The webseries I cast for Machinima and Epic Level Entertainment a few months back premiered Friday. It’s called Bite Me and I’d love for you to check it out. New eps Fridays for the rest of the year. Gamers who kill zombies. What’s not to love?

One of the coolest parts of this casting gig (and there were many cool parts: Getting to be on the team of the first ever scripted, live-action webseries for the hugely popular gaming site; working with some ridiculously rockstar-level awesome people, including future superstar director Jarrett Lee Conaway; knowing at the budget level involved, this thing was going to be fiercely professional-looking and would see the light of day — something that doesn’t happen with many indies that come across my desk each year) was that we did a lot of actor-level outreach.

Jarrett wanted to see everyone’s audition, even if we weren’t going to be able to get them into the room for our three days of casting sessions. That meant, if you put yourself on tape for us, you were guaranteed that the director was going to look at your work. Now, when I put this information into the breakdown, I soon received a handful of emails and calls from folks not too pleased. Agents mostly. “Just get my client in the room. He’s not going to put himself on tape for this thing.”

But when I explained that — in many cases — the actor in question was “at a no” for getting into the room without doing the self-tape, some folks came around and had their actors “go to the trouble.” It paid off. More than a few actors who were never going to get invited in based on how they looked in their headshots or how their credits shaped up did, in fact, get prereads (after those “Pre-Prereads“) and six actors who self-taped wound up at final callbacks.

One of our series leads is someone who would’ve never been auditioned, except the actor went on tape for us.

This week’s column is not to rehash the benefits vs. costs of self-taping, a trend every actor has observed is happening more and more as our time to cast shrinks, the number of actors submitting increases, and technology makes it easier than ever for actors to “get in the room” (virtually) using a simple cell phone cam.

This week’s column is about how very close actors come, without ever knowing it. And while you may prefer to book it, every time, we know better than to believe that’s possible, so I hope you find great comfort in knowing that — more often than you may ever hear about it — you’ve come close.

Here’s what gave me a really good take on this, with regard to Bite Me. One of the producers on the series posted a photo at Facebook. The photo was of his office, the week between prereads and callbacks. One wall was covered in actors’ headshots. Yes, there were all of the actors we ended up calling back and casting, as well as all of the actors we called back but did not cast, but also a group of actors who did not end up getting called back, but who were thisclose as we were budgeting our time for that fourth callbacks-only session day.

I wanted to go through and tag the actors whose headshots were up on the wall in that photo, so they’d know how close they came, via Facebook notification. But then I wondered if they’d want to know. I thought about how I’ve felt when I’ve bid for a casting gig I didn’t ultimately get. Once, the director called and said, “Hey, you were my front-runner, and number two overall. We went with the money guys’ casting director. You understand.” And of course, I did.

I know my career is going to be comprised of decades filled with opportunities to bid on (and win or lose) casting gigs, just like an actor’s career will include opportunities to audition for (and book or not) roles in projects of all levels. To come close is to make it past a handful of other casting directors, for me. To come close — as an actor — is to make it past potentially thousands of actors to even get into the room!

So, whether you ever know or not, I suggest you always assume you were the “number two” when you don’t get the call that you booked. Many times, that will be true. And even when it’s not true, for me, it’s nice to feel thatclose to the bullseye. Because eventually, that bullseye spot is yours.

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!

Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001273.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.