Tag Archives: commercials

Going From So Much Excitement To Normal In A Few Hours (or Life As An Actor)

Posted on March 27, 2015 | 1 comment

My day on Tuesday was going to be pretty normal. I knew I had work from 10-3 as usual and then I had the afternoon free (my temp job is done now).

So as I went around doing my after-work errands (which included buying the digital version of “Into The Woods” for my AppleTV), I was pretty much in no-stress mode.

Then, as I’m sitting at home, I get a text from my agents. I had an audition for Wednesday evening! It was for a national commercial and I had lines to prepare.

So I quickly got into actor mode. First, I rescheduled my afternoon workout for Wednesday. I might have been able to both workout and make it to the audition, but I didn’t want to stress about it. So I rescheduled to a super early workout. Since the audition took place late, I didn’t have to worry about dealing with anything at my day job, so that was one less thing to take care of.

I really wanted to watch “Into The Woods”, so I had it up on my tv while I ran the lines for the audition on the Rehearsal 2 app on my iPad.

Audition Prep

The script for the audition was more than I’m used to for commercial auditions. There were 4 potential parts that I could be auditioning for (the audition notice didn’t specify the part), so I decided that I would memorize all 4 parts.

So I spent a good chunk of my afternoon/evening working on the script and getting everything else ready for the audition the next day (plus planning on waking up early to get in a before-work workout).

Then, I got another text from my agents.

My audition was canceled.

My agents really didn’t get much information beyond the audition being canceled. So it could be for tons of different reasons. Maybe they didn’t want me to audition. Maybe they already cast the part. Maybe it’s not really canceled but it will be rescheduled and they don’t have a new reschedule date yet. Maybe the commercial isn’t going to happen anymore.

No matter the reason, there was no need for me to prep anymore.

So I did all my prep work in reverse. I put away my iPad and the script. I canceled my early morning workout and rebooked my afternoon workout. And I got to watch “Into The Woods” without having to focus on the script.

This is a way of life for me. I think this is only the first or second audition that was ever canceled on me. Usually, when I get a cancellation text my agents have been told that it will be rescheduled but the casting directors don’t know when. They can’t reschedule without a date through the online submission services so if the new date is unknown, the audition has to be canceled.

I can’t get down about this. I did nothing wrong. And for all I know, in a week or two this audition will come back and it will actually be a reschedule and not a cancellation.

I just have to keep thinking positive and know that eventually, an awesome part will be mine. But for now, I will just be grateful that I was considered for a great job and I got to practice my acting skill with a new script.

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Super Bowl (or Faking My Football Knowledge)

Posted on February 4, 2014 | Comments Off on Super Bowl (or Faking My Football Knowledge)

My friends Kate and Beth held a Super Bowl party this past weekend. I don’t really care about the Super Bowl. I wasn’t raised in a house that watches football. In fact, the very first time I had ever really seen a football game was at my high school.

But I do love the Super Bowl commercials! It’s even more fun when I know people in them!

So I went over to the party to watch the game and have a good time. I knew that most people there were going to be into watching the game and not the commercials, so I DVRed the game at home just in case I needed to re-watch commercials that I missed (this was a very smart move).

The party was full of food. I’m glad that I brought wine because there was pretty much no room for any more food in the apartment! I got a plate with some goodies and got a seat on the couch for the game.

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The tv was working fine for the first 40 minutes or so, then it decided that we needed to watch the game in black and white.

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It went back to color after a few minutes, but then right after that, the screen went black.

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Turns out, the standard definition feed for Fox went out for Time Warner customers in Los Angeles. Since Kate and Beth didn’t have access to the high-definition feed, we ended up streaming the game from a laptop.

As most of you probably know, the game wasn’t all too exciting. It was pretty much a win for Seattle from the first minute (which kind of stunk since everyone at the party was rooting for Denver). I didn’t really understand too much of what was going on during the game, so I just cheered when everyone else cheered and booed when everyone else booed.

Since the game was looking pretty dismal, everyone started to pay attention to the commercials. But we noticed that we kept seeing the same commercials over and over again and everyone on twitter was talking about different commercials than what we were seeing. Turns out, the live stream didn’t show the commercials! That’s the best part of the game! Fortunately, I had my DVRed game waiting for me at home, so I watched the commercials then (my favorite was the Budweiser one with the puppy).

When the game ended, everyone pretty much agreed that the game stunk but at least the party was good. I liked that the game was boring because I was able to follow along a lot more than I probably would have been able to.

Hopefully next year, the game will be better and maybe I’ll be in one of those Super Bowl commercials!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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A Quick Day On Set (or Pretending To Be Warm When It’s Freezing Out)

Posted on December 11, 2013 | Comments Off on A Quick Day On Set (or Pretending To Be Warm When It’s Freezing Out)

Yesterday I was filming a commercial. I can’t say what it’s for, but I can tell you that I was in the background and you probably won’t see me in the final cut. But it was still an awesome day (any day on set is pretty much guaranteed to be an awesome day).

It was a very early start for me. I had to be on set at 7am and the location was just over an hour away from my house. So I left around 5:30am (and woke up at 5am). The drive was fine. There was no traffic at that time and I had a bunch of podcasts that I wanted to catch up on. The only problem was the high winds so my car felt like it was shaking a lot.

When I got to set, it was freezing. Literally.

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Fortunately, I brought some of my winter clothes with me to keep me warm. I have a down puffy coat that is still a bit to small to zip up, but I wore that with a scarf and gloves and stayed pretty warm.

