Who the heck booked Pilots this year?

Now that the upfronts are pretty much over and we know which pilots got picked up and which ones didn't, there are those of us actors who didn't even get to go out for pilots much less book one.  So, of the pilots that got produced who did get those jobs? 

James J. Jones owner of The Premier Talent Group did the math for those of us not good with numbers:

“2011 PILOT SEASON stratification by the numbers
Of the 529 Series Regular Roles (assuming that named
doing recurring roles):

112 or 21.2% Went to NAMED ACTORS
262 or 49.5% -­ Went to KNOWN ACTORS
374 or 70.7% -­ Went to NAMED AND KNOWN ACTORS

*Of the additional 27.3% of the bookings, almost all of them had significant credits
as series recurring actors or series regulars in shows that did not last long. Only 7
bookings (2.0%) would be considered truly developmental received series regular
roles, and many of these went to the under 18 category.

In short,

21.2% of series roles went to bonafide star names (ie Ethan Hawke and Christina Ricci).
49.5% of series regulars went to former series regulars of major shows.
27.3% of series regular roles went to heavy working actors with numerous.
series recurring roles and/or series regular roles of shows that did not last.
2.0% of series regular roles went to true developmental actors."

I spent a number of days helping out at my agent's office during "pilot season" and can tell you that no matter how much he pitched it was hard to even get an audition for any talent who did not already have significant credits.  One of my agents was pitching me for a co-star role and they told her it had gone to an offer.

On top of all the roles going to offers many of the Pilots were filmed outside of LA.

"As of April 18th, Variety was reporting that confirmed Pilot Shoots will occur in:

United States
48 Los Angeles
11 New York (Unt. Susannah Grant, Over & Under, Unt. Redlich/Belluchi, Prime
Suspects, Smash, Weekend at Bellevue, Georgetown, Persons of Interest,
Ringer, Rookies and Pan Am)
4 Florida (Bad Mom, Magic City, The Finder, Angels)
4 Illinois (Cooper and Stone;; Boss, Playboy)
2 Georgia (Hail Mary, Partners)
2 New Mexico (Reconstruction, Longmire)
2 North Carolina (Revenge;; Hart of Dixie)
1 Oregon (Grimm)
1 Louisiana (Wild Card)
1 Texas (Good Christian Bitches)
1 Pennsylvania (Locke and Key)

Outside of the United States
5 Vancouver, Canada (17th Precinct, Secret Circle, Alcatraz, Heavenly and Once
Upon a Time)
2 Toronto, Canada (Awakening, Poe)
1 Prague/Rome/Vienna (Missing)
1 Puerto Rico (The River)
1 Montreal, Canada (Identity)"*

That tells me it is time to either marry a Canadian so I can legally work up there or make some magic happen with the local hire casting offices outside of LA. 

Now you can either take all this information and chose to be discouraged, but I don't think that is the right response.  I think it is even more evidence that you can't rely on other people to give you opportunities to do your art.  Create your own films!

Need some inspiration? See what your colleagues are creating by joining us at the Playhouse West Film Festival to be educated and inspired.


*See the complete 2011 PILOT REPORT from The Premier Talent Group

There is No Vacation from Following Your Dreams.

For my birthday this year I took a vacation.  I left LA for a week and did my best to not look at the breakdowns or obsess over what I wasn't getting called in on.  This week I tried to have a break where I didn't have to think about all this acting "career" stuff.  Sounds easy, right?

It isn't.  I already told you in my last post, It's Your Audition, Own It, I had to self-tape an audition while I was away. The truth is that I loved that I had to do that.  Whenever I take any break from my work towards my dreams, I am filled with regret.  I fear missed opportunities.

That is what makes pursuing your dreams so much different from so many other professions.  There are no true vacations and you always take your work home with you.

Since it is the last day of my vacation and blog writing is not my dream, I will keep this post short and end it here.

It's Your Audition, Own It!

I was out of town this week and as is often the case when I leave Los Angeles – I got an audition.

I swear there should be Travel Agency for Actors that plans wonderful vacations for us, virtually guaranteeing amazing auditions on the day after we are supposed to leave town. 

Luckily for me this casting office was willing to accept a self-tape audition.   My dad and I found an empty wall in the house, brought every light into the room that we could gather and shot the sides on my 7D.  Dad made an excellent reader.

