Vampire photo shoot and Spectrum Talent agent meeting

Alright, so since my last post, not much has happened in the way of my acting career (hence why it has been so long since my last post lol). For the last month I did a lot of unpacking and setting up the apartment, as well as got a job at Macaroni Grill. I had barely even begun to look for any acting or modeling gigs, but I did have one photo shoot to help build a photographer - Brianna Noelle Photgraphy's - portfolio (and mine).
Here are a couple pics from the shoot  - which was only little over a week ago. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet some other local models - Valentai Cook and Shaundra Olson are both Marine wives and beginning to make a name for themselves in the online community (as in, they have followers on Facebook lol). Plus, they seem to be fairly busy and book a lot of modeling jobs. Whether they are paid or not, I do not know, but good for them regardless! :) They were both very nice girls.

With Shaundra

With Shaundra again

With Valentai

Anyways, about 4 days ago (on Wednesday), I received a phone call from my manager about meeting with a talent agent the next day (Thursday). I was a little panicked and stressed about my husband coming home from his deployment on Friday and still had a lot to do, but I agreed to set up the meeting. He said he would finalize the time and get back to me, and the next morning he emailed and said that they had an emergency and had to cancel. So, honestly, I was a little relieved because that morning I also found out that my husband would be coming home about 12 hours earlier than expected, so I had a LOT to do that day in preparation (as in, finish unpacking, clean the apartment, begin cooking his requested meal and dessert, do laundry and get his car cleaned. I managed to get almost all of that done (didn't get to unpack all the books, but that was low on my list of priorities anyway). Friday morning, I took the dogs to the PetsHotel and scheduled them for a bath and brush at the grooming salon and then went to base to wait for my husband to arrive. After waiting for about 2 hours, his unit finally showed up! Yay! To make a long story short, we went home and a few hours later picked up the dogs. The next day I had an interview with a family to potentially be a nanny for (my third interview of the kind in the last week) and then today, after a discussion with my husband, quit my job at Macaroni Grill (which, I felt terrible about and it caused me a lot of stress just thinking about quitting after only 4 shifts), but it looks like I will be -hopefully- getting a higher-paying job as a nanny/babysitter which I would enjoy a lot more and which would give me the kind of schedule I would prefer. Also, Macaroni Grill kind of wasn't completely honest with me about what kind of shifts I would be able to work. When they interviewed me, I told them I had completely open availability (which was true) but that I wanted to work mostly lunches. They said that that was fine and that they had a variety of schedules available. I know that it is a chain restaurant and that I would most likely have to work an occasional evening or weekend shift, but assumed that the servers with seniority would prefer the evening and weekend shifts anyway cause you make more money then. Well, before my husband came home I spoke to a different manager about scheduling, and she basically said that not working weekends and/or evenings was "not going to fly" and that I would HAVE to work Saturday or Sunday. She also said something that was kind of a compliment - that I would definitely have to work evenings and/or weekends if I was capable of it, and she thought that I was "highly capable." So, yay I am a good server, I should be after like 3 years, but dangit! Why do I have to be so good? lol. Just kidding. Well it may not seem like a big deal to some people, but my husband and I do not want to be one of those couples that work jobs with completely opposite schedules and never get to see each other. We have discussed it at length before because my previous job as a Pet Trainer required me to work evenings and weekends only (I never worked a daytime shift) and I felt like we hardly ever spent time together (I would leave before he got home and he would only be awake for about half an hour after I got home because he would wake up so early in the morning). Well, we would rather I make a little less money but have a better schedule, than potentially make more money and never get to see each other. Of course, there is always an exception to the rule. If the job that had me working evenings and weekends was my dream job, or you know, acting and filming a tv show or movie or something (and getting paid for it), then of course, we would live with it. But we were not going to live with that kind of schedule for a waitressing position. So, I quit. Man, that was kind of long-winded. 

Anyways... this morning I got a time for a meeting with the talent agent at Spectrum Talent from my manager - tomorrow morning (which, incidentally was at the same time I was supposed to be at work for my final test at Macaroni Grill, and honestly that time conflict is what kind of spurred me/us to make the decision for me to leave the Grill today. I was planning on doing it anyway, but maybe not for another week or so). Well, unfortunately, the agent's office is a little over an hour away (in Beverly Hills), so I will be leaving two hours in advance in case of traffic. lol. I'm still working on what to wear... And I tried to burn my demo reel to a dvd (the last one I had) and it didn't work properly, so I won't be able to take my demo reel. And I have head shots (which need to be updated soon cause my hair color has changed a bit and it's gotten longer) but my resume doesn't have the most recent commercial I did on it (the Shentel one). And I don't have the nice paper I printed my old resume on (left it in Virginia) and my printer is out of ink anyway and I'm kinda broke at the moment. lol. So, unfortunately, I'm taking an outdated (only slightly) resume to my meeting and no demo reel. Grr. I wish I had money and/or a little more time so I could fix those issues. But everything doesn't always go according to plan. I have my two monologues, just need to run through them a couple of times and I'll be good to go. 

Well, I should probably get my beauty rest. I want to look my absolute best tomorrow. :) Man it'd be so exciting to get signed! 

