Look for my son on an NFL promo!

[SoCalCoug]

My son just got booked for a spot on an NFL promo - I don't know when it's going to air, but it's shooting this Saturday. He's a 7-year-old kid who will be wearing a Brett Favre jersey - I'm sure it's a national spot, but I don't know if it's to start airing during the Super Bowl, or if it's for the offseason. That's all I know about it now - We're pretty excited about it - it's his first commercial.

[SteelBlue]

Wow, very cool.

[SoCalCoug]

Update: We just got back from the wardrobe fitting. This is a much bigger production than I had realized. It looks to me like one of those things where they'll be shooting footage that will be used in different spots for the entire year.

It looks like the focus for this is on the fans. From what I've seen, they have from one to several actors in the gear of each of the teams. My son was going to be in a Brett Favre jersey for this, but they switched, and he's in a Ron Mexico - I mean Michael Vick - jersey. I think I heard someone say his scene will be where he's watching some older kids play football.

One thing I have to admit. For the Chargers fans, they got a surfer-type couple. I was in a sort of waiting room, where people were milling about and playing ping pong. In one corner of the room, they were bringing each of the actors in and taking several photos of them - in part to record what they're going to wear in their shots. Outside the door, I caught sight of the surfer girl, and she had a bikini top on. And believe me, this girl had the body for it (slender type, not top-heavy). So, I moved around to another seat, so I'd have a good view without having to look like I'm staring when her turn came. So, she came in with a zipped-up sweatshirt on. She asked if the photographer wanted her to unzip, but much to my dismay, he said that wasn't necessary.

This is all a new experience for me, and it was pretty cool.

[Robin]

r.f.

[SoCalCoug]

1. Do you really think this is good for him?

I've seen and heard this question before, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you intended it as a sincere question.

Once he started getting into acting, we discovered that he has a very real and very significant natural talent. His acting coaches, in their discussions with us and with other parents have called him "phenomenal" and refer to him as the "Genius." One of his teachers has referred to his most famous student, Scarlett Johansson, a few times when talking about his acting ability. He has always been a bit of a ham, and he seems to really enjoy performing.

I'm not saying that to brag (well, not mostly). That's the context that we're pursuing this. He has a real talent that we've been fortunate enought to identify very early in his life, and we are giving him the opportunity to develop that.

I know that Hollywood gets a bad rap, particularly for child actors, and much of it is deserved. But I'm not so sure that every child actor is fated to be Danny Bonaduce or Dana Plato. I've noticed that a lot of the messed up child actors also have messed up families.

I don't know that it's any different than the parent who has a son who's a very talented baseball or football player. They will do everything they can to help their son develop that talent - club teams, summer camps, private coaching - with the hope that their son can fulfill the potential of his talent, whether it leads to high school, college, semi-pro, or professional sports.

The Hollywood lifestyle isn't that much different than the professional sports lifestyle. But you don't see nearly as many LDS people questioning the propriety of their chosen profession when LDS athletes have the talent to make the NBA or NFL. And there are many examples in professional sports of good LDS people being able to separate themselves from the normal pro sports lifestyle: Steve Young, Dale Murphy, Shawn Bradley, etc.

I am very conscious of trying to build a good spiritual foundation for my son, to prepare him for whatever profession he chooses. I think that's the most important thing, regardless of what he does in the future.

I don't think it's a given that Hollywood will ruin a child actor. I've run across quite a number of children and parents in the industry now, and they don't seem all that different than other people. There are some truly good and decent people. I look at one of my son's acting coaches, who is a former child actor, himself. He's a truly nice and genuine person, and he has great enthusiasm for the acting profession, his passion for which is very evident. He spends a lot of time training young people, which he has done now for more than ten years.

Gordon Jump lived in my ward at the time he passed away, and his wife, Betty, is still here. They both were very active (health permitting), and they served as our ward genealogy specialists. He's been in the industry for years, and he seemed to have avoided the dreaded Hollywood disease.

I apologize for the verbosity, and I guess the short answer is, yes, I do believe this is good for him. I think regardless of where it leads, it will open a lot of doors for him, that would not be open to him if we didn't pursue this. I've thought about how I would feel if I had his acting talent, and later found out that my parents knew about it, but chose not to let me develop it.

