March 2012
Yes, it's been a while. But don't blame me.
Despite my standout performance as a 'featured extra' in the CUB internet ad, which gave me wide exposure on TV during the footy one night (a friend actually recognised me! Fame at last!), it has been a long time between drinks.
Eight months after my last sip (a call-back for a weight loss product ad), I finally get another call from my agent and the next morning I'm at a casting agents' office, exclaiming 'Still down!' as part of a two minute audition for a supermarket commercial. I don't get the part. Obviously not ecstatic enough. I'll work on it.
I did play a small role in an independent feature film called Monster Pies late last year, though.
It's a non-speaking speaking role. I mean, I would talk if I could. I play a 'brain injured mum'. 'You'd be good at that,' says my daughter. My audition for the incommunicative mother of a gay young man, I mean, young gay man, takes place in the tiny kitchen of the director / writer / producer / make-up artist / costume designer / props person. (No, the crew aren't flatmates; it's all one person). Then it's a one day shoot in a nursing home in Altona which I actually really enjoy. It's dramatically challenging and I don't have to learn any lines!
Anyway, my new agent doesn't normally handle extra work (excuse me, but 'featured extra' work is a different thing altogether) so I've been missing it, to tell the truth. But she eventually informs me of a 'Go-See' for an ABC mini series about Kerry Packer. And cricket. My favourite game. Yep. (Am I un-Australian if I don't know the rules?) Anyway, I go along, hoping it's not a replay of that Phryne Fisher debacle. You remember. Two hours standing in line to do what could have been done online. I mean everything's there on the casting website: photos, measurements, biography. So I don't really see the point of going to a Go-See, see. Unless it's about seeing us all in 3D. (I hear it's the latest thing) Fortunately this is most efficiently run and a comparatively exhilerating experience. No queue. In and out in a matter of minutes. Lovely. The series is set in the 1970s (been there both in real life and on film) so I wear a skivvy and some beads and do the page boy thing with my hair. Can't hurt. If I was a man I would have stuck on some sidies. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see if the Go-See is a goer.
Showing posts with label TV commercial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV commercial. Show all posts
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Friday, July 2, 2010
Being Seen
Date: March 2010
Job: NAB TVC
Location: Point Nepean.
There are two hundred extras on set, pretending to watch a cycling race. We’ve been here since 7.30 am, (after meeting at Springvale Station at 5.15!) and won’t leave until after 5 pm. Most are young things and there are quite a few hotties of both genders. And then there are the cyclists in their lycra. We have to cheer them on. And on. All day. Up to ten times in one position. We’ve all got the same thing in mind. Be seen. So I observe extras of all ages grabbing their spot by the barricades and guarding them fiercely. Some move in on others’ territory. I hang back with Rob, who I met on the set of The Trial (see The Trial and Error, June). But he’s tall. If I’m going to be seen I’ve got to get into the gap between two shortish pretty girls. So I cheer and clap and jump up and down as the cyclists and the camera on the back of a quad bike go whizzing past and lose my balance and fall forward onto the pretty young thing in front. I apologise, but in the next take she’s gone. More room for me. But then another pretty young thing slips in and I’m back in the second row with Rob. It seems the front row is getting more full with every take. Everyone has the same idea. But who are we trying to kid? All we will see when the ad hits the screen is a blur of faces or a split second glimpse of ourselves as we say to anyone who will listen, ‘There I am!’
So that's what it's all about. Being seen. I’ve been doing extra work for twelve months now and I’m yet to see myself on screen. The Trial has been banned in Victoria and in Rush you'd have to play it in slow-motion on a super HD wide screen with ultra zoom to see me! In the bank ad - you know, the cycling race I've just been talking about (you mean you didn‘t get the connection??)- you see about a quarter of the extras who were there and they’re just a blur, as I expected. In the first job I did on Offspring (see The Mouths of Babes, June) I thought, ooh, this is good. There's only four extras and three leads in a relatively intimate scene. Then they give me a cap to wear. And a surgical mask. Great. Then in the third job the medical expert says I don’t need to wear a mask and I think ‘woohoo!’ (or was it ‘yippee’?) but they stick one on me anyway simply because Dr Don is wearing one. I mean, it's not for me to question their artistic decisions, but whatever happened to authenticity? Really.
Now I don't want you getting the wrong idea. It's not like being seen is my main aim in life, but it would be nice. Of course, much of the work I’ve done recently is still in some stage of production and in some of it, hey, I’m not even wearing a mask, so fingers crossed.
Job: NAB TVC
Location: Point Nepean.
There are two hundred extras on set, pretending to watch a cycling race. We’ve been here since 7.30 am, (after meeting at Springvale Station at 5.15!) and won’t leave until after 5 pm. Most are young things and there are quite a few hotties of both genders. And then there are the cyclists in their lycra. We have to cheer them on. And on. All day. Up to ten times in one position. We’ve all got the same thing in mind. Be seen. So I observe extras of all ages grabbing their spot by the barricades and guarding them fiercely. Some move in on others’ territory. I hang back with Rob, who I met on the set of The Trial (see The Trial and Error, June). But he’s tall. If I’m going to be seen I’ve got to get into the gap between two shortish pretty girls. So I cheer and clap and jump up and down as the cyclists and the camera on the back of a quad bike go whizzing past and lose my balance and fall forward onto the pretty young thing in front. I apologise, but in the next take she’s gone. More room for me. But then another pretty young thing slips in and I’m back in the second row with Rob. It seems the front row is getting more full with every take. Everyone has the same idea. But who are we trying to kid? All we will see when the ad hits the screen is a blur of faces or a split second glimpse of ourselves as we say to anyone who will listen, ‘There I am!’
So that's what it's all about. Being seen. I’ve been doing extra work for twelve months now and I’m yet to see myself on screen. The Trial has been banned in Victoria and in Rush you'd have to play it in slow-motion on a super HD wide screen with ultra zoom to see me! In the bank ad - you know, the cycling race I've just been talking about (you mean you didn‘t get the connection??)- you see about a quarter of the extras who were there and they’re just a blur, as I expected. In the first job I did on Offspring (see The Mouths of Babes, June) I thought, ooh, this is good. There's only four extras and three leads in a relatively intimate scene. Then they give me a cap to wear. And a surgical mask. Great. Then in the third job the medical expert says I don’t need to wear a mask and I think ‘woohoo!’ (or was it ‘yippee’?) but they stick one on me anyway simply because Dr Don is wearing one. I mean, it's not for me to question their artistic decisions, but whatever happened to authenticity? Really.
Now I don't want you getting the wrong idea. It's not like being seen is my main aim in life, but it would be nice. Of course, much of the work I’ve done recently is still in some stage of production and in some of it, hey, I’m not even wearing a mask, so fingers crossed.
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