it's been a while...

So now I realise what it's really like in the extras business. Two jobs in two weeks, and then nothing for two months! It seems that the initial rush of signing up for a couple of agencies means that you're at the top of the pile, and once the early rush is over, you're filed away. To combat this I decided to be agressive again, and applied for about five things on a new (to me) site called 'tobeseen.co.uk'. To my considerable surprise, I got a phone call a couple of hours latter asking me to go to an audition in London for an advert to be shot the next week - in Spain! The audition is the next day, so I rearrange a couple of things and head up to 'the smoke' for a 3.00pm call. The office is near Soho Square, it's a scorching day and everyone is sitting in the little square reading, chatting and eating, so i decide to sit in the shade with my water until it's time.

The office seems, and bare in mind that I've only been to one audition / casting call before, temporary - but there is a whole bunch of people sitting on the hastily arranged chairs, moving nearer the big electric fan as people are called upstairs. I am given a form (height, shoe size etc) and pose for a poloroid which is stapled to the form. I am also given a sheet describing four different demographics with animal names, and told to read this and decide which of these resembles me the most.

After about 20 minutes I get my call. Upstairs there is a large room, a blue backdrop, a camera and cameraman and two women, one of which introduces herself as the one that called me the day before. I'm asked to stand on a cross on the floor, and then asked a whole bunch of questions, starting with "have you worked on any adverts for any of this company's competitors?".

The questions are all fine, and I think I'm doing OK, when the question comes about the demographic groups. In the previous 20 minutes I had struggled to catagorize myself, and felt that I could fit into elements of all four groups. So, I gave a flowery answer based on that, they said thankyou for coming, told me the shoot was the next week which meant leaving on Sunday, and off I went.

I didn't get it. Which is a shame, because I wanted to do this one. Maybe I should have plumped for one or other of the catagories...

The next day I get an e-mail asking me to attend an audition for a pilot TV show. I decide that as it is unpaid, will take up at least 5 days and because I am quite poor at the moment, to turn this one down and concentrate on proper work that I can get paid for.

Yesterday, I was walking back to my house from town, and walked passed my usual barbershop. Well, it's really hot, my hair's geting a bit long, I have a couple of meetings coming up for freelance work...I should get it all cut off. Just as I get to the shop I remember I don't have any cash on me and carry on walking. Which brings me to today. 11.30 in the morning, I am preparing for a meeting the next day and I get a call from the agency that got me the victorian shoot. Have I still got long hair, she asks. I'm offered two days (paid, BBC rates) work, again on a period drama, based on the fact that I still have longish curly hair.

That's karma, my friends...