Work opportunities are flourishing! I got called in for a Swiffer commercial last Thursday and have a callback on Monday! Woo-hoo! What makes it a double “Woo-hoo” is that the first time this casting director called me in, I was out of town, so I couldn’t make the audition. Then, when I mentioned that my agent wasn’t calling me in, he said to tell him that he (the casting director) said I should be called in for anything I’m remotely right for because I would get callbacks. And he was right – I got one! I also dropped off a load of yoga resumes at a businessy area near where I live. I’ll follow up on those in a couple of days and see who wants to do lunchtime yoga at their office. AND I’m training in a week at a local bar. Now we’re talking “bar”, not club. Dive bar. Better yet, a dive karaoke bar. It feels like a real neighborhood family place. My friend, Laura, who just moved to LA from DC… she’s only the first of many… the rest will come. ;) Anyway, Laura and her fiancé arrived 2 weeks ago after a ridiculous , SERIOUSLY ridiculous moving saga, and Laura had no luck with the temp agencies, so she did a bartending course. Through that course, she found out about this opening in Culver City. I happened to have an audition near her place yesterday, she told me about this bar, and I called and got an interview today! They like us both. They’re training us both. And some day we will both work at the same time and have a blast and the whole place will burst open with love, great drinks and baby unicorns. You just wait. It will be super to be working with her and to have some extra money coming in because reproducing headshots, getting them touched up, doing casting director workshops, paying for acting class, joining unions, getting reels edited, having a website built, and keeping up your casting pages on Actor’s Access and LA Casting, not to mention joining all of those sites and Showfax, really adds up quickly. Then you add the work I had to get done on my car after driving cross country 3 times in 5 months PLUS the gas you go through driving all over a huge city… you get the picture. So, I gave myself 6 months to start, I’ve accomplished a lot in that time, and it’s time to add in a couple of jobs. I’m also sending my standardized patient resume into the local med schools and, since my resume rocks and I have great references from DC, I’m sure something will come of that.
In retrospect -
I got called back for Swiffer, but didn't book the job. The bar likes me, but hasn't called me in to train yet - they said they'd get back to me by Thursday. Thinking about doing the bar training Laura did just to get onto that hot line and submit for catering jobs. And still waiting for folks in DC to give me the last little bit of info to complete my resume. But I did get cast in a short film - no pay, but some good people. I've completed the last of the voice over work for a USC project and the director said that even his composer, who had to watch the footage over and over again while figuring out the music, told him I was really really good. And the General Hospital casting director cast me in a one day shoot next week. It's background work still, but she remembered me! And I dropped of 10 resumes at local businesses and 2 at Equinox gyms, and no one is looking for yoga instructors. But I have great people around me to encourage me and I'm not giving up!
xox Jewel
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Home is where the... not sure what home is...
It’s interesting how my relationship to place has changed since moving to LA. At first, I felt very divided between LA and DC. Recently, I had a trip home that felt like saying good-bye. Then I had a trip at the end of which, for the first time, I really wanted to get back to LA. Now, for the first time, I feel like I’m going back as a visitor… as a little bit of an outsider. My friends, of course, would say, “Oh, come on, Jewel, you’ll never be an outsider.” But it’s the internal experience that we know best. It’s how we feel inside that is the lens through which we see the world.
More and more I find myself not caring as much what other people might think. I wear sneakers with a skirt when I travel. I don’t drink as much. I don’t go to every birthday party I’m invited to. I choose to be practical when I travel. I drink when I feel like it. I go out when I feel like it. It’s quite freeing – I’ve heard this happens in your 30’s, so I guess I’m just a year early! But this is a tangent. What I really wanted to write about was home.
As a kid who grew up overseas – an expat kid, a 3rd nation kid, etc. – I’ve always had a bit of an outsider thing going on. Even though I was popular and had a lot of friends in school, I always felt a little apart. Do all of us who grew up overseas feel this way? Do all the kids in my family? Does every human?
