The Audition!

Today I traveled over to the land of beautiful people (aka Russian Hill in SF) to audition for a commercial! Now... I'm a scientist, not a model, but I challenged myself to take a walk on the other side.

How did this come about you ask? Well actually it's a funny story....

Last Friday after two days of being cooped up in the house in front of my computer and sporting a classic "crazy scientist" look I decdied to take our puppy for a sunset walk. On our way down from the park, we noticed a guy on an orange bicycle and his companion down the hill holding a stop watch. These two seemed to take notice of Macky and I as we decended down the hill. This is not an uncommon occurance as people are easily charmed by the little Mackster. As we were walking by they stopped us, seemingly to ask about the pup, and to give him a little pet. Next, the guy with the orange bike looks at me and asks "How old are you?". I was a little shocked because I had been thinking he was only interested in the dog. I figured answering his question was a good way to find out what they were doing out there with bikes and stop watches, so I answered "28". His face lit up and then he got really excited and started telling me their story. It turns out the guy on the bike is a location scout, and his companion is a director. They were out scouting sites for a new commercial! His next comment really surprised me, "We are looking for someone with your color hair to be in it, and if you have any interest at all we would love to have you audition!". This was followed by many comments pertaining to the legitimacy of this venture,and making sure I knew wasn't a crazy stalker. He gave me his business card and the name of a person to contact about the audition. I was still in shock when I got home, but I proceeded to check out his story online, just to make sure it was legit. Sure enough everything added up, and so today I found myself in front of a camera, auditioning for the commercial!

The Audition:

Actually I had decided not to go. I don't have time for this, I have a dissertation to write! But as fate would have it, my monday morning meeting ended early, and I happened to be in between chapters. So dressed in my brown cords, and Old Navy "Science Rocks"tee-shirt, I went.
I walked into the empty hallway and was met by a sign with instructions on the audition protocol, but the place seemed deserted. My first instinct was that I had shown up too late. I was about to give up, when I saw a tall "modely" looking woman enter the hall and diappear behind the heavy metal door. So I followed her in, trying to act like I knew where to go all along. Inside were the signup sheets and the other anxiously awaiting candidates. Trying to look casual I grabbed the paper work and sat down. In the room were two tall Kate Moss-esque generic model types, and a plump middle aged woman. I chose to sit next to the latter. I read over the questionaire...AGENT? UNION AFFILIATION? Shirt size? I pretty much only filled in my name and contact info. A few minutes later a girl with dyed red hair, and cotton tank top enters the room and sits by me. She has in tow a canvas bag apparently filled with emerency modeling supplies. She turns to me and says "Everyone here is wearing jeans." (I wasn't) "Maybe I should go put on jeans." She pulls out a pair of worn jeans and heads off to put them on. When she returns one of the "Kate" clones speaks up, "The casting call said to wear jeans and a tee-shirt, that's whey we look like this". By "this" I assumed she meant the stylish baby-doll tees and designer jeans they were wearing. The girl with the red hair panics and turns to me, "The e-mail said dress causually, were you told to wear jeans? Maybe I should go put on a tee-shirt." I couldn't admit that I was not infact a working model, and had never actually seen the casting call. So I simply responded "I was told to dress casually so I'm sure you are fine." In retrospect the real adution was sitting in the waiting room, trying to convince my companions that I too was a seasoned aspiring model that had a clue about what was going on. Shortly after, my name was called and I had to leave my companion to panic about her outfit on her own.

In the audition room, I was met by a girl, probably several years my junior who pointed a video camera in my face. I promptly confessed to being an impostor, which actually seemed to relax her a bit. I answered some questions on tape (yes, I'm actually a PhD candidate, yes i am over 25, what did I do during the gorgeously sunny day yesterday? honestly I sat in front of my computer writing my dissertation). She took some pictures and then it was done! As I left I wispered "good luck" to the girl nervously awaiting her turn as if this were her one chance to "make it big".
Now we just wait to see what happens!