Besides, my son's agent is LDS, and his father (who won an Oscar in the 70's for a documentary) has produced/directed films (including Legacy) for the church. I would be ecstatic if my son were able to be in something like that sometime.

2. What are your long-term intentions? What if he was offered a full-time job for a show?

My intentions are to let him go as far as his talent (and his desire) allows him. I'm not one of those pushy, dictatorial stage parents - I don't have a specific goal in mind for him, so I don't feel like I have to steer him. We're just taking it as it comes.

His acting coaches recommend film for him. They say he's a great dramatic actor, and they're convinced that it's only a matter of time before he lands a movie role.

If he were offered a full-time job for a show, and it was one that I approved of, we would do it. It was a real coincidence that we hooked up with an LDS agent (we only learned he was LDS after we agreed to go with him), and I think it's great, because he will probably understand better than any other agent why we might turn down an otherwise great opportunity because we don't approve of the subject matter or the script.

3. Assuming you have a job, who would be with him if he did a lot of shooting?

His mother, although she is living in the Bay area, would be able to come down and be with him on set for any extended project. I also recognize that if he falls into some good opportunities, the day might come where I would be able to earn more money taking my 20% as his manager than as an attorney. A guy I work with is very good friends with the parents of a child actor (mostly commercials and a couple of movies now). The father used to be a lawyer, but he retired to manage his son. Although I'm not counting on that happening, I have to acknowledge that it's a possibility, however slight.

I'm probably going to have to find someone, sort of like a nanny, who can take him to auditions and call backs when necessary, as my vacation time isn't limitless. I'm looking into that right now.

4. What does a person do to land a spot like this?

I'm really not sure. The agent finds out what's being cast, he sends out head shots and resumes. If the casting director likes the look, or the look of the kid is what they're looking for, they'll call the agent to schedule an audition. For commercials, they're looking for a specific look, and usually for someone who can be happy and enthusiastic. They pick the best few for call backs, and then they make their selection. From what I've heard so far (we only started doing this last summer), they'll look at several hundred headshots to select the actors they offer auditions. I'm not sure how many auditions they usually take for a role - it seems like it could be as many as 20 or 30 in some cases.

The mother of one of the kids from last night said that her son does about 20 auditions for every call back. My son has had 7 auditions through his agent, 2 call backs, and now this role. He's had maybe another 10 or 15 auditions through my wife's efforts on actors' websites, and he's had two movie roles - one where he's in three or four different scenes, and one where' he's basically a walkthrough. The auditions from the agent are usually the better roles, though, and with the things that are going on for us right now, we're going to just rely on the agent for a while.

My 7-year-old niece has done commercials for several years now, and my sister told me that 1% of the kid actors do most of the commercials. We're very fortunate that he got this role, and it's probably going to lead to more. Casting directors will often run across kids they really like, and they will keep calling them back for other jobs.

From what I've seen, kids are usually either commercial kids or theatrical (movie/television/theater) kids. Parents like the commercial kids, because the financial rewards are more immediate and consistent, when the kids are able to work. Commercials don't usually require a lot of acting training or ability - they usually go off of looks and personality. Film usually requires stronger acting ability. My son's coaches say he's definitely a theatrical actor, but right now, any opportunity is a great one for him.

There are kids who go years without landing a national commercial. We're very excited about getting one like this right off the bat.

It's one of those things where everything just seems to come together, as if it's meant to be. There is a lot of effort required, of course, but this has come much quicker than we had expected.

And, although I don't know exactly how much he's going to earn from this, if my niece is any indication, my son might earn more this year from this commercial than I did my first year as a lawyer 9 years ago. That's a pretty good start on his college fund.

[Robin]

r.f.

[SoCalCoug]

So what did you do FIRST... once you realized the boy had talent. You took him to KMart and got some wallets done? Went shopping for an agent in the yellow pages?