After approximately 50 takes (I'm very critical of myself), I edited the best ones on iMovie and emailed it off to the casting office.

I know I always say after an audition you should forget about it, but apparently I am not good at practicing what I preach.  The next morning in the shower, it hit me: I’D COMPLETELY MISINTERPRETTED THE SCENE!   

I immediately did the actor-thing of beating myself up.  How could I have screwed up a self-taped audition?  How could I have ruined my one opportunity to impress this casting office?  All the usual self-flagellating things that actors do.

In the midst of my inner monologue filled with self-hate, my mother points out I could always just film it again the other way and send it to them.  My first response was: No, I don’t want to bother them.  But, after a little pushing from my mom, I reconsidered and decided: what do I have to lose?  So, we set up the wall again and I did the scenes with my new take.  Mom also made an excellent reader. 

I edited it and emailed it off, with a nice note to the casting office.  And to my surprise they weren’t annoyed or put out; they actually sent a note of thanks back.

Don’t be afraid of casting, they want you to do the best you can, and if you truly hated your audition and know you can do it differently ask them if you can do it again.  The time you have with casting is your time, don’t leave feeling like you didn’t do everything you wanted to do.

Just Waiting for Someone to Wake Me Up

Over the last couple months, I’ve been working as a reader at a feature film casting office.  What was interesting about this particular experience was that we were working on only one role for 6 weeks.  I read with over 200 hundred actors all doing the exact same 5 page scene.  Trust me, at this point I know every line in that scene inside and out.   I can do the scene in my sleep and I hate to admit it but there were times when I was pretty much asleep during the session.

If good acting is listening and reacting, then I fully admit during these auditions I was not always a good actor.  But every once in awhile, an actor would come in and really draw me out; these few would force me to pay attention.

It reminds of something a casting director once told me: in auditions he was usually just waiting for an actor to wake him up.

I started trying to figure out the difference between the boring actors that have now all run together in my head and the few that forced me to notice them.  Honestly, the ones that really woke me up were the ones that I could tell were truly paying attention to me.  In the scene they weren’t just talking at me but were listening to me and making sure that I understood them.

The ones that were good were more concerned about me than how they looked or if they were acting “right.”  It made them live truthfully in the situation, which is something actors are wonderful at on stage or on set, but for some reason find nearly impossible in the audition room.

When you go into an audition, take the pressure off yourself and put all the attention on the other person.  It will help you relax and one thing a casting director always likes to see is a relaxed, confident actor.  Those actors make the casting directors job so much easier.

What Makes Art so Important? (or why I became an actor.)

Right after 9/11 happened the whole world seemed to stop.  The only thing on television and radio was the news.  I hated leaving my living room because I was afraid to miss a minute of the coverage and even refused to turn my TV off when I was going to sleep.  For days we became a nation of news junkies.  No one seemed to know when was okay to start airing something other than the images of the Towers and the Pentagon that are now ingrained in everyone’s collective memory.   

In the days following 9/11, entertainment seemed so trite and unnecessary.  But, eventually all the stations went back to airing their regular programs.   

And as much as I can't forget the footage of that terrible day, I also remember Jon Stewart on the Daily Show a week later asking “Are you okay?” and Dave Letterman getting choked up explaining why he decided to put The Late Show back on air. 

Today, it seemed silly to write a blog about how to be a better actor because after yesterday’s news how trivial does that sound?  But, then I remembered that it was the entertainers, the actors, the comedians, the writers, and the musicians who helped mend a very wounded country 10 years ago.
 

I believe the entertainers helped to bring us back from the brink.  They became the ones we looked to on how to go back to our lives after the tragedy.  They showed us that what we were feeling was the same as everyone else in this country.  They helped us grieve and even begin to heal. 

The world needs artists as much as it needs scientists and doctors.  Art, whether it’s a painting in the Louvre, a musical on Broadway, or a crime drama on CBS, provides people with a way to relate, reflect, and give meaning to the world around us.

So, today's blog is for all you artists, writers, actors, musicians, comedians, and entertainers out there to remind you that what you do is important!  Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s not.   

**Dedicated to all the brave men and women fighting for our country and protecting our freedoms.  I promise we will do our best to keep entertaining you.**