Saturday

This is why I wish so much that the ipad had been cooperating- I think it was more fun to blog daily before I knew what was going to happen.  It's harder now to write only about what we felt on Saturday, when we know now what happened during the following days.  But oh well.  You do what you can.  I'll blog until I'm tired and that will be a post.  Maybe this is the last one, maybe there are more.  We'll just have to see.

Saturday morning was her last showcase- kid runway.  Before we got to Shine this was by far her favorite.  Now that we've gotten through an intense week of acting, she can't decide which one she likes best.  The acting bug has definitely bitten her.  And while she's really fun to watch during acting, I get nervous for her.  My favorite to watch is the modeling because she's herself.  She doesn't look nervous at all, she's got a big smile and a casual jaunty walk and she looks like she's having the time of her life.  There are no lines to flub or choices to make.  Just be you.  And of course some people hate it and don't look natural and feel scared, but she doesn't.  So it's my favorite.

After that we had promised the girls we'd go get ice cream.  There was a Haagen Dazs shop in the hotel which we had avoided all week because they talked so much about healthy eating and giving your body the best fuel for its work.  Absolutely true.  But sometimes after you're done you need to celebrate with a little ice cream.

 

We met some amazing friends this week that I hope we continue to keep in contact with.  AMTC families are pretty much just awesome- I would have any of these girls AND their mamas over any day of the week.  It was really fun to enjoy mom time with people who completely understood what we've been doing these last eight months.

During the afternoon we had one more seminar and then it was time to get ready for the acting finale.  They streamed it live, so some of you might already have had the joy of sitting through the entire thing.  For which I thank you.  Sometimes it's not as fun to do when you're not a judging VIP and when you don't know any of the people.  If you want to go see it now, it's online here, click acting finale 2013.  Her scene read begins at 17:56 and her group improv is at 57:20.  The talent finale is on there too.  It's called AMTC 2013.  She wasn't in it because she didn't do singing or dancing, but it's kind of fun to watch.  Some of the people are super talented.  The beginning has some more well known AMTC grads who came back to perform.  Mathai who was on Adam Levine's team for The Voice in season 2 did a song.  And then she signed autographs after.  Gillian was so giddy!

  
She's just as beautiful and talented in person as she was on tv, and she's SO NICE. 

After all that was done, we went to dinner at a restaurant in the hotel with a bunch of friends and then went back to check the boards again.  They'd been telling us all week that some of the agents were planning to leave early and would be posting their callbacks whenever it was convenient for them.  If you missed seeing your number on the board and didn't go to your callback, you pretty much just blow your chance at working with that agent.  So we checked it a lot, and good thing, because we had a callback scheduled for 10 pm that night which would be an actual film audition!

The agency is local to our area, so they called back pretty much everybody in our team who could fit the specs for the look of the part.  It was supposed to be a 12 year old mean girl with heavy makeup and a pink streak in her hair.  And honestly that's a bit of a stretch for my fresh-faced 9 year old who hates to be mean to anybody and just started acting.  But hey, you never know, and every audition gives her more experience and advice that could help her later.  Plus even if this part didn't work for her, it gets her in front of the casting director who is probably working on multiple projects and maybe could use her in something else. 

So she did the audition.  She felt like it went well.  We didn't get a second callback for the part though- some of the other girls were asked to go to the set next Saturday to do another audition with the director.    I know that was confusing when I was talking about it before- yes it was a callback, but we didn't get a callback from the callback, if that makes better sense.  :)  They did say that they're going to need four or five more girls for non-speaking extras in the hallways and stuff and they might contact us this week if she's got the right look for one of those. 

She was a little bummed about it when we got back to the room but I was really proud of her attitude. " I got a callback mama!  And even though I'm not gonna get this part, one of my friends will probably get it!  That's so awesome, and God has something different planned for me.  It will be okay."

Friday!

Okay!  The team leader said Thursday was the day she usually starts to see people unravel but I vote for Friday.  Good grief I am tired. We kicked off our day with a seminar from a VIP at Game Changing Films, talking about casting sports in movies. It was pretty cool. You don't really think about the fact that if a lead character is on a team, you have to cast a whole field full of two teams of kids who can actually play the sport. I think it really made G take a second look at whether or not she wants to stick with softball. She had talked about taking a break from it but she's definitely reconsidering!

She had three showcases today. First up was photography. That one was just really fun. She wore her AMTC tshirt and denim and went out on stage to do her slate while the ginormous screens showed a couple of her shots from the photo shoot. Very cool.  And she talked about playing softball. :)

Then she did cold read, which is the one she was most nervous about. It's

**this is how much of it actually saved.  After Thursday's post got eaten, I rewrote it and posted it on Friday.  Then I wrote a HUGE post finishing this one.  It took me an hour.  I hit publish and poof!  all gone.  Went back to draft and only this much of it was here.  So I'm finishing the rest now as best as I can.  grr.**

So she was nervous about cold read.  It's one of the events that's shot in the camera room and put onscreen, and you don't get the script for it until you're waiting in line to go film.  It's much more like an actual audition and therefore nervous-making.  She did fine though.  And she looked cute too.




