Little Bitch Perhaps

If you haven’t noticed, I try to keep these blogs on the more positive side as we all have negative experiences. We all don’t get jobs, we all waste a lot of time stuck in traffic, we all go to “all backs,” and we all have to strip down to our string bikinis and high heels in front of a room full of “Producers.” But today I just want to touch on something that I have always had some discomfort with… And that simply is, fellow Actors running casting sessions that they later go in on (audition for)…

Does that make sense? Know what I’m talking about?

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to take food out of anyone’s mouth… But I do want to put it in mine. Constantly. And while many of the Actors that run commercial sessions here in Los Angeles do great jobs… And I genuinely like. There’s something odd about going in on a spot where the Person running the camera and giving you direction is MORE THAN LIKELY going to AUDITION for that SAME CHARACTER, in that SAME SPOT, LATER ON, THAT SAME DAY…

It’s perfectly normal for Casting People to call in Actors they know, or Actors that work sessions for them, when those Actors are right for Certain Characters in Certain Spots… However, I think it’d be great if they didn’t have those Actors work the spot too.

I’ve had this discussion with a few Session Runners… And while they’ve all told me that it’s in the Session Runner’s best interest to get the best performances out of all the People auditioning… You have to ask yourself, if they’re also auditioning for that same spot… A spot that could put thousands of dollars in their pocket… Is it? Is it really?

I know almost no one gets hired straight off of the tape, and that almost all auditions lead to call backs, where the Producers and Director are in the room… And a minimum of four to forty Actors are called back…

But still… I find it a little uncomfortable. And it seems that it’d be easy enough to avoid. Especially when the Casting Office has several sessions going on, that same day.

(And yeah, I know I went a little CAP crazy... Sometimes I do that when I bitch.)

-- Quiche out ~ Tom Kiesche