Day 311: Went to Power Group at TAN followed by coffee with Y'vonne. I swear there are some people in this world who always make you feel better when you're in their presence, she is one of them.
Day 312: The block schedule I created isn't working for me so now I'm trying something new. Today I took my monthly goals that I shared in Power Group and divided them up week by week to make sure I do the tasks needed to help me meet those goals.
Day 313 - 314: Updated my regional rep target list by using IMDb Pro to find all the agents whose clients were on the last few episodes of VH1's Single Ladies, CW's Vampire Diaries and BET's The Game, Let's Stay Together and Reed Between the Lines since they all shoot in Atlanta.
PRIMAL BEHAVIORS
Documentary
NON-UNION
Documentary Series for Animal Planet
SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY
SUBMISSIONS DUE BY 5PM THURSDAY 11/24
IF POSSIBLE, PLEASE SUBMIT ACTOR'S ONLINE DEMO CLIPS ALONG
WITH EACH ACTOR SUBMISSION.
This is not a role for actors. Please only submit if you have a real story
that you can share.
PRIMAL BEHAVIORS:
[ PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW AN EXTREME DIET OF RAW MEAT ] Do you eat rats, rodents, squirrels, or other road kill? ***** Casting currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet, featuring
people who follow an extreme diet of raw meat that they hunt, search,
and kill as part of their daily diet.
[ PEOPLE ADDICTED TO ANIMALS ] Are you having a monogamous relationship with your animal? Have you
become addicted or attached to one or more animals? ***** Casting is
currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet, featuring people whose
lives have been impacted because of your animal addictions?
[ PEOPLE WHO FEEL THEY WERE BORN AN ANIMAL ]
Do you feel that you were born an animal and living in the wrong body?
Have you tried to alter your physical appearance to look like an animal?
***** Casting is currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet featuring
people who know they are living in an animal's skin and not their own.
[ PEOPLE WITH ASBURGERS ]
***** Casting is looking for people who deal with asburgers disease.
If you are a clinical psychologist - we will be questioning your knowledge
on animal affection and primal behavior.
[ PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING IN DOGHOUSES ] Do you use live in a doghouse for shelter? Do you inhabit the space of a
dog in either your own backyard or the backyard of someone you know?
***** Casting is currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet featuring
people who are living in doghouses.
[ PEOPLE WHO HAVE A NEED TO LOOK/FEEL LIKE AN ANIMAL ]
How far have you gone to feel like an animal? Have you lost relationships
and friends because of your need to feel primal. ***** Casting is currently
casting a docu-series for Animal Planet featuring people who are have a
need to look or feel like an animal.
Day 310: Edited my reel using iMovie {thank goodness for my MAC computer at work} and added it to all my sites: You Tube, Vimeo, Actors Access, LA Casting, CAZT and my personal website. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a fancy shmancy reel like what Lex can do but it will suffice until I have all my scenes ready to go for her. I'm waiting on the "Promotion" scene that should be edited by the end of the month and I still need to shoot one more scene with my classmate Y'vonne. So till then, I'm very proud of my newbie attempt to edit this thing!
Day 309: Performed a scene from Private Practice at an awesome manager workshop with Melanie Sharpe put on by casting director Billy DaMota and Actor Rated. I really wasn't even supposed to be able to go but Tara worked her magic to get me on the list at the last minute. I ended up leaving in the middle of work since it didn't start until 9:30 with a coworker of mine named Liz who was also on the list and we had a great time. There were a lot of really nice and really funny scenes and everyone was prepared as requested. Afterwards I exchanged contact info with a few of the other actors whose work I liked and vice versa. Then Liz and I headed back to work a full 2 hours later where we didn't get off until 4am due to our acting excursion.
Day 308: Privates with DaJuan at SKS. Since I can't afford to take class right now {mainly due to the expense of finishing DWP} I've decided to take half-hour privates with DaJuan twice a month. Now it's not the same as getting the full class experience, especially since I am a visual learner who can pick up on things when I see other people do it but at least it gets me back working on sides, breaking down scenes and practicing my craft.
Day 306: On a very last-minute crew hunt for a Boom Operator {does sound}, Still Photographer and Makeup Artist since all 3 of my normal people are unavailable for our shoot this weekend. Thank goodness for both Mandy and Craigslist as I found what I needed at the very last minute!!
Day 307: Shot the bakery scene in episode 8 of DWP along with 2 web promos for the shop that let us use their space- Cordially Invited & Southern Girl Desserts. The nice thing was that I was able to cast a couple of my friends in the promos so they'll have a nice addition to their commercial reel.
Day 304: Held callbacks for episode 8 of DWP and it was so much fun! We paired up the actors we loved and had them mix and match so that we could see who had good chemistry with each other and with each change we saw something new. It's going to be super tough to pick our 2 leads as all of the guys did a really fantastic job.
Day 305: Wrote a promo for Southern Girl Desserts as part of the trade-off since they are allowing us to shoot in their shop this weekend.
Day 303: Reviewed Eco-Cast auditions for DWP Episode 8 along with those sent directly to my email. It's interesting to note that less than 10% of actors who were invited to submit a self-taped audition actually did. This means those who did take the time to tape themselves {and yes most were home videos without bells & whistles} had a much higher chance of being asked to come in for callbacks and some roles were even offered outright.
Day 301: Wrote a promo for Cordially Invited as part of the trade-off for allowing us to shoot in their shop.
