Larry and I went to the bi-monthly networking mixers to mingle with our fellow industry folk. We saw many acquaintances we’d met on other projects which led us to talking to several of them and getting a potential Cinematographer, Producer, Art Designer and actor to work with on future projects. Early on I had talked to one of the people from the agency I’ve been auditioning for, and as I was leaving we ended chatting with the owner of the agency (who had run the second audition that I attended last Monday). We had a great conversation wherein he told me he thought I was good and could do quite well as a quirky character actor. In the course of conversation, he told me that he was going to sign me to both the Austin and Louisiana* offices. Naturally, I’m not counting my chickens until they’re all signed but it looks like I will soon have be signed with an agency.
After leaving there, Larry and I went to Nuno’s on sixth street to further talk about booking our Improv/Sketch comedy troupe there. They had basically already told us that they’d be happy to book us and so we went to see the space and further chat with the owners to solidify plans. It looks like we’ll start performing our show sometime in May on Thursday nights (they offered to let us do it weekly but we’re trying to decide whether that might be too often and if we should instead do it bi-monthly). They also thought we could come in Wednesday nights to do a few sketches between band sets to keep the audience interested and promote our Thursday shows.
That, my friends, is a productive night of schmoozing!
*Louisiana currently offers huge incentives to film makers so a TON of films are going there to film, including a lot of films that wanted to shoot in Texas but couldn’t turn down the monetary incentives Louisiana offers. Texas is currently trying to get some similar incentives passed, but it hasn’t happened yet. Therefore, this agency opened an office in Louisiana where they have been placing actors in many of the films. While I don’t relish a 5 hour drive for an audition, I keep telling myself that you have to do what it takes if you really want to make a career out of this and that it would be worth it for the right opportunities. For example, 12 local actors got called back to have second auditions in a movie where they would be playing scenes with Robert De Niro for example.
