The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Audition Favs and Fails, Part One
To be honest, we don’t always book the job. But that’s ok, because it’s pretty much the industry standard. Think about it; since COVID and the launch of self-tapes, the competition is fierce and plentiful. And then there are Socials, where anyone can be an instamodel and instafamous. How many followers do you have? Sometimes even that matters.
I cringe when I think about some of the auditions we’ve done where we didn’t quite nail it. Sometimes, I booked it anyway (Hyundai), and sometimes we didn’t- like that fabulous several-months-long job, cruising through Europe.
In the end, I don’t know why we didn’t get the job because there’s no way to know.
We just make like FROZEN and LET IT GO.
Last year, I got a call back for a national commercial with a pretty large field of actors. I counted that as a win. But then I really did hope to seal the deal, and nail the call back.
Someone has to book it, it might as well be me, is what I always say.
But the callback was via ZOOM and, well, I’m an "on-the-cusp boomer, with Gen X rising."
While I am tech support in our household, I am woefully sucky at most tech.
This boom don’t zoom.
So, I somehow set up the ZOOM call and get put into the virtual waiting room, whatever that is.
And then the producer comes on and gives us a reallyquickrundownofwhattodo, and my senior memory forgets all of the directions he gave us. He says I’m third on deck, and then he says, “Don’t forget to set your camera on your tripod and leave enough room to do both full body and close up on your camera!”
Camera. What camera??! Tripod?
I’m ZOOMING via my computer in our tiny office. Sure, there's a camera somewhere on my monitor, but it's not like I can mount the whole monitor on a tripod and move it around the house.
There’s head, shoulders but NO knees and toes, knees and toes, in my monitor's frame.
I panic.
I consider hanging up.
I think I should hang up.
I'll just pretend the ZOOM disconnected on its own. There. That’s the ticket.
I’m trying to figure out how to hang up when the director’s face suddenly pops up on my monitor screen.
Yikes.
I crouch down into my tiny ZOOM frame and apologize.
Like, my head is upside down, stage left, and upside down, and I’m peering into the little camera thingy that's perched on my monitor.
“I’ve never done a callback via Zoom,” I weakly explain.
He looks alarmed.
I look alarmed.
It feels… like dying.
He sighs. He gives me a few directions.
I panic-act, like suddenly I’m a trained mime?
I don’t know; I blocked it out. I didn’t get the job. End scene.
That reminds me of an audition my daughter recently did for a national commercial where they asked her to improv as a waitress, placing different foods in front of her imaginary diner. With each placement, she needed to make up the name of a food she served. She does so many takes, naming different foods- hamburgers, linguini with clams, and so on and by the tenth take, the only thing she can think of is:
“And here is your tomato pesto food, Sir.”
Alrighty then.
But she books it.
Since that audition, every time we have an odd audition where we are sure we didn’t book it but maybe, just maybe, we did book it, we call it a tomato pesto food audition.
My Hyundai audition was another probable fail, another tomato pesto food, if you will.
In this TPF in-person audition, I blew the lines, the actions, and at the end, with the camera still rolling, I threw my hands in the air and said, “Well, that’s one I didn’t book!”
And then I did a jig, like Ashlee Simpson on SNL.
After the jig, I thanked the client and the casting director, and walked out of the room with my tail between my legs, whilst dragging my self-esteem behind me.
Two days later, my agent contacted me.
“Congratulations, you booked it!” she said.
“Impossible,” I replied adamantly.
But I showed up to the set on the right day and at the right time, and they didn’t throw me out. I don’t know what they saw in me; it literally could’ve been that I was the right height and hair color? I didn’t have to do the jig or anything on screen, so it definitely wasn’t the jig that sold them.
So, the moral of this story is this...
you don’t know why they want you,
and you don’t know why they don’t,
so,
just do your best
or don’t,
I guess.
Because it’s all TPF.
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