Booked
There are no rules. Maybe just guidelines - stay loose, swing through, be you on a very specific frequency.
Excited to get back on the procedural horse and have some fun for a couple of rowdy days.
There’s a strike happening. It’s up and down, talks and then no talks.
Still there are some projects out there, if you look for them. Get back training weekly, get your chops back together, and put some tapes down on the ones that come your way.
One of them catches. It’s the type of role you’ve wanted to do for awhile. It doesn’t rely on your height. It doesn’t rely on your mean mug. It relies on an experience you have every day to your children. It feels like your life, but in a slightly different universe.
Additionally, it’s a film. You can take space to let more of your life in. Unlike TV, there’s not a clock ticking in the back of everyone’s head. It’s all a huge relief. You are grateful.
But then you realize you have to work out the schedule of your real children and this parallel family. Fortunately you have a real wife, unlike the absent one in the story. Again you are grateful.
You’re on paternal leave and auditions start coming down the line. Some start shooting after or almost after your leave is done (which, by the way, as an artist is arbitrary but completely necessary to allow time to adjust to life with a new baby).
Do you…?
A. Turn down the auditions that aren’t worth it.
B. Do the auditions that are worth it.
C. Do auditions while sleep deprived.
D. Book a substantial role on a network TV show.
E. All of the above.
The answer is E. And to sum up all of these series so far - being busy with life is a great reason to do an audition, not the other way around. I’m beginning to think that a little bit of chaos helps with focus.
The Rule of Booking Pt. III - it’s not hard to book, and it never was. It’s fun.
You cannot game the rules of booking. You can’t pretend it’s not hard if it is.
But if there’s any pattern it’s this - you’re busy working on so many different things (creative work included), which creates a state of mind that’s too busy to obsess over your work. You have just enough time to do the work necessary, so you do it, and then share it.
It’s a small relief that it doesn’t need to be hard. But still - you work hard so that it’s not hard. Many of life’s truths are a paradox.
The Rule of Booking Pt. II - when you leave town for an extended period of time, you will book a Network TV job in another town for an extended period of time.
You cannot game the Rule of Booking Pt. II. The logistics must be so complex to pull this feat off in a short amount of planning time that your brain will be too fried to be excited about the job. It must cost you and your family a small amount of sanity at least. You will have time later to be grateful.