Let The Races Begin!

The casting just opened up today. I almost fell out of my chair when the email came in notifying me that it has begun!

I logged in to see what is required and much to my horror, I discovered the following rules:

1. The submission must be a maximum of 5 minutes in length. (Okay, this is not what horrified me.)
2. The first minute of the submission is an introduction stating name, city, and why you want to be on Glee. (Not too bad, but kinda dumb.)
3. The remaining four minutes is the song which must be from their set list. (This is what horrified me!)

They have 10 songs on the set list:

And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going
Dreamgirls

Gold Digger (Radio Version)
Kayne West

Rehab
Amy Winehouse

You Can't Always Get What You Want
The Rolling Stones

Can't Fight This Feeling
REO Speedwagon

Don't Rain On My Parade
Barbra Streisand

Hate On Me
Jill Scott

Keep Holding On
Avril Lavigne

Lean On Me
Bill Wither

True Colors
Phil Collins

The biggest question I have is, why on earth do they want to hear songs that have already been recorded and for lack of a better word, immortalized, by the current cast?! I'm sure the producers are going to get really bored, really fast, listening to the same 10 songs over and over again. I'm shocked actually they didn't leave the song choice up to the performer and just put the 4 minute time limit on it.

I'm sure it had something to do with getting clearances for the songs for when they will air the submissions as promos and put them into their behind-the-scenes documentary. But they have enough clout now (Hello? They are Golden Globe winners!) to be able to get the clearances they would need. And seriously, anyone who denies them would be a fool given the worldwide popularity of Glee.

I LOVE the song I chose for them. I carefully considered many songs and settled on the one I chose after a lot of debate, strategizing and straight up hair-pulling.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. The deadline is April 26th, but I don't want to wait too long that they decide to close off submissions once they realize everyone and their cat will be submitting a video, or once they get sick of the 102,438th version of "Lean On Me".

Oh I would bet my life on the fact it will be the #1 song choice. It's already a cliche audition song, and an even more cliche audition song for American Idol. And now for Glee?! This is going to put it over the top for the most hated audition song on the planet.

In the meantime, I'm going to finish filming my scene. I'm schedule to shoot this Thursday. April Fool's Day. Ha! You know I ain't foolin' when it comes to making this dream a reality.

Scene It

Tonight I'm starting to shoot the scene I wrote to introduce my character into the Glee universe. I'll be cutting it against existing footage of Rachel. It'll be obvious that the location doesn't match, but all I'm trying to do is show the producers that when in a scene together, we totally look related.

I'm hoping to wrap everything by the end of the weekend and then finish the edit by next week.

I am pretty certain the producers will go into full casting when they wrap their current production of the Back 9 episodes of Season 1. So I think I've got until at least the end of this month to have everything ready to go.

It's Done!

My audition video is in the can! WHOO!

I spent about 2 hours last night with my editor pouring over the footage we shot and finally settling on the best take - which happened to be the last one.

We threw in a few shots of my piano player to make it a little more interesting to watch. And voila, c'est magnifique!

Okay, I don't know how magnificent it really is, as I spent most of the time with my fingers in my eyes trying to gouge them out. I am *not* good at watching myself on the screen, especially when I'm singing. Watching each take, I could tell what was going through my mind. I mentioned to my editor that I could see where my brain would check out because I was so nervous. I asked him if he could tell and he assured me I look and sound awesome.

As we were locking in the final edit, my friend came over to take a look. She gave me two big thumbs up. She said she got chills after the first few bars of the song.

With that blessing, we locked it down and burned it to DVD. On my way home I stopped in at another friend's place and showed her my creation. She gave me two big thumbs up and said the same thing - she got chills listening to my singing.

I have to trust these people aren't lying to me. There has always been a teeny little spot in my brain that thinks everyone has been lying to me my whole life about my talent. I keep telling it to shut up but it can get pretty loud sometimes.

So now I just have to wait for the audition process to be posted on the official Glee website. I'm totally guessing at what it is they are looking for. I based my audition video on the casting videos they posted of the current cast. All of them went into a room with a piano player and belted out a show tune. So that's exactly what I did. I just made it look a little prettier than a handy cam recording.

Once the green light is lit, I'll post my video here. I'm hoping all of you will support me in my quest to land what I think would be the greatest job ever.

I'm still praying I didn't totally suck.