I'm trying to think back - my soon-to-be-ex-wife kind of handled it in the beginning. She used to be a nanny for a girl who is now 16, and who is an aspiring actor/model. The girl came to stay with us for a few weeks, and my wife took her to some agents, to try to sign with one of them. She had my son with her. My niece and nephew have both been in several commercials, and we had talked about getting our son into this, so she asked the agent. She got a favorable response, so she got a couple of snapshots together, sent them to some agents, and a couple called to interview him. It just kind of took off from there.

While doing the agent search, she was told about a couple of websites, lacasting.com and actorsaccess.com, which is where many of the actors look to find roles posted by casting agents. We got headshots done, and she posted them on the site, and we lucked into a small role in an independent film. That finished, and it made him more desirable to agents, so we decided on one, and it's kind of taken off from there. Before the holidays, he was getting 2 or 3 auditions a week - several, we just had to turn down. It was really slow after Thanksgiving, but the first audition after the new year that we got from the agent was this promo spot.

He also did a commercial acting course, several sessions of individual coaching, and he just started his second three-month session (4 hours every Saturday) of classes with the Young Actors Studio in North Hollywood. It was something he had to audition for, and though they don't take kids under 7 (he was 6 at the time) they liked him enough that they took him.

There are resources where you can find agents, but I wasn't that involved in that part of the process, so I'm not sure what they are.

[SoCalCoug]

We shot my son's part of the promo on Saturday. It's huge production - they're also shooting in Philadelphia and New York, and it looked like there were about 50 actors (not extras) involved just in L.A. alone.

The spot is an NFL promotion, and it's going to air during the first quarter of the Super Bowl. I'll assume it's either a 2 or 3 minute spot. It'll air once during the Super Bowl, and then they'll cut it down to a 30-second spot that will air on the NFL network. I was told that my son's shot leads off the entire spot - which gives me hope that maybe it'll make the cut to the 30-second spot.

The only downside is that they didn't shoot him from the front. It opens with a bunch of kids playing in some sort of little league football game. The camera pans down and you see my son and another kid from behind, watching the game. Here's a polaroid we took on the set:



My son's the one in the Ron Mexico jersey (it's the red one for the uninformed). Except that for some reason it says "Vick" on the back.

It was pretty cool. He had a little room in a trailer on the set. We got there, and they picked us up in a shuttle to take us basically across the road to the set. His clothes were hanging up in his room (which even had his name on the door - on masking tape, but still . . .)

After he got dressed, they took him over to makeup, where they did a little (moisturizer on his face, lip balm, something under his eyes, and somthing mostly around his forehead and his eyes with a makeup brush). This part would have made more sense, had they actually shot his face.

Meanwhile, there were a bunch of extras who were kids about 10 & 11, who made up two football teams. Their uniforms were piled up outside, and they had to change outside or in a tent, or alternating use of an extra room in the trailer. They had breakfast catered, and when we had a 5 or 10 minutes of downtime before they were ready to shoot, they had us go back to the trailer to hang out, and then they came to get us.

They kept referring to him as the "principal" or the "talent," though the only talent he had to show was standing still. We had to go to 2 auditions for that?

The kids who were on the football teams sucked. Somebody designed a play for them to run. I think there are a bunch of them (particularly the quarterback) who had never played football. The quarterback was sort of under center, except that he was about two feet behind, rather than right under center. So, the center-QB exchanges were very shaky. Then, he had to pitch it to the halfback, which was an adventure, and then the halfback was to go through a hole on the left, and run for a touchdown. At first, the defenders were very lazy, and maybe one would try, half-heartedly, to catch the runner. They kept having to reshoot because the play was so poorly done.

I was hanging out with the mom of the other kid. She's actually sort of in show business, herself - she's an assistant director for the King of Queens. I told her I'd always had a crush on Leah Remini. She said Leah's one of the most miserable people she knows - she's mean, bad-tempered, very vulgar, and just not a nice person. I said, "But she has great boobs!" (okay, no I didn't). I asked her about Kevin James, and she said he's a great guy - she seems to really like him.

Very interesting experience. It's wild that his very first commercial is going to run during the first quarter of the Super Bowl. I guess it's all downhill from here.

[cougjunkie]

Congratulations Socal, I will be looking for him during the Superbowl.

GO RON MEXICO!!!!!