Category Archives: Acting

6 Jobs Not Enough? (or How Can It Be That I’m Still Underemployed?)

I mentioned a week or so ago about an interview that I had coming up to do some survey coding work for the movie screening company I tried working with earlier this year. The interview went great for that job and I was hired on the spot. I think perhaps my history with the company worked in my favor. It’s going to be between 10-30 hours of work a week once things get going, but the issue will be when that will be. I first have to train, which will involve 2 or so months of working graveyard shifts.

The sooner I can work those graveyard shifts (and the more I can do each week), the faster I’ll be trained and able to work the daytime hours. I just got my first request for my availability, so hopefully I’ll have my first training session soon.

In the meantime, I’m unsure how stable my future will be with my assistant headhunter job. My boss has always had issues with getting people on the phone (as in they aren’t answering) so that’s one reason he brought me on. But I’m running into the exact same problem that he has had. He’s talked about whether or not this job is working out and yesterday he emailed me to say that he’s considering stopping the phone calls for a while. Pretty much while you are reading this (assuming you are reading this the morning it gets posted) I will be on the phone with my boss to discuss the future.

I don’t want to lose this job, but I understand the frustration. I’m frustrated too. I want to always improve on my work and do the best that I can do, but the problems are things that are out of my control. I can’t force potential people to answer their phone. I’ve tried calling at various times of the day and tried blocking my number to see if that would help, but it doesn’t. I’m lucky if I talk to 5 people over the course of my shift, which is 4 hours long.

So I’m back in the place where I’m looking for another job to add to my job collection. I currently have 6 day jobs (assistant headhunter, substitute teacher, box office staff, babysitting, dog sitting, and survey coder) and that’s not counting my acting career or blogging (which I know I should really try to monetize to help with bills).

I never thought I’d miss my 6 days a week telesales job, but I do. That was steady work that I could count on and it was flexible enough for me to do what I needed to do. I really need to find something else like it, but that’s so difficult.

There are a lot of jobs in Los Angeles that in the job ad will say “NO ACTORS”. And yes, they tend to put that in all capital letters. They assume that actors are flaky, and I agree that many are. But I’m not that way. Yes I might have to take a long lunch or work a weird shift so I can go to my audition, but I always finish my work. If only I could convince an employer of that.

So even though I just got hired for another new part-time job, I’m looking for work again. I can’t trust that my headhunter job will be long-term (even though I want it to be) and I have no idea how many or few hours I will get for the survey coder job.

So I’m asking for help again on here. If anyone knows of any flexible work, I’m looking. I’m happy to send anyone my resume, but to summarize it I have assistant, data entry, sales, coordinating, and writing skills. Plus I’d be interested in any babysitting and dog sitting work. If any of you could help me out, I’d be so incredibly grateful.

End Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch)

My WIF Mentoring Circle has pretty much come to an end. My group had a lunch meeting this past week and the mentors announced that this would most likely be our last gathering. We might have one more in the fall, but we have been told that we can apply for new mentoring circles when applications are being accepted again.

I had gone into the mentoring circle experience with really high hopes. Since Women In Film could no longer match mentees with their own mentors, they hoped that these circles would create a little community where all the mentees could help and support each other.

The first meeting of my mentor circle had about 10 mentees (plus our 2 mentors). But after that first meeting, there was only one other mentee who attended all the meetings. There was another mentee who attended all but this last one, but she is based in NYC and is about 7 months pregnant and unable to travel now. But she still joined us by phone to join in on the conversation.

Pretty much everyone else who attended that first meeting never came back for another meeting. It was a little disappointing. I was totally looking forward to getting to know the other women and to see how we could all help each other reach our goals. I believe that over the other meetings, there were 2 women who each showed up for one meeting. But 5 women never came back at all.

I didn’t get to know those 5 women really at all. But the 2 women who were there at pretty much every meeting I did get to know. And I keep in touch with them both outside of the meetings. I share my successes with them and they share theirs with me. If my entire group (or even half of my group) were filled with women like these 2, I would have zero complaints about the mentoring circle.

But I am going to apply for another one. I’ve talked to a few people who were in other mentoring circles and they did not have as high of an absence rate as my group did. Also, their groups did meet 6 times within 12 months (which is what the application for the groups said we would do). My group met 3 times within the year plus this 4th time after the one year mark had passed.

I don’t want to say that my group was a dud. That’s not it at all. I did meet amazing women and I’m so grateful that both of my mentors have said that I can always come to them for advice. I just wish that I had gotten to know other women who are in the same spot in their career as I am. I wish that I had more chances to get to know the women in my group.

