February 2013
My first two acting jobs this year are worlds apart. It's lucky I'm so versatile. In the first gig I do a scene that involves running screaming across a vacant lot to my 'son' who is lying dead on the ground, the victim of an out of control drug dealer. This comes quite naturally to me.
For the second, I must centre myself and find my character's motivation, summoning my naturalistic acting skills—the result of much study of Stanislavksi's method—to play a senior manager delivering advice about employee 'development plans' and 'potential matrixes' via an autocue, for a corporate video.
And not only am I a versatile actor. I’ve got a wardrobe to match. A cardi for the ‘mum’, a suit for the ‘manager’. Perfect.
The truth is, both jobs are great experience but the first is a lot more fun, even though there's no pay! I get to work with a bunch of very switched on VCA students on an independent feature film (This Little Piggy) and the role is small, but I love the dramatic challenge. The corporate video requires me to do literally pages of a script, mainly to camera, and to make management jargon sound conversational! My task is not aided by the fact that I get the script less than two days before the shoot (agent's bungle) and barely get through the dialogues I have to learn by heart. It's a paid gig so I feel bad I'm not as prepared as I should be, but on the other hand, they're not paying me enough to feel really, really bad! (And it’s not like the job gave me anything I could use for my showreel, you know.)
Incidentally, the film role came about through one of the lead guys from Monster Pies (which just won Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film in the recent Melbourne Queer Film Festival). Who knows what's next? But hopefully my new agent and new headshots will be a step in the right direction on my journey from anonymity to stardom!
Monday, April 8, 2013
Friday, December 21, 2012
Princess of Tides
Location: Sandringham & South Melbourne
Date: December 2012
Not being what you'd call a 'boat person' I don't expect to do a TV commercial on a sea going vessel. But here I am on a luxury cabin cruiser, just off Sandringham, filming an ad for a boat show. And although the shoot is what you might call 'Economy Class' compared with the 'A Deck' Slater & Gordon TVC (my one minute audition is filmed on an i-phone, I’m met by a crew of three on location and lunch is a salad roll at the kiosk), it's a day's paid acting work and I'm not complaining! Plus, I get to spend a lovely afternoon in the sunshine!
Being directed by three people at once is probably not what I’d call ideal but my new onscreen spouse and I go with the flow (like that little pun, do you?) and do numerous takes, including a whole new script written on board the cruiser. I start out saying my line a particular way, change it several times to suit the 'directors' and then when I go back to doing it the way I did the first time, the agency guy says 'Perfect!' (Hubby and I have a little chuckle about it later.)
This outdoor adventure is followed by the decidedly indoor enterprise of recording two radio commercials for the same campaign in the coolest (in both senses of the word!) studio I have ever seen. Even the toilets at this place are funky. And it's great experience! (The radio ad I mean, not using the toilets.)
Anyway, the boat show commercials will air in a few weeks, not too far behind my previous effort, which finally made it onto the small screen a few weeks ago, or so I’m told. (I haven’t actually seen it.) It might look I've been busy but in reality the period between shoots is over six months. Hopefully it will also look like I have sea legs. Ah, the world of TV is but an illusion…
Date: December 2012
Not being what you'd call a 'boat person' I don't expect to do a TV commercial on a sea going vessel. But here I am on a luxury cabin cruiser, just off Sandringham, filming an ad for a boat show. And although the shoot is what you might call 'Economy Class' compared with the 'A Deck' Slater & Gordon TVC (my one minute audition is filmed on an i-phone, I’m met by a crew of three on location and lunch is a salad roll at the kiosk), it's a day's paid acting work and I'm not complaining! Plus, I get to spend a lovely afternoon in the sunshine!
Being directed by three people at once is probably not what I’d call ideal but my new onscreen spouse and I go with the flow (like that little pun, do you?) and do numerous takes, including a whole new script written on board the cruiser. I start out saying my line a particular way, change it several times to suit the 'directors' and then when I go back to doing it the way I did the first time, the agency guy says 'Perfect!' (Hubby and I have a little chuckle about it later.)
This outdoor adventure is followed by the decidedly indoor enterprise of recording two radio commercials for the same campaign in the coolest (in both senses of the word!) studio I have ever seen. Even the toilets at this place are funky. And it's great experience! (The radio ad I mean, not using the toilets.)
Anyway, the boat show commercials will air in a few weeks, not too far behind my previous effort, which finally made it onto the small screen a few weeks ago, or so I’m told. (I haven’t actually seen it.) It might look I've been busy but in reality the period between shoots is over six months. Hopefully it will also look like I have sea legs. Ah, the world of TV is but an illusion…
Sunday, September 23, 2012
The Owling
Location: Eastern suburbs
Date: September 2012
It's not too often that you get to work with someone who is calmly juggling breastfeeding and directing. But with the director's family all involved in the film, (daughter has a role, husband is producing, parents' house is used for several locations, mother and friends play bit parts) it seems to be perfectly natural.
