Category Archives: Acting

Preparing For A Virtual Convention (or My First Task For This Delegate Term)

Posted on September 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Preparing For A Virtual Convention (or My First Task For This Delegate Term)

The time between the union election and Convention is not very long. This is the way it is set in our union constitution, so it’s something we know to expect each time. But even though we know it will be a very condensed time frame, it always seems to be a bit of a surprise too. And in that short time, there is a lot to get done before the start of the Convention and I always try to participate however I can.

One of the big things that happens at the Convention is voting on resolutions that delegates propose. These resolutions can be about so many different things. Some are about changes we want to see in different policies. Some are about having recognition for different things that have happened in the past year or two. There can be hundreds of resolutions and each one that is able to be discussed at Convention is debated (some of them have issues such as not being able to be done by the union for legal reasons or not having enough endorsements to be voted on). And part of the prep for Convention usually involves an event for the LA delegates to discuss resolutions and try to get support from others.

This is something that is normally done at the union and in-person, but like so much over the past year and a half, this was being done virtually. And it was a good way to get ready for Convention because that will be done virtually too! I am a little sad that we won’t be in person because I love getting to meet delegates from all over the country, but at least we will be able to meet virtually. But that will be a much bigger meeting than the resolutions meeting I had earlier this week. So this was a good way to ease into what it will possibly be like next month when delegates from all over the country come together for a virtual convention.

We will have a Convention orientation coming up, so this meeting was completely focused on the resolutions. Each person had a chance to speak about their resolution and why they felt like it was important. Because there were so many resolutions, each time you were limited to a short amount of time to discuss things. And if you submitted multiple resolutions, you could only talk about them one at a time.

I’ve never written a resolution myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about them. I just haven’t had something I felt passionately enough to want to present to everyone. But I love hearing what other people come up with. And this year, I was given a chance to be listed as a co-author on a resolution that I think is a great one! The resolution I’m listed on is about having a way to designate another address you might want your union ballot to be mailed to because some people miss out on voting because their ballots were mailed to a business manager or someone else who gets their union mail. But because ballots are different than things like union dues bills, some people might want to have a ballot mailed to their home even though they normally mail everything to someone else. I think it’s a great idea and a way to help make sure more members vote. So I was very happy to be listed as a co-author.

And because I was a co-author, I also had the chance to present it at the meeting.  The person who wrote the resolution had others that they wrote, so I offered to discuss this one so they didn’t have to do all of theirs. I hate speaking in front of a group, but this was easier since I was just speaking to my screen and I couldn’t tell how many people were watching me. And it seemed that a lot of people who were watching agreed that this was a good resolution and hopefully they will be endorsing it. There is still a bit of time before the cutoff for endorsements, so I’m just going to stay hopeful.

Over the 2 hour meeting, we got to hear about a lot of the resolutions that LA delegates have proposed. It was good to hear more about them than just what we can read online so we understand why someone felt passionate about it. After the meeting was done, I went back to make sure I endorsed the resolutions I liked so they could hopefully get enough support to be brought up at Convention in a month. I do feel like it is important for me to take this process seriously since it’s one of the few responsibilities I have as a delegate. And I think I feel even more strongly about that as things are being done virtually and not in person. I want this Convention to feel just as important and productive as the past ones I’ve been a part of.

I only have a few more things to do before Convention is here. It’s crazy that it’s almost here, but I’m so excited about it coming up!

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Default ThumbnailStarting My Delegate Term (or The First Of Several Meetings) Default ThumbnailObserving The Local Board Meeting (or The Beginning Of My Second Term As A Delegate) Default ThumbnailSAG-AFTRA Local Meeting (or Coming To The End Of My Delegate Term) Default ThumbnailTime For Convention (or I’m Ready To Get To Work) Default ThumbnailA Full Convention Weekend (or Preparation Pays Off) Default ThumbnailMore Virtual Union Meetings (or Hopefully We Will Be Back To In-Person Meetings Soon)

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Having Election Night Alone (or Seeing If My Hard Work Paid Off)

Posted on September 7, 2021 | Comments Off on Having Election Night Alone (or Seeing If My Hard Work Paid Off)

There is so much I stress about during union election season, but sometimes the most stressful thing is waiting while ballots are being counted to see the results. I usually end up having a very late night to see the end of the ballot counting and sometimes I’m so exhausted that things don’t click with me until the next morning. And this year, I knew watching the ballots being counted would be a different thing than normal since it was being done over Zoom.

