So its been a month.
A month since I closed The Full Monty. A month since I shot my commercial (which is now airing thank you very much) and a month since I've had a single audition. Yup. A whole month of nothing. A big fat nothing.
After busting my ass with auditions for the fits six weeks of 2018, I have had nothing at all. But that's the nature of the business. Its either feast or famine. Always has been. I've been through this before. But still, it always makes me think..."What am I doing wrong?" or better still, "What can I be doing differently?"
I hate these slow periods. What do I do to keep myself going creatively? Well, I can write. Which is kind of the point of these blogs...to keep my creative juices flowing. I can vocalize and sing. I'm thinking about putting together another cabaret act. Its been about five years since my last one. I haven't vocalized regularly in a long time. All my voice lessons are on cassette tapes and my last cassette player died a couple years ago. So I recently purchased a tape to digital converter off of Amazon and voila! I know have my voice lessons on my computer. No more excuses.
On to the title of this blog, SAG. Why is that there? Well, because I am not a SAG member. Nor have I ever been. I am SAG eligible and have been for about a dozen years since I was Taft Hartleyed on a commercial. But I have never booked another SAG job since. Now eligible means that I can join at any time. I don't have to yet but I can. It also means that I can audition for SAG jobs. Which is why agents tend to say wait until you have to join before joining it's the best of both worlds they can submit you for both union and non-union work. And also because I make money doing non-union commercials, it makes sense to stay non-union.
And then, more and more work is going non-union. So more and more SAG actors are going financial core, which means they can work non-union jobs. This means they are fee paying non-members. You're still a SAG member but you lose your voting rights and the right to participate in SAG events, seminars, etc.
But I have also been in this business for a couple of decades and I am a man of, shall we say, a certain age. Managers say why is someone this age still non-union?
I ask myself, is it keeping me from getting further in my career. Am I not getting auditions for TV shows and union commercials because it doesn't say SAG on my resume? Well, not really because I DO get those auditions, just not often. This last year, I had 7 episodic TV auditions, and the last few went very well. I booked the room as they say. One office called me back a second time and all the casting people in the room laughed at my one line. So I know I booked the room if not the job.
Also, it costs $3,300 just to join the union. That's just to join. Then there's annual dues on top of that. Who has $3,300 lying around? Not me. So, if I join will I get those auditions I so desperately want? Or will I see even less activity because so many commercials now use non-union talent?
That is the dilemma and why agents want me to stay non-union. But I can't help wondering if I might get to the next level if I go SAG.
What do you think? Post your comments in the comments section of this blog. I'd love to know what you think.