Anyways, I hope to write again soon with good news about the meeting. :) 

Thanks for reading! 

~L

Shooting the Shentel commercial, Running photoshoot, and in CA!!

Man, it has been waaaay too long since my last post, but I got really busy with packing to move to California, and now that I'm here (yay!) I've been busy with UNpacking. lol.
But, since my last post, a lot has happened. Or, at least, it feels that way. lol.

Filming the Shentel commercial that I got through Erica Arvold Casting was a LOT of fun! It was a different experience than anything else I'd done too. The director was the camera-man and was filming most of the time. There weren't super specific directions, and no "Action" or "Cut," but it was more like he would tell us (the 4 other actors and me) a general sense of what he wanted us to do and then would just start filming. We started in a red Jeep and acted like we were driving to the swimming hole. We had music blasting and were just jamming out and having a blast - like college kids would do. :P I was the oldest of the group of us, 3 of them were still in college and one girl had just graduated. lol.

The director filming us!

Anyways, after filming in the Jeep we went to the swimming hole, which really was more of a rock/island thing right next to the road. We drove up the main road, pulled off onto the side, then walked down the drop-off on the other side of the guardrails to get to the river.

The big rock at the bottom of the screen is the one we jumped off of.

I was the second one to jump off of the rock - and it was so much fun! It was about a 12 foot drop, but the climb up to the top of the rock was the hardest - it was almost straight up and there weren't very many hand or footholds. I slipped once - the first time, and a couple of the others slipped too. One girl even sliced her wrist unknowingly.

Well, the director, Allan Vajda - for part of the time - was in the water below us with a little mini waterproof camera filming us. There were maybe 10 other people standing on the ground behind/next to the rock, some filming, some just watching (I'm still unsure as to who they were/their purpose for being there) - it was probably the biggest "crew" of any of the shoots I've been too, except maybe for the House of Cards shoot, though it probably comes close. Which is weird, because House of Cards is a BIG production, and this was just a commercial - not even a National one. haha.

Well, after jumping off of the rock for a few hours, we went back to our "base" (a firehall) and changed into dry clothes. Like an idiot, I forgot to bring a bra and underwear but brought like 4 different bathing suits. So I had to wear a dry bathing suit under my clothes the rest of the night - and the 2.5 hour drive home. lol. After changing, we went to another location by the river where they had built a bonfire. We roasted marshmallows and goofed off and stuff for a couple of hours. I think by this point everyone was getting a little frustrated and tired - a lot of the crew (and some of those random people who I think may have been from Shentel) were not in a very good mood and I could feel some tension between the director and some of them, and they even snapped at some of us actors too sometimes. For example, we were handed a guitar at the beginning of this portion of the shoot, and since I was the only one that had ANY experience with guitar - albeit, my experience was about 6 years ago - I was the one holding it. I was trying to "teach" one guy how to play (keep in mind they're filming this whole time) and one girl (for the life of me, I cannot remember her name!) started teaching us a song - everyone else was clapping their hands in time, and since I didn't have any hands free, I was VERY lightly drumming/tapping my fingers on the guitar. One of the "random" guys (I don't like using that word, but I don't know what his title/purpose was. He didn't have a camera and wasn't involved with any directing, I guess he was the owner of the guitar?) came up to me and snapped "Give me the guitar" and ripped it out of my hands. Lol. Similar things happened to other actors, but I don't remember what they were.

Anyways, the fire was SUPER hot and uncomfortable and they would film for minutes on end - sometimes I felt like my skin would blister lol.

Well, after about a 9 hour day, we wrapped up, got paid $500, and I went home, took a shower, and went to bed.

Here is the completed commercial! I can be seen in the opening (blue/green sweater), at 0:02-0:04, 0:34 (far right on the rock), 0:35 (and in the thumbnail picture), as well as 0:45 (on the tv, but I am not the one in focus, though I thought it was me at first lol).

Well, after filming that, I had one more shoot before I moved back to Cali. It was a running shoot with Photography by GregD, who runs the Studio at Dulles, near Mount Vernon. Basically, I ran for about an hour and a half almost non-stop. I took little walking breaks here and there, and there were fitness "stations" on the running trail, so I did a couple pull-ups, but pretty much it was the longest I have ever run. I got paid $100 for that (yay, that paid for one day's worth of gas on the drive cross country! lol). I just saw a couple of the photos online, and am just waiting for my CD to come in the mail.

Speaking of CDs, I also received my CD of images from the mock engagement shoot I did for Boston University in Georgetown. I will be posting some of those photos soon.

Well, now I'm in CA and am just trying to get settled in and unpack and stuff before I submit to auditions. I am supposed to start working at Macaroni Grill next week, and I do think I have one modeling shoot coming up soon with Brianna Noelle Photography. It's a Vampire themed shoot (for Halloween, I'm assuming) with two other models. One of whom, Tinisha Portillo, I know is another Marine wife like myself (the photographer is as well, not sure about the third model, though I would assume so. We tend to stick together lol) but Tinisha and I have talked some online and she has been very helpful and given me lots of great advice about modeling.

Anyways, I hope to stay on the ball with my posts, but if nothing new happens, then it's hard to find stuff to write about. lol. Gotta get back to unpacking! Yippee. =/

Thanks!