Day 302: Casting session for DWP Episode 8 held at CAZT. We saw some HILARIOUS actors! It's always nice when you have a handful of people who do such a great job that you know you'll have a hard time making a decision. This means callbacks!
Day 300: Got to act today! Woke up at 6:30 am {when I usually get to sleep in on the weekends} in order to drive to my colleague Jamie Fishback's office so we could shoot a scene I wrote titled "Promotion." His office was the perfect setting and we had the entire floor to ourselves, though we ended up only using the lounge area as written. Jamie was a great scene partner and we were shot and directed by the very easy to work with Jared Hoy.
Day 298 - 299: Selected actors on CAZT and Actors Access to audition next week. For the most part I find it incredibly fun to watch actors reels but there were a few that either bored me to pieces or were just flat out weird that made me wonder why in the hell they'd spend their hard-earned money to upload it on these sites in the first place. On the other hand, there were definitely some that had me cracking up and made me excited to call those actors in.
Very excited to get the news that my blog has been featured on About.com. Here's an excerpt from the post...
"Ms. Ford has really put a lot of time, energy, and creativity into this project. First of all, she has been keeping an up-to-date record or her professional endeavors, detailing the highs and lows of being a working actress in the Los Angeles area. Secondly, when she isn't going from one audition to the next, she is busy creating her own comedy web-series, Diary of a Wedding Planner."
Day 297: Birthday lunch with Tara where we ate yummy red & blue velvet pancakes at Larchmont Bungalow followed by a commercial audition for Nature's Valley Snack Bar. I pretty much bombed this one. First of all it was a last-minute same day audition and I got the notice right as I was on my way out to see Tara. I had to completely change my hair & outfit only to discover when I got there that it said the wardrobe was "Hip & trendy business casual." Somehow I only saw "Hip & trendy" so I was the only one in jeans in a room full of slacks and blouses. Then once in the room I followed directions but the whole time I was just going through the motions and wasn't really connected at all. Truth be told, I was thinking about how I really wanted to go home instead of going to work and so my focus was way off. Definitely not getting called back for this one.
Day 295: Shot the last scene for episode 6 then had lunch with some of the crew at Denny's. Being on USC's campus made me wish for my college days when bills and real life were of no concern. Anyhow, here are some of the pics...
Day 294: Office hours - Updated my website and went through my notebook of story ideas expanding on the ones that seem viable and discarding those that no longer interest me.
Day 292 - 293: Worked on the outline and the first few scenes of our feature film. Tara & I are using Google Docs now, making it easier for us to see the changes that the other has made.
We had a fun Halloween this year. In the past we've always taken the boys to a "Hallelujah Night" or "Harvest Festival" held on church grounds but this year we decided to take them Trick or Treating. I thought it was Jayden's first time until I remembered he went once when he was 3 years old and we were living in Houston. This was definitely Stevie's first time and they both had a blast! Only had my phone to take pics but next year I'll be more prepared.
What you don't see is the both of them running and crying when we knocked on the door of a house and one of the "props" came to life banging on the door and scaring the crap out of ALL of us. It was hilarious once I caught my breath but they didn't really think so.
Once we got home I made them star in this video for their grammy {Sorry if it's still sideways. I keep trying to adjust it on YouTube but it's not working.}
Day 291: I had a coaching session with my acting teacher DaJuan Johnson followed by the audition itself- a lead role for a webseries called Luck & Baby Dust. The CD actually recognized me from DWP which was kinda cool, ok really cool.
Day 290: Today we shot 3rd Tour, a scene where I play a military wife who's tired of her husband's constant deployments. Here I am with my co-star and classmateTom Lindas he tries to convince me that everything will be okay.
Claire directed us. Greg did the lights & sound and Lex was our DP. Plus they brought over some of Greg's military clothes to make it authentic. I heart them so much!!
Day 286: Renewed my TAN membership. Picked up 2 wedding dresses for future DWP use that was donated by an actress who knew I needed one to complete shooting episode 6. Thanks Cheyanne!
Day 287: Visited USC's United University Church to make sure it would work for the location we need to finish episode 6. It looks great online but you only see bits and pieces of parts of the church rather than a full photo of what it looks like as a whole. So I'm glad it's going to work out as we're planning to shoot on Monday.
Day 285: Auditioned for Kaiser's Educational Theatre Program. It started off rocky but then ended on a great note. If I had to bet on it I think they'll pass but if they do have callbacks then I'll hopefully get another chance to make a better impression as this job would be a really great opportunity to take advantage of. If I don't, I can't blame anyone but myself since I waited until the last minute to find material which is why it wasn't nearly as strong of an audition as it could have been.
Day 284: Went to Power Group at TAN followed by 2 back to back coffee dates. Later on I went back to TAN to listen to Twinkie Byrd {casting director of films such as Jumping the Broom, Notorious, Stomp the Yard and the upcoming Sparkle} speak and it was AWESOME! As you know, she's one of the main cd's on my target list and despite not wanting to go because I was exhausted and knew that if I went I'd have a really late night at work, I silenced all of those nagging, non-helpful thoughts and went anyway. I'm so glad I did! First of all, there were only about 10 of us there {crazy!} when really every black actor in TAN should have been in the building. Second, she was hilarious because she's so real. She gave no-holds barred answers to all of our questions and even counseled a young lady who just moved out here who needed some guidance. All in all I felt like I'd went to church by the time it was over. Very glad I went, especially since I learned a few ways to get on her radar and get in the room with her that I hadn't known before and that's really what it all boils down to.