I think I can apply for a new group in the fall or near the end of the year. As soon as I can turn in an application, I will. And hopefully my next mentoring circle will be everything that I am hoping for.

FOX Girls’ Night Out (or Getting To Meet Women I Admire)

This past Monday I was invited to go to the FOX Girls’ Night Out event that was being held at the Television Academy. I of course said yes!

Things were a little tough driving over to North Hollywood (there was a shooter incident very close to the Academy and there were street closures I wasn’t expecting). The event started at 7:30 and had advised everyone to be at least 30 minutes early, but I didn’t even park my car until about 7:20.

Luckily for me, I went to the event by myself and managed to find a single seat free pretty close to the front. Thank goodness for people wanting to have a one-seat buffer around them!

I’ve been to the Television Academy before many years ago. I actually went to a screening and Q&A for “Brokeback Mountain” there before that movie was released. But I’m still in awe over how cool the theater is (and how awesome the giant Emmy statues are).

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The event was pretty amazing with some of the most incredible women in television on the stage.

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On the stage is Jane Lynch (from “Glee”), Chelsea Peretti (from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”), Mindy Kaling (creator, writer, and star of “The Mindy Project”), Liz Meriweither (executive producer of “New Girl”), Heather Kadin (executive producer of “Sleepy Hollow”), Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa on “The Simpsons”), and Alex Borstein (voice of Lois on “Family Guy”).

I mean, seriously, this is a dream team of women!

The Q&A covered some background on everyone’s stories as well as advice that they wanted to share with all of us. That lasted maybe an hour and then the Q&A was over and there was a reception with appetizers and champagne in the lobby.

But I noticed that some of the women were standing at the stage saying hello to people, so I headed up there to try to thank some of the panelists for coming and sharing their wisdom.

I had a brief second to talk to Jane Lynch. She shook my hand and asked my name and I told her how I admire her and her career so much. I didn’t get to take a picture with her, but that’s ok.

Next, I went over to Yeardley Smith. I have loved “The Simpsons” for forever and wanted to thank her for coming as well. I did get a chance for a picture with her.

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After that, we were all told that we had to head out to the reception. But once I got out there, I noticed that Mindy Kaling was still saying hello to people and taking pictures. So I lined up like a crazy fan (which I am, I just try to play it cool more often). The picture is a little blurry, but I’m so glad I got it.

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Again, I got to thank her for coming to the event and tell her that I think she is an amazing role model for other women trying to make it in the entertainment industry.

After my pictures, I was walking around to see if there was anyone I knew hanging out in the lobby, and my friend Porter Kelly called my name. I hadn’t seen Porter in a while and it was awesome to get to catch up with her! I loved taking her commercial class a while back (which if any of you actors want to take, Porter said that any of my blog readers can get a discount!).

Before I knew it, it was getting late and I wanted to head home so I could get a decent night sleep before working the next morning. On our way out, we noticed that the step and repeat was still up so Porter and I got a quick picture in front of it.

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On the other side of the red carpet, they had the signs for all the various entertainment shows to know where their reporters could stand to do interviews. They don’t give each show a lot of space.

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I had such an amazing evening that night and felt more invigorated than ever that I’m on the right career path and that one day it will be my turn. Hopefully that day comes soon, but I’m willing to wait it out.

Audition Fairy (or The Tale Of Two Auditions)

Even though my auditions have seemed to hit a slump recently, this week I had 2 auditions! One was for a music video (which I know I didn’t book because it would have shot yesterday) and one for a short film (which I won’t know if I booked for at least another week or so).

In the room for both auditions, I felt great about the work I did. In fact, in the short film audition the casting director and her team were laughing so hard at my audition and said that I did exactly what they wanted. Even if I don’t book this job, I know that they will remember that I do good work in the room.

At the music video audition, they were bringing people back in groups of 5. I think that was because they were getting backed up and wanted to try to get through everyone as quickly as possible. After I signed in, I stood off to the side (it was very crowded in the waiting room plus I was so sore from my workout that I was scared that I would sit down and not be able to get back up). There was another woman standing right next to me so we started to chat.

If the audition requires a lot of lines, I’m usually not chatty in the waiting room. I spend that time working on my lines. But for this audition, we had to lip-sync to a song. I practiced the night before as well as in my car driving over so I felt comfortable not working on it while waiting. The woman I was talking with ended up being super cool. She and I chatted about random stuff and she told me how she only found out about the audition about an hour before (I on the other hand found out the afternoon before). I told her that if she wanted to look at my printout of the lyrics she could borrow them.

