Monday, March 07, 2011
An unusual project today
An (expletive deleted) casting director sent a poorly planed EMAIL with 20 performers names and I had to find the phone and email for each one in casting networks and email them two sides for some commercial.
From my perspective, the casting call was not well thought out, but I suppose from a directors point of view that is why they pay an agency... to do the grunt work...
The audition (or whatever you call it) is Wednesday... (Drew is coming in tomorrow and i am on jury duty) ... and about 5 of the people did not have email addresses.... I got all done with those 20 and THEN the [expletive deleted] casting director sends a second email explaining that there can be no SAG, and then a bunch of substitutions.... and it was a very vague email... no mention of pay, no mention of the directors phone number... so I had to google for that.
One actor wants the part but is in New Orleans and cannot get a flight because of Mardis Gras.
Two people wrote to say they were abroad (one in Europe and the other in Australia).
I created a folder on desktop called something like email-projects.... then in that I created a folder with the project name... then I saved the entire email as NOTE .txt . AND I saved the two word document sides... then I resaved the original email with the name list over and over under each performers name, and deleted all the names EXCEPT their name from their copy.... THEN, I opened dptalentinvest@gmail.com and ADDED each one I found as a contact (because the Yahoo address book SUCKS). MOTE THAT IF YOU METHODICALLY ADD EVERYONE TO AN ADDRESS BOOK THEN IN THEORY LIFE WILL EVENTUALLY BECOME EASIER IF YOU DO NOT DIE FIRST... but even then it will be easier for those who replace you. I created a GROUP for that casting director's name and Co. and tagged each CONTACT with that group. I pasted the wednesday time and date in their NOTES and filled in name, address phone... USE THE CONTACT NOTE SECTION TO DOCUMENT RECENT ACTIVITY. ...
As I successfully sent each email with the two sides attached, I changed the FILE name to leading 0000 so FINISHED files would float to the top in a directory listing.... I had a copy called ORIGINAL where I mintained a call list. I had a text file for the BODY of the email which starts off with DP's famous caution... DO NOT put down your own phone or email...put the AGENCY phone and email and erase your contact info from head-shots... wonder how many abide by such instructions? ,, I guess it is the "honor system" .... Five had NO EMAIL so I had to try and call them on my cell...
A curse be upon those interns of yesteryear who never bother to key in an email address... and a curse upon performers who are too dumb to include their email address... what do they expect, CARRIER PIGEONS?
I am posting this to illustrate some of the things that an Intern may have to do in certain situations.
Oh... Lou gave me a valuable suggestion.... whenever you look at a resume... check out IMBD because ALL the televsion roles will appear (though some low budget films may not.)
