Auditions: Time Warner Commercial

So for the second commercial on Thursday, August 28, 2008, I'm a guy talking to camera about Time Warner Digital Cable's International OnePrice Calling Plan.  The guy is actually living in a house near a train and at the end, we find out that the guy is a character in a small train set.  For the actor, the hard part is that there's a lot of text that has to be delivered to camera, and at certain points, the actor has to say, or yell his lines as if he were talking over a passing train.  And all this has to be done in a friendly, upbeat manner - which, if you're an actor, you know all this is not easy. 

So I arrived, and the sides were available before, but to be honest, I hadn't prepared my lines enough before I arrived.  But they said I had time, and casting was concerned enough about the audition that they were offering rooms for actors to practice in (they usually don't do that).  On top of that, Alyson Horn, the casting director, was working with each actor before actually taping the audition.  

No sooner had I walked into the practice room than Alyson walks in and gets ready to work with me.  Which was not what I wanted, because like I said, I hadn't really practiced enough, I thought I'd have time at the audition.  And to have to practice in front of the casting director is no fun.  Now mind you, Alyson is great, and really nice.  So that only makes it worse, because you wanna do a good job for her.  No actor wants to be tweaking and practicing in front of a casting director he's known for a while.  

Sadly, I wasn't going to get my druthers.  I tried it first, and it was a bit stiff.  Plus, I thought I could read off the easel (where they put the text), but Alyson said it had to be delivered to camera.  So that didn't help.  Also, she didn't want me to switch voices at memorized points, so she would play some sounds off a CD player to indicate when I had to pretend to talk over the train.  Some would find this easier, but for some reason, I found this to be another thing to think about because I had to throw out my preparation (I had tried to memorize when to change voices). 

We did it once, and the general directions were, be more energy and don't overdo it when differentiating between the normal voice and the yell over the train. 

So then I tried to throw it away, a common instruction in acting class when you might be overdoing it, or pushing it too hard.  Of course the next adjustment was, "Be more vested."  Meaning, I had thrown it away TOO much.  Oi-vay.  

On the third take it was better, but the camera guy was now throwing in comments too.  So more to think about.  He wanted a bigger differential between the normal voice and the train.   Plus I changed the order of some text so Alyson missed a cue to turn on the sound.  Didn't want to keep that on camera. 

Surprisingly, the fourth take seem to click and it seemed to all fall in place, although being the perfectionist I am (of course, I don't think I am), I would have liked to have done a more refined version.  Truth be told, I knew I was close, but sometimes it's impossible to tell how close I was (or wasn't).  Sometimes a take can be perfectly good from the perspective of a viewer, but you, the actor, don't feel good about it.  And sometimes, it's just as bad as (or, God forbid, worse than) you thought.  Life of an actor, you never find out.  You just do your thing, and whatever comes out, comes out.