We waited about 30 minutes and then I was called into a group. The woman I was talking with ended up being in the same group as me. We all went into the audition room and I went first. We only had to lip-sync to the first verse and chorus and then my audition was over. I was dismissed but before I left I gave my new buddy my print out of the lyrics so she could practice before it was her turn (there were 3 people in our group ahead of her). And when I walked through the waiting room, I let other women know that they didn’t have to worry about the entire song, just the first verse and chorus.

Everyone thanked me and I headed back to my car. I felt like the audition fairy for helping out. I like to help out my fellow actors. I don’t feel like my chances are any worse if I help someone else out. Either they want me or they don’t want me.

After that audition I posted on social media that I felt good for being able to help people and some friends said that it will come back around to me soon since that’s how karma works.

At my second audition this week I ended up standing up again in the waiting room (for the same reasons again) and there was a woman standing next to me. She asked me if I was part of a particular actor group and I told her I wasn’t. Then she realized that she knew me through my friend Ace. More specifically, she saw the blog post that Ace had shared on Facebook and twitter.

We both laughed about how it was such a small world that we had a mutual friend. And we also thought it was funny that we hadn’t met before because she and I are very similar types.

This audition ran long. There must have been too many actors scheduled too close together plus the casting assistant was letting people who crashed the audition cut the wait and go in before people who had audition appointments and had been waiting. The wait ended up being a little over 45 minutes, but that’s ok. I had a new friend to talk with in the waiting area.

Her audition was before mine and when she was done, she walked over to me to give me a heads up about what happened in the room. When we signed in, we were all told that there were no sides for us to read. We didn’t have to worry about any lines. But in the room, she was handed a page of the script and had a few lines to read.

I’m so grateful that I was given a heads up about this! While I wished I had time to feel comfortable with the lines before going in the room, at least I walked into the room knowing that I was going to have to read the page and memorize the lines super quickly.

It turns out that my friends were right about karma coming back to me. On Tuesday I was the audition fairy for someone and on Thursday someone was the audition fairy for me.

This just reminds me that doing good things for other people is important. It doesn’t matter that technically I’m helping my competition because I know that if I’m who they want, it won’t matter what anyone else does in the room.

Taking More Chances (or Maybe I’ll Get Picked This Time)

I continue to take more and more chances with my acting career these days. I had previously sent in an audition for the NBC Diversity Showcase. I didn’t make it past the first round for that showcase, but it’s ok. I got some practice with self-taping an audition and while reviewing my takes for the one I wanted to send it, I definitely learned a lot about how I’m appearing on camera. I’ve been practicing more and more at home and I’m hoping to use sides that I can find online and do at least one self-taping audition at home a week. I won’t be able to send those self-taped auditioned in unless casting requests them, but practice is practice.

I’m also looking into learning some accents. My agents recently contacted me asking if I could do a Boston accent. I can’t, but I told them that I could try to learn one quickly if they wanted me to. Right now, I don’t have any accents that I feel like I could whip out at any moment. I’ve never been asked to do an accent in an audition before my agents texted me about the Boston accent, so it’s never seemed too important to me. But now that I know that I might have lost out on an audition because of it, I’m going to see if there are some online videos (or even podcasts) for me to start picking up some accents.

I also just submitted myself for another diversity showcase. This time it was for ABC (and there’s still time to submit for it as the due date isn’t until June 6th).

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This time, all I had to do was submit my headshot and resume. That’s a lot easier than self-taping and makes this seem more like a regular audition (even though self-taping for auditions is becoming more common, it isn’t done too often for union jobs). Hopefully my headshot and resume will impress the people at ABC and I will be invited to audition!

Finally, I’m starting to get a bit more pushy about projects. I have a lot of friends who are producing webseries or films and I’m telling people when I think their project is interesting and would like to be a part of it. I can’t wait for a friend to ask me. There’s not always a part for me, but it never hurts to ask (as long as it’s done in a polite way).

Hopefully something will come of all these efforts soon!

1 Year Of Awesomeness (or Congrats To Ms In The Biz)

This past Monday, one of the blogs I freelance on, Ms In The Biz, celebrated its one year anniversary! Any blog making it one year is a huge deal and I’m so honored that I’ve been a part of it since day one (or even before day one since one of my posts went live before the site technically launched).

Helena, the creator of the blog, joined up with Film Break to have an amazing anniversary party. It was held at Vaucluse Lounge. Vaucluse had an incredible history. It used to be Charlie Chaplin’s house (the second floor is still owned by his estate). I had never been there before, but it’s close to some other bars on Sunset that I have been to so I was able to find some decently priced valet parking nearby.

