Yesterday, I was submitted for a sketch part on Jimmy Kimmel Live. As a precaution, I emailed my supervisor at work to alert him to the possibility of me having a last minute conflict. Sure enough, today, at almost 11:30am, I got the call that I had booked it and that the call time was 1pm! Fantastic, yes. Crazy, yes. After a bunch of quick phone calls, I got my supe on the phone and he was great about it. That's why I like working with them. It's a cool company with fantastic people. At 12:20pm, I was called and told the call time was changed to 2pm.
I made it to the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood where the show is taped, and found the holding area. After a while, I got the scoop on the bit. It was a commercial parody for TGI Friday's. I guess they had a manager who cut off his finger at work. While someone took him to the hospital, the finger turned up in a hamburger served to a customer. The joke of the commercial was that TGI Friday's was simply viewing this as a happy accident and marketing a new line of "finger" menu items. I played a manager making sure our customers were thrilled with their finger platter. They had a bunch of fake fingers and some edible ones, made of raw potatoes, mixed in. Even the edible ones looked frightening.
The whole shoot took 5 hours from call time to me walking out the door at 7pm, and the bit ran in the show that night, which started taping just after I left. It's pretty amazing that they managed to get the whole thing shot and edited in such a short time, and they do stuff like that everyday. With that kind of time crunch, you'd think most people would get a little stressed and testy, but not these people. Everyone I dealt with on the shoot was extremely nice. So, I've got a lot of respect for their work under fire.
Now, the interesting union issues. This was an AFTRA job. I'll be joining AFTRA as a result and paying the initiation fees and dues. Basically, my entire check from this job will pay a portion of that. I won't see any money from it yet. I was going to join eventually anyway, so might as well be now. ***UPDATE -- I got the check. See my friend Natasha's comments for the reason.
4 comments:
Hey,
I have never heard of Kimmel. Is that local or am I behind times? Glad you got the job!!!!!
Mom
It has been on for about 3 years, but the Atlanta ABC affiliate doesn't carry it because he's "too controversial".
You don't have to join AFTRA unless you want to. Basically you have 30 days from the day you worked to work as much AFTRA as you like. After that, if you don't join, then if you work it, you're paycheck goes to them to pay your initian dues or whatever you call them. So don't feel rushed to join. =) It's kind of like a payment plan which SAG doesn't offer ...
Sweet! Thanks for the clarification.
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