A Shot In The Head

I'm in a commercial auditioning class right now that is over tonight. The class has been a lot of fun. I'm taking it with two friends and we make up three of the four comedy actors in the class, so we spend a lot of time cutting up and laughing (note: cutting up brings back an instant memory of Uncle Joey from Full House doing his famous "Cut. It. OUT!" bit. Pure comedy gold). Lucky for us, the women that run the class are hilarious and don't seem to mind. Last week, while reading ad copy as a character I deemed as "Redneck On A Jog", I got the compliment (?) from the casting directors who run the class that I had kind of a Gary Busey thing going on. Fortunately this was just with my character and not with myself because I think Gary Busey is literally insane, the kind of insane that he'd take you in the desert and stand on a dune with you, put his hand on your shoulder and compliment you on what you have as "the stuff of a man....You're really tough and I think you're gonna go some places. This world needs guys like you...". Then he'd look deep into your eyes with that wily Gary Busey insane stare for about 3o seconds breathing steadily and heavy. Then he'd turn around as if to walk away from you before - BAM! - spinning around and almost jabbing you in the stomach but stopping short. "Gotcha!" he'd say with a crazy smile. Then he'd really punch you and leave you for dead in said desert.

So I'm glad that's not my "thing" for commercial acting, or for life in general.

Tonight we do our audition reading in front of two commercial agents that could result in possibly getting one of them as an agent (or maybe as a date if they're lonely). In typical putting-things-off-til'-a-later-time mode (and not to mention I-can't-afford-things-aside-from-my-rent-and-weekly-facial mode...whoops, secret's out), I figured if I got an agent out of the class, I'd get the actor necessities later and acquire headshots so I could actually go audition at some point. Headshots tend to be expensive, so for now they were out of the question, at least for a couple months. Until last week when one of the women that runs the class announced, "Next week bring three headshots and resumes for the agents!" After some scrambling, me and my friend Zach made plans to do shots with a friend who's trying to get more photography under her belt. Score.

As I've learned in my life of procrastination and last minute situations (which I've slyly manipulated into use now with improv comedy - it fits doesn't it?), when you are squeezed into a situation you just have to make due. So Sunday, Zach, Joanna, and I burned through seventy shots of film on a roof in the pouring rain with about 45 minutes of daylight left. Thank you Joanna.

Joanna usually likes to have her subjects listen to music while she shoots them to lighten the mood but due to dead boombox batteries, we were relegated to a tiny speaker attached to my iPod and a playlist of two songs, one being George Michael's "Freedom '90". Of course.

And tonight, we'll break a leg. And if we don't get signed, it might be the agent's. So watch out....




















Shooting in the rain. Note the iPod boombox so loud that Zach has to hold his ear.