There were pros and cons to the counting being done online. I didn’t like that I was at home alone watching everything and I didn’t have my friends there to reassure me or to joke with while we wait for everything to be done. But the biggest advantage was that I got to watch while I was working because I could keep the Zoom screen small on my screen while I’m working. I actually was able to watch from almost the start when the ballots were picked up from the post office and brought over to the union. I know it doesn’t sound exciting, but it was cool to see since it’s something I’ve never been an observer for in the past.

I wasn’t able to watch all of the counting process because I was working from 9-5. When I could check the screen, I did. And when people were asking questions on Zoom about the process, I listened. But for those 8 hours, I mainly worked with the occasional check-in on the process. I was also texting and messaging with friends who were watching the entire time.

For all the times in the past that I was an observer for the ballot counting, I was only in the local count room. I was automatically allowed in there because I was on the local ballot (which includes National Board, Local Board, and Delegates). The national count room was for the national president and secretary-treasurer, and to be allowed in that room you had to either be a candidate or listed as a proxy for a candidate. This year, I knew I’d be watching in the local room since that’s the standard for me. But I was selected to be a proxy for one of our candidates in the national room so I was able to be in both (not at the same time, but I switched back and forth).

When I was able to watch, I did try to pay attention to how the ballots were looking to me. The local ballots were harder since there are so many candidates, so I could never tell if someone was voting for me. But on the national ballots, it was easy to see what was happening. And things were looking very close to me. I started to think it might be a split ballot with one slate getting president and the other getting secretary-treasurer. I wasn’t sure if we’d have a very late night or not, but we ended up getting the national results pretty early compared to past years. And I was right, we had a split ballot with Fran Drescher and Joely Fisher winning.

After we knew the results for the national count, we had to wait until the union announced it before we shared the news, but that was easier to do since I wasn’t seeing anyone in person. I switched back to the local count room to see how things were going and to watch the end of those results. When I was back watching the local count, the election committee was working on the questionable ballots and trying to figure out the voter’s intent. Some of these were clear and some were really odd. It’s frustrating when you think that they are voting for the people you are supporting and the election committee can’t agree on what the intent was. I did see the committee debate a few times about votes that they had to decide if the intent was to vote for me or someone else. That was a bit weird.

And in the end, sadly my slate didn’t do as well as we hoped. We didn’t win the local officers and we didn’t get as many board seats as we would have liked. I didn’t get elected to Local Board, which was tough. I knew that it was not going to be easy for me to be elected to the board, but I really had hoped that somehow I would win a seat. But I did win my delegate seat again, so that was good news.

It’s always tough when you don’t do as well in an election as you hoped. And this time, it hit me harder than ever before. Maybe it’s because I did more work for the campaign than in past years. Maybe feelings from the pandemic added to my emotions. Maybe I was affected by watching the count alone at home more than I thought. It doesn’t really matter why, but I honestly was heartbroken when seeing the results. I know that we can’t win everything and having balance is important, but the other side has a significant majority now and it will be harder for us to make an impact in the way we had hoped.

I think I’m still dealing with feeling sad about the results. I know that now it’s time to get back to work and we have to start preparing for the National Convention, but I also need to sit with my feelings and process what happened. The one thing that does help me feel better is that I don’t have any regrets about what I did during this election season. There is nothing I didn’t do that I wanted to do. There is nothing I did that I questioned. I did everything I wanted to do and knowing that I did that made me happy.

And in 2 years when it’s the next election season, I know I’ll be fully in it again and ready to go. And hopefully we will do better then, but now we are just focused on our union service and working hard for all members.

