OK. i haven't posted anything about career in a while, so here's an update. the commercial world has been slow as hell, but i finally had an audition the other day for hyundai and i have the callback tomorrow. yay!
next on this list...you will hear more about this when i'm getting closer to actually shooting, but i am developing a secret project that should be very fun. it's a spoof video and i am really really excited about it. heeeee...
let's see, what else....i recently worked background on a film called greenberg starring ben stiller and jennifer jason leigh. i hate background work, but my friend anna is assistant to the director, noah baumbach. she asked if i would do it because noah doesn't like hiring career background actors (i don't blame him). since i like to have any reason to not work my bar job, i said yes and it turned out to be super fun. it was this party scene with a bunch of young people, so after four nights on the shoot, it was like summer camp ending and maybe even a little sentimental. i was also spoiled and got to have a room to hang out in during all the downtime. oh man, i would have pulled my hair out if not for that room. it must be noted that the crew on this film was AMAZING. it was definitely a learning experience to watch them work. it was also nice to see a director allow actors to do 15 takes on an important scene...emotionally draining i'm sure, but how great to have that opportunity to really sink it. i'm eager to see the film once it's finished.
lastly, i'll be making a cameo in my friend Meiko's music video. we shoot on wednesday and i'll be playing a harajuku girl. ha! should be really fun. i'm totally gonna vlog about it.
that's it for now!
Showing posts with label Acting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Acting. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Booked It!
Quick update: I booked the taco bell spot! wohoo! So, stay tuned for the next video blog installment about the gig! It shoots a week from today, so hopefully I'll have the video up by the end of next week!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
yo quiero taco bell
hey everybody! here is my second installment of the video blog. yesterday i had a callback for a taco bell commercial. i can't say who, but there's a pretty big athlete in the spot, which is neat. to shoot this video, i just used my point and shoot canon, and the sound quality is terrible, i apologize. but, i just bought this little digital video recorder and maybe that will be better for future installments. this was really fun to make...i dicked around with imovie for the first time....hehe...dork. i love this shit. so...watch it! i hope you like it!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
the processed actor
well golly. i've been in LA for over five years and it only occurred to me now that maybe i should blog about my experiences building an acting career in LA. it's definitely not easy, at least not for 99% of all actors trying to make it out here. for some it takes years just to get represented or join the union.
so...in a huge nutshell, here's how my journey went.
i moved to LA in the summer of 02' with my now ex-boyfriend. we were living in good ol' Rockville, MD (it's as exciting as it sounds). this was one year after i graduated from University of Maryland, College Park. you might be wondering if i studied theater in college. the answer is a big fat NO. i did NOT have the slightest interest in studying theater in college. i did theater in high school and that was all fun and games, but i knew that my interest was in film/television, and in my mind a theater degree was NOT going to help me. if anything, it would be a useless degree to me in case i discovered this crapshoot business was too much and i gave up. i knew, however, that i would NEVER give up.
as much as i would have liked to just move to NYC or LA right after high school (still something i wonder about all the time), college was probably the right move. i lived my childhood somewhat incubated in a non-english speaking household. parents were conservative, first generation immigrants from Taiwan. my experiences inside and outside the home were complete dichotomies. i had to learn how to function socially and academically as a "typical american kid" without it already mapped out by the last generation. needless to say, i was not always good at it. i was very opinionated and very blunt, so i would piss people off sometimes. i was super naive, and college was the first time i didn't have my parents constantly holding me back. if that had been NYC or LA right after high school and not college, i'd probably be a jacked up coke-head with herpes or something equally terrible and nasty. no, instead i got to experiment in a somewhat controlled environment with peers that had life goals and shit. whew for that.
SO ANYWAY, the move. driving across country is fun, but expensive. and please be careful using bungee cords or you might find yourself gushing blood out of your forehead somewhere in Arkansas. true story. not fun. bungee cords suck. scar to prove it.
arriving in LA is a surreal experience. when you first get here, everything looks the same. everywhere looks like a beach town. sort of. there's palm trees everywhere and it's sunny and hot and flat. there are cars everywhere. five miles feels like 25 miles. you always turn left on red. awesome. you're in LA.
then you start apartment hunting and you're like, "WTF??? that shithole is $2000/mo?" awesome. you're in LA.
also, when you first arrive in LA, you think that living by the beach is the cat's meow. oh man, did i want to live by the beach. so you get an apartment about 5 miles from the beach and whoops! you realize that even driving five miles to go to the beach is the equivalent to trucking across town in suburban Maryland. so you move closer to the beach, like 6 blocks. it smells kind of like the ocean when you're not smelling the bums. awesome. you're in LA. BUT WAIT!!! NO. you realize that you're not fucking in LA!!! yeah, the beach is awesome in theory, but i spent a year and a half living on the westside and went into the city like three times. EVER! what the fuck is LA??? i had no idea! i wasn't learning jack about what i needed to do to further my career whatsoever.
in the midst of all this discovery, my relationship also fell apart. sorry dude. i loved you, but it was just not working out. don't worry kids, he's ok (still lives on the westside) and we're still friends.
