Adventures of an Actress

Mindset

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:07:01 PST

For the majority of last year I was in a conflicted headspace:

Happy to deepen friendships that I've made out here while disappointed with some of the friendships I had to let go.
Happy to live in LA rather than Long Beach while frustrated to not have a car.
Happy to have family support while saddened by Stephen's desire to leave LA.
Happy to get auditions for shorts and student films while anxious to get representation and better opportunities.
Happy to be self-producing while disheartened by the rising costs of it all.
Happy to have a night job while dissatisfied with the amount of family time it requires me to sacrifice.

But that was all in 2011.

In 2012 I am...

Thankful for the friendships I have and the lessons learned from those I've lost.
Thankful for the car we share and the patience to wait until the right time to buy a new one.
Thankful for my husband's flexibility and understanding especially since I know he misses his family.
Thankful for the auditions I'm able to get and the industry relationships I'm able to develop on my own while I continue to seek the right people who will be excited to represent me.
Thankful for the knowledge gained and the connections made from the projects I've produced and excited for what is in store for those I'm producing.
Thankful to be receiving unemployment until my job starts back up again so I can take a much needed break and spend more time with my family.

Basically I have a different mindset. And though I didn't necessarily need to wait until the new year started to begin to think this way, I'm one of those people who loves the freshness that the new year brings. It feels like a clean slate where I can start anew or the first act of a whole new play. It invigorates me and gives me the impetus to make changes in every area of my life. And so, with the new year comes a new mindset where I'm much more focused on the blessings that I have instead of the things I lack. It's a much lighter state of being and one I hope to remain in for the rest of the year.

Day 365: Reflection

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:56:09 PST

Day 365: Took a final pass at my goals & action plan after reflecting on the last 364 days. I reviewed my audition tracker and saw that I've had 24 auditions, 4 callbacks, 1 avail and 2 bookings this year. What does that mean? I don't know. Some would say that's a great callback ratio, others would say it's horrible, either way I'm absolutely certain 2012 needs to bring in more bookings for me! Coincidentally I also attended 24 networking events this year which is really quite paltry for someone who absolutely LOVES to be social, meet new friends and reconnect with old ones so that number needs to at least double in 2012. I'm very thankful for all that this year has brought me {especially new friendships & colleagues that I adore} and all that this year has taught me in my role as a wife, mother, actress, writer, producer and friend. I'll roll out my 2012 goals to you all next week but in the meantime much love to you all and have a very Happy New Year!

Day 364: Running

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:28:00 PST

Day 364: I'm attempting to do the Couch to 5k program since it's hailed as a running program for people who hate to run, i.e. ME. I actually started this a few weeks ago in a crash diet attempt right before the Houston wedding but since I only completed the first day I'm starting over. Running is considered one of the best forms of cardio and a fantastic way to lose weight which is the only reason why I'm attempting to do this. I must say, though I don't know if this will change my lack of desire to run, this program does seem like something I can get into it since I don't have to run for long periods of time. This is a 3 day per week, 60 day program so it will be something I will carry with me into the new year. And the best part about it is that there's a free phone app that keeps track of how long to run, walk, jog, etc. as well as a record of all your time.

Day 351 - 363: Wrapping things up

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:48:21 PST

Day 351- 360: Took a little over a week off to spend time with family for the holidays.

Day 361: Returned to submitting myself on Actors Access. The breakdowns are very slow right now but there are still a handful.

Day 362: Met with the director of the Mitrice Richardson documentary to discuss our goals for the upcoming year and the things I need to set in place to make sure we meet them.

Day 363: Researched nutritionists to consult with in the new year that are near my side of town and won't set me back $1000 bucks like many of them. I've narrowed it down to either Healthee Life or Learn 2 Eat Right. Both have a nice variety of services that I'm interested in, including body testing to determine what type of foods don't work for my particular body & blood type and both have excellent reviews on Yelp so now I just need to choose between the two.

Day 348 - 350: Holiday Parties!

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:43:01 PST

Day 348: Commercial Agency Holiday Party. It was nice to see a handful of familiar faces but by and large there were lots of folks I didn't recognize. We all had a nice time though. Who doesn't like watching a dance battle? Seriously, I thought I was in a movie as it unfolded before me.

Day 349: Girls Night Out at Dillon's Irish Pub. Good food, good people, good times.