This nice little paid role comes my way thanks to my showreel, on a casting website. Don't even have to audition, which is a bonus! Instead of playing yet another 'mum', in this film I am the daughter of a woman who's drinking too much. My character has her own problems too, though. Anyway, I get a bit typsy, see a real doctor (I'm tempted to say between takes, 'by the way, I've got this nasty...'), have 'counselling' and get 'picked up' at a gym.
The film was commissioned by a health organisation to promote the 'Owl' Program (Older, Wiser Lifestyles ) and it's all about older people and medication and alcohol. Of course, that meant significant amounts of aging make-up. Significant amounts.
On location there are planes and barking dogs to deal with, a chiming clock and a little girl who plonks herself right next to me when we are just about to shoot a scene in a busy hospital!
Around the same time I do an audition for a 'corporate ad' for a home renovations firm, (they tell me I 'nail it'--pun not intended--but I don't get the part, which just goes to show) and have my scene in another short film rescheduled due to the lead role having to be recast (an injured actress!) Looking forward to that one as I get to play an irate patient! I plan on channelling the frustration I am currently feeling as I wait for my pay to arrive for the ad that I did over three months ago! Grh!
Anyway, that's two professional acting roles this year and it's only September. Oh my. If this keeps up, I'll have to change the name of my blog.
Date: September 2012
It's not too often that you get to work with someone who is calmly juggling breastfeeding and directing. But with the director's family all involved in the film, (daughter has a role, husband is producing, parents' house is used for several locations, mother and friends play bit parts) it seems to be perfectly natural.
This nice little paid role comes my way thanks to my showreel, on a casting website. Don't even have to audition, which is a bonus! Instead of playing yet another 'mum', in this film I am the daughter of a woman who's drinking too much. My character has her own problems too, though. Anyway, I get a bit typsy, see a real doctor (I'm tempted to say between takes, 'by the way, I've got this nasty...'), have 'counselling' and get 'picked up' at a gym.
The film was commissioned by a health organisation to promote the 'Owl' Program (Older, Wiser Lifestyles ) and it's all about older people and medication and alcohol. Of course, that meant significant amounts of aging make-up. Significant amounts.
On location there are planes and barking dogs to deal with, a chiming clock and a little girl who plonks herself right next to me when we are just about to shoot a scene in a busy hospital!
Around the same time I do an audition for a 'corporate ad' for a home renovations firm, (they tell me I 'nail it'--pun not intended--but I don't get the part, which just goes to show) and have my scene in another short film rescheduled due to the lead role having to be recast (an injured actress!) Looking forward to that one as I get to play an irate patient! I plan on channelling the frustration I am currently feeling as I wait for my pay to arrive for the ad that I did over three months ago! Grh!
Anyway, that's two professional acting roles this year and it's only September. Oh my. If this keeps up, I'll have to change the name of my blog.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Commercial Law
One thing about the film & TV industry is the way one adapts to intimacy with strangers. As I wait to shoot my one line in a TV commercial for a law firm, the sound guy fiddles around my torso attaching a mic, the wardrobe lady stylishly arranges a silk scarf around my neck and the make-up assistant touches up my lipstick. The huge crew hustle about me and I'm just hoping I can avoid tripping over these big fat white hospital style booties that I'm wearing over my shoes (to protect the white studio floor!) and say my one line convincingly (they are paying me a lot of money, after all!).
It all starts with an audition (my third this year) and after initially trying not to get my hopes up too much when I hear I'm on a 'very tight short list', I'm pretty pleased to get the part. Then it all becomes a little chaotic with last minute emails and text messages and a call sheet that never comes, and as a result I get my call time wrong and turn up extremely late, which is mortifying. Thankfully, they are relieved that I'm not dead and the show can go on, therefore they don't go nuts at me, even though I sort of deserve it.
I have to say my line about 30 times. The director takes the pressure off by saying it doesn't matter how many takes we do, bless his home-made mohawk. But it's still tricky at times and I realise when I watch one of the other actors that it's much easier to 'get' what the director is wanting when you're not the one standing in front of the camera! Two days later, when I'm trying to get to sleep, I think, 'Oh, that's how I should have done it!' I do the line again later in close up, and I also get shot from the back, gazing up at some light. Then at the end of the day when all of the other actors are wrapped, I have to wave my hand through a beam of light. I have no idea what I'm doing. It's a bit arty farty for a law firm ad, but WTH? But it's still not over. I come back a few days later for 'stills'. The photographer takes about 50 shots. Surely one will do? Nope. Another 50 shots. I feel like Miranda Kerr without the dimple. And the incredible good looks. And Orlando. But I'm sure she doesn't run out of things to do with her hands like I do.
