AUDITION - Red Comm

TUESDAY, 25TH FEB 2008, 4:30PM

From inside the car, I was staring at the Red Communications studio door.

“I’m supposed to be in the audition room by now.
I’m going to be late.
B- But… DOGS!”

It seems that the dogs felt that I’m unworthy to audition for the series.
They kept circling around the area like sharks waiting to bite my head off.

I saw a man coming up to RedComm’s studio.
He had such a confident and talented aura that
even the dogs made way for him.

It’s a sign that they think that he’s more than worthy.

I quickly tagged along with that man.

I was right to say that he was confident.
No, not snobbish.
Confident.

He was very talkative.
I had a brief conversation with him but I didn’t let it flow.

I only got to know that he’s a theater actor and it’s his second time going to a screen audition.

“Stay focused! Keep re-reading the script until they call you!”

They called us into the room together.

“Oh shoot! Don’t tell me I have to act with HIM?!”

The scene was about how I break it to my boyfriend (him) that he’s not the one for me and I’m actually in love with another guy

Why am I fussing about this?

It’s because he was born in 1973!
That’s 17 year older than me.

It would look hella awkward to treat him like a casual boyfriend.
Not to mention, it would be like a pedophile scene!

** Click ‘more’ for details of the audition.

*** Also includes another bossy scene of Jazreen bossing people around (fun!) 

Audition: TOS

Ever since Snips, I haven’t got the courage to go to a single audition for production.

Which is why I’ll mark 2007 as an empty year in terms of ‘work’.

Whenever opportunities spring, I would cowardly hide away from those chances.

As February entered, I’ve realized that there are possibilities of me moving to another state.

So I swore to myself that I should at least just accomplish a few other things before furthering my studies.

And the only considerable audition around that time was from a youth theater group- TOS.

I signed up for the audition without giving myself a chance to pull back.

By doing that, I’ve taken a few leaps:

1. Marking my first production audition since 2006.
2. First stumble into theater.

It’s one of the stupider things I’ve done in work,

yet it’s a somewhat meaningful step.

Here’s my dad’s take on it,

“You WON’T get it.
Theater and the piece itself is something very foreign to you.
You haven’t even watched a proper theater show.
How can you pull it off?“

—–

17th February, Sunday
7:30pm

I entered the room to see 5 people.

Oh hell.
I get easily intimidated by seeing so many people judging me.

I got real nervous.
No. I wasn’t shaking or anything.

My mouth literally went dry

.So dry that my lips got STUCK to my teeth!
I couldn’t even close my mouth properly!
And I couldn’t close my mouth throughout the monologues.

My acting for the monologues were horrible.
No further details needed.

—————–

Because it is obvious that I sucked at monologues,
they gave me an improv session.

Generally, they’re going to give me a situation.
Based on that, I’ll have to act and improvise on it.

Another “Oh, hell” moment.

I’ve had a very horrible experience with this session back in 2006.
(College students, they were really mean then)

THE SITUATION:

“Think of a teacher that you strongly dislike and emulate her.”

I took about 2 minutes to think and calm myself down from the previous “Oh hell!” moments.

“Chemistry teacher.Act like she knows everything when she knows nothing.”

LOCKED that in my head and went with it.

* Click ‘more’ to see Ms. Lina (the mashed up chemistry teacher) appears from nowhere in the audition room!

JAG - Third Shoot - Ep1 (12th Feb)

I will first start this post with:

Gerard oh Gerard,
What would we have done without thou?,
What would we have been without thou?,
Where would we be without thou?,

Oh, just for a free ride to BTP, will you?
That’s all we’ll ever ask of you.

* I fail at flowery languages. So there goes my attempt at anything poetic.

It was the first time that Gerard couldn’t come for shoot.
This means that Marvin, Gus, and I had to struggle for our non-existent transport to BTP.

We have all gained a new level of appreciation for Gerard,
the only man on Earth who is able to transport us to and from BTP.