We had another seminar after that which was probably my favorite of the whole week.  It was by David Doan and was all about kids in the entertainment industry.  Some of the seminars ended up to be the kind where the VIP talked for five minutes and then we had to sit through everyone coming up to ask them questions.  And you know that saying that starts, "there are no stupid questions?" well it's a lie.  There are very stupid, repetitive questions that make it clear you haven't been listening all week.  Thankfully, David actually talked to us for most of the time and only fielded a few questions- and his information was really interesting and he had tons of anecdotes and was super fun to listen to WHILE we learned lots.  My favorite kind.

Later in the afternoon she did group improv.  Not too long ago they changed the format of it.  It used to be very much like Whose Line Is It Anyway?, where the actors are in chairs next to each other and everyone talks as the mood strikes and there's no order.  That's fun to watch in terms of spontaneity if someone comes up with something hilarious, but when it's not on a professional level you usually get someone who sits in the chair and doesn't take a turn.  So they changed it to where they all stand in a line so you can only see the first person, and when that person starts, they are all supposed to listen and then continue the story in that character, as if it was really one person talking the whole time, and that way everyone gets 15 of the 60 seconds to talk. 

I think her group was the best kid one by far- they actually did listen to each other and stay with the flow of the story.  Some of the other groups had a kid who listened to the original prompt rather than the people in front of them, and even though they were third in line they started talking about their ideas instead of continuing the monologue their teammates had started. 

We were pretty tired after three showcases in one day, and Tangled was on the Disney channel, so we went back and had dinner in the room and got into jammies early.  Our roommates had their team meetings at night after everything was over instead of crack of dawn like we did, so they had to leave around 9 to go check in with their team.  They got back around 10:15 and let us know that the numbers for the acting finale had been posted and they saw 53 on there.  G was so excited that we got dressed again and ran back through the hotel to the area where the boards were so she could see it.  Sure enough, she made the finale for her scene read, and also for her group improv.  There was much squealing and glee.  Really fun to end the day on such a high note.

Face of maniacal glee here.  She was so sweet about really trying not to jump up and down and freak out, because there were people sobbing in corners when they didn't see their names on this list.  I texted hubby this picture and he replied back, "I don't see her name or number anywhere!" You can see though that group improv #1 made it, which is her group, and the scene read page was up above her head so I couldn't get it in the shot.  There were a ton of people waiting to check the board so I didn't want to take a lot of time staging a picture.

Thursday, Take Two

I wrote a lot last night. I talked about tons of stuff and I'm really sad that it disappeared. Usually it auto saves while I'm writing so even if I think it's gone, I can go back and get at least some of it. But this time the whole post got eaten. Very sad. I'm hoping I can reconstruct but even just the next day it's hard to recapture the feelings of each day. This is such a whirlwind adventure.

Ok let's see.  Yesterday she had two showcases- tv presenter and scene read. TV presenter went well. That's the kind where she goes into the camera room to film and we all sit in the big ballroom and watch her on screen. She read well and was able to make it look like she was just talking for the most point instead of having to stop at the end of the line and wait. I've seen celebrities do a worse job with TelePrompTer so I think it went okay. She got a script about eating s'mores so she had a good reference point for it and was able to sound authentic.

Scene read went well too, and I think she and all the girls around her should get extra points for professionalism. The girl right in front of her threw up everywhere just before she was about to go on. G said it was three inches from her shoes. They're about to walk on and all of a sudden things stop and the emcee says, we need #52's mother right now at the stage door!  We didn't find out what happened until afterwards. They put a chair over it and went on, G did her read, and in a few minutes 52 was able to rally and get hers done too.

I've just been so amazed and proud and impressed with my girl all the way around on this trip. She's being so responsible and organized with everything. When we leave the room she's got her bag with her notes and water and extra pens, wearing her number with her hair pulled back, and she's the one reminding me to grab the room key and my observer pass (which I forgot on Tuesday night and had to go back for because they wouldn't let me into the convention center.) she's learning so much and never complains.

I had more in the first post but I already forgot and now I'm  thinking about today. So I'll just go on to the next post I guess!

Dang.

I just wrote a huge post and blogger ate it. And now I'm tired. Argh!!!  I'll catch up tomorrow. So annoyed!

Day 3

Well, we've made it through another exhausting, rewarding, fabulous, tiring day. I'm realizing I didn't bring a single pair of shoes that are comfy. However, I DID pack the band aids and blister blocker that our team lead suggested, and those have saved my bacon.  Yay.

We attended several really informative seminars today conducted by various VIPs that gave us some great inside info. One of the biggest things I'm taking away from this is how much booking a job is about your look and not your performance. It could even be decided by an outside factor you never would think about. One guy told us a story about an audition where they all loved the actress- everyone agreed she gave an amazing performance. After she left they said, so she gets the job right? And the producer said no way. I loved her but she wears the same perfume as my ex-wife and I don't want to be around her that long. Like you could do anything about that?!  Crazy business. But so fun. G is loving it.