Anyway, the commercial should hit the small screen pretty soon and the fact that I have a line might suggest that I've actually gotten somewhere in the three years that I've been doing this. But as my very first 'gig' was a speaking role, it's more likely that I've just been going around in circles!
It all starts with an audition (my third this year) and after initially trying not to get my hopes up too much when I hear I'm on a 'very tight short list', I'm pretty pleased to get the part. Then it all becomes a little chaotic with last minute emails and text messages and a call sheet that never comes, and as a result I get my call time wrong and turn up extremely late, which is mortifying. Thankfully, they are relieved that I'm not dead and the show can go on, therefore they don't go nuts at me, even though I sort of deserve it.
I have to say my line about 30 times. The director takes the pressure off by saying it doesn't matter how many takes we do, bless his home-made mohawk. But it's still tricky at times and I realise when I watch one of the other actors that it's much easier to 'get' what the director is wanting when you're not the one standing in front of the camera! Two days later, when I'm trying to get to sleep, I think, 'Oh, that's how I should have done it!' I do the line again later in close up, and I also get shot from the back, gazing up at some light. Then at the end of the day when all of the other actors are wrapped, I have to wave my hand through a beam of light. I have no idea what I'm doing. It's a bit arty farty for a law firm ad, but WTH? But it's still not over. I come back a few days later for 'stills'. The photographer takes about 50 shots. Surely one will do? Nope. Another 50 shots. I feel like Miranda Kerr without the dimple. And the incredible good looks. And Orlando. But I'm sure she doesn't run out of things to do with her hands like I do.
Anyway, the commercial should hit the small screen pretty soon and the fact that I have a line might suggest that I've actually gotten somewhere in the three years that I've been doing this. But as my very first 'gig' was a speaking role, it's more likely that I've just been going around in circles!
Saturday, April 7, 2012
3DME
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Husbands and Heifers
Location: Pub in Prahran / Kmart, Eastland
Date: July 2011
One week after I sign up with my new agent she tells me I've got an audition for a TV commercial! They want a real 'mum'. Full of anticipation, I arrive at an office in South Melbourne only to find a herd of yummy mummies crowded into a small room. Is a female cattle call a 'heifer call'? Not that these women are what you'd call 'heifers'. They're all slim and attractive, most are blond and some look like former models. What am I doing here? After a short wait I head off to do a 'chat to camera'. (I've been practising in the car!) I don't get a call back (the audition is for featured roles) but three weeks later I get asked to be 'background' in what turns out to be a Kmart ad involving 1000 real mums!
In between, I do an audition for a CUB commercial. Three of us 'over fifty types' improvise a scene that ends in a toast. This time I don't feel like livestock, which is nice. Anyway, I do okay. In fact, I get the part!
The shoot day starts at 6.30 am and involves several rehearsals and takes of a single shot following a young man walking through a pub. I am partnered with yet another on-screen husband (how many does that make?) to form a group of two couples discussing travel plans over a drink. But that one shot takes hours and hours. And hours. The four of us manage to maintain a level of jocularity both on and off the camera (which, combined with fatigue, occasionally turns to lunacy) but when we are 'wrapped' at 5 pm I am relieved that the trip is fictional! The good thing is, being 'featured extras' our faces will actually be in shot, albeit for only a second or two, and we get paid more than a regular extra. The bad thing is, the commercial is for corporate and internet use, rather than TV. Or is that a good thing?
Two days later I join a heap of 'mums' for the Kmart ad. It's an evening, and the last of a three day shoot. This is the shortest of the three days by far, but we all get paid the same amount ($100 cash, a $100 Kmart voucher and a Kmart goody bag.), which may be why they end up with fifty more mums than anticipated! I befriend another aspiring actor. We are both amused by the women who are excited at the prospect of seeing themselves on TV. Ah, the optimism of the inexperienced. Do they really believe that they will be recognisable within a herd of one hundred and fifty women hoofing it to a Kmart store through a darkly lit shopping centre?
I have no such illusions. Anymore. At the end of the shoot I push my way into the queue like a mad cow, grab my money and my goody bag and head for home, smug in the knowledge that my face will be seen for a whole two seconds on an internet ad.
Amendment 6/8/11: See the ad on http://cub.com.au/
(Not sure for how long!)
