus, because any time I get to see my lovely face on tape is a good thing. I mean, just look at me.

So as the acting continues to go well, my "professional" life suffers. The security company I work for (not gonna say their name, but they wear yellow jackets) lost the contract at the company I work at (not gonna say their name, but they make a lot of sports video games). It seems any contracted place I work at loses their contract in the end. The call centre I worked at before moving to Vancouver (not gonna say- oh screw it, it was Minacs) lost their HP Home & Home Office store campaign ... after I left the company. So that one didn't affect me too much, but I did know some people who had to get placed at some other campaign, whether they wanted it or not, or beat the streets for some new calls to answer.

So that's what I'm faced with now. As of March 31, no more SkyTrain rides to Burnaby. No more endless coffee. No more Facebook TV trivia (my Addicted To Futurama score is 14000. That's 1400 questions that I've answered correctly). No more Blogs ... well, that's not true, but it's going to be harder to find time for it, depending on where I'm placed.

Luckily a third that my six months with the company (which is mandatory if I want them to pay for the training they put me through) is up early next month, so if I get placed somewhere awful, I won't be there for long. Then it's job findin' time again. I'll be looking to get on at a restaurant, somewhere walkable downtown. Having zero serving experience is not playing in my favour, and the fact that I'm not a hot chick makes it two strikes. At least there's a lot of food service joints in Vancouver, so there's plenty of choice, and it's an industry where you can make good money as you advance up the ladder. Security is just awful, you can't go anywhere but another security company, and I'm really only interested in the site that we're losing.

So early next month I'll dust-off the uncle Bucks and give my best "please hire me" smile I can muster. Oh well, it's a change, and I'm used to that

Damn You, Jason!

My "Roll-up" record improves to 2-3, winning another glorious coffee, which means another rim to roll-up. I'll let you all know ASAP how that goes! I know you all care so much! !!

Nothing gives me more motivation to blog than data-entry, which is what I'm currently faced with at work. So let's you and I have a chat, shall we?

Awesome, I thought as I signed-in at North Shore Studios for my second (third?) "I Love You, Beth Cooper" audition. I'm the only guy here for this part, I realized when I scanned-through all the names and saw I was the only guy with the privilege of reading for Loser Clerk. The only other guys in the room were auditioning for the role of one of the friends of the character for which I was first submitted (me and Brendan kinda thought that if they were going to "give" me any role, it'd be the role of one of the friends.) I'm definitely not going to be "given" this role, as all the guys reading for it were black, which I don’t real “read” as (although I did play a Puerto-Rican before, so you could say that ethnicities are my specialty, along with commenting on the state of a woman’s pants upon arrival in a foreign land.)

So I'm feeling pretty good, no one else in the waiting room, I'm calm, I'm cool, I'm collect. Then one guy walks in, whom the casting assistant recognizes immediately, gives him a mug with his name on it, and pulls-out a chair with the same. She snaps her fingers and a frantic-looking teenager with a headset and clipboard rushes out of nowhere to ask this man if there's anything he can get for him, coffee, tea, Carmel macchiato. This man is Jason, and he's out for the same part I am. I even recognized him from a distance (I wasn't wearing my glasses or contacts, my dang pink-eye made Loser Clerk look like Enraged Clerk) from a number of commercials and TV shows, including that car commercial where he's playing with all the knobblies and whirly-bobs in this awesome automobile when his S/O comes along and puts the kibosh on all that. I enter the audition room, which is much sparser than it was last time, and I do my thing and feel pretty good about it.

It was certainly one of my better ones, because I "found" something in the room, which meant the discoveries I made while working on it continued right up until I did it for the Casting Director. That may not make much sense to the “normies” (non-acting folk), but the actors should get it. The “little people” just wouldn’t understand.

I exit the room, and see Jason putting on a red apron, looking like a real winner of a Loser Clerk, talking to the Casting Assistant about how wearing glasses never comes-across in the audition, how it seems too cartoony. Good thing I didn’t wear mine, although it made it more difficult to "connect" (more acting parlance, I apologize, normies) to that big light blur I was acting with.

So the Jason thing threw me, and this is where it hit me that I really need to practice what I preach. There's no controlling who you go in against, you're really only competing with yourself. So why should I be upset when I go up against the pros? If anything, I should be flattered. I've said a million times, you don't audition to get the part; you audition to get another audition. So what does it matter if the other guy gets it? At least they're seeing me, and these are huge Casting Directors who cast for huge projects.
"You know what this means? It means you're on their list, they like your work, and if you don't get the bigger parts, they'll see you for these smaller parts," explains my agent. Role size doesn’t matter to me at this stage. I'm lucky that I got as far as I did with for the roles for which I was called-back.
"And the nice thing about going-out for these big features is that they pay 130% buy-out, so even if you're just an actor ("actor" means you have at least one line, but less than ... eight? I think) you're making over a grand a day." Oh yeah, I forgot that I’d get paid for this.

I get home and plan to sleep between 1pm-7pm, go to the gym, eat, and go to work. Of course I go to sleep and my phone rings every hour or so, either being work, or my agent. Work can screw itself (they wanted me to start early), but the agent I never tire of hearing from. I missed his call, so I get this voice-mail: "You've never done this before, but I want you to put something on tape for this Casting Director, I'll send you an e-mail with the details." Something on tape? This could only mean one thing: Los Angeles.

I helped my great friend, Sara (she's the best) put something on tape that was being sent to some CDs down in Californ-eye-ay, so I figured this might have been what I was in store for. Did my agent have so much faith in me that he wanted my smiling face seen in the land of the free and the home of the brave? I check my e-mail to see what it is I need to work on for my star-spangled friends, and see tha--Winnipeg? I'm submitting to a CD in WINNIPEG?

Yes, but it's actually a good thing. This is for a lead in a new series for The Comedy Network, written and directed by a bunch of people that have so many credits I don't even know where to begin. It's called "House Party" (no relation to the immortal Kid n' Play series of the same name) and it's about, well ... a house party, telling the story of a different guest each half-hour episode (kinda like “Lost”, only nothing like “Lost”). The characters look really interesting, and the sides I have are pretty damn funny, so I should have fun with this. It’s right down my alley, especially the scene where I'm being awkward with a girl I have a crush on; pretty much my trademark.

To “put it on tape” (that means I have to recor—oh, I guess that one’s pretty obvious, even to the “normies”) I have to go a studio and pay them to film me and send the tape away. I wanted to use my iSight camera on my MacBook, but that just doesn’t yield the same result as a professional studio. So it’s up to me to find someone to read with (like I did for Sara), and book the studio time before Thursday.

As long as Jason doesn’t show-up at the same studio to put himself on tape for the same part, I should be OK.