The commercial is supposed to be set in the summer, so my wardrobe was a short sleeved shirt. I brought my coat out with me to wear between takes, but when the camera was rolling I had to hide the coat and tough it out in my t-shirt.

It was hard to not shiver when I wasn’t wearing my coat. I was really cold. It never got that much warmer during the day (when I left the temperature was only up to 32). But I tried to think warm thoughts and focus on having fun.

The day was really short. We were all done by 1pm. So I got back in my car and started the drive back home. Again, there was very little traffic so I made it home pretty quickly.

As soon as I got home, I took a nap. I needed it! And I ended up sleeping for a couple of hours (so my attempt to make it for the second half of my shift at work didn’t happen).

It was an easy and quick day, and I had a great time working in front of the camera. I loved that I got to finish out 2013 by working on set on another great project. Hopefully 2014 will bring me more opportunities like this!

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You Never Know Who You’ll Run Into (or Seeing A Familiar Face 6 Years Later)

Posted on November 27, 2013 | Comments Off on You Never Know Who You’ll Run Into (or Seeing A Familiar Face 6 Years Later)

I have one more story to share from the film festival. But this one requires a bit of back story.

In 2007, I worked on a Fox tv show called “Unhitched” for one episode. It was technically background work (meaning no lines), but I was going to be featured so you could see my face and I wasn’t just someone in a big crowd. The scene was at a party and a kid who can’t swim gets knocked into a pool by one of the main characters. A very attractive woman wearing a white dress jumps into the pool to save the kid. As she comes out of the pool, her dress is see-through so a lot of the men are looking at her. The man playing my husband in the show is taking a home movie of her walking out of the pool and I walk into the frame about to eat a piece of pizza. My husband asks if I really need to eat that, and I take a giant bite. Fun fact from that shoot: we had to do it so many times that I went through 3 large pizzas (I got to spit it out so I didn’t really eat it).

Anyway, it was a one day shoot, I had a lot of fun, and I made some decent money (they screwed up my call time so I ended up getting a lot of overtime that day).

A few months after shooting that, my parents started to get a couple of calls about a commercial about a tv show I was in. My parents asked me about it, and I figured it must be from “Unhitched”. I didn’t see the commercial for a while, but when I did, it was during a commercial break from “American Idol” (so I know a bunch of people saw it). I had it saved on my DVR so I could remember that moment.

A few months later, I was working the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival when this man approached me and asked me if I was on “Unhitched”. I explained that I did a background role on one episode but yes, I was in that commercial. Well, turns out the man who came up to me was the man who cut the commercials for the show! He was the one responsible for putting me in that commercial! I thanked him so much for the exposure he gave to me, and he promised to send me a DVD of the commercial so I could keep it (here’s the link for it on YouTube).

I’ve always been so grateful to this guy for putting me into the commercial for the show (and sending me a copy of it).

Flash forward to this past weekend. When I was putting together all the materials for the film festival, there was one name that stuck out to me. I couldn’t remember how I knew it, but I figured that I would find out when I saw the person. Turns out, it was the same guy from 6 years ago who cut me into the commercial! He couldn’t believe that we ran into each other again (and it had been years since he worked for Fox making those commercials). He watched the commercial again on YouTube and showed it off to all of his friends. And we kept laughing how cool it was to run into each other again.

This all proves to me again how small the entertainment industry is. And how important it is to be nice to everyone you meet. This guy, who used to make commercials, is now in a position to hire me for a project (and of course I gave him my business card so he wouldn’t forget me). I also was so glad to run into him so I could express my gratitude to him again for putting me in that commercial and giving me that type of exposure. It is so rare to get so much attention from a background role.

Running into people you’ve worked with or met years ago is one of the reasons I love this industry. When you really get into it, everyone knows everyone and you don’t feel so alone.

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Another Day Another Audition (or This Is The Life I Love)

Posted on October 25, 2012 | Comments Off on Another Day Another Audition (or This Is The Life I Love)

I’ve got another audition today. This time, it’s for a commercial.

Commercials can be interesting to audition for. Sometimes, all you have to do is walk in, say your name, and they take a photo of you. That’s it. Other times, you do have lines to say. For my audition today, according to the online information, I have no lines to work on. There might be something to read at the audition, so I’ll get there early today.

The audition I had last week went really well. But the day after the audition, the show I auditioned for was cancelled so that episode won’t be filmed. I personally find this funny, but other non-industry people found this weird. They couldn’t understand why there was an audition when they show was getting canceled. I tried to explain that the show might not have known that they were about to end, but this is a weird industry to try to understand if you aren’t in it.

I’ve got today off from my day job today (I was the only person who could work and my supervisor didn’t want me to have to work 8 hours alone), so today is the type of day that I dream about. I have an audition this morning, a headshot shoot tomorrow to prep for today, and I can focus on me. I wish this was my life everyday. As a friend said to me yesterday, my job is getting in the way of my career.

I’m lucky because I know that I can always go to auditions, but it would be nice to not spend 6 days a week at a job and not focusing on my career. There are always more things that I want to do. I’m working on filming some new scenes for my demo reel, I’d like to be able to focus a bit more on taking classes (I’m about to start Porter Kelly’s commercial class on Sundays), and I’d also like to have some more fun in my life.

But for now, I’m just going to enjoy my perfect actor day and try to kick some butt at the audition today.

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