Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Brilliantly Bold

God has been blessing me with an abundance of opportunities to strecth my creativity and strengthen my craft. My confidence during auditions, rehearsals, bookings and such have been through the roof and I'm extremely grateful to HIM. I've come to learn that receiving the blessings is only half the task and there will be challenges around every opportunity. This was surely the case with a gig I shot yesterday.

I will admit that I've had to humble myself a bit these past few weeks to remain level headed and not get too prideful. I walked into the building yesterday kind of thinking that this would be a walk in the park. "I booked the commercial so why be nervous and stuff, right?" It had been a long morning for me already with doctors appointments, conference calls, and admin work. Once the production assistant said we didn't have to memorize our lines and that they just wanted us to be ourselves, I got real chill and laid back. Not such a good idea, after I found out that only 2 of the 7 talent on set would actually be used in the commercial. This is a difference of a $200 check or a $1700 check so you can understand my new found urgency. "Dang it, Guess I better get up off my butt and read over this script and be prepared to knock their socks off", I told myself. My energy was slowly coming back and as my second wind arrived I prayed to God for confidence and guidance to get me through this shoot. (Sidenote: I can't count the number of times that God has gotten me through challenges in this industry as a result of me simply pausing to ask for his help.) OK back to the shoot. It's my turn to go on set and I'm a bit anxious because I over heard the clients in the other room say "Damn she's good!" in response to the performance of the actress who went before me. Can you say PRESSURE!?! I arrive to the set, get wired up for audio, and the director comes to have a chat with me. He was super friendly and reminded me that he loved my audition because I gave a very natural and engaging read and that's exactly what they were looking for. Bam!!! There it is, just the extra push I needed to boost this actress into gear and Wow the clients. I was darn good if I can say so without tooting my own horn. I'm always throwing lines out there while on set just in case someone overheard me and wants to add them in. I figure this way is much more humble than telling a director how to do their job. Because us actors have good ideas too, great ideas at times and it makes you much more marketable when you can bring a different angle to the shoot. I said all that to say, the director picked up several of my improv lines and shot them for the commercial. Yay!!! I was so proud of me and received mucho kudos from the director and assistant.

In summary, I have no idea if I'll be selected as one of the 2 actors to be in the spot and get the extra mula. I DO know with 200% certainty that I left an impression and did my very best and then some. I knocked my own socks off on that set with the decisions I made about my character and that's enough of a reward for me. Heavenly Father, thank you for providing me the tools required to do my very best with this wonderful gift of creativity you've given me. It's a combination of all the people, experiences, and lessons you've inserted into my life. I hope this entry encourages a fellow actor or anyone to make bold decisions and go after what you know is yours. Be Brilliantly Bold!

Peace yall!

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