Day 350: Last private session of the year at SKS where I worked on a comedic scene. This studio has really given me a boost of confidence and makes me feel like I should be going out on TV auditions NOW. Later that night I attended the SKS Holiday Party where I had too much fun!

Day 344 - 347: Fitness, Goals & Follow up

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:39:13 PST

Day 344: Cardio Hip-Hop class at Your Neighborhood Studio.

Day 345 - 346: Refined my 2012 goals and monthly action plan. Just need to type them up and possibly create a vision board to go with it.

Day 347: Follow up phone call to one of the Atlanta agents. She didn't answer so I left a voicemail. Since many of her clients have gotten co-stars and recurring spots on multiple shows out there I'm going to continue to pursue this agency.

Day 340 - 343: Funny reads

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:35:09 PST

Day 340 - 343: Read a few scripts of the TV show Modern Family at: http://www.zen134237.zen.co.uk/Modern_Family/. I was actually laughing at loud while reading these episodes which lets you know just how funny the material really is.

Day 336 - 339: From one thing to the next...

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:46:01 PST

Day 336: Caught up on TV via Hulu. Watched Modern Family, Glee, Once Upon a Time, Revenge and New Girl.

Day 337: Cardio Hip-Hop class at Your Neighborhood Studio. LOVE this class!

Day 338: Commercial audition at Kathy Knowles Casting. This was one of those auditions where you're not really an actor but a "real person" so they asked me questions about being a mom and it went so/so.

Day 339: Last Power Group of the year at TAN and it was a good one. There were lots of great accomplishments to close out 2011 and inspiring goals to start off 2012.

Updates galore! {Day 315 - 335}

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:04:00 PST

I'm sooooo behind on my updates but I have been keeping track of them and I wanna get caught up before the year is over so here we go...

Day 315: Got to be a reader today at the casting director's office where I intern and it was AWESOME!! The casting associate (who has now been promoted to full casting director) said I did an excellent job especially since it was a cold read. What I appreciated more though, were the compliments from the actors I read with. Can't wait to see who gets the part.

Day 316: Rehearsed sides with Y'vonne.

Day 317 - 318: Emailed 24 managers and Atlanta agents

Day 319: Sent an email follow-up to the program director of KETP. Will call in 3 weeks if I don't receive a reply. Really don't want to start the arduous task of looking for a new job if I'm still in the running for this. {Found out the next week that I'm not. Boo!}

Day 320: Attended a free agent seminar held at Actors Comedy Studio with a hilarious agent from Metropolitan Talent Agency.

Day 321: Gave editing notes to the director of my "Promotion" scene.

Day 322: Mailed a thank you postcard to the manager I saw 2 weeks ago, the agent I met on Saturday and a CD who brought me in for an audition awhile back followed by a private session at SKS and a cold-read audition for a voiceover gig (I booked it!)

Day 323: Emailed 13 theatrical agents here in LA.

Day 324: Mailed a hardcopy submission to 2 of the Atlanta agents I emailed last week.

Day 325: Took Thanksgiving off and enjoyed time with my family.

Day 326: Actually saw a movie in a theatre! Do you know how rare that is? Stephen & I saw Tower Heist and it was funnier than we expected.

Day 327: Met with Greg & Lex to do voiceover for episode 6 as well as the commercials then had lunch afterwards.

Day 328: Updated my production resume since I plan to start looking for a new survival gig.

Day 329: Met with my PG Buddy and he gave me a Starbucks gift card for Christmas. Unexpected and appreciated. Thanks Tom!

Day 330: Joined WIF after discussing it with a TAN Power Group member who is a member of WIF already and loves it. Very excited to see what new networking opportunities this organization will bring.

Day 331 - 335: Off for my Houston trip. Didn't submit to anything or even look at any breakdowns. Completely took a break from acting and enjoyed time with my brother and my friends as I was down there to be a bridesmaid in a wedding. I had a ball catching up with my college besties though I really REALLY missed my 3 guys, especially since Stephen's 30th birthday was during this time. Thankfully I have a very laidback husband who didn't give me a hard time about being gone. He didn't even want me to plan anything for him despite my best efforts to get him to do it up for this milestone. Instead he just wants an iPad 2 and he'll be happy. I told him to wait until tax refund time since the darn thing costs over $700 but I'm gonna surprise him with it for Christmas. And no he doesn't read this blog so he has no idea. Shhh....

Day 311 - 314: Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:27:01 PST

Day 311: Went to Power Group at TAN followed by coffee with Y'vonne. I swear there are some people in this world who always make you feel better when you're in their presence, she is one of them.