She had her first showcase today and she did really well. I think I was more nervous than she was. It's so weird to have been doing all this work for months and then it's over in twenty seconds. But at least we have on-camera under our belt and done.

Today we were going back to our room and happened to catch a fish feeding. There's a huge waterway inside the hotel with different aquatic exhibits. We got to see them feed these huge redfish some squid and shrimp and the guy told us all about the science that goes into keeping up a habitat of that size. It was pretty cool. Then he let us follow him down to the baby alligator area. Gatorland is nearby and the hotel has a contract to house some of the babies and then send them over there when they get too large. They had a tank with four one year olds. G got to hold one and pet it. She was super excited. She said its belly was very squishy, which I found odd. Anyway, I think that was the highlight of her day apart from her 20 seconds of on camera fame.

 His name is Peanut.  And he has a rubber band around his snout in case he gets any crazy ideas.

L got brave and came over to touch it while G was holding it, but she was not interested in holding it herself.  Oh no Gillian!  I just want to watch YOU hold him!  :)

She's got two more showcases  tomorrow- scene read and TelePrompTer. Again, she's excited about both and really looking forward to the day.

Oh and I didn't make the choir. :) no big deal. Only five people from our group did, and we have MANY very talented singers. I'm actually kind of glad not to have to work practices into our busy schedule.

Day 2

In bed in the dark again, listening to one girl snore while the other kicks me and says she isn't tired. She's lying. And when I kick her out of bed at 6:30 tomorrow morning she will be sorry. We had such a full day!  I don't see how she's still awake. My body is super tired and I'm glad to be off my feet but my brain hasn't shut down yet. Plus I never go to bed this early and my body thinks its central time instead of eastern.

No. Your itchy pj tag is an excuse, not the problem. Go to sleep already.

We got all registered today. The line was monstrous long and it took a long time, but we got it all done.  We also got to walk through all the areas where her showcases will be and make sure we know where to go and what to do, attended three seminars, watched part of a singing showcase, and I auditioned for the gospel choir. Productive day to say the least.  The girls got to practice runway modeling together, which they both enjoyed.

 
 Here's the runway.  It's much bigger than it looks here.  The tables with the yellow tablecloths are where the VIPs sit.  Families were back behind.  And they have the video on the big screen at the same time so you can still see even if you're way in the back.



We also spent some time going through the performer book we got at registration. It's got a headshot of every person here and where they're from, and also all the VIPs who are here. There's an autograph day later in the week but one of the little girls from Mississippi came up to G today and asked her to sign her book. She was super pleased.

G informs me I have hit the a 17 times since she started counting. The kid is evading sleep in a big way. Some people count sheep, we count As.

I'm excited to find out tomorrow if I get to sing in the choir. I didn't realize parents were allowed in so it's kinda fun.

Tomorrow we have team meeting, orientation, a seminar about commercial work, on camera showcase, and a meeting about her group improv showcase that's coming up later in the week. Should be another awesome and exhausting day.

They had an area set up with red carpet taped down and theater ropes so it looked fancy for picture taking.  She wanted to take one every day. 

It's Time to Shine!

We are here!!!  Travel day went very smoothly- we made it out on time, had seats on the plane next to other AMTC people, arrived in Orlando 25 minutes early, got the shuttle to the hotel with no problem and were able to get into our room right away. I really couldn't have asked for better. We had a couple hours to poke around while we waited for our roommates to arrive. The hotel is amazing. So huge and so beautiful!  One of the restaurants is on a big sailboat in the middle of an indoor lake. There are sting rays and alligators and huge koi. Not in the same waters. That would be sad for the koi I think. G and I had a great time beginning to explore. She wanted to hold my hand while we walked and said it was one of her most favorite days ever.

The roommates arrived and within minutes the girls were chattering away like old friends and holding hands on the way downstairs. We got a taxi and hit Publix to get groceries for the week. Paying for all of it was still less than the fancy New Years Eve buffet the hotel is offering tonight. I'm not up for a $90 dinner thanks. Not for just me and my kid.




I'm such a sucker for pictures of the back of walking kids.  I have no idea why they make me so happy, but this is how they were ten minutes after meeting.

And so now we are in the dark room working on trying to go to sleep while I hide the iPad under the covers and blog. It's nice to have evolved from having to hold a flashlight too. :) the girls need to get some good sleep so we can be ready to kick off the week with a bang tomorrow. We've got registration, team meetings, walk throughs and rehearsals, and a couple of seminars. Then on Wednesday morning she has her first showcase- on camera.

I'll be putting a couple pictures up on Facebook but my iPad is old and doesn't have a camera, while the phone does pics but is too small to type comfortably. Won't get the two together til I get home.

Well, it's not the new year for two more hours here, but it's good night time for us. Wishing my boys were here- then my day couldn't get more perfect. Great way to end 2012 and can't wait for an awesome start to 2013!