Musical      Munchkin, Snowman, Citizen of Oz   The Wizard of Oz

The Little Match Girl         Mike                            Falcon HS Production

Allen and the Geek            Allen                           Falcon HS Production

 

 

Theater:

Heaven’s Gates  Drug Dealer                   Vinita Ministerial

Hell’s Flames      Alliance Theatre

TV Spot - Baltimore Sun Newspaper

Modeing Job - Senior Living Facility

Editorial for Radiology Magazine

TV Commercial - Baltimore County Savings Bank

Cast in two pilot episodes of American Saddle Adventures

Oxygen Fitness magazine

National Equestrian Magazine

Print ad for El Companero

Spectro Skin Care

TV Commercial for Dannino

Whenever I have auditioned for a film/TV or a commercial, I am always very familiar with the words, but only on rare occasions will I have them memorized. In most situations, I will have the words memorized for a call back, and certainly have them committed to memory for the job.

I just had a chance to sit and talk with a manager and a casting director who are based in L.A. The manager works with some really successful actors and the casting director is currently casting a kids, TV show. They both said the same thing to me. If the actor is given the script a few days prior to the audition, they are expected to have it memorized. I was really surprised.

So now I know, if I am ever auditioning for a project that is being cast on the West Coast, I will do my best to have the lines memorized for the taping. For projects being cast in other locations, I would recommend you ask your agent to see if the lines need to be memorized for the audition.

After 25 plus years in the business, I am still learning new things all the time.

I am the type of person who likes to arrange things way in advance. If I know I am giving a workshop in a distant city, I like booking my flight and hotel a few months in advance. I love getting details out of the way, so I can stop thinking about them and concentrate on new things.

 

Like many people, I am filled with contradictions. In the acting and modeling world, I rarely get to experience arrangements and details that are given to me long in advance.  Unless you are a pretty well known talent, and a project is written and produced around you, we are some of the last people who get the necessary information. I have learned to accept the pecking order and understand how this business works. For example:

I got a call from a New York agent to find out if I was available on certain dates to do a print job. I told him I was available. They were also considering a few other models. Then I got a phone call about those dates changing, and was asked about availability for other dates. Finally, I was confirmed for the booking, but was told that since we were shooting outside, the date would change if we had bad weather. So, the day before the shoot, I found out the weather was good, and we were on for the next day.

 The day before the shoot I found out my call time was 5:00 A.M. in NY. I live in Maryland, so now I scrambling to figure out where I am going to stay that evening. If I needed to look really tired and have circles under my eyes, I would have considered driving up at 12:30 A.M. But, for this shoot I needed to look alive and healthy, I knew that I had to sleep within an hour of N.Y. I jumped through that hurdle and found a place to stay.

Now things got trickier. Since I was going to drive directly to the park in Brooklyn, I would not have to meet the mobile home in NY. The mobile home was picking up the other model, stylist and makeup artist, and driving them to the set. The mobile home was also going to be used as our holding area and transportation around the park for the different shots. I had to find everyone at the park at 6:00 A.M. I learned that the park is huge, like  Central Park, and finding them would not be as easy as I thought. So now I am the phone with the park people and their web site to get directions to the specific entrance where the mobile home was going to be parked. Fortunately, I had cell phone numbers for both the stylist (who was on the mobile home), and the photographer who was also driving to the park.

Because I always give myself plenty of time to get to a set, I actually wound up getting to the park at 4:45 A.M and sat in my car. When I did not see the mobile home by 6:00 I decided to call the stylist, just to make sure I was not in the wrong area. The mobile home was running late.

As it turned out, the shoot was incredible; and I had such a fun time shooting until 4:00 P.M., After the shoot, I drove straight home, and slept very well that night.

The point is, in this business, you have to be ready for anything, be flexible, and understand there are many people who make decisions on projects. When things change, just keep in the back of your mind, that as crazy as our lives get sometimes, this is the way the acting and modeling industry works, and you simply have to learn to go with the flow.

I just received a call from a great photographer asking me if I wanted

to do a shoot. He was offering me $600. The other part that was great, was

that it would have been in a hospital setting with me as a doctor. Since I

get booked as a doctor, I can never have too many great doctor shots. So, why

in the world would I turn this down?

 

This was not an ad. Instead, it was a stock shot. This is where photographers

create an incredible photo that looks like an ad, and then they try and rent it

to ad agencies. It is always cheaper for an ad agency to rent an existing stock

shot, then to hire a photographer, makeup artist, model, stylist and create a

new ad.

 

There are many professional models who do stock photography. The good part,

is that even though you will get paid a lot less for stock work (in NY you can

expect up to $250/hour for an ad as opposed to $75/hour for stock work), the model gets an

incredible photo that can be used on a comp card, or an agents web site.

 

The only problem with doing stock work is that you have to sign a release giving the photographer permission to use your image for any type of ad. You

have no idea if your image will be a part of an ad campaign you are not comfortable

supporting or being a part of. That is why I do not do any stock work anymore.

 

If I accepted this stock job, and my image is used for let’s say a pharmaceutical ad

for high blood pressure, I would not be told or know how, where or for whom the shot was used.

 

Not knowing where and how my image is being used could cause some

incredible problems for me in the future.

 

Quite often with pharmaceutical jobs, models are asked if they have any

conflicts running. If I did a stock shot, I would have no idea if I have there

are any ads running that would be considered a conflict.

 

In the worst case scenario, and I did the new pharmaceutical job, and later, they

find my stock shot running for a competing product, there could be some

nasty legal ramifications.

 

So, as much as I wanted to work with this photographer, get some great shots,

I did not think it would be a smart business decision.