What not to do in an Audition
I have been to a few auditions, and I have held quite a few auditions. One thing that I know is what not to do.
When I was eighteen, I saw an ad in the paper (yes, the paper, that’s all we had and stop judging) soliciting for actors to be in a film. It was in the basement of a church in Fayetteville. I was suspicious about it and unsure about what I was walking into. I thought about all the news stories I had heard over my youth about abductions and the like. It made sense to me to feel that way; after all, it was Arkansas in the ’90s. No one around here made movies, at least not ones you could show to the public. But, I am pretty much not afraid of anything, so I went anyway.
I have been to a few auditions, and I have held quite a few auditions. One thing that I know is what not to do.
When I was eighteen, I saw an ad in the paper (yes, the paper, that’s all we had and stop judging) soliciting for actors to be in a film. It was in the basement of a church in Fayetteville. I was suspicious about it and unsure about what I was walking into. I thought about all the news stories I had heard over my youth about abductions and the like. It made sense to me to feel that way; after all, it was Arkansas in the ’90s. No one around here made movies, at least not ones you could show to the public. But, I am pretty much not afraid of anything, so I went anyway.
They gave me the sides (script), and I looked through them, tried to memorize them, failing as usual. I can’t remember anything verbatim, an affliction that has haunted me all my life and cost me a passing grade in high school chemistry. I was nervous, and since I had never done anything like that before, I was absolutely out of my element.
I don’t know which one was the overriding reason for being an idiot, either the adrenaline or the absence of a healthy ego. After I delivered my lines, they asked me to do it again, and what came out of my mouth was absolute insanity. Definitely a learning experience, too bad it took a few years to figure that part out. I looked the guys straight in the eye and said, this is embarrassing, “If I can’t get it right the first time, I can’t ever get it right”!
Wow…. What an idiot!
Most of you don’t know this about me, but I can remember everything important that happened to me over my life. I can put myself right back in the situation, smell the air, feel the temperature, and hear the trees. I can’t memorize anything, but I can do that.
Because of this “gift,” I remember the expression on the man’s face when he asked me to “do it again.” It wasn’t what I thought it was at the time. I thought he was looking at me like I was nuts (this was right before I proved I was nuts), but he wasn’t. In actuality, he was impressed with my performance. He was trying to figure out how to get this young kid in his movie. I am even more sure of it now because I have had the same thoughts when auditioning someone that doesn’t quite fit the part but is pretty damned good. If I had stayed, repeated the performance, I might have started a movie career in 1993 instead of beguiling myself as an insurance agent for twenty-five years.
Since then, I have held many auditions and been in many more. I rarely get a part, but that is to be expected. I am a pretty unique looking individual, and my personality takes over any room. Not always a good fit for a gentle father. If there is ever was a call out for an old Orson Welles look-alike, but I might not be a shoo-in for the buff father figure. I probably won’t get the call, just sayin.
After all these years, I have figured out how to survive the auditioning process, just be me. You never know exactly what the person is thinking and whatever thoughts you believe they have in their heads, well… You are wrong.
The best advice I can give any actor that isn’t classically trained or has thousands of parts under their belt is do the best you can. Be kind, listen to directions and keep putting your name in the hat.
My Audition and the real threat from the River Valley flooding.
So, I just spent almost four hours and fifty bucks in a car to attend a meeting that made me want to give up acting forever, and now I have to drive back home.
Now, we have had a lot of rain recently, as we all know. The River Valley (Fort Smith Arkansas) has flooded, levees have broken, and roads are closed. The water from the Arkansas River hit record levels, and here I was driving through it. Another reason for a rental car.
I love making movies, films, television, and anything else that is in the genre. I work tirelessly to know what I am doing at all times and how to execute them beautifully and, my specialty, affordability. I examine tons of footage and writing to soak in all that I can only to come back and learn some more. It is genuinely in my whole being and precisely what I was made for. Not too many folks can say that they know what their true calling is. I am one of the lucky few.
This also means that I am not only a Photographer, Videographer, Motion Graphics Artists, and Editor; I am an Actor too. Sure I can direct actors, but what good would I be if I couldn’t practice what I preach?
Because of my inner “actor,” sometimes I get called in to audition for roles. Sometimes they are for movies, but mostly it’s commercials and PSA type things. And just like most other working actors, I get called back or land the role rarely. Not too infrequently, but enough to call it rare, I suppose. As an actor, this is just how the business works, good or bad.
Most roles that an actor can audition for in Northwest Arkansas and be reasonably assured they have a chance to land, pay either one hundred or three hundred per day or you have to drive to Oklahoma City just to audition, if not both. I am with you on this part, There is no way I am going to drive three and a half hours for a role that pays a hundred bucks a day, no matter what kind of exposure I “might” get. It just doesn’t make economic sense. But this time, the pay for this part was above scale. Scale is the minimum amount of money an actor gets paid if they belong to the union. When I saw that, I submitted. Much to my surprise, I was selected to audition. But it in Oklahoma City, figures. But that pay... Yeah, it suckered me in.
I rented a car and drove to OKC. I figured my 2006 Mustang could handle the drive, but I wanted to go as economically as possible. My Mustang gets 13 mpg in town and 27mpg on the highway, but this little KIA gets almost twice the city gas mileage and a solid 37mpg on the hwy. In real terms, I would have needed to fill the tank on my Mustang four times while I didn’t even have to fill that KIA up twice. That alone saved me the money I spent on the rental; not to mention the wear and tear on my Mustang.
I would say the audition went well, not really great, but that’s how these things always feel. For my actor friends out there, high-end auditions are really the pits. They are impersonal and cold events that make you feel like you have just stepped into a world where everyone hates their job and anyone they come into contact with. No one leaves an audition feeling like they “got the part.” Everyone leaves thinking that they must have done something wrong. And I mean everyone. For those that have never had the pleasure of experiencing the pain and torture of a Hollywood audition; if you had a job interview that went like these always go, you would second guess your career path and leave whimpering. They are worse than brutal, they are soul-crushing events. They also take about five minutes at most.
So, I just spent almost four hours and fifty bucks in a car to attend a meeting that made me want to give up acting forever, and now I have to drive back home.
Now, we have had a lot of rain recently, as we all know. The River Valley (Fort Smith Arkansas) has flooded, levees have broken, and roads are closed. The water from the Arkansas River hit record levels, and here I was driving through it. Another reason for a rental car.
Before I left for OKC I called the Arkansas State Transportation office to make sure I40 was open, and they told me everything was just fabulous with the interstate, but I don’t know if that was entirely true. It seemed to me that the water was only a few feet away from covering the highway, wow.
While I didn’t stop to take photos with my pro camera, these shots show just how close the water came. Good thing my trip was ruled by the sun.