There are so many transplants to LA that a frequent topic of conversation is where you’re from. This, inevitably for me, leads to my life story. What I find interesting is that while I was in DC, DC never felt like home. Now that I’m in LA, DC is actually becoming home. DC will be where I go back to for Thanksgiving, Christmas. Where I get to go see Dad and Mom. Where I know my way around the city and have favorite places I want to visit every time I’m there. Yet, I’m not from DC. I didn’t grow up there. I don’t identify as someone who grew up in DC because I didn’t. I’m still a kid who grew up in Saudi on a compound surrounded by empty lots with goats in them that is now surrounded by buildings. But, if we consider Saudi Arabia as home, I haven’t been home since 2000. And now, in my new home – Los Angeles – I feel very much at home after only a few months. More so than I ever did in DC. Am I just adaptable or have I found my essential place, my true home, the place where my dharma unfolds? Hopefully, LA is that, and not just the best of 2 US choices for actors. “Always look on the bright side of life” a la Monty Python.
To be continued....
More and more I find myself not caring as much what other people might think. I wear sneakers with a skirt when I travel. I don’t drink as much. I don’t go to every birthday party I’m invited to. I choose to be practical when I travel. I drink when I feel like it. I go out when I feel like it. It’s quite freeing – I’ve heard this happens in your 30’s, so I guess I’m just a year early! But this is a tangent. What I really wanted to write about was home.
As a kid who grew up overseas – an expat kid, a 3rd nation kid, etc. – I’ve always had a bit of an outsider thing going on. Even though I was popular and had a lot of friends in school, I always felt a little apart. Do all of us who grew up overseas feel this way? Do all the kids in my family? Does every human?
There are so many transplants to LA that a frequent topic of conversation is where you’re from. This, inevitably for me, leads to my life story. What I find interesting is that while I was in DC, DC never felt like home. Now that I’m in LA, DC is actually becoming home. DC will be where I go back to for Thanksgiving, Christmas. Where I get to go see Dad and Mom. Where I know my way around the city and have favorite places I want to visit every time I’m there. Yet, I’m not from DC. I didn’t grow up there. I don’t identify as someone who grew up in DC because I didn’t. I’m still a kid who grew up in Saudi on a compound surrounded by empty lots with goats in them that is now surrounded by buildings. But, if we consider Saudi Arabia as home, I haven’t been home since 2000. And now, in my new home – Los Angeles – I feel very much at home after only a few months. More so than I ever did in DC. Am I just adaptable or have I found my essential place, my true home, the place where my dharma unfolds? Hopefully, LA is that, and not just the best of 2 US choices for actors. “Always look on the bright side of life” a la Monty Python.
To be continued....
Working and learning...
This was really written 3 weeks ago... still working on that procrastination thing.
So, I graduated from yoga school June 28th and I’m up to teaching about 3 classes a week with great feedback every time. It’s certainly down from the 7 or so classes I was teaching in DC, but the numbers will rise, like the carbonation bubbles in a glass of soda water. I’ve gotten referrals from my friend Mellissa for two other yoga studios in Hollywood, and there’s a new studio that just opened on the West Side (closer to where I live) where I’ll be dropping off resumes when I get back from this trip to DC. I have realized that one of the main things I allow to hold me back is marketing. Instead of just making up a simple postcard to advertise my services as a yoga teacher and dropping them off at area businesses, I agonize over how I don’t have the skills to design anything and I let myself get distracted by other things so I can keep putting it off. Ridiculous! And, like all things thus far, repeated in my life over and over again. My acting teacher, for instance, has been talking a lot recently about how we each need to know how we get in our own way. Once we know, we can simply decide, albeit over and over again, not to do it again. Easier said than done, but a simple solution never the less. So, I should just make a damn postcard, print 20 off and hand deliver them. I should also start learning a monologue a week to put up in acting class – the more I do, the easier they will get, and the more confident I will be. So, I’m learning lots and now it’s time to put it all into practice. Just decide. Just do it. Decide. Now.
