Audition: “Toyota” @ Petite, A Casting Company.  This was another one that I feel I’m perfect for and it went really well.  It’s great that I was able to make it on a day that I’m actually shooting.  Double win.  Hopefully I’ll get a callback!

Shooting: “Sprint” @ Universal Studios.

RECAP

I moved to Los Angeles on Tuesday July 28th 1998; arriving on a 10pm flight from Chicago, originating in New York. My first commercial audition was the following morning at 10:30am at an office in the valley. I’ve auditioned at this particular office countless times over the years.

Auditions/callbacks/avail totals

1998 - 3 times


1999 - 4 times


2000 - 1 time


2001 - 2 times


2002 - 1 time


2003 - 3 times


2004 - 4 times


2005 - 3 times


2006 - 10 times


2007 - 3 times


2008 - 3 times


2009 - 2 times


2010 - 5 times


2011 - 7 times


2012 - 0 times


2013 - 10 times


2014 - 12 times


2015 - 5 times

All without a single booking…not one.

Last week, Friday, I had an appointment there. I didn’t know it was a callback session until I got in the room. They said it may book over the weekend and be reachable by phone. Before even getting home I got the call that I had been placed on avail. The weekend came and went and I heard nothing. Monday came and went - crickets. I kinda took it as “no news is good news and better than an official release from the avail”. Tuesday evening, 5:35pm, I emailed my agency for an update and was informed that I was still on avail and they should have a decision by the end of the day. End of the day came and went - bigger crickets.

Wednesday morning I get the call.

I usually let the call go to voicemail in case there is information I want to play over again. Before listening to the message I knew what it was. Why? It was only 6 seconds…Plenty of time to say, “Hey Stephon, it’s Xxxx from KMR. Unfortunately you’ve been released from Xxxx. You’ll get the next one!”

And I was right. I had been released. I think I like the crickets better…

Exactly 24 hours later one of my agents calls, which is rare, much of the communication is through text and email. The request is to go to the set at Universal Studios to…audition for a different commercial. The directive was that they’d make a decision pretty quickly and the lucky ones would go straight to a fitting and work the next day, Friday. The audition was taped on an iPhone and I didn’t walk out of the room feeling lucky. So unlucky that I drove home and got on with my day…which really meant going to sleep after working the previous nights graveyard shift.

The time frame for making the decision “pretty quickly” came and went…those damn crickets again! Maybe I will get the next one because I felt this one slipping away. Gone.

Then, hours later, the phone rings while I was on another call. It’s my agent with the unbelievable news that I had finally, after almost 17 years of going into that particular casting office, been booked on something!

So I made my way back to the valley for the fitting and shot the commercial the next day.

Sometimes one does, in fact, "get the next one!"

The shoot itself was fun and tricky.  That’s all I can really say.  Good tricky though and I think it’s going to be a funny spot…a spot that runs long and hard!

http://www.stephonfuller.com