Onwards! Upwards!

Yet again I have let this blog slip. So an update is most definitely in order. Firstly, my initial fervour of excitement at this year's World Cup has slowly dissipated over the last week. At the time of this writing, England have two draws to their name and need to beat Slovenia to get through to the next round. I'm not going to go into further detail as it will only piss me off.

So, to the good news. After getting a callback for a Microsoft commercial I went for a few weeks ago, I got a call Monday night saying I'd been put "On Avail" for the project. Of course, being the industry novice that I am, I had no idea what this meant so I blindly agreed and, upon hanging up the phone, quickly searched the trusted internet for answers. I found out that being "On Avail" essentially means you have passed the audition phase but haven't yet booked the job. You are thus somewhat in limbo. The job could be yours or it could go to some other mug leaving you exactly where you were in the first place so I don't really know what the point of it is but like I say, I'm just a novice. After reading various online articles prophesising things like "On avail's NEVER turn into jobs" etc, I feared the worst. However, to my surprise, the very next morning I got a call from the casting agency to say I got the job. The ace in the pocket being that this was a SAG project and I would be Taft-Hartley'd into becoming SAG-eligable. I was absolutely delighted, to say the least. I felt like this:

So, the shoot was Wednesday and I considered this my first real (see: paid anything more than 70 dollars for weird scientologist people) job. Now, I've had several 'jobs' in my lifetime; I can't remember ever having one which made me wake up at 4:30 in the morning from sheer excitement. I definitely can't remember having one where I was genuinely disappointed to be allowed to go home early. Nor can I remember feeling guilty at the end of the day for having been paid to have an amazing time. However, on this day all of those things happened. This leads me to believe I could finally be on the right career path! The crew was amazing, the food was free and thankfully someone with some artistic integrity (namely, the director) was on hand to tell wardrobe that I shouldn't have to wear a ridiculous England cap which made me look like an absolute twat. All in all, a huge success and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

So, I'm hoping to use this little stroke of fortune to score some meetings with agents and whatnot, and hopefully kick on from there. Hiiiiigh hooooo!

In other news, I know I said I wouldn't talk about it but I think I actually hate the England team! Honestly, that was single-handedly the worst performance I've ever.....no, I'm not going to bring the mood down. It's not worth the effort.

I finished this week by attending a voiceover class with the legendary Michael Bell, who is an absolute voice-changing wizard...I was in awe. There was me thinking I'd spend a leisurely Sunday afternoon idly listening to some acting chit chat and generally thinking the hours away, next thing I know, I'm doing monkey noises and performing a "creepy, obese, maniac" into a microphone on stage in front of a room full of people. Only in LA. It was fantastic though and an absolute pleasure to watch the master at work. Definitely an area I want to explore further...

That should bring us about up to speed. I did forget to mention that I spent all of yesterday holed up with some form of food poisoning, which wasn't pleasant. However, in the evening I managed to get through one sitting of one of my all time favourite films - Monty Python's "The Life Of Brian" - without throwing up. Always manages to put a smile on my face, that one. Especially this bit:

Peace and love my friends,

John.

P.S - England are sh*t and Rooney is a wanker. That's all I'm saying.