Day 312: The block schedule I created isn't working for me so now I'm trying something new. Today I took my monthly goals that I shared in Power Group and divided them up week by week to make sure I do the tasks needed to help me meet those goals.

Day 313 - 314: Updated my regional rep target list by using IMDb Pro to find all the agents whose clients were on the last few episodes of VH1's Single Ladies, CW's Vampire Diaries and BET's The Game, Let's Stay Together and Reed Between the Lines since they all shoot in Atlanta.

Really?

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:23:16 PST

Really?

PRIMAL BEHAVIORS Documentary NON-UNION Documentary Series for Animal Planet

SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY SUBMISSIONS DUE BY 5PM THURSDAY 11/24

IF POSSIBLE, PLEASE SUBMIT ACTOR'S ONLINE DEMO CLIPS ALONG WITH EACH ACTOR SUBMISSION. This is not a role for actors. Please only submit if you have a real story that you can share. PRIMAL BEHAVIORS: [ PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW AN EXTREME DIET OF RAW MEAT ] Do you eat rats, rodents, squirrels, or other road kill? ***** Casting currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet, featuring people who follow an extreme diet of raw meat that they hunt, search, and kill as part of their daily diet.
[ PEOPLE ADDICTED TO ANIMALS ] Are you having a monogamous relationship with your animal? Have you become addicted or attached to one or more animals? *** Casting is currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet, featuring people whose lives have been impacted because of your animal addictions? [ PEOPLE WHO FEEL THEY WERE BORN AN ANIMAL ] Do you feel that you were born an animal and living in the wrong body? Have you tried to alter your physical appearance to look like an animal? * Casting is currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet featuring people who know they are living in an animal's skin and not their own. [ PEOPLE WITH ASBURGERS ] * Casting is looking for people who deal with asburgers disease. If you are a clinical psychologist - we will be questioning your knowledge on animal affection and primal behavior. [ PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING IN DOGHOUSES ] Do you use live in a doghouse for shelter? Do you inhabit the space of a dog in either your own backyard or the backyard of someone you know? * Casting is currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet featuring people who are living in doghouses. [ PEOPLE WHO HAVE A NEED TO LOOK/FEEL LIKE AN ANIMAL ] How far have you gone to feel like an animal? Have you lost relationships and friends because of your need to feel primal. *** Casting is currently casting a docu-series for Animal Planet featuring people who are have a need to look or feel like an animal.

Who in the world submits to this stuff?!?

Day 310: Edited Reel

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:26:50 PST

Day 310: Edited my reel using iMovie {thank goodness for my MAC computer at work} and added it to all my sites: You Tube, Vimeo, Actors Access, LA Casting, CAZT and my personal website. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a fancy shmancy reel like what Lex can do but it will suffice until I have all my scenes ready to go for her. I'm waiting on the "Promotion" scene that should be edited by the end of the month and I still need to shoot one more scene with my classmate Y'vonne. So till then, I'm very proud of my newbie attempt to edit this thing!

Day 309: Manager Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:12:00 PST

Day 309: Performed a scene from Private Practice at an awesome manager workshop with Melanie Sharpe put on by casting director Billy DaMota and Actor Rated. I really wasn't even supposed to be able to go but Tara worked her magic to get me on the list at the last minute. I ended up leaving in the middle of work since it didn't start until 9:30 with a coworker of mine named Liz who was also on the list and we had a great time. There were a lot of really nice and really funny scenes and everyone was prepared as requested. Afterwards I exchanged contact info with a few of the other actors whose work I liked and vice versa. Then Liz and I headed back to work a full 2 hours later where we didn't get off until 4am due to our acting excursion.

Day 308: Privates

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:10:00 PST

Day 308: Privates with DaJuan at SKS. Since I can't afford to take class right now {mainly due to the expense of finishing DWP} I've decided to take half-hour privates with DaJuan twice a month. Now it's not the same as getting the full class experience, especially since I am a visual learner who can pick up on things when I see other people do it but at least it gets me back working on sides, breaking down scenes and practicing my craft.

Day 306 - 307: DWP Details

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:32:00 PST

Day 306: On a very last-minute crew hunt for a Boom Operator {does sound}, Still Photographer and Makeup Artist since all 3 of my normal people are unavailable for our shoot this weekend. Thank goodness for both Mandy and Craigslist as I found what I needed at the very last minute!!

