Saturday Seminar

Doing some catch up - since there is much to tell and quite a few photos I will back date these entries to the correct day. Gads I so need to get the internet at home.

Saturday, started with a another Seminar at Actors Connection. Today's was with commercial agent Doug Keston with Paradigm. The first thing that struck me when I first saw Doug was just how much he resembled my friend Page. (Which reminds me that I need to e-mail Page and see if we can arrange a time to get together and catch up.)

Back to the Seminar - Doug was very informative about how he works and about the current state of the commercial business in general. He noted in answer to another attendees question that commercial work usually picks up in an economic downturn because advertisers believe they need to do more to get people to spend their money. I guess that bodes well for getting more commercial work in the coming months. He also said that advertising agencies are looking more for new faces which is why he likes to freelance.

Some pointers he gave for booking commercial work.

1. Be comfortable with who you are as a person. That is who they want to see - a real person.
2. Be able to think fast on your feet. - Many commercials are not as scripted as they were in he past therefore you need to be able to react more to scenarios than to script.
3. Trust your instincts - be willing to try things - be spontaneous - make daring but appropriate choices and most importantly bring into he audition, call back and project your sense of fun.
4. Don't try to second guess what they want. The advertisers often don't know exactly what they are looking for all the time so your take on the commercial might just be what they end up wanting.

After the Q&A Doug and I had a mini interview. We mostly talked about my background. About being from Oregon and some of the things that I have been doing. Another person who was very supportive of my doing extra work to learn the business.

He also really liked my Headshots.

He seemed open and interested and said that he would keep his eye out for things that I would be right for.

Hope so since I get the feeling that I would really like working with him. (And not just because he so closely resembles Page.)

On my way out of the building, on the Elevator I ran into some guys who were there working on their album. After a quick hello, one of them said that he thought they had found the person they were looking for for their music video. I told them that I had worked on a Vampire Weekend and a Burn and Cry Video. They said great and asked if I had my Headshot with me. I did of course. As we got to the lobby one of the guys produced a pen and asked if I would autograph it. Of course I did. Such fun. Although I don't know if I will ever hear from them it was VERY flattering.

Since it was such a lovely day out - I think it might have even gotten close to 70 degrees - my camera and I took a walk up to Central Park. I love Central Park especially in the Spring. See pictures above.

One of the pictures is of the tree that I named Hern. He hasn't awoken from his winter nap yet. He is always one of the later ones to bud and come to life in the Spring. Anyway, he is a rather special tree to me since this is the tree that is the keeper of the spirits of my kitties that have passed away since I came to New York. When one of my fur-kids dies I clip a bit of their fur and give it to Hern for save keeping. So Hern is the place that I go to "visit" - Tasha, Tearsie, Tiger, Star, Sergei, and Merlin.

On my way home I passed by the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. They are having a tribute to the 10 years of the Lion King on Broadway. Some costumes and other neat things. I will come back tomorrow to take pictures.

These evening I watched the DVD of the first 3 episodes of Six Feet Under again. Alan Ball in the commentary had pointed out some scenes of Francis Conroy's that I wanted to see again. In the Pilot when she hears that her husband was killed and destroys the kitchen and then again at the funeral. I of course noticed them before but after hearing his commentary about them I wanted to really look at them and they are indeed amazing. How completely raw the emotion is and how freely she expresses it. Learned quite a bit as an actress from watching these scenes several times.

Well all for today!