Date: July 2011
One week after I sign up with my new agent she tells me I've got an audition for a TV commercial! They want a real 'mum'. Full of anticipation, I arrive at an office in South Melbourne only to find a herd of yummy mummies crowded into a small room. Is a female cattle call a 'heifer call'? Not that these women are what you'd call 'heifers'. They're all slim and attractive, most are blond and some look like former models. What am I doing here? After a short wait I head off to do a 'chat to camera'. (I've been practising in the car!) I don't get a call back (the audition is for featured roles) but three weeks later I get asked to be 'background' in what turns out to be a Kmart ad involving 1000 real mums!
In between, I do an audition for a CUB commercial. Three of us 'over fifty types' improvise a scene that ends in a toast. This time I don't feel like livestock, which is nice. Anyway, I do okay. In fact, I get the part!
The shoot day starts at 6.30 am and involves several rehearsals and takes of a single shot following a young man walking through a pub. I am partnered with yet another on-screen husband (how many does that make?) to form a group of two couples discussing travel plans over a drink. But that one shot takes hours and hours. And hours. The four of us manage to maintain a level of jocularity both on and off the camera (which, combined with fatigue, occasionally turns to lunacy) but when we are 'wrapped' at 5 pm I am relieved that the trip is fictional! The good thing is, being 'featured extras' our faces will actually be in shot, albeit for only a second or two, and we get paid more than a regular extra. The bad thing is, the commercial is for corporate and internet use, rather than TV. Or is that a good thing?
Two days later I join a heap of 'mums' for the Kmart ad. It's an evening, and the last of a three day shoot. This is the shortest of the three days by far, but we all get paid the same amount ($100 cash, a $100 Kmart voucher and a Kmart goody bag.), which may be why they end up with fifty more mums than anticipated! I befriend another aspiring actor. We are both amused by the women who are excited at the prospect of seeing themselves on TV. Ah, the optimism of the inexperienced. Do they really believe that they will be recognisable within a herd of one hundred and fifty women hoofing it to a Kmart store through a darkly lit shopping centre?
I have no such illusions. Anymore. At the end of the shoot I push my way into the queue like a mad cow, grab my money and my goody bag and head for home, smug in the knowledge that my face will be seen for a whole two seconds on an internet ad.
Amendment 6/8/11: See the ad on http://cub.com.au/
(Not sure for how long!)
Friday, May 20, 2011
Short Bread and Long Queues
Date: May 2011
Job: Shortbread (short film)
Location: Frankston
OMGollygosh. After waiting for six months to get some extra work, I eagerly attended a cattle call, I mean casting call, the other day for a new series set in the 1920s, called Phryne Fisher. Oh dear ABC! Not only did they ask casting agents to send along 'talent' but they also advertised for extras on their website and on facebook. They won't be doing that again in a hurry. We stood in a queue for an hour and a half just to fill out a form, get measured and have a photo taken. But we were the lucky ones. Others gave up after being told they had a two and a half hour wait! One wonders how many of those who turned up will actually get a 'gig'. Hopefully my self produced 'bob' haircut will guarantee me a spot!
In the meantime it's shooting shorts for me. 'Shortbread' in fact. I'm playing a mum (again) but the central character is my mentally disabled son who is trying to get his driver's licence. Highlights so far include pulling out the front of my son's trackie pants to check his jocks (about 95 takes of that), standing in the street in my dressing gown for about an hour (a big 'hello' to the residents of Fleetwood Crescent) and shooting a big family argument scene with yelling and head banging and stuff.
Fortunately I've had lots of experience (with arguments, not checking people's jocks) so that scene was a piece of shortcake.
Job: Shortbread (short film)
Location: Frankston
OMGollygosh. After waiting for six months to get some extra work, I eagerly attended a cattle call, I mean casting call, the other day for a new series set in the 1920s, called Phryne Fisher. Oh dear ABC! Not only did they ask casting agents to send along 'talent' but they also advertised for extras on their website and on facebook. They won't be doing that again in a hurry. We stood in a queue for an hour and a half just to fill out a form, get measured and have a photo taken. But we were the lucky ones. Others gave up after being told they had a two and a half hour wait! One wonders how many of those who turned up will actually get a 'gig'. Hopefully my self produced 'bob' haircut will guarantee me a spot!
In the meantime it's shooting shorts for me. 'Shortbread' in fact. I'm playing a mum (again) but the central character is my mentally disabled son who is trying to get his driver's licence. Highlights so far include pulling out the front of my son's trackie pants to check his jocks (about 95 takes of that), standing in the street in my dressing gown for about an hour (a big 'hello' to the residents of Fleetwood Crescent) and shooting a big family argument scene with yelling and head banging and stuff.
Fortunately I've had lots of experience (with arguments, not checking people's jocks) so that scene was a piece of shortcake.
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