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Default ThumbnailLate Night Election Results (or All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go) Default ThumbnailThe Votes Are In (or An Uneventful End To The Election) Default ThumbnailAlmost Election Day (or I’m Asking You All To Please Vote) Default ThumbnailThe End Of The SAG-AFTRA Elections (or Being An Observer) Default ThumbnailMore Election Fun For Me (or I’m Running For 2 Things) Default ThumbnailIt’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer)

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Almost The End Of Election Season (or Only A Few More Days To Go)

Posted on August 31, 2021 | Comments Off on Almost The End Of Election Season (or Only A Few More Days To Go)

I’ve written about election season quite a few times on here. In the past, I don’t think I had as much to say as I did this year. And part of that is because my responsibilities and leadership role grows each election season. But the other part is that this time things were so different from what we are used to.

So often in the past, we talk about how social media isn’t everything and how important it is to be face to face or one on one with someone when discussing union politics. It’s better to have a real conversation with a friend than to blast out an impersonal message. And it’s better to have a conversation that is more than the character limit of a tweet.

But this year, in a way social media was almost everything. We were all still messaging our friends one on one and some of us had phone calls or small gatherings to talk with others about why we are running or why we are a part of Unite For Strength. But so much of campaigning this election season was on social media (mainly Twitter from what I could see). And that also meant that we had a lot more attacks on social media as well.

I know I see more than what most would see since I run the social media accounts for UFS, but I know a lot of people saw similar things to what I was seeing. And so much of it was misinformation (such as not understanding what our dues went to versus when people paid premiums for the union healthcare). Part of my job with running our social media is seeing when people have questions or they have misinformation and making sure they get the correct information. I might not always be the person who can answer it, but I can find the person who is. And it is so rewarding when I can help someone get the information they need or when something they were concerned about is either already fixed or being addressed and a fix is in the works.

And I will say, a majority of what I was seeing on social media during election season was positive, especially from the people I know. So many people were listening to each other, helping people that needed help, and just being good and kind. For all the times I was overwhelmed with seeing attacks that may have had a lot of misleading information, I’d see multiple things that made my heart happy.

And now, election season is almost done. Ballots are counted starting on Thursday morning and the results should be known by late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Then we can move to getting ready for the National Convention, which will be virtual this year. And I’ll still keep working on the UFS social media since that is something I do all year. But it’s very different during election season and I’m looking forward to when it’s a bit more calm.  And before I know it, it will be time for another election season or vote of some sort and things will ramp up and be crazy again.

But for now, I’m just proud of the campaign we did for this election. I’m so proud of the work others did on social media that helped to make my work easier or better. And no matter what happens, I’m happy with the work we did as a slate and how we represented ourselves.

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Default ThumbnailIt’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer) Default ThumbnailNow It Feels Like Election Season (or Creating So Many Things) Default ThumbnailKicking Off Election Season (or Time To Be Busy With Campaigning) Default ThumbnailThe Official Start To Election Season (or I Can Finally Share Some Things I’ve Been Working On) Default ThumbnailThe End Of The Election (or Actors Please Remember To Vote) Default ThumbnailElection Campaigning (or Being A Captain And Getting Out There)

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Now It Feels Like Election Season (or Creating So Many Things)

Posted on August 5, 2021 | Comments Off on Now It Feels Like Election Season (or Creating So Many Things)

For me, election season for my union starts a lot sooner than it really begins. Not only do I do social media work year-round, there are different phases to election season. There is time before the candidates are announced where we see who is interested in running and making sure that we have things in order. Between the time of candidates being finalized and ballots going out, there is a lot of preparation and announcing some candidates and what our platform is. And when ballots are mailed, everything ramps up and there is a lot more going on with making sure people know who is running and sharing who else is running with Unite For Strength.

And since ballots have been mailed and people should be getting them any day, we are fully into election season which means I’m doing a lot of work. And while I will admit that it can be overwhelming and I’m not sleeping enough, it’s also so rewarding. I have learned a lot of new skills in order to make our social media look the way it does. I am not a graphic designer (another volunteer does a lot of that), but I know how to do some basics and then send it to someone else to edit and correct. And I do get to be creative with what we make and how we present different information.

