Crayons Please

These brilliant words were written by Hugh Macleod (who was introduced to me by a friend). You can read more of his writting at gapingvoid.com

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I�d like my crayons back, please."

So you've got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You don't know where the itch came from, it's almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person...

Until now.

You don't know if you're any good or not, but you'd think you could be. And the idea terrifies you. The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. You don't know any publishers or agents or all these fancy-shmancy kind of folk. You have a friend who's got a cousin in California who's into this kind of stuff, but you haven't talked to your friend for over two years...

Besides, if you write a book, what if you can't find a publisher? If you write a screenplay, what if you can't find a producer? And what if the producer turns out to be a crook? You've always worked hard your whole life, you'll be damned if you'll put all that effort into something if there ain't no pot of gold at the end of this dumb-ass rainbow...

Heh. That's not your wee voice asking for the crayons back. That's your outer voice, your adult voice, your boring & tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee crayon voice to shut the hell up.

Your wee voice doesn't want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you to make something. There's a big difference. Your wee voice doesn't give a damn about publishers or Hollywood producers.

Go ahead and make something. Make something really special. Make something amazing that will really blow the mind of anybody who sees it.

If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed.

The wee voice didn't show up because it decided you need more money or you need to hang out with movie stars. Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it. There's something you haven't said, something you haven't done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of. Now.

So you have to listen to the wee voice or it will die... taking a big chunk of you along with it.

They're only crayons. You didn't fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?

AWOL

Ok, ok, I suck at this. Honestly, I completely forgot I had a blog until I was redoing my website the other day and remembered that I needed to add a link to it (which I haven't done). So, we're into 2008 now, almost 3 months in, wow. Things have been weird here, as I'm sure anyone in the industry in LA knows. Since my last blog, we had a writer's strike which brought everything to a grinding hault. Thankfully it's over now and hopefully the writer's got a deal they're happy with. I was certainly backing them! So, casting is now slowly but surely opening back up. It's been quite dead for me and making me rethink whether or not I need new headshots. I read somewhere though to NOT change up your headshots too often because casting actually does start to recognize it if you're persistent enough with it. I am nothing if not persistant so I'm hanging on with the current headshot right now, hoping there's recognition soon. I've also updated my demo reel so fingers crossed that gets me some calls. I did some more workshops but I'm really tired of throwing money into them and not seeing a return. I've been doing them consistently for about a year now and nothing. I'm at a loss. Time to sit down and rethink my game plan. I think a LOT of it has to do with my agent. I've been with them for a year now and can you believe that last week was the FIRST time they've called me for an audition? Ridiculous. Time for them to go. So I've started researching new agencies and sending out packets to them. From what I've heard, all the agencies are scared to bring on new people right now as noone is sure what's going to happen with the industry from here on out. The writer's strike really threw things in an uproar. For example, there's no pilot season this year. But when have I ever followed the rules? : )

Ok, I'm off to prep for an audition I'm completely terrified of. Wish me luck!

Votin' Time!

This week has been crazy (in a good way). In addition to attending my weekly acting class, a friend and I have started teaching a class as well. It's amazing how much you learn by watching other actors and even more amazing how much you learn when you're in the director's seat. I was a little nervous about having constructive feedback at first, but once I got in there, I found I had no trouble at all. In addition to those two classes, going to cd workshops, working a full time job, and having two auditions this week, I shot a spec commercial last weekend for Heinz Ketchup. I've since found out that it's for a commercial contest so please be sure and vote for our spot! It's called "Closing the Deal"

http://www.youtube.com/contest/topthistvchallenge

Band Of Brothers

So I went to my audition yesterday morning for the lead in an indie feature. Thankfully, this time (because it doesn't happen very often) we were given the sides 3 days in advance, giving me loads of time to work on it. When something is written well, I can usually see it play out in my head like a movie, which helps tremendously because I can actually SEE me doing it. This time though, I had about 8 pages of dialogue and action to contend with so I called a couple of friends to help. In addition to them reading lines with me, one of my friends spent a good hour on the phone talking about the scenes and the characters. I found in talking with her that I had come up with choices much more specific than I thought I had. CUT TO: Saturday morning. I walked into that audition confident that I had done everything I could to prepare. I went into the room and did my thing. As I was leaving, the casting director said "Thank you so much for coming in. I hope you get it." She probably said that to everyone as they were leaving, but it was still a nice little pat on the back. As soon as I walked out I turned my phone on and it started ringing. Everyone who had worked with me was calling to see how it went. I cannot tell you how much that meant to me. I know I have a cheerleading squad behind me and that makes a huge difference in this business. I just wanted to use this post to say thank you to everyone who spent their time prepping me and caring enough to see how it went. You guys are truly amazing.

Sheesh!

What can I say, I can be indecisive. I have a blog, I don't have a blog, I'm blogging on MySpace, I delete it...I'm a girl. It's a given. I decided to start blogging again because I really need to chronicle my life as as an actor here in La La Land as a reminder to myself. It's just too good to pass up. Every time I think I've seen it all, I see something else that just cracks me up. Like the homeless guy pushing a grocery cart the other day while talking on his cellphone (not kidding!). It was just SO LA. Anywho, on to why I'm here...I've been here for two years now. Some complaints, but not that many. How can you complain when you're going after your dream? I'll never understand people who are content with just going through the motions...anyway I digress...in those two years, I feel like I've accomplished some stuff, but I'm not even close to where I want to be. Since arriving, I've booked 5 indie films, 4 of which disinegrated, 1 is on hold, had some callbacks for some national commercials, shot some student films, did some workshops, met some people, have had who knows how many auditions..all of the things you're supposed to do. But there seems to be one area that is just not within my reach, tv. Why is this? I'm doing everything I can to let the tv people know I exist. I attend the workshops, I postcard, I submit..so wtf? Every single one of my friends that's an actor (which is most of them) have at least had a co-star role on something. So where am I going wrong? What about me is so intrinsically NOT television? I've even gotten good feedback in the workshops. But alas, no calls. There are those that say some actors are tv actors and some are not. I refuse to believe this. I think it boils down to the show and I KNOW there are some shows that I'm just right for. Hello? Grey's Anatomy casting, have you seen me? Seen my headshot? Ya know your character Addison? She has no siblings? The ironic thing about it is that before I moved here, when people would ask what kind of actor I wanted to be, I would always answer "a film actor." My answer hasn't changed. I love film. I love the whole process, but that doesn't mean I don't ever want to do tv! Here's my catch 22 though (and everything in the entertainment industry seems to be a catch 22) most of the credits on my resume are for film. Why? Because the market I came from pretty much only has film. I can't exactly get a tv credit when we didn't have any tv! Of course once I move one of the casting offices starts working for One Tree Hill and Prison Break..but that's another story. I'm sure I'm not griping about anything that almost every other actor in LA isn't griping about but SHEESH! when is it my turn?

Griping over and on to more positive things...I've taken several classes since arriving here (Shannon Eubanks WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU!!!) and have finally FINALLY found a class that I LOVE. This class is NOT for the meek. They will rip you apart. Sometimes that's what we need to break old habits or to get to the next level. Well, I got ripped a new one last week and guess what, it pushed me to the next level. Since joining this class, I have my first audition tomorrow (for an indie feature film) and I CAN'T WAIT to use the things I've learned! I'll let you know how it goes. Peace Out!