I've spent the past two mornings standing outside of Disney's Team/Cast Member offices, ready to sell my wares which, in this case, was my lovely little self and talents. Sadly, there were no takers, but such is life. I've got a thick skin and a sufficiency that lies with something and someone greater than Disney Resort's Casting Director, so I'm really just grateful for the experience (:
Anywho, yesterday morning was the Disney Cruise Line audition which called for Character Performers. I got to the offices around 8:45 since I'd heard the number of actors can get pretty grotesque at these auditions; not the case for DCL. There were about 20 people there, including myself, when I arrived, and only about 40 others had joined when they finally let us in at 9:45. I met some pretty cool people while in line, though I should note that the people I didn't talk to seemed equally sweet as well. I think that was one of the most pleasant parts of the whole experience: EVERYONE seemed genuinely friendly and nice.
The guy and girl I spent the most time talking to had auditioned for Disney several times before and were telling me some of their past experiences (e.g. the girl had been told she's "too ethnic looking to be cast as a princess" because she's a quarter black--she looked totally white, the guy explained the "Fuzzy Auditions" process--masked/costumed characters, etc.); neither had done DCL auditions before so none of us knew what to expect.
Anyway, around 9:45, we were finally checked in through security and led into an office building (which I was informed was designed with Goofy in mind) where we signed in, dropped off our headshots, and were measured (side note, the Disney measuring is whack. I'd heard this from others and then experienced it first-hand when they said I was 5'5.5"...whatever, still met their max. height allowance of 5'5"-5'8", so I didn't complain).
We were then led to a dance studio in the backlot behind Toon Town where we were given about 10 minutes to stretch before our choreographer and casting directors came in. The casting director informed us that although they were casting "fully-costumed characters" for the cruise, those cast would also be double-cast as ensemble dancers for the mainstage shows on the boat. <-- in theatre, film, and literature, this would be known as "foreshadowing", but, seeing as I am the protagonist in my own tale, I was obviously oblivious to this foreboding sign that I would more likely than not be eventually cut
The choreographer showed us two counts of eight that really weren't too difficult, but were given to us super fast with pretty much zero time in between learning them (i.e. "do this, this, this, prep, turn, turn, prepare, kick. got it? good. moving on" <-- = this all transpired in .87 seconds). It was really frustrating for me, because had I been given more than a second and a half to process it, I know I could've gotten it down well, but because I'm not a singularly focused dancer by trade, the download and process time for the clustered browser that is my mind is CONSIDERABLY slower than the dozen or so professional dancers at the audition who had it perfectly the second the choreographer showed it to us.
Damn it! I said pirouette, not chaine!!
(....the inner workings of my mind are run by irritable Asian women...obviously)
So the choreographer broke us into two groups and had us just take turns doing the combination to the music (this was apparently our "rehearsal" time, though she stopped dancing in the front after about the second or third time we'd tried it with music, and we weren't really allowed to practice it or make sure we had it right). After a handful of times, they started calling us forward in groups of five for the actual audition. Thankfully, God granted me with some rhythm and sense of movement, so I pretty much had it with just a couple wonky bits I never quite perfected, but I can smile and fake it with the best of 'em, so my audition wasn't too bad and nowhere near the worst of the bunch...
God, I hope I get it! I hope I get it!
However, "not too bad" isn't good enough when your competition is a bunch of girls who dance in professional ballet troupes (like this really nice girl I met who could've been the twin of Britney from "Glee"...she didn't even make it).
Out of the 60 or so people, they kept about 12...I was not one of those 12, but, like I said, it really didn't bring me down too much. I'm not a professional dancer; that's not where I've chosen to focus my training, so I don't feel bad about not getting cast for a dancer's role.
This morning's audition for Character Look-Alikes for Fantasmic! was a little tougher to take, but still, I feel relatively unscathed.
I didn't realize today's audition was specifically for "Look-Alikes"...I thought it was another Character Performer call (for those of you keeping score at home, that's Foreshadowing: 2, Missy: 0). I also thought the turnout would be similar to yesterday's, so I didn't feel bad about letting Megan sleep in and not getting to the audition until 9:20...that was my second mistake. There were HUNDREDS of people camped out at this morning's audition.
It kind of looked like an Occupy protest...but with less rape & defecating in the streets
Once again, I met some really nice people while waiting in line, which made the two hours of moving very, VERY slowly through the line (they took groups of about 60-70 people backstage every 15-20 mins or so) a little more bearable. My group finally got in around 11:45. By this time, we'd already seen a TON of people get let go, so most of us knew the cuts were going to be subjectively off of our looks right off the bat. Surprise, surprise...they were.We were led into the same dance studio that DCL auditions had been in the morning before, but this time we had to line up in rows seven deep behind the numbers 1-10 on the floor. The same DCL casting directors entered and explained that they needed Look-Alikes who both look like the needed Disney cartoons (apparently they recently had another Fantasmic! audition in which they already hired a bunch of people for the show, so I don't know who exactly they needed) AND look similar enough to the people who already work in the show.
....Close enough....
Then we had to smile...and that was it.
Simple enough.
We literally just stood there, smiling, while the casting directors walked past us and said "Good morning". Only two girls from my row went on, totaling maybe half a dozen out of the seventy of us who were asked to go on. It was slightly more frustrating than yesterday's since I can't really help how much I look like the characters they need or who they already have, but whateverz, it's not going to deter me from auditioning for other Disney stuffs later as they come up (:
As we were being led out of the studio past the next hopeful group about to go in, I passed a girl who said, "Oh no, she was cute!" I'd thought the exact same thing about fifteen times earlier that day, which also makes my non-casting a little easier to take, cause, hey, at the end of the day, at least I know I wasn't cut for being some deformed, uggo...at least I don't think I was (;
animatedly your's,
mjl.
No comments:
Post a Comment