Last Wednesday I had three auditions–two for commercials, and one for a play. Recent advances in technology have made the methodology for commercial auditions as such:

1. you walk in and sign the audition sheet

2. You get a Polaroid or digital shot taken

3. You fill out an info sheet with aforementioned photo attached

4. You audition.

This breaks the otherwise common practice of bringing a headshot and resume with you to commercial calls–a thing that is absolutely required for all other forms of auditioning. In my 7 years of reading for commercials, I have only once given a Casting Director a headshot, and she asked for it in advance. That all changed last Wednesday. I had to not only give them a headshot, but give them all of my headshots ie. the two I had on me. After this unusual Robbing of my last headshots, I had to run across town to catch another audition for a play that absolutely required a headshot. I was screwed. I had no way of getting another shot before the play reading.

“Can I have your headshot?” she asked.

The only thing I could do was shrug and give her a toothy smile.

That evening I sent an apologetic email about the situation, and she responded with a curt “did you get your callback time? It’s tomorrow at 3.” When I got to the callback I was greeted with a “Did you bring two headshots?” I gave them to her and she went into the other room, instructing me to wait. As she returned, she produced an 8×10 sheet of paper, handed it to me and said “I just want to let you know what I had to go through yesterday to keep you in the lineup.” I followed her into the audition room. She sat, and instructed me to “hold the drawing up for everyone to see the uncanny likeness.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 1:45 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.