Day 307: Shot the bakery scene in episode 8 of DWP along with 2 web promos for the shop that let us use their space- Cordially Invited & Southern Girl Desserts. The nice thing was that I was able to cast a couple of my friends in the promos so they'll have a nice addition to their commercial reel.

Day 304 - 305: Callbacks & Promos

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:11:01 PST

Day 304: Held callbacks for episode 8 of DWP and it was so much fun! We paired up the actors we loved and had them mix and match so that we could see who had good chemistry with each other and with each change we saw something new. It's going to be super tough to pick our 2 leads as all of the guys did a really fantastic job.

Day 305: Wrote a promo for Southern Girl Desserts as part of the trade-off since they are allowing us to shoot in their shop this weekend.

Clips: 3rd Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:07:00 PST

Here it is: 3rd Tour, the scene I shot with Claire, Greg & Lex a few weeks ago.

Love it!

Day 303: Self-taped Auditions

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:06:00 PST

Day 303: Reviewed Eco-Cast auditions for DWP Episode 8 along with those sent directly to my email. It's interesting to note that less than 10% of actors who were invited to submit a self-taped audition actually did. This means those who did take the time to tape themselves {and yes most were home videos without bells & whistles} had a much higher chance of being asked to come in for callbacks and some roles were even offered outright.

Day 301 - 302: On the Page & Casting

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:34:00 PST

Day 301: Wrote a promo for Cordially Invited as part of the trade-off for allowing us to shoot in their shop.

Day 302: Casting session for DWP Episode 8 held at CAZT. We saw some HILARIOUS actors! It's always nice when you have a handful of people who do such a great job that you know you'll have a hard time making a decision. This means callbacks!

Day 300: On Set

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:45:00 PST

Day 300: Got to act today! Woke up at 6:30 am {when I usually get to sleep in on the weekends} in order to drive to my colleague Jamie Fishback's office so we could shoot a scene I wrote titled "Promotion." His office was the perfect setting and we had the entire floor to ourselves, though we ended up only using the lounge area as written. Jamie was a great scene partner and we were shot and directed by the very easy to work with Jared Hoy.

Day 298 - 299: Actor Selects

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:51:00 PST

Day 298 - 299: Selected actors on CAZT and Actors Access to audition next week. For the most part I find it incredibly fun to watch actors reels but there were a few that either bored me to pieces or were just flat out weird that made me wonder why in the hell they'd spend their hard-earned money to upload it on these sites in the first place. On the other hand, there were definitely some that had me cracking up and made me excited to call those actors in.

Featured on About.com

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:53:53 PST

Very excited to get the news that my blog has been featured on About.com. Here's an excerpt from the post...

"Ms. Ford has really put a lot of time, energy, and creativity into this project. First of all, she has been keeping an up-to-date record or her professional endeavors, detailing the highs and lows of being a working actress in the Los Angeles area. Secondly, when she isn't going from one audition to the next, she is busy creating her own comedy web-series, Diary of a Wedding Planner."

Check out the rest here!

Day 297: Commercial audition

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:39:01 PST

Day 297: Birthday lunch with Tara where we ate yummy red & blue velvet pancakes at Larchmont Bungalow followed by a commercial audition for Nature's Valley Snack Bar. I pretty much bombed this one. First of all it was a last-minute same day audition and I got the notice right as I was on my way out to see Tara. I had to completely change my hair & outfit only to discover when I got there that it said the wardrobe was "Hip & trendy business casual." Somehow I only saw "Hip & trendy" so I was the only one in jeans in a room full of slacks and blouses. Then once in the room I followed directions but the whole time I was just going through the motions and wasn't really connected at all. Truth be told, I was thinking about how I really wanted to go home instead of going to work and so my focus was way off. Definitely not getting called back for this one.

Day 295 - 296: DWP

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:39:04 PST

Day 295: Shot the last scene for episode 6 then had lunch with some of the crew at Denny's. Being on USC's campus made me wish for my college days when bills and real life were of no concern. Anyhow, here are some of the pics...

To see all the pics of episode 6 go here.

Day 296: Put out a breakdown on Actors Access and CATZ for episode 8

Day 294: Office Hours

noreply@blogger.com (Brandi Ford) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:03:53 PST

Day 294: Office hours - Updated my website and went through my notebook of story ideas expanding on the ones that seem viable and discarding those that no longer interest me.