There have been 2 big projects I’ve been doing for our social media recently. First, we wanted to make images for our candidates to have that show their support for Unite For Strength. We did have a template to make these (which made my life a lot easier), but they did all have to be created one by one. But I’m so proud of how they look and I’m so happy to have this on my personal social media accounts.

And I loved seeing how others loved these too! Seeing so many of them come across my social media feed made me happy and I know people appreciated my work.

And then over the past few days, I worked on our social media voter guides. We do have flyers that announce everyone running with us, but I wanted to create something for social media too. It was easiest to make it on Instagram because of how the restrictions are on other services. But I love how it turned out with the different photo groups for different types of candidates.

I know there is a lot of work I can do on my personal Instagram to make it look beautiful, but I have been able to do so much with the Unite For Strength Instagram account that I really could use for my own. I probably wouldn’t use the same types of grids that I use since I personally would post more photos, but I would like to take a moment when things calm down to see what I can do to make my account look more professional and polished.

And now, it’s all about making sure all members who can vote do so. Just like with national politics, not everyone votes and getting the voter turnout up is something I personally am passionate about. I work on reaching out to all of my friends who I know are members and making sure they vote. And while I do hope they will vote for me and the rest of Unite For Strength, I understand that not everyone feels as passionately about the same issues as I do so they might not vote the same way I would. But getting people involved and voting is so important.

If you are a member of SAG-AFTRA, please vote. I know I ask this every time there is an election, but I will keep saying it every time. I know there are so many people who don’t vote because they forget or they don’t think it matters. But it really does matter. And if you have questions about why I’m running or why I’m a part of Unite For Strength, please reach out to me. I’d be happy to talk to anyone even if you don’t agree with me or decide you don’t want to vote for me.

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Default ThumbnailKicking Off Election Season (or Time To Be Busy With Campaigning) Default ThumbnailIt’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer) Default ThumbnailThe Official Start To Election Season (or I Can Finally Share Some Things I’ve Been Working On) Default ThumbnailMore Election Fun For Me (or I’m Running For 2 Things) Default ThumbnailElection Season Time (or Being A Part Of Unite For Strength) Default ThumbnailUnite For Strength (or SAG-AFTRA Election Time)

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Keeping My Calm (or So Much At Once)

Posted on July 30, 2021 | Comments Off on Keeping My Calm (or So Much At Once)

Even though I just have posted about new job stuff and how I will be working more hours, this post has nothing to do with that even if it seems so. I actually haven’t made any changes just yet, so it’s probably better that I’m having this happen before it does.

I have a problem with being overscheduled, busy, and stressed and then swinging hard in the other direction and being bored. And right now, I’m in a time of being busy. And it’s just the way that everything happened to fall and not something I could have prepared for. I’m trying to stay calm and remember that I don’t have to do everything myself and it’s ok to ask for help. But it’s hard to do that when I want to feel capable and not held back.

Work stuff has been crazy lately, but that might actually be easier when I’m working more hours. I try to clear all the work before my shift ends, and soon I will have twice the time to accomplish that. I don’t want to rush because that’s where mistakes can be made, but I always feel bad if there are things I didn’t get a chance to take care of when my shift ends and someone else’s begins. And I’m aware that I take on a lot more of the work because I handle all the overnight stuff, but I still don’t want the person doing the second half of the day to have anything left when we switch even though they have said it’s ok if that happens.

At my other customer service job, things have been crazy just because that’s how this time of the year goes. We also are almost fully open with about half the staff. So that’s tough for us all and I only am working minimal hours there. So I know I’m lucky but at the same time I still want to get everything done since I am not the person in the morning and don’t want the others to have to do work I couldn’t get to.

And I’m in the middle of election season for my union. This is stressful to go through but so rewarding. And in the past I had a bit more free time to work on things. There’s also the added change with not doing anything in person and having much more done online, which makes my job a bit more than in the past. But I’m working on my time management as much as I can so I have the time to do all my responsibilities or realize early enough that I need help so someone else can jump in.