Despite proctastination and lack of confidence in some areas, I continue to get great opportunities! I filmed a PSA (public service announcement) recently for breast cancer with a group of USC students. Their team, along with 3 others, won grants to cover production costs of their version of a PSA for the Army of Women organization. The directors emailed us all this week with the good news that they’d sent the foundation a rough cut (first draft) of our PSA and the organization wrote back that it’s quality and vision were above and beyond what they’d imagined any of the teams would pull off. Hopefully we’ll win and our PSA will actually air! The next great thing that happened was that I got hired to do background work on the set of General Hospital. I met Gwen Hillier, the GH casting director as a result, and had a great 4 days of filming, hanging out with new people, and getting to see what it’s like to film on a multi-camera day time television set. That would have been fine as is, but I ended up getting bumped up from background to an Under-5 role which I can actually put on my resume. So, I’ve met my goal of having at least 2 tv credits my first year here. Now it’s time to surpass that! Under-5, by the way, is a role with a line that’s less than five words long. I got to say “Augh! Oh, my god!” while riding a ferris wheel into which a car crashed, pinning an evil lawyer to the carnival ride. Good times! From that shoot, I had an audition last night for a short film directed by a guy from Philly who moved to LA with his crew of filmmakers after winning a festival with one of their shorts. All networking, all good. The audition was improve and I got the director and the camerawoman to laugh a couple of times, so we’ll see what happens. As a casting director I met recently said, “Anything you do now for your career is an investment that will come back to you in 10 years.” I have to keep reminding myself that a career in acting is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s a loooooooooooong distance run. You just have to keep going, trusting that you’re good enough, believing that there are enough water stops along the way to get you to the end which you know – you just have to know – you’ll find eventually. And, from yoga, abhyasa vairagya – work with consistent and dedicated effort toward your goal, but don’t be so focused on the goal that you miss the joy of the journey, or so set on the goal that you feel like a failure if you don’t make it in this life time. Don’t worry – you’ll have more chances! And, finally, a casting director I know invited me to join her A-List, a list of her favorite actors that she sends occasional emails to when certain opportunities come up, like a last minute casting need or a great agent or manager looking for new clients.
To sum up what the recent months have been about… I’m learning a whole lot about myself, both the good and the, well … let’s not call it the bad, but, rather, the fixable! In this process of learning so much about what I can fix, it’s sometimes hard to remember that there are a lot of parts of me that don’t need fixing. Lesson 1 – I’m in pretty good shape, just as I am, the good and the fixable included. As a result of all this self-inquiry and yoga and acting practice, I’m becoming more aware of, and more sensitive to, the fixable parts of myself. At the same time, as a result of the same work, I’m learning the tools I need to fix those parts of myself. Lesson 2 – My increasing sensitivity to and awareness of my fixable parts is equaled by my growing knowledge of how to fix those parts. And finally, as has happened over and over again the last few months, I’m feeling more and more settled in LA, opportunities continue to present themselves, and I get more and more great feedback from casting directors and other teachers and peers. Lesson 3 – I really am supposed to be here.
As we go forth, may we all have the journeys we need to be strengthened and to feel safe, to teach and to learn, to love and be loved.
