Making My Own Luck
The ingredients for Success include blood, sweat, and tears, but also determination, talent, and creativity.
A Sky News Reporter who was coming to the States to do a piece on the glitz and glamor of the Oscars, wanted a companion piece about a young actress who was trying hard to make it. The juxtaposition would show viewers that the glitter on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is actually the sweat and tears of the struggling actors who didn't make it.
When I first started writing my own blog, I had had a few friends pull me aside to ask me if I was sure that I wanted to put it out there that I was struggling. "Won't that work against you?" they asked. I never thought that it would. And I was lucky to be right. Sky News Reporter Katie Stallard Googled, "Struggling Actress," and my blog was at the top of the list. She contacted me about doing a story on my struggle and I agreed.
Reporter Katie followed me around on what we dubbed "Epic Tuesday," as we tried to cram everything I do in a week into one day. It was awesome. I had a commercial audition pop up that morning, which they were able to follow me to, and this was the day I also found out I booked the pilot presentation, the audition of which, was a hugely important lesson. [You know, the blog that casting director Marci Liroff read and reposted on her own Facebook Fanpage because she thought it was so fantastic? (I am so flattered by that, that I will brag about it til I'm dead!)] Katie followed me to a coaching and to my work, and this was the same night my episode Postpartum Nightmares premiered on television, but one of the reasons she was so taken by me (if I do say so myself) is because of all the stuff I'm doing on my downtime.
Today's struggling actress has to be internet savvy. We must tweet, we must blog, and heck, we MUST create content for ourselves. Last September, a friend came to me and said, "You're a writer and you're not writing." We came up with an idea for a webseries, I wrote all the episodes, and we produced and filmed the pilot. I have another friend who is a voice over genius, and when he can find the time, he creates his own scripts for 4 minute cartoons that he animates all himself. And HE just told me, "You know, I always thought of you as a rom-com writer." So we're meeting tomorrow to hash out plot points of the Romantic Comedy we're writing for ourselves.
If I'm going to be lucky enough to be featured in an article AND video for the entire United Kingdom to see, you better believe I'm going to have something to show them. I'm getting my name out there. I'm getting my talent out there. I have content I make for myself and my friends to push our careers forward.
Everyone wants to see someone who works hard succeed, and I have all the ingredients to be successful. I just need to keep on making my own luck. We all do.
you remind me so much of tina fey!
I catched your episode on postpartum nightmares
http://health.discovery.com/videos/pregnancy-post-partum-nightmares.html
Very well acted!
Posted by: christine | March 09, 2010 at 12:53 AM