And I’m sure the fact that it’s been very hot here recently and I’m pretty isolated in my house isn’t helping. I’m not going out and being social outside of my workouts and the rare hangout with a friend. I know I need to take mental health breaks, even if they are just something inside my house. I need to make sure I don’t hit burnout because I know that it will affect me harder than normal when I don’t have ways to mentally escape.

I know that this is temporary and I will likely be feeling bored again. But until that happens, I just have to take care of myself and make sure that these extreme moments don’t become too hard for me to get through.

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Default ThumbnailTrying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe) Default ThumbnailBack To Normal (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailMissing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management) Default ThumbnailProductive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

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Posted in Acting, Tough Stuff, Work

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Kicking Off Election Season (or Time To Be Busy With Campaigning)

Posted on July 14, 2021 | Comments Off on Kicking Off Election Season (or Time To Be Busy With Campaigning)

I’ve gone through SAG-AFTRA election season 3 times in the past. And my involvement during election season has changed and increased over each election. It’s a stressful time for so many of us, but it’s also very worth it. I am passionate about the direction my union is going and making sure that we have the best union possible for all members. And while I hope that I will be elected to the position or positions I’m running for, I also know the importance of getting others who have similar mindsets elected too. And that’s why I’m so happy to be with the Unite For Strength slate.

Things are only getting started with this election season. We have not announced our full slate just yet, but we will be doing so soon. And that’s when I’ll share more about what I’m running for. But we have announced our candidates for National President and National Secretary-Treasurer. And I’m so excited about those candidates as well as the ones we haven’t announced just yet. I love when I discover other members who have a similar passion for union service as I do and I also love to see people move into more and more leadership positions. I know that one day, my group of members will be the leaders of the union and it’s amazing to see that growth happen in front of my eyes. I don’t know how far in union leadership I personally want to go into, but I don’t think there will be a time that I’m a member of SAG-AFTRA and not wanting to be a part of union service in one way or another. Before my first election, I never imagined doing this. Now, I can’t imagine my life without it.

I am doing the social media work for my slate again, just like I have before. I can’t share a ton of information just yet, but I can’t wait until we announce more and I start posting more. Of course, this can be a bit stressful too, but it’s worth it just like election season is. And even though I know there can be a lot of negativity on social media, especially when it comes to politics and elections, I usually see more positive things online than negative which helps a lot.

Normally during election season, both my slate as well as the other slate campaign in similar ways and they are typically done in person. We pass out information as people are walking into different in-person union events. This year, things will be different. Most of the events that we would be campaigning at are not happening. The main one that I used to campaign at, the Film Society screenings, have not returned yet and I don’t think anyone knows when the next Film Society season would be. I know that everyone is trying to find new ways to campaign and I’m sure I will be doing a lot of it just as I do with campaigning before. And this isn’t the first time we’ve had to do some sort of campaigning without in-person events. We did this for the last contract. And while I will miss these opportunities to campaign in person and meet new people, I know that future election seasons will have that chance when things are safer for us all.

I know the next few months, my life will be a bit crazy and busy with election season, but I’m also very excited about that. I will still try to find ways to be social outside of union stuff because I want to get more of my life back. But having election season here is another thing that feels like the old normal to me, so I’m embracing that feeling. And hopefully I will have some exciting news once all the votes are counted!

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Default ThumbnailIt’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer) Default ThumbnailElection Campaigning (or Being A Captain And Getting Out There) Default ThumbnailThe Official Start To Election Season (or I Can Finally Share Some Things I’ve Been Working On) Default ThumbnailElection Season Time (or Being A Part Of Unite For Strength) Default ThumbnailLate Night Election Results (or All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go) Default ThumbnailThe End Of The Election (or Actors Please Remember To Vote)

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

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Finally Back To Brunch (or The First Mentoring Group Meeting In Over A Year)

Posted on June 29, 2021 | Comments Off on Finally Back To Brunch (or The First Mentoring Group Meeting In Over A Year)

For the past few years, having meetings with my WIF mentoring group has been a regular part of my life. We have changed the frequency of the meetings over the years, but we have been meeting up regularly since 2015. I’m always so proud of our group for being able to maintain our meetings even after the official mentoring circle time ended. And while there are a few members of our group who aren’t a part of it anymore, a majority of us have stayed connected and we have 6 of us who have been regularly there since the beginning.