Xxo Jewel
So, I graduated from yoga school June 28th and I’m up to teaching about 3 classes a week with great feedback every time. It’s certainly down from the 7 or so classes I was teaching in DC, but the numbers will rise, like the carbonation bubbles in a glass of soda water. I’ve gotten referrals from my friend Mellissa for two other yoga studios in Hollywood, and there’s a new studio that just opened on the West Side (closer to where I live) where I’ll be dropping off resumes when I get back from this trip to DC. I have realized that one of the main things I allow to hold me back is marketing. Instead of just making up a simple postcard to advertise my services as a yoga teacher and dropping them off at area businesses, I agonize over how I don’t have the skills to design anything and I let myself get distracted by other things so I can keep putting it off. Ridiculous! And, like all things thus far, repeated in my life over and over again. My acting teacher, for instance, has been talking a lot recently about how we each need to know how we get in our own way. Once we know, we can simply decide, albeit over and over again, not to do it again. Easier said than done, but a simple solution never the less. So, I should just make a damn postcard, print 20 off and hand deliver them. I should also start learning a monologue a week to put up in acting class – the more I do, the easier they will get, and the more confident I will be. So, I’m learning lots and now it’s time to put it all into practice. Just decide. Just do it. Decide. Now.
Despite proctastination and lack of confidence in some areas, I continue to get great opportunities! I filmed a PSA (public service announcement) recently for breast cancer with a group of USC students. Their team, along with 3 others, won grants to cover production costs of their version of a PSA for the Army of Women organization. The directors emailed us all this week with the good news that they’d sent the foundation a rough cut (first draft) of our PSA and the organization wrote back that it’s quality and vision were above and beyond what they’d imagined any of the teams would pull off. Hopefully we’ll win and our PSA will actually air! The next great thing that happened was that I got hired to do background work on the set of General Hospital. I met Gwen Hillier, the GH casting director as a result, and had a great 4 days of filming, hanging out with new people, and getting to see what it’s like to film on a multi-camera day time television set. That would have been fine as is, but I ended up getting bumped up from background to an Under-5 role which I can actually put on my resume. So, I’ve met my goal of having at least 2 tv credits my first year here. Now it’s time to surpass that! Under-5, by the way, is a role with a line that’s less than five words long. I got to say “Augh! Oh, my god!” while riding a ferris wheel into which a car crashed, pinning an evil lawyer to the carnival ride. Good times! From that shoot, I had an audition last night for a short film directed by a guy from Philly who moved to LA with his crew of filmmakers after winning a festival with one of their shorts. All networking, all good. The audition was improve and I got the director and the camerawoman to laugh a couple of times, so we’ll see what happens. As a casting director I met recently said, “Anything you do now for your career is an investment that will come back to you in 10 years.” I have to keep reminding myself that a career in acting is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s a loooooooooooong distance run. You just have to keep going, trusting that you’re good enough, believing that there are enough water stops along the way to get you to the end which you know – you just have to know – you’ll find eventually. And, from yoga, abhyasa vairagya – work with consistent and dedicated effort toward your goal, but don’t be so focused on the goal that you miss the joy of the journey, or so set on the goal that you feel like a failure if you don’t make it in this life time. Don’t worry – you’ll have more chances! And, finally, a casting director I know invited me to join her A-List, a list of her favorite actors that she sends occasional emails to when certain opportunities come up, like a last minute casting need or a great agent or manager looking for new clients.
To sum up what the recent months have been about… I’m learning a whole lot about myself, both the good and the, well … let’s not call it the bad, but, rather, the fixable! In this process of learning so much about what I can fix, it’s sometimes hard to remember that there are a lot of parts of me that don’t need fixing. Lesson 1 – I’m in pretty good shape, just as I am, the good and the fixable included. As a result of all this self-inquiry and yoga and acting practice, I’m becoming more aware of, and more sensitive to, the fixable parts of myself. At the same time, as a result of the same work, I’m learning the tools I need to fix those parts of myself. Lesson 2 – My increasing sensitivity to and awareness of my fixable parts is equaled by my growing knowledge of how to fix those parts. And finally, as has happened over and over again the last few months, I’m feeling more and more settled in LA, opportunities continue to present themselves, and I get more and more great feedback from casting directors and other teachers and peers. Lesson 3 – I really am supposed to be here.
As we go forth, may we all have the journeys we need to be strengthened and to feel safe, to teach and to learn, to love and be loved.
Xxo Jewel
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