The party was so much fun! My friend Robert arrived at the same time as me so we walked in together (and tried to mingle together as well). Our first stop was on the red carpet where I tried to have a cute pose.

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Next, we walked around trying to see if we knew anyone else at the party. I saw Helenna and grabbed her for a quick photo at the step and repeat.

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I also ran into some friends who I hadn’t seen in years! That’s one thing I love about events like this. It helps me reconnect with people who I haven’t seen in forever!

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I had such a great time at the party. I normally get a little panicky at events like this. I don’t like crowds and I’m always worried that I won’t know someone else there, but fortunately this event was so perfectly set up (and the timing of me running into my friends could not have been planned better if we had tried) that I never had to worry or panic at all.

So here’s to 1 year of Ms In The Biz and I look forward to being a part of it for many more years to come!

After-Work Adventure (or I Love LA)

After I finished making calls for my recruiting job on Friday, I knew I had to get out of the house. I hadn’t been good about doing things after work most of the week, so I needed to force myself to put some shoes on (I do get dressed to work at home) and leave my house.

I asked around to see if any friends were free on short notice, but nobody really was. So I decided to take myself on a little adventure and go watch the sun set from the Griffith Observatory.

Since I was driving up there during rush hour, it took me a while to get there (not exactly sure how long, but it was over an hour). And then to find parking was a whole other issue. But I did the parking lot stalking thing long enough to finally get a space in the observatory parking lot.

It wasn’t the clearest evening, but it looked more like haze than smog from up there. And the observatory looked awesome.

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And it was surprisingly crowded there. I’m not sure if that’s a usual for the after-work crowd or if something special was going on that evening. But I had to squeeze in by the railings a few times to get some pictures. And of course, as soon as I got there I realized that I left my nice camera at home and only had my phone. So while I tried to get the best pictures I could, I know that with my real camera they would have been better.

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The Hollywood sign and the city were so beautiful. Even though I’ve lived here for almost 13 years, those views never get old. I still get excited when I’m close to the Hollywood sign. One day, I’ll have to do the hike to it, but I’ve heard that it’s not an easy hike to do.

I also checked out the moon, which was so bright in the sky even though the sun hadn’t set yet.

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I ended up watching the sun set from one of the side views where you can also see the Hollywood sign, but of course the camera on my phone could only get either the sunset or the Hollywood sign, not both.

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I stayed until the sun was completely gone and then I headed back to my car. I had wanted to take some awesome nighttime city pictures, but I’m going to have to go back with my real camera (and tripod) to do those.

Even though this was only a short adventure, it really revitalized me. It made the workday seem shorter (since there was a definite end to when I was sitting at my computer) and it made me appreciate my city even more. I have loved living in LA since I moved here (I wanted to move here as a kid). But sometimes I don’t really think about how lucky I am that I’m working on living my dream while living in my dream city.

But seeing everything from up at the observatory and realizing that below me were all people living their dreams and I was one of them, that was an amazing moment.

Craziness Of Auditioning (or How I Spent A Day Getting Ready For A Minute)

This week I had my first audition in a long time. I know my agents aren’t to blame. There just isn’t much out there right now. And not just for my type, lots of my friends are in slumps right now. Plus, it’s a weird time for auditioning for tv. The new pilots have already been cast and shot and most shows already airing on tv have wrapped up for the end of the season already.

But I lucked out into auditioning for a cable show that airs in the summer (so they are just starting to film their season). I can’t say much about the show I auditioned for (that’s super frowned upon),  but I can say that I had a great time in the audition room!

The part was a co-star, which means that it wasn’t a big part of the episode. In fact, my audition only had about 10 words.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t do my prep work! I found out about the audition the day before so I had plenty of time to do some research on the show. Normally for a show that hasn’t aired yet, there isn’t much you can research or find out about the tone of the show. But for this show, I lucked out because I had a small connection to it. I know someone related to the real-life person the show is based on. And she had been sharing information on Facebook about the new show.

So I went back through Facebook and found everything I could. I also made sure that even though there were only 10 words, I knew those words. When there aren’t a ton of words on the page it really stinks to not have them all memorized. I didn’t go over everything too much (it can sound stale and rehearsed sometimes), but I definitely spent time with my research and memorization.

The audition was at CBS Radford (where I was for 4th of July last year) and while I walked up the gate, I noticed a sign for Sarah Jones.

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If you aren’t familiar with the Slates for Sarah movement, take some time to check it out. The short story is a young crew member died on set because of some careless (or lazy depending on how you look at it) choices in cast and crew safety. Nobody should have to die while working in a preventable accident. I’ve seen these signs at a couple of different studios around town and I’m glad they are there so people who don’t know what happened go to look it up and get educated.