In 2020, we had one of our brunches. It was right before everything shut down. I don’t think any of us could have imagined what was going to happen in a few weeks. I know we were all aware of what was happening, but it felt like it was on the other side of the world and wouldn’t come here. But of course, we know now that it did come here and we’ve been dealing with this for over a year now.

We talked about having a meeting over Zoom, but we never ended up making that happen. I think all of us were feeling a bit burned out on Zoom, so we didn’t want to do it. As much as we wanted to connect, we didn’t make it happen. Also, I know for myself, I had nothing to really update the group about.

But earlier this year, we agreed we wanted to see each other again and start our brunches. We wanted to wait until we were all vaccinated, just to keep things as safe as possible. And finally, 16 months after our last brunch, we got together this past weekend.

Almost everyone could make it, so that was nice. We used to do our brunches at a restaurant, but we wanted to wait until restaurants were a bit safer. So one member of the group offered to host. That’s how the group started, so it seemed fitting that the restart of the group would be the same way.

It was a really hot morning, but we were able to be in the shade so it wasn’t too bad. And I was just so happy to get to see everyone again! I just wanted to catch up with everyone, even if it was more of a social catch-up than a career one.

But we still went around the group to discuss what we’ve been able to accomplish in the past year. Some people had more than others, but that’s ok. Honestly, I’m just glad we are all ok. One member of the group had gotten COVID, but she didn’t have too severe of a case and she is fine now. But I know how lucky we are that everyone is safe and healthy.

And I did share the few career-related things I had to update everyone on. I have had auditions during the shutdown and I have gotten better at self-taping. I also have a way to do voiceover auditions now, and I didn’t do those before. And I shared some of the struggles I had while isolated and not being able to be around others. It was nice to share those things with a group that understood how I felt and was completely supportive of me.

We had a longer brunch than normal. Partially because we hadn’t seen each other in a while and partially because we weren’t at a restaurant and felt like we needed to leave. I’m so happy we did this. I missed all of these women so much and I missed the support of the group and the special bond we have with each other. And I needed time around friends, and this was the biggest group of friends I’ve been around in a long time.

We are hopefully now back on track with our regular meetings. We might not be back at a restaurant for a bit longer, but we will find ways to meet regularly. Maybe we will just rotate from one house to another. Maybe we will find a park or other public space. We don’t know how we will meet up just yet, but we know we will meet.

I’ve said so many times how special this group is. And showing how we didn’t let a pandemic stop us just proves it even more.

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Default ThumbnailLast Mentoring Group Brunch For The Year (or Switching Things Up For Next Year) Default ThumbnailFinally Seeing My Mentoring Group Again (or Our First Brunch Of 2020) Default ThumbnailAnother Business Brunch (or A Delayed Mentoring Circle Meeting) Default ThumbnailFinally Having Our Brunch (or Almost All The Mentees Together Again) Default Thumbnail4 Years Of My Mentoring Circle (or Celebrating With Brunch) Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority)

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

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Finding Some Crossover With My Skills (or A New Way To Use Self-Tape Skills)

Posted on June 11, 2021 | Comments Off on Finding Some Crossover With My Skills (or A New Way To Use Self-Tape Skills)

There are a lot of skills I have gained in life that are really only good for the reason I originally learned them for. For example, I used to work in credit card disputes and I gained a lot of skills on how to complete and win the disputes for the company side. I guess technically I can use these skills in understanding how disputes work for other aspects of my life, but so much of what I learned there was specific to that job. It’s the same with a lot of my acting skills. Some I can use for other things, like becoming good at memorization, but many don’t have a purpose outside of acting, like breaking down a script into beats.

But occasionally, I will discover that a random skill that I have learned at some point in my life works for something else. This doesn’t happen too often, but it’s really fun when it does. And I had that happen the other day when I was preparing to renew my passport.

