Quick Tip - How to Get Out of Town Bookings Part 2

Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and this is part 2 of the quick tip of how to get work out of town. So there are a couple things that you absolutely need to be able to do first. One is, in most cases, you need to be able to record your auditions from home. Now, when I say out of town, I'm not talking about an hour's drive or a 2-hour drive. I mean, those in many cases are— I would consider local for me. But when I'm talking about out of town, I'm talking about, like, for For instance, when I just worked on Halt and Catch Fire, it's an AMC show and they shoot it in Atlanta. So I got a phone call late Wednesday evening saying that everything's been approved and they're offering me the role. Now, just on a little bit of a side note, even though everybody who saw me in the casting room for the callback— director, writer, some producers, other people— Uh, probably about 7 or 8 people in the room. I did not get finalized for the role until, uh, people at AMC, the head honchos, approved it. So even though everybody else who saw me audition agreed, uh, still it wasn't confirmed until they heard from and got the okay from people at AMC. So late Wednesday night, I was told that I was offered the role. And I asked my agent, so when are they shooting? And he said, well, you're going to need to travel on Thursday because they're shooting Friday. So for working out of town, I quickly looked at airfares, and that was just kind of crazy trying to book a last-minute flight like that. And look, maybe you can get some deals, but I knew— I was pretty sure I was going to be driving. So one is you need to have access to a vehicle. You need to have access to a car that can, you know, Travel, you know, 12 hours easily. I thought about a train for about a second. It just— I didn't even look at the prices. The thought of sitting on a train that long seemed really tough. And the other thing too is if you don't drive, then once you land in the city, you've got to be able to get around. And so that could be taxis, shuttles, and that could add up a lot as well. So one of the things that One of my concerns was gas. And so there are a number of different either apps or websites you can go to. One is GasPriceWatch, and you can go there once you are in an area and find out what are the cheapest gas prices, which is great because you can really save yourself a lot of money. You can imagine how much gas I used driving, and it took me— I would say I was probably in the car for about 12 hours each way, which included stops and things Things like that. That's something else that you absolutely want to be thinking about, making sure that you do have a vehicle. I mentioned in the last quick tip about finding places to stay. Here's one other thing just to keep in mind when you are working out of town. Sometimes you will be hired as a local. Sometimes that's the only way you're going to get the job. And, and that's because it's a smaller role and they do not want to pay for transportation or hotels or pay a per diem and things like that. So something you can always ask your agent to ask is if you can get hired as a modified local. And a modified local means that they will cover either a certain amount per miles or they'll pay you something for travel. They might put you up In a hotel, they might give you a per diem. And my philosophy is always ask. The worst thing that can happen is they say no. So always ask your agent if you are being hired as a local if it can be under a modified local contract. And sometimes they'll say yes, sometimes they say no. Anyhow, so I just wanted to give you a little bit more information about getting hired out of town. And if you have any questions at all, always feel free to go to my facebook.com/freelanceactorsguild. And if you've had some experiences of working out of town, please share them— any tips, advice that you have— on the bottom of the page. Okay, I'm Aaron Marcus. I look forward to talking with you soon.