Monday, September 25, 2006

Audition: “Miller Beer” @ Kathy Knowles. I thought I was going to be totally free to just hustle drops today/Monday since I hadn’t gotten any appointments by 8pm on Friday. Actually, I didn’t go out of the house the entire day on Friday. I was exhausted.

Sure enough, @ 4:18pm on Saturday I get an email from KSA for an appointment for this morning. KSA rocks!!
When I signed in I scanned over the list of actors who had appointments throughout the day for this commercial and was amazed that I was one of them - I'm ALWAYS amazed and grateful for the appointments I get. I mean, I shouldn't be amazed, I have great agents, the right photos, I've trained - I've definitely done my part to make it happen, but it's still surreal to me that it's actually working. I should be used to it by now.

The audition goes well. I got great direction from the session runner and I was on my way. Good thing they didn't need headshots for this one because the last line on my resume says:

"Guess What. You're not gonna believe this, but I've never had coffee or any kind of alcohol. Never. Ever."

Nope, I've never had a beer, but I've done commercials for "Icehouse", "Michelob Ultra" and sold a lot of it when I was a waiter. I need to book a Starbucks commercial too.

Uh, no!! My work date for "Ocean's Thirteen" is changing a little and it's encroaching on the date that I shoot the Michelin" commercial. At first it was Monday for the commercial and Thursday of the same week for “O13”, but now my date for “O13” has changed from Thursday to Tuesday with no guarantee that it won’t change even more. Ooops, I would hate to miss out on one of these jobs. That would not be good. I trust that it will all work out. It's a great problem to have.

You don't really think about what "O/A" means in contractual terms until it seems like it might affect you. "O/A" means "On or about" as in start of employment. I'm not sure what the window is, but in these situations employers have some leeway. I don't think it's going to be a problem. It's great to have your agent making phone calls because you've booked other jobs that may conflict with previous bookings.

I remember in October of 2002; a couple of months after shooting the ‘Honda of Japan” commercials. I had flown back to Virginia Beach to see my mother who was ill.

I landed on a Friday afternoon and checked my voicemail. I had a message from my commercial agent saying that the production of the Honda spots was checking my availability to be in Tokyo the following Wednesday through Sunday, but they wouldn't know until Monday. Okaay.

Cut to: Monday afternoon - East Coast

The word comes in that everything is a go. A couple of hours later I’m on a plane back to Los Angeles and arrive late Monday night. Tuesday morning I go to Susan Haven's casting office to pickup my plane ticket to the Far East.

Wednesday morning I leave for Tokyo, Japan! WHAT! Yeah. We land, go straight to a fitting, dinner and check into the Tokyo Prince Hotel. I check my voicemail and my theatrical agent has left a message saying "Frasier" is checking your availability for next Tuesday and Wednesday.

I finish shooting the "Honda" spots, fly back to LA Sunday afternoon and Monday morning I get the booking for Tuesday/Wednesday on "Frasier". That afternoon "Good Morning, Miami" calls to book me for Wednesday/Thursday. Obviously, I was already booked on "Frasier" for Wednesday “GMM” and said it would be cool if I could only work on Thursday. All that worked out – I’m confident that the "Michelin" vs. “Ocean’s Thirteen” chronicles will work out too. I must say, it feels good to have a couple of things on my plate.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, FWIW, I'll shoot a prayer up there that you won't miss out on either one of these jobs!

Stephon Fuller said...

Thanks Naomi!