I didn’t realize my passport was going to expire this year until I was doing something and happened to look at it. This was the 3rd passport I’ve had, and sadly it was the first one that had no stamps in it. My last international trip was in the beginning of 2005. I do want to travel again and have ideas of countries I want to visit, but I have no clue when that will happen. Now, it’s not as much of an issue of money (since I have money saved up), but it’s an issue of the world being safe again for traveling. I hope this won’t be much longer, but I am in no rush either. I just hope that by the time I have to renew my passport in 10 years, the one I’ll be getting soon will have at least 1 stamp in it.

Even though I have no plans to travel internationally right now, it’s important for me to have a valid passport. If I do make plans to travel, that’s one less thing for me to worry about. Also, one of the things most actors have is a valid passport because you never know when you might book a job that is out of the country. And since it can take time to get the new passport, having a valid one is the easiest way to be prepared.

The passport renewal process is pretty simple. I was able to complete my application online and print it out. I have my old passport that is about to expire so that eliminates some of the work I’d have to do too. The only thing that I really had to do was to get a new passport photo.

Every other time I’ve gotten a passport photo, I’ve gone somewhere to do it. I don’t remember if my past ones were at AAA or a drugstore like CVS, but I do remember getting them done and having them printed out. I’ve had a few good passport photos, but I have always hated my most recent one. So I was happy to be getting a new passport with a new photo. But I didn’t necessarily want to go somewhere to get it done, and I know some places that used to do passport photos have put them on hold for now.

But I did remember I had some photo paper that I’ve never used so I decided to do it at home. So I set things up just like I did for taking a self-tape audition in my dining room. I already knew how make sure I had good lighting and had a ring light available if I needed it. I also have gotten pretty good at setting up my phone or iPad on a tripod for self-tapes so I am in the frame the way I want and I know I’ll be in focus. I thought about doing a video first and taking a screenshot from it for my photo, but it ended up being easy enough for me to set the timer to take photos. I took a few photos, looked at them, changed my setup a bit, took some more, and repeated that process until I was happy with how my photo looked. And that was a nice benefit of doing my own passport photo. I could make sure it would be a photo I’m ok with for the next 10 years.

There is also a guide on the government website for passport renewals where you can upload your photo to make sure it has the right dimensions. I know there is still a small chance it won’t be perfect, but I did use that tool online to have the site crop my photo and make sure it has the dimensions around my face (it’s not just the size of the photo, you have to have a certain amount of space from the edge to the top of your head). I’m hoping for the best and that I won’t get something back saying my application has been rejected for my photo. But I feel like enough people print out photos at home that it should be fine. Not everyone probably uses a ruler to confirm everything like I do.

I don’t know how many other ways I will use my self-tape skills to use for something else, but it was nice to find a new way to use them. And it got something accomplished that I needed to do, so that’s a win too. And hopefully, renewing my passport is a sign that maybe I will be traveling again soon.

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It’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer)

Posted on May 20, 2021 | Comments Off on It’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer)

Every other summer for the past 6 years, I’ve spent a lot of my time campaigning for the SAG-AFTRA election. I’ve done this 3 times so far and each time has been a little different.

The first year I was running, I was running as a delegate and didn’t have much of a leadership position within Unite For Strength. I did end up having a little bit of leadership with some of the in-person campaign events, but it was just because I was going often and could help make sure people had the information they needed. The second year, I had a bit more of a leadership position within the slate with social media work. I was much more comfortable campaigning and felt like I really knew what to do. And the last time I was campaigning, I was even more involved. I was running for both a delegate and local board position. I was fully running the Unite For Strength social media. I didn’t attend that many in-person campaign events, but I worked hard in other ways to make sure members voted and encouraging others to support my slate.

And it’s starting to be time to campaign again now! And this year will be even more different than before.

First, I’m not sure yet if I’m running for both delegate and local board or just delegate yet. That’s still being decided and there is time before that has to be figured out. Either way, I’m excited to be a part of union service again and I hope I’m elected.

