Auditions - 5
• 📹 Self Tapes - 5

of those auditions...
• 🏷️ Adverts - 5

Four advert tapes in the first week of the month, with a sharp increase in shifts at the day-job near the end. September felt like a return to form compared to August.

The advert auditions didn't go anywhere unfortunately, but again I felt my tapes were particularly strong. The project brief for a lot of these adverts essentially outline what they want in the final product, so you end up filming your own version of the ad on your own. In line with this, I've been going the extra mile to add in appropriate background sound to give an impression of the environment they're looking for. It adds a bit of time to the editing process, but I feel like it conveys the tone of the ad a little better, and puts my performance in context (especially when there's no dialogue).

Outside of the self tapes, I was snooping around on some theatre company websites one evening when I came across the Visible Fictions Working Title Grant. It's an oppertunity for artists at any level to gain access to space, time, resources, and money to explore a new creative project and develop ideas. Visible Fictions are a Scottish theatre company mainly geared towards work for young people, but the Working Title grant has gone towards musicians, visual artists, and storytellers whos work aligns with their ethos. The page I linked is well worth a look, the diversity of their recipients is really inspiring.

When I found the page I noticed there was only a couple of days until the deadline. Normally I would look at something like that and talk myself out of it. "I don't have anything to offer", "My projects don't fit that kind of brief", "I wouldn't know what to do if I got it", but something about it sparked an idea and I thought "Why not?" and put a submission together.

Initially I was going to adapt a project I had already started working on, and I told myself that I wouldn't have time to submit with anything else because it would take too long to develop the idea, but I had a nagging feeling that I could come up with something better.

In her infinite wisdom my partner said "Right, I'm away for a bath, set yourself a ten minute timer and ask yourself what the ideal project for this would look like. If you can't come up with anything new, go with your original idea." By the time the ten minutes were up, I not only had an idea that I loved, but had a show outline, a medium, and five or six unique selling points that mean I'm still thinking about this project almost a month later. I ended up telling her all this during her bath, nothing like a captive audience.

I was proud of our pitch video, especially given the limited time. I sketched out some concept drawings, outlined a budget, and even threw in some names of folk we would like to work with if the project got taken further, but unfortunately we didn't make it to the next round of selection. It was a bit of a disappointment, but I can't be too sad about it. I learned a lot. I proved to myself that that negative self talk that steers me away from exciting oppertunities is purely based in fear, and only serves to hold me back. The 3 minute time limit on the video forced me to be concise with my ideas. More than anything it showed where I still need improvement, particularly in the draft budget I provided which lacked specificity.

The job hunt is still ongoing. The recent increase in shifts is nice, but nothing I can rely on. I have five or six applications out now that are still waiting for a response and, inspired by that latest pitch video, I've gone back to develop the pitch decks for my in-development projects. No grand moral to glean from this month's update, just a healthy dose of perspective and a bit of self-confidence.

UPDATE: After writing this blog post we had some bad news and priorities have shifted. Family has to come first.