SO i moved east. to Silver Lake, the land of hipsters. moving out on my own was one of the best things i ever did for my career. this period of time was when i started to self submit on Actors Access. i booked some regional commercials through this avenue, as well as a music video for a Taiwanese pop star JJ Lin. for any actor, self-submitting is one of the best things you can do before you become union or find representation. even if it's a crappy student film, you start to understand how shots are set up, and how you look on camera. and if you're lucky and perform well, you get footage for an actor's reel.
over the next few years i end up moving around a few more times, first with a friend, and then eventually moved in with another boyfriend. it's through him that i met my first and current agent, Melissa Hirschenson at Innovative Artists. Melissa used to be his commercial agent years ago, but left LA for a few years to work as a casting director. when she moved back to LA in 05', the agency where she used to work did not have a position for her in the commercial department, but instead gave her a spot in a new department called the Crossover Division, which has now merged with their Youth Division.
i was extremely lucky to meet Melissa at this time because she was just building her list of clients. since she didn't have any girls of the asian persuasion, she called me in. right at this time, i had received an offer for commercial representation at a boutique agency called Howard Talent West, which i brought up to Melissa and she had me meet the commercial department at Innovative. they started to submit me and i quickly started getting callbacks. several months later, the company legitimately signed me on as a client.
i cannot stress how very fortunate i am to have met Melissa at that time. i don't think i'd be with such a good agency now had i not met her. since then i've worked on several commercials, independent film, and gone on many interesting (and educational) auditions. since this first blog is already so long, i'll stop here and go into more detail about some of those projects and current events in separate blogs.
if you made it this far, thanks for reading! i hope i can help some of you who have the same goals!!
p
so...in a huge nutshell, here's how my journey went.
i moved to LA in the summer of 02' with my now ex-boyfriend. we were living in good ol' Rockville, MD (it's as exciting as it sounds). this was one year after i graduated from University of Maryland, College Park. you might be wondering if i studied theater in college. the answer is a big fat NO. i did NOT have the slightest interest in studying theater in college. i did theater in high school and that was all fun and games, but i knew that my interest was in film/television, and in my mind a theater degree was NOT going to help me. if anything, it would be a useless degree to me in case i discovered this crapshoot business was too much and i gave up. i knew, however, that i would NEVER give up.
as much as i would have liked to just move to NYC or LA right after high school (still something i wonder about all the time), college was probably the right move. i lived my childhood somewhat incubated in a non-english speaking household. parents were conservative, first generation immigrants from Taiwan. my experiences inside and outside the home were complete dichotomies. i had to learn how to function socially and academically as a "typical american kid" without it already mapped out by the last generation. needless to say, i was not always good at it. i was very opinionated and very blunt, so i would piss people off sometimes. i was super naive, and college was the first time i didn't have my parents constantly holding me back. if that had been NYC or LA right after high school and not college, i'd probably be a jacked up coke-head with herpes or something equally terrible and nasty. no, instead i got to experiment in a somewhat controlled environment with peers that had life goals and shit. whew for that.
SO ANYWAY, the move. driving across country is fun, but expensive. and please be careful using bungee cords or you might find yourself gushing blood out of your forehead somewhere in Arkansas. true story. not fun. bungee cords suck. scar to prove it.
arriving in LA is a surreal experience. when you first get here, everything looks the same. everywhere looks like a beach town. sort of. there's palm trees everywhere and it's sunny and hot and flat. there are cars everywhere. five miles feels like 25 miles. you always turn left on red. awesome. you're in LA.
then you start apartment hunting and you're like, "WTF??? that shithole is $2000/mo?" awesome. you're in LA.
also, when you first arrive in LA, you think that living by the beach is the cat's meow. oh man, did i want to live by the beach. so you get an apartment about 5 miles from the beach and whoops! you realize that even driving five miles to go to the beach is the equivalent to trucking across town in suburban Maryland. so you move closer to the beach, like 6 blocks. it smells kind of like the ocean when you're not smelling the bums. awesome. you're in LA. BUT WAIT!!! NO. you realize that you're not fucking in LA!!! yeah, the beach is awesome in theory, but i spent a year and a half living on the westside and went into the city like three times. EVER! what the fuck is LA??? i had no idea! i wasn't learning jack about what i needed to do to further my career whatsoever.
in the midst of all this discovery, my relationship also fell apart. sorry dude. i loved you, but it was just not working out. don't worry kids, he's ok (still lives on the westside) and we're still friends.
SO i moved east. to Silver Lake, the land of hipsters. moving out on my own was one of the best things i ever did for my career. this period of time was when i started to self submit on Actors Access. i booked some regional commercials through this avenue, as well as a music video for a Taiwanese pop star JJ Lin. for any actor, self-submitting is one of the best things you can do before you become union or find representation. even if it's a crappy student film, you start to understand how shots are set up, and how you look on camera. and if you're lucky and perform well, you get footage for an actor's reel.
over the next few years i end up moving around a few more times, first with a friend, and then eventually moved in with another boyfriend. it's through him that i met my first and current agent, Melissa Hirschenson at Innovative Artists. Melissa used to be his commercial agent years ago, but left LA for a few years to work as a casting director. when she moved back to LA in 05', the agency where she used to work did not have a position for her in the commercial department, but instead gave her a spot in a new department called the Crossover Division, which has now merged with their Youth Division.
i was extremely lucky to meet Melissa at this time because she was just building her list of clients. since she didn't have any girls of the asian persuasion, she called me in. right at this time, i had received an offer for commercial representation at a boutique agency called Howard Talent West, which i brought up to Melissa and she had me meet the commercial department at Innovative. they started to submit me and i quickly started getting callbacks. several months later, the company legitimately signed me on as a client.
i cannot stress how very fortunate i am to have met Melissa at that time. i don't think i'd be with such a good agency now had i not met her. since then i've worked on several commercials, independent film, and gone on many interesting (and educational) auditions. since this first blog is already so long, i'll stop here and go into more detail about some of those projects and current events in separate blogs.
if you made it this far, thanks for reading! i hope i can help some of you who have the same goals!!
p
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