I had some time to kill once I signed in at my audition, so I ran though my lines again and tried to relax. I try to think of each audition as not an audition, but the chance to perform and do what I love. If I happen to get the job, that’s a bonus.

I think the audition went well. It’s hard to tell with so few lines. I know that I did the best I could and I made an impression on this casting director. Plus, it was the first time I got to see this particular casting director so that’s awesome too! It’s another industry person who knows who I am and has seen a bit of what I can do.

If I get the job, of course I will share everything on here. But for now, I’m just super happy that I got to spend even a small part of my day doing something I love so much.

Table Read (or Spending My Saturday Acting)

First of all, thank you to everyone who texted, emailed, tweeted, FB messaged, and called me after Keri’s death. I’ve passed on all of your messages to the rest of my family. Writing that post ended up being very therapeutic for me, even though it was tough to write.

But now I want to get on to my regular, happier posts. I know that’s exactly what Keri would want me to do.

Last week, a friend of mine put it out on Facebook that he needed to get some actors together to have a table read for a pilot script that he wrote for a CBS competition.

If you aren’t familiar with the idea of table reads, it’s pretty simple. You have all the actors read their parts of a script while you are all sitting around a table. For a show that is on tv, this is when the writers hear if their lines make sense (or are funny) and the other departments such as costumes or props can make lists of what they will need for that week’s episode.

But for this script, we would each read a few parts so my friend could hear everything out loud and see if he liked how it was going.

We all met at his apartment in the valley and read the script to ourselves before we all got assigned our parts.

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It was a sitcom style script and it was really really funny! I don’t want to give a lot away because this is still a work in progress, but I can totally see it as a CBS sitcom on the air.

I got to read a couple of different parts which was a lot of fun. And there was one scene where 2 of the characters I was reading had a conversation so I got to have a funny little moment where I talked with myself.

After the table read was over, we all went over little notes we had about the script. There were a few things that needed clarification and some typos that we noticed, but overall it was an amazing pilot episode.

I’m not sure when the CBS script competition is making their cuts, but I would be shocked if I heard that this didn’t make the next round. And my friend promised that if something comes of this script, he will try to find a way for all of us who helped at the table read to be a part of it.

Even if nothing else comes from this, it was a great opportunity for me. I got to spend a couple of hours acting. I got to read an awesome script and make some character choices. And I got to network with a bunch of new people and reconnect with my friend who I hadn’t seen in years.

Overall, this was an amazing Saturday.

Being Typed (or A Fun Actor Activity)

This past week, I was invited to a Type Party. If you aren’t familiar with a Type Party, it’s something for actors to do to understand what their type (or who they would realistically play) is for film/tv. I had been typed before when The Actors’ Network still had a location, but it had been a long time since I had done it. I had also been typed during a SAG Conservatory event, but since there were so many people at that event and I was one of the last people to go, many people didn’t fully fill out the sheets.

A friend of mine was hosting the party and we were all encouraged to come dressed as you normally would for an audition. So I came in a simple top and jeans, since that’s something I wear a lot for auditions.

I got there on time, but was actually the first one there. Guess not everyone stresses about being on time the same way as I do. Everyone else arrived about 5-10 minutes later. There were about 10 of us there (all women) and we chatted and gossiped a bit before we got started.

I actually didn’t know anybody there except my friend who organized it, but that’s almost better. That way, nobody typing me would be influenced by things they know about me in real life. Everyone’s opinion was just based on superficial things (which is what you want).

The things we wrote down for everyone were things like age range, ethnicity, what jobs you could see the person in, how educated you think they are, celebrity look-a-likes, and any physical or characteristic adjectives you think fit the person.

Most of the things I got were as expected. My age range was between 22-28 (although there was one person who put 32-40). I was given bubbly, enthusiastic, friendly, helpful, and cheerful as some of my adjectives. As far as physical adjectives, they were all what I expected (plus size, full-figured, short), but one person wrote tan and dirty blonde. Maybe the lighting made me look that way? Because I’m not tan at all and I don’t think my hair could be described as dirty blonde (brunette maybe).

Unfortunately, I had to leave early so I wasn’t able to type everyone else, but I’m going to do it for some of them on Facebook. But I did get to take home all of the sheets people wrote things about me on so I could think about new ways to pitch and market myself.

I’m so grateful that a friend of mine organized this. Not only was it a great actor activity that will be super helpful, but I got to meet a ton of new girls that I probably wouldn’t have met without the party!