Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I know someone who knows someone...

Mandy here. Was shooting a pilot today for a reality tv show... it was fun pretty much because I was able to work with an awesome girl.  My friend Natasha and I met while shooting a pilot several months ago and we hit it off splendidly.  We have since become good friends. For those of you who know me well I moved to LA in August 2010 for acting (of course). This again was one of the many times in my life where I thought I had it all figured out... I thought I had finally made up my mind. I mean who cares if 99% (or whatever the scary exact percentage is) don't make it.  I made my decision because I thought 1. You can be someone different every day... live thru a character vicariously... experience and feel their hardships and happy times 2. You can meet tons of new, different, exciting people and learn from them 3.  It's a challenge 4. The obvious financial benefit 5. TRAVEL of course 6. It's just plan fun to read a script and act it out 7. You are doing something different every day 8.  Sometimes you are able to learn a new language, skill, etc  9.  Now that I look back I am sure I wanted to be something really special and important... a role model and something people looked up to..

Anyways what ended up happening was I got out here did a few reality tv shows and got a few other jobs and realized that it just wasn't what I wanted for several reasons really... 1. surprisingly I realized I had low confidence... nervous about what people thought of me... my resume... did I have enough experience? why was I better for this part than someone else? 2. I got real... okay, okay so maybe I ignored the stats before but then I thought wow.... I can't invest all of this time and energy and not make it.  I should have thought of that more before huh? Impulsivity I suppose.. just wanted to escape Chicago life.  I saw the benefits and ignored the cons. took a blind risk. To my credit though I figured I'd find something else to love if it failed. I do love movies. Production was definitely an option for a back up plan (AND STILL IS!)  3. I took a super intense class by arguably the best most amazing teacher in Hollywood (Howard Fine) and ultimately ended up hating it. I didn't want to mentally, emotionally revisit things that really made me cry made me depressed... I didn't really wanna feel it after all. I didn't know acting really was emotionally draining to that severe extent when you are really in it and I didn't know I had so many scars. 4. My mom lost her job of 15 years and doesn't have a degree. I don't have a degree and solid work experience. Her situation really affected me and made me realize I gotta get it together find what I love, what's realistic, and what will provide me with money and is secure in any economy.  5. I could go on with more reasons but the last one I will list is the obvious "Hollywood" drama.
Back to today... Natasha and I were sitting down having lunch with production and we were grilling them... pitching ideas..etc.  When we asked them how they got their jobs 3 out of the 3 guys said it was from knowing someone who got them the job.  I thought to myself that's awesome to have connections and I can say I wish I had some connections in that department but I don't.  I just found it interesting. People and their connections... It's kinda disappointing that people get jobs simply because they know a friend who gets them an "in" and yes I'll admit.. this is from a completely jealous standpoint because I don't have the connections... lol. At least not out in LA.. out in this industry. 

The cool part of the day was that Natasha and I did such a great job several months back that we were invited to come back and shoot another pilot (which again is why I was there today) I initially turned it down until the producers mentioned that Natasha was gonna do it and they liked us together... I thought what the heck sounds fun if Natasha will be there.  We did have a great time... didn't have to do much work and got paid. End of story. If only I knew someone who knew someone who knew someone.. :)

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