“Just have her put it on tape”
Were any words more terrifying to the technophobe than the request to not only create some artistic (benefit of the doubt here, Folks) moment, but to edit it, upload, and then send it via the Internet to a Casting Director you have never met, to be judged by some Director that you can hopefully find on IMDB?
I love my iPhone. I enjoy Skyping with relatives overseas, I enjoy a lot that technology has given us, particularly in regards to show business – it makes so much MUCH easier…but trying to master all that technology is driving me up a tree.
I love MGM Musicals, not megabytes. I have no interest in knowing how everything works – I didn’t get the math gene. So while I am eternally grateful that I still get to do what I love to do…I’m a bit homesick for the 40’s. Not that I was there, but it looked cool in the movies – and I love a well placed chapeau with netting. Cold water flat? I could have done that. Stockings with seams? Glam. Only washing your hair once a week because you needed to get it ‘set’ at the beauty parlor? Ok, that one would not have worked, but the other stuff…I would have gladly Broadway Babied.
Gone are the days typified in Stage Door, 
where young hopefuls sat in a Producer’s office, waiting for him 
(and it was always a him) to deign to notice her shapely ankles, and invite her to be in the chorus of his new Broadway show.
“What was that, Ginger Rogers? Ann Miller was tapping too loud and I missed it”
Gone even are the days where your Agent called you on a real phone that was attached to a wall,
a phone with a cord
and gave you an actual address to a ‘steep and narrow stairway‘, where you would race (hopefully 20 min early) to run through your 16 bars or your sides (which were not emailed or faxed to you ahead of time but had been copied and left at your Agent’s office for you). Nervously you would stand outside the door with a few people who resembled you. After your audition, you would then snail mail a thank you to the Casting Director and hope to hear from them within a 2-3 week period during which you could convince yourself that you were being ‘considered’ – after all, if you had not heard, then you really had not NOT gotten it, right?
Now, I get sides sent directly to my phone, which I am able to download. Immediately. I do my best to memorize them, immediately, so that I can sit in front of my computer, with the camera on, and do a few ‘takes’ which I will drive myself crazy with – trying to judge the merits of this one over that. (Did my eyebrow wiggle convey the character’s inner quest for power? Is an HD camera really the best friend my freckles can have?)
I dump the file into a editing program or…let’s face it, I call my Husband to do it, because I cannot ever seem to get it right – and then upload it. Immediately. Except that once you press ‘send’ to upload, time seems to stand still. Oh wait, there it is, it’s working.
I send the link to my Agent, who will then send it to the Casting Director, who will then not look at it…. for a while. Why do I know this? Because I can see how many times it’s viewed, which will play right into my neuroses. I can see this immediately.
I will or will not hear within 2 days as I ascend up the level to where that Director who hopefully has a few IMDB credits actually looks at what I sent. I will or will not hear until they check with the people they REALLY want to do it. And then, I may get a call. But I will know, relatively immediately, dammit.
Somehow this seems too fast. I need the luxury of lulling myself with hopefulness. After all, if I have not heard yet, then I have not NOT gotten it. All this now, now, now negates the extra minutes you need to recover from creative frenzy and maybe give yourself a pat on the back that you know your craft and you did ‘that’ well.
I find technology terrifying. I probably know less about computers, having used them for a good chunk of time, than my 15 month old niece does right now. After all, when she grabs my phone, she can make apps vanish – screens that I did not even know were ON my phone have been found by my niece. Compared to her, I am still banging two rocks together to make fire so that I can paint on a cave wall and leave it to be discovered by people who walk upright many moons after I have been left to die on an ice flo. These are things I think about, it’s not right, but it’s ok.
Oh right, I’m trying to upload, or something…what am I…
Usually by this time, I am exhausted – inevitably some part of the equation has gone awry and will add on another hour or so while I figure out the technical glitch.
Let’s face it, I’m not a You Tube sensation smacking myself in the head repeatedly with a hammer to attract a demographic of 10-14 year olds who think physical violence is hilarious. I’m old school. I mean, I went to school for this – for the singing and acting part, not the YouTube part.
I have written movies,
The Mikado Project – Avail on DVD on Amazon.com
I have done Broadway, TV, Film, I’ve sung in nightclubs, but all I can think, when I get frustrated by what I am now supposed to have mastered just so I can be in consideration for a role that I am only going to get if everyone else is busy is…
BETTE DAVIS DID NOT HAVE TO USE FINAL CUT, DAMMIT!
(However if you are that Director with a few IMDB credits, it is no problem whatsoever, my reel is avail by emailing my Agent, she’ll get it to you immediately)
fairyprincessdiaries 