—–

It was finally the third and last day of shoot for JAG’s Episode 1.

It was only for one scene in the conference room.

As usual, it was freezing in BTP, we had to switch off the air-cond again.
And I think we’ll keep doing that for the following months to come.

When we entered the room,
we were delighted to see 2 cameras!
Meaning: More efficiency, Less shots.

If shooting indoors would mean having 2 cameras,
I’d gladly comply with that.

And another plus side
— we were mostly sitting throughout the scene.
Meaning: More concentration on movements/continuation,
less tiredness.

The 1 hour and 45 minutes we took to perfect that one scene doesn’t feel like a drag.

But I was eager to finish it and move on to the next chapter.

—

When we got all the shots done,
Amie and Gus looked over at Suras (director),
who was contemplating on whether or not to call it a day.

“Come on Suras.
Shout out “It’s a wrap!”
Say those 3 words that all the big, cool directors say!”

The only thing that came out of Suras was,

“…
…
Olait! Dah boleh balik!”

Although disappointed, this doesn’t stop Amie and Gus.
They took on the burden and repeatedly shouted out,

“It’s a wrap!
IT’S A WRAP!

IT’SAWLAP!!!”

We have finally completed the first episode!

Which gave me the rights to collect my pay!

$$$$$ Ka-ching $$$$$

… Except that, I forgot to hand over my contract to Suras.
Which gave THEM the rights not to pay me until I did so.

Guh.

Jazreen still has a very very dry pocket for the months to come.

“Take your time.”

It was the third day of shoot at BTP yesterday.

And since Gerard can’t give us a free ride there,

I had to ask my dad to send us there.

The plan was to pick up Marvin and Gus from Bangsar station before going straight to BTP.

Marvin sent me a text:

“I doubt that Gus will make it at 4.
More like 4.15.
So take your time coming out of the house.”

I was reading that text to my dad while he was driving.

Then he immediately took a sharp turn and headed to the opposite way!

JAEZ: Wargh?! Ayah, where are you going?!?!
DAD: What? He told us to take our own sweet time, right? Hehehehe.

As the evil cackles ended, I found myself in Low Yat Plaza, accompanying my dad doing his window shopping.

He took his time at the laptop shops, asking questions from the workers there.
I looked at the watch, 20 minutes till 4.
I dragged him out telling him that it’s almost 4.

The next time I looked at my watch, it was 10 minutes till 4.
And… he was still looking around at the laptops!

I urged him to please hurry,
we walked to the escalator and had to stop at the Memory Cards section because some new model have just came in and my dad was fascinated by it.

It was 5 minutes till 4.

“Ayah! We’ll never get to Bangsar in time!”
“Relax, if all goes well, we can reach there in 30 minutes.”
“Then I’ll be late by 15 minutes from the designated time!”
“Relax, we were SUPPOSED to take our own sweet time, right?”

Help.

5 minutes later, I got a text that both Marvin and Gus have reached the station- it was at 4pm.
Knowing that they’ll have to wait for more than 30 minutes, I got twitchy and panicked.

JAEZ:
They’re already there! THEY’RE ALREADY THERE!

DAD:
Yes yes. It’s good that they’re punctual.
*looks around*
Hmmm… Are there any mamak restaurant nearby?
I think I’m going to have my cigar.
And a cigar wouldn’t be complete without a teh tarik!
Come to think of it, I haven’t had my lunch yet.
So I’ll order some roti canai too!

JAEZ:
Nooooooo! That would take forever!

DAD:
Nonono. The PLAN was that we were supposed to take our own sweet time.
Didn’t your friend said so?

We were there at about 4.45pm.

After Marvin and Gus hopped into our car,
my dad turned back,

“Hi guys!
And don’t worry!
We are taking our own sweeeeetttt time!“

And he flashed his evil grin and cackled,
as I cover my face chanting- “Oh God.”