Callbacks.

I'm all better. I was hurting for 48 hours...mainly just a fever. Then I woke up yesterday and felt fine. The body is strange like that I guess. Lets talk about the "callback" for a second, shall we? Before moving here I had auditioned in LA for about ten projects. I had three callbacks (second auditions) and booked once out of ten. Since moving here I have had thirty-five auditions and booked three smaller projects but no callbacks! (The projects that I booked didn't have callbacks.) So...yesterday was my first real callback since moving here. It was for a national Honda commercial. (The nation is Canada, but what are you gonna do?) It's a very clever and funny spot. Callbacks are at once exhilirating (you realize that someone actually liked something about you) and incredibly frustrating (you show up to find twenty other guys who look exactly like you that they also liked.) It feels like you have almost booked it, until you get to the audition then it feels like even more of a longshot than the first time.

I was talking to a guy waiting with me yesterday. He was saying that his wife always ask how his auditions go and he says "fine." "She hasn't quite got the grasp of the whole lottery system of commercial auditions," he said. When he said that it hit me. At this level...the callback for a major commercial...it's all about the client liking somebody's ear lobe or eye color or smirk more than the next guy. Somehow that relaxed me. So I went in and pretty much nailed it. Five times. They kept saying, "That was really great, just try this...", etc. I left knowing that in that moment I had completely delivered exactly what they wanted. I could just tell. Now I just have to wait this weekend to see if they liked one of the other guy's eye lashes or bone structure more than mine. Cause the other reality is, at this level, most everybody nails it all the time.