You’re walking down the street. There’s one of those “scratcher” lottery tickets there on the ground. It has not been scratched off. You keep walking.

WHAT?!?

You keep walking? You don’t reach down and pick up this slip of paper that could hold millions of dollars in its potential, if the numbers line up?!?

(Well, yeah. Most of the people I know walk past coins on the ground, feeling it’s not worth the effort to pick up the money. I, on the other hand — whether I pick it up or not — say, “Thank you, Universe, for reminding me that abundance exists!” But most of the time, I pick that money up, y’all! I mean, c’mon!)

Actors who want to audition are like unscratched lottery tickets. Casting directors who won’t watch self-taped auditions or who won’t see unrepped actors or who won’t see nonunion actors are walking over lottery tickets every day. *tsk tsk* Such a shame.

Sure, the fact that I’ll give shots to gate crashers (not even gonna mention the specifics on that experience, lately) means I do have to endure some nonsense, but because once in a while it leads to something magical, I have to give audience to all of it. I have to scratch the ticket.

But let’s think about those lottery tickets that don’t require scratching. There’s a whole class of tickets that are just numbers, right? No scratching required! No mystery. These are the numbers you’ve chosen and sometimes they line up. Cool.

If you, as an actor, are the type of lottery ticket that is “numbers out,” you let us know what you are and we can bring you in when it looks like that’s gonna line up with what we need. What a delight! No mystery. You have made it clear exactly what it is we’re gonna get when you come into the room.

Yes, have your brand out there and clear. But also trust that we’ll sometimes give a shot to the tickets that don’t advertise what we’re gonna get (the ones we have to scratch; those are the “actors whose work we don’t know” category, the unsolicited self-taped reads). Unless we’re the type of CDs who walk past the tickets, you’re gonna get a shot. And, your show bible badassery will help you map out who’s who, in the casting community.

As someone who is spending her weekend watching self-taped auditions from folks who couldn’t make it in for prereads last week, I can safely say, walking past tickets is something I’d never consider. What if my $1M win is *right there*?!? Crazy to not at least watch the footage, right? No, not all of it is fantastic, but because the potential WIN is there, you know I’ve gotta watch.

Oh, and since I always like to provide a bit of insight into how the landscape is on self-taped reads as the process becomes more commonplace over the years, let me take a moment to mention that we’re still looking at a teeny-tiny percentage of those who are invited to self-tape actually doing so. I’m talking, over 100 actors specifically invited to self-tape and about 18 actually going all the way through with it in time. So… if you’re down with self-taping, do it. You’re getting an edge just by being in the mix!

Back to scratching, y’all. 🙂 Good luck to us all!

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/001815.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.