HEADSHOTS, AND AGENTS, AND JOBS! OH MY!

The last couple week’s blogs have been about my past acting experiences. These have been fun for me, since they document times from my early days in the business and, hopefully, are somewhat entertaining for you to read as well. I assure you there will be more of that style in the future, seeing that I have much left to tell, but this blog will be more of a week’s wrap-up blog.

My amazing parents are in town from the NY/NJ area, and since they arrived it has been sunny and in the 90’s in “the valley,” very similar to our days living in the Middle East, though not as humid. The heat seems to have warmed up not only LA, but heated up the job front too! They always say that when you aren’t looking or expecting it, things just seem to happen, and that sure appears to be the case here.

Aside from being a part time nanny to the most adorable and happy 4 month old, house sitting, and the usual creative jobs I do on the side when I am not acting, just this week alone I got a number of other fun offers. These include creating a theatre poster, retouching headshots, designing logos, creating MySpace layouts, designing a website (since I know HTML coding), acting in promotional DVD’s, and doing some print modeling for brochures.

This is on top of designing and creating layouts for coupons and business cards for a friend’s popular make-up lines Razzle Dazzle Cosmetics (RazzleDazzleCosmetics.com) and Pur Element (PurElement.com). Needless to say, I am thankful for each, since they allow me to use my design/artistic talents and PhotoShop/HTML programming skills to stay creative, as well as to make money, while taking baby steps towards being a successful actor in the land of actors.

Above, I mentioned modeling, and although people often ask me if I model or do commercial print, I quite honestly have never done either. Many in Hollywood are the model-actor types, but I am an actor only. That said, my good friend Amanda Fields, who is a successful fashion and runway model, mentioned this past week that I should really be doing commercial print modeling and quickly suggested I go meet with her agency’s print division for actor types.

In this business you have to take opportunities and run with them! Although this is a different avenue, which veers off of my typical acting road, it is relevant, I suppose, and you never know unless you try. So, she generously went ahead and spoke with them, and they are wiling to meet with me. I should know the outcome next week and will be sure to update you on it in a future blog!

Aside from the above, I got my new headshots ready with a variety of looks, something that is very important for all actors and are somewhat like calling cards for us. The shoots, despite being long (five hours in this case) are always fun and relatively easy. It’s narrowing down the pictures that’s the difficult part. I have about 800 to choose from, which my agent has kindly reduced to about 150 from the proof sheets.

Next, I made 4×6 copies of those chosen and, on Friday afternoon, stopped by my agent’s very sleek, Manhattan-esque, high-rise office on Wilshire to drop them off for further review. We’ll meet next week to discuss and pick those I will get printed as 8×10’s to use for auditions.

All in all, it has been a very productive week, and I look forward to seeing what might stem from the above. Including whether commercial print makes an appearance on my resume or stays off in the wings, so to speak. Either way, I shall continue to welcome any and all of the above and enjoy the remaining time with my parents here in LA…especially now that my 2007 tax returns are out of the way!

“Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along.” - Hugh Allen