It was nice to wake up on a Friday morning being offered an audition. Normally my morning emails consist of Groupon offers, a notification that a weird Twitter SEO specialist is following me and a woeful casting call notificatin. So, the message asking me to audition was a lovely addition to my early start.
They were asking me to audition over the weekend and wanted me to let them know when I was available. I had some things planned for the weekend so I quickly set about rearranging them and within half an hour I emailed back asking if I could be seen on Saturday morning. Brilliant. It wasn't even 11am and already I'd arranged an audition for the next day. I saw that they'd attached the script so once I was settled in at work, I opened it up. However, this wasn't an ordinary file and what I was instead faced with was pages and pages of hand-written storyboards wonkily scanned in. Although I was yet to hear back from them confirming that they were able to see me at the time requested, I sent off another message just to let them know that it seemed they'd sent me the wrong file. Either that I was expected to take on the form of a blob and hastily jump around the room for theirv viewing pleasure.
Lunchtime came and went and I was still to hear back from them. My afternoon at work dragged by slower than a student production of King Lear and still nothing. I went home convinced that they'd reply that evening. But no, nothing. It was now 15 hours since I'd replied to their message and I'd still heard nothing. Oh well, I thought. Maybe they'll contact me overnight. But, of course, it won't surprise you to hear that on waking up on Saturday morning it was just Groupon, weird Twitterers and dodgy casting calls. I toyed with the idea of just going along anyway but why should I? If they're not organised to confirm and audition and send a correct attachment then why the heck should I travel for over an hour across London only to find that the auditions probably weren't happening anyway. Plus, if you're unable to organise auditions properly then the chances that your shoot will be a tightly run affair about as likely as me not eating that bag of crisps.
Although mildly irritated by this lack of organisation, I set about my day. If anything, they'd freed up my morning on what was a gloriously sunny day and had made my travel plans a whole lot easier. I whined a bit about it to my mum, then I had an ice cream and forgot about the whole thing. That was until my phone buzzed at 5.30pm. It was a message from the director sending me the correct attachment. That was it. Nothing to acknowledge my audition slot request. No apologies for taking 31 hours to get back to me. In return, they got a rather blunt email and now all is quiet on the disorganised audition front.
Now, I should add that I was dealing with students. So I know they are still learning. Of course they're not going to get everything spot on otherwise they probably wouldn't be training in the first place. But surely you don't need to go to film school to learn everyday common sense? Plus, they don't know what I'd cancelled for that audition. I sometimes work on a Saturday and if an audition came up then I'd drop work like the drop of a hat with a very strong sense of gravity. I don't know how they operate but unnecessarily losing out on a day's pay just because a bunch of students don't understand the very basic workings of replying to an email puts me on the Watership Down level of unhappy bunny status.
Of course, this sort of thing sadly happens all the time. This is the first badly organised audition I've narrowly missed out on and it certainly won't be the last. If I had a pound for everytime an audition was cancelled last minute or I never heard back from a director or I was left waiting for over an hour to been then I'd have amassed a small fortune by now. Maybe that's what needs to happen. Every time a director or a producer or someone else messes an actor arond then they have to give everyone affected a pound. And, on the flip side, everytime an actor fails to turn up to an audition, they too have to give a pound to everyone whose day has been screwed up. Might be time for us all to start saving up.
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