But the biggest difference is how to have election season during a pandemic. I am glad that we weren’t doing this last summer when things were much worse, but things still aren’t back to normal again. It’s already been announced that the National Convention will be held virtually this year. I’m not sure how it will be compared to the past 3 conventions I attended, but I know it will be different. I’m going to miss the time I had to meet members from other locals and the social aspect of Convention. But we will still be able to work hard for our members just like we have in the past.

And I don’t know how much campaigning will be able to happen in person either. Last time, we didn’t get to campaign at the DGA since the Film Society didn’t happen the same way it did before. And I’m pretty sure the Film Society won’t be back by this summer, so that will be out. So there will be a lot of virtual campaigning this time, which is something I am used to.

I’m still in prep mode for election season. There is a lot to still work out for both the social media work and all the rest of campaigning. And while I do have time, I know the real election season will be here before we know it. Even though this year seems to be moving slower than normal, I know that the end of the election and Convention will be here quickly. And I hope that I’m just as successful, if not more, this election season as I have been for the past election seasons.

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Some Friend and Acting Time (or Still Helping With Self-Tapes)

Posted on April 27, 2021 | Comments Off on Some Friend and Acting Time (or Still Helping With Self-Tapes)

It’s been a little while since I’ve had an audition. That’s ok, I know that not everything is back just yet and it might take longer for more shows to be back in production. And for a lot of shows, they are trying to limit the size of their casts, so they might not have as many co-stars as they had before. It is getting better than it was earlier this year, but it’s still not back to full capacity.

And I’m also ok with it since I don’t usually get a ton of auditions in normal times. I do want that to improve and I have some things I’m hoping to change in the near future to hopefully help, but for right now I’m more focused on making sure I’m in a good spot to take advantage of what I’d like to do. So while I’d love to have more auditions and opportunties right now, I’m not that concerned that things haven’t changed that much for me.

But I have had some friends noticing an increase in their auditions lately and that’s awesome. Some of them are going into a casting office for their auditions, but doing self-tapes is still a very popular option. And while there are some things I don’t love about self-tapes, there are a lot of benefits too. And learning how to do self-tapes when people are not together in the same place has been something everyone has been learning to do.

Normally with self-tape auditions, you’d have a friend come by to help you by having them be the camera person and saying the other lines in the scene. And even though I’m vaccinated and many of my friends are as well, we still aren’t going to someone’s place to help them record. This isn’t that bad of a plan, because it’s nice that we all know how to help friends do their self-tape auditions even if we can’t get over to them. I don’t hate having to drive across town to help a friend, but it’s nice to not have to do that.

And I got the chance to help friends do self-tapes recently and it really does make me happy. I obviously would prefer to have my own auditions, but even being a reader lets me have a little time where I get to have a bit of acting time. The most recent self-tape I helped with was for my birthday twin friend, Joanna. It was for a film project and I was able to help her over Zoom so I was being the reader while in her house.

It was an interesting audition to be a reader for because almost all the lines were ones I had to read. Joanna had some lines too, but a lot more of her audition was about reacting. So it really gave me time to feel like I had playtime with acting. I wasn’t doing anything too crazy since it wasn’t my audition, but I still tried hard to make sure I was the best reader possible for her.

After going through a few takes with different options, Joanna had a great take that I thought was amazing! We did another one after that just to be safe and she checked her camera to make sure that everything looked and sounded fine. It was perfect and we were able to get her entire audition done in only a few minutes.

But since we both had set aside a bit more time for her audition, we stayed on Zoom and had a nice chance to hangout and talk. It’s a little crazy to think that we are actually having more hangout time in a pandemic than normal times. We usually text throughout the year but only really see each other for our birthday and for our cheesecake outing. But this past year we also had the Drag Queen show and the times we’ve helped each other with our self-tapes. I love that somehow the pandemic has given us more chances to see each other and talk. And since we had just seen each other somewhat recently, there wasn’t a lot to discuss in our post-audition hangout. But it was still nice to have some time with a friend since that’s something I still am not doing that often.

I hope that either I get some self-tape auditions or I have friends who need help so I can be a reader coming up. When there aren’t a lot of things I can control in my acting career, having these moments are so much fun for me to do. And it’s even better when I get to also have a friend hangout after some acting fun!

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