Some Crazy Ass Shit

I just recently went to a commercial agentfest hosted by the Network. It was basically commercial agent speed dating. I also went to one of these last month and had a much different experience.

At the first one I used the copy I’ve been using regularly (the one that Barry Shapiro tweaked) and it received mixed feedback. On the one hand Kevin McShane of Fifi Oscard loved it, god bless his heart, he told me I received an A+ for the audition and to keep that copy forever because it was funny and unique. Kirsten Walther of CESD was mild-mannered and barely said a damn thing. And on the other extreme side of the spectrum the blunt and abrasive Ginger Dicce of Ginger Dicce Talent demanded that I leave the room to get new copy because mine was “too confusing”. She let me come back in the room with a cute Snapple copy that I snagged for later use and other such emergencies. Other than Dicce nobody flat out said anything negative about the copy itself.

My headshot also got mixed feedback. Lately people have been telling me that from my headshot they would expect me to be a fat girl! I’m not a fat girl! (They say that part too.) It has to do with the camera angle, how close-up my face is, and the fact that my face is, in fact, slimmer than it was when I took the picture. Granted, it has been 3 years since I took headshots and I am long overdue for new ones. Then again, some people say, “It still looks like you, your face looks pretty, keep using it.” It’s a goddamned crapshoot. Now I just hand it over, wince, and brace myself for the strong opinions coming at me.

Let me take a minute to say this is some crazy ass shit, yo. People’s opinions are all over the map and most of these agents (especially the older more established ones) really think that they’re all that AND a bag of chips. It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard elsewhere, they know everything and they are always right. So who the hell am I supposed to listen to? Everybody? Nobody? Myself? Ha, myself…riiight…In general, I prefer to see a young fresh face in the room. There is less ego, less power tripping, and more honest, friendly, interest and conversation. That’s this girl’s experience anyway…

At my most recent agentfest I got 4 out of 5 agents telling me my headshot was so lard-o-licious they would submit me for the lead in Hairspray! (I’m being completely serious here aside from “lard-o-licious”) I GOTTA get new pictures. And fast!

I used my old faithful copy for my first two “dates” with Michael Raymen of Buchwald and Marion Falk of Frontier Booking and I nearly got torn a new asshole. Raymen’s criticism was painful but constructive and most important of all, true. Overall, he just didn’t think the copy was the right fit for me. I wouldn’t get cast in that type of role, I was smarter than the character and it seemed like I knew that as I was doing the piece. Basically he confirmed that all of my insecurities about the piece were legit. Fine. For some reason I decided to chalk it up to a bad read, I was still getting warmed up. In the next room, Falk was way less constructive and way less direct. She almost seemed cunning in the way she did not insert her own opinion but asked what Barry Shapiro though of my copy, and quizzed me on casting directors. She seemed to enjoy criticizing and then told me I needed to take more classes with Barry. Neeext! I ran out of that meeting and ditched that copy like it was on fire. After the discomfort of that interaction I barely hesitated to get rid of my previously well-received copy and whip out the barely rehearsed back up Snapple one. After that it was smooth sailing. I had perfectly lovely meetings with Gilah Elul of Kolstein Talent Agency, Erica Moran of Avalon Artists, and Norma Eisenbaum of The Kransy Office.

This brings me to my next pondering: were Elul, Moran, and Eisenbaum just more pleasant people in general or were they more pleasant because I performed better? Raymen and Falk may have gotten the false impression that I was a newbie and unprepared because I read ill-fitting material and then they treated me as such when we talked afterwards. Conversely, did I give so much of a better first impression to the other 3 that they treated me more like a talented, in demand actor? I will say, it did help me to know that I had made a better first impression. It was much easier to relax and be myself and let my personality come out in our conversation knowing that the latter 3 liked me as opposed to feeling judged, criticized, and spoken down to by the others.

I felt really good when I left the first agentfest. It hadn't gone perfectly but I thought in general I had done well. I left the second agentfest flabbergasted and shell shocked. How am I gonna do this? How am I gonna fool some poor shmuck agent into liking me, and then fool some idiot director into hiring me? This is beyond crazy ass shit.