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Multiple Personality Disorder
Yes, I know it is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (I was a psych major, after all) and no, I don’t have it. But yesterday I did get to live the lives of 8 different characters, albeit for short periods of time, not counting the lines and monologues I use for vocal exercises. It just so happened that before I even got to Suzanna’s class, I had 3 self tapes to do at home. I am planning on doing Bonnie’s Self-Tape Challenge this month, to flex those acting muscles, but these self-tapes were auditions done at home for actual parts, which is always exciting. At first, it was just my…
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A twist to the audition class
In last night’s class, I got to be the adorkable and quirky Jess from New Girl. We ran lines before class started, then went up first, since we were the only ones who weren’t doing it audition-style this class (due to my being absent a few weeks ago). We did it the first time and it was good. It really felt natural and we were both present, but we also sort of maybe rushed a bit through some moments that we should have lived in more. So, we did it a second time and allowed the moments to land, to listen to and react specifically to what the other person…
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Self-tapes and Troll dates
After an unexpectedly family-centric weekend, with very little work getting done, I got back to the grind on Tuesday. I spent most of my day learning lines and working on some monologues for self-tapes. In one, I had to use an accent, which was definitely interesting, although there was something about the dialogue that gave you a little twang, even if you didn’t mean to. The second one, which consisted of two monologues, was fun to do, but I am not sure I captured their essence of the character, more like my own interpretation of her. Normally, I would stress out about that and try to fix it, which maybe…
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Auditioning for a CD
In this case, CD stands for casting director, and is what we call the people who cast projects in the acting industry. They send out breakdowns, pour over submissions, and decide who gets to come in for an audition. Depending on the project, they will often either read with the actor or run the audition, then give suggestions or actually decide who gets to play the part. I have had it on my list for a long time to audition for an actual Casting Director, as opposed to simply someone in charge of casting a student or independent film. Not to dismiss the work they do, or that every audition…
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Good News Comes in Threes, Right?
I have been told that bad news comes in 3s, so I am really hoping that the same could be said for good news, because I had 2 awesome things happen to me this week and have my fingers crossed for a third. First, I was offered a part in the slasher film I had auditioned for a few weeks ago. It wasn’t the role I auditioned for, but I was still really excited until I realized I would have to be ACTRA in order to accept it. I was slightly crushed when I responded that I was available and would love the part, but was unfortunately non-union. This didn’t…
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Keep Calm and Audition
On Tuesday we had our cold read class. Three people didn’t make it, so I was only able to do one of my scenes (I get two this month 🙂 ), a comedy 😉 It’s a scene from Knocked Up, where I kind of get upset and yell at Nick. It was fun for a cold read, but I am anxious to put it up as a scene, where we both know our lines and can really be in the moment. Suzanna also had a theme going on, of breakups due to the manchild-ness of the guy. Very fun to watch. Since it was a smaller class, we did get…
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Auditioning for Comedy
Yesterday I had an audition/reading to see if I could actually do comedy. You see, I had a meeting with this Director/Writer/Producer at the end of August, and we seemed to hit it off, except that you generally need to be able to demonstrate some kind of acting ability before being cast. He had seen my demo reel, and liked the work I had done, but my demo reel and CV are both desperately lacking in the comedy department. This isn’t to say that I have never done comedy, but it is mostly in class settings, like in the following picture, from Michele and my’s first Tom Todoroff workshop 😉…
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Subtext, Memories and Choices
After missing class last week, I got to do 2 scenes yesterday. Luckily, my teacher called to warn me that afternoon, because I had definitely not been working on the second one. I got to class early, as per my usual, and rehearsed the scene I was less familiar with a few times until we were pretty sure we had it. Then class started, and I went first, which I usually do, but my scene partners are never expecting it. I like to think of it as a vote of confidence, saying I know that you are always good and ready to go whenever I ask you to. Even if…
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Callbacks and Chemistry Reads
In this case, I had a callback that doubled as a chemistry read. First, the terms: A callback is basically a second audition. After the people casting a project have seen everyone they are interested in, they will have a portion of those people come back and audition again. But a callback is not a chance to go in a different direction or try something new. You are expected to do exactly what you did the first time, which includes wearing the same clothes. And you are always expected to be ready to take direction. A chemistry read usually comes along later in the casting process, when they have already…
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Nomophobia, Auditions and Meetings
There have been a lot of behind the scenes changes with this blog, nothing that you guys will really notice, but I have definitely learnt a lot about hosting and domains and DNS servers. For my beloved readers, the only difference is that when you are on my website, it will always say amandalynnpetrin.com, as opposed to ‘adreamisawishthatyourheartmakes’. Exciting for me, and might explain why the links weren’t working if you tried to visit at certain points over the past few days. Nomophobia: The anxiety caused by not having your mobile phone with you. Monday was a really big day for me, made a million times more everything by the…