Acting Lessons Learned with Tiwana Floyd

134. Transition Tales: Strike Resolution Back to Booked

• Tiwana Floyd • Season 1 • Episode 134

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Where would we be without the unpredictability of the acting world? Tiwana Floyd shares her personal insights on the recent SAG After Strike resolution. It's been a whirlwind of emotions, transitioning back to 'normal, with a new commercial booking, after a 13-month dry spell!

The adventures don't stop there. Tiwana leaps into the world of auditions, agents, and on-set dynamics, the challenging process of commercial shooting and the significance of knowing the director you're working with. I'll also share my thoughts on the pandemic's impact, introducing an unexpected opportunity for actors to create their own content. 


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Acting Lessons Learned is Produced, Written, Recorded, Engineered and Edited by Tiwana Floyd
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Speaker 1:

Hey, there, it's Tawanna Floyd. Welcome to Acting Lessons Learned. If you're new here, I share the lessons I've learned and still learning as a working actor in Hollywood and I hope my stories help you to prosper on your actor journey. This is Episode 134 and I'm celebrating the SAG After A Strike is over which I don't know how I feel about that just yet.

Speaker 1:

It just feels I don't know, it doesn't. I'm not comfortable with how easy the resolve was. Well, actually, let me take that back, because it wasn't easy. It was 118 days. But what I speak of is just like you just make the announcement that the strike is over and then it's over, and so that part is like unsettling for me. I have to figure out how to process it.

Speaker 1:

This is my first union strike, so I don't know how we come back into it. But it just seems like I don't know. We've been stressed out and uncertain and down and sad and some of us even depressed for 118 days, and now, all of a sudden we're back to normal, kind of. And you know the union has been telling us don't believe anything you hear, wait for us first. But the way I found out was on the news at five o'clock and then at seven o'clock, I got the email that we were no longer striking. So you know, maybe because this is my first strike, I don't know how to handle it, and so I'm processing those feelings. And I know today they're going to talk about the interim contract that's going to be ratified, so I'm not going to deal with that part too much, but instead I'm going to talk about the commercial that I booked earlier this month. Yay, yay, I'm very happy. I'm always happy when I book a job. But also there's a little more perk in my happiness because it's been 13 months since my last commercial booking. For the past 10 years, I've prided myself on booking at least three nationals a year. Most times I hit that goal, and then there are a few times when I've exceeded that goal, but three, the magic number, has been the sweet spot. That grants me enough money to live without struggle for another 365 days, and it funds my pension and health insurance, which is also very important.

Speaker 1:

Now, for the past two years, it feels like I've been in a work desert. I have experienced this before and I've been able to adjust by identifying the cause, such as maybe I need to take a refresher course, or maybe it's due to things that's not in my control, like an increase in non-union work or the inequity of how actresses of color are left out of the hiring pool. But I gotta tell you something 13 months, that's unusual for me and it's concerning. And we've gotta give a shout out to New Media, because she's the new queen that's changing the advertising landscape drastically and quickly. New Media has made it much more difficult for actors like myself to continue to earn a living solely from commercials, and the national commercial hasn't gone away completely, but the usage and the longevity are not what they used to be.

Speaker 1:

I've been taking the temperature of what's happening right now because you know that's what we do as actors, right, when we aren't working, we ask around to learn if it's industry-wide or if it's just our experience. And if it's our experience, what can we do? But if it's industry-wide, we really don't know what to do because there really is no control there. And I've been conversing with other actresses of varying races and ages and the consensus from my SAG After Commercial Mom community is that what's happening now, this kind of desert, this dry spell, is industry-wide. It's affecting us all. Something new is definitely unfolding and many of us don't know how to prepare or to circumvent it, or even if it's avoidable. But at the same time, there are some of my peers with multiple spots airing right now. So there are opportunities there, just not in the abundance that it used to be Like. I wonder what else could it be? I mean, of course we have to include the writer strike that preceded the actor strike. Maybe advertisers aren't willing to shoot commercials without the promise of a new fall lineup and, like I said, new media bears culpability, driving us away people at large from watching traditional TV where the advertisers are.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I've gone off on a tangent, but welcome to my thoughts. These are the things I think when I'm trying to figure out this business, and the pot is always being stirred by the AMPTP and sometimes they're not always sure what they're stirring up. I was deluded into thinking that I had diversified my little entertainment portfolio, that those commercials past, present and future would be enough for sustainability. For the rest of my life the majority of my income has been connected to acting or performing in Hollywood. So I've got to make changes, and what prompted me to really come to this realization was in September and October.

Speaker 1:

I started having sleepless nights because I knew I was fast approaching the final withdrawals of the savings I'd been living on for the past 13 months, and I'm a sound sleeper. So when I start getting jolted up from my sleep with worry, this is something for me to pay attention to. It's a scary feeling. I was certain I'd be okay during this time and I have been doing well, don't get me wrong. I've been so fortunate. I survived the pandemic without a worry, and that's not a humble brag in passing, Like I legit thought I had a handle on this disloyal industry. It has been incredibly sobering, I think for us all. I have a friend who does hair. She's recognizing that she invested all of her energy in entertainment. I have another friend who's a script supervisor, another friend who's a director.

Speaker 1:

We've put everything into entertainment, the dream, believing that this will always sustain us, and it's showing us more clearly than ever that it's not. And we've got to wake up or I'll speak for myself. I'm waking up to figure out what's next. And how do I be an actor but also be outside of Hollywood, working as well? And I don't mean quitting because Hollywood is going to do what it does. I'm not going to let it run me out of town. I know that's how most people feel.

Speaker 1:

I think that what I'm feeling now is probably what most people who work in Hollywood feel, but we're just unwilling to stop and we're unwilling to let this town or let the industry take away our ability to perform, to create, to do the thing that we came to do. So I'm not going to stop, but what I am talking about is autonomy, and I think I've been talking about autonomy since I started this podcast, which this is part of my creativity. It's IP that I created, and now that we have the platforms like YouTube and Vimeo and social media, I don't really have to rely so heavily on Hollywood to say yes to me. I can continue to say yes to myself and just really start putting things, putting action, putting my creativity into the world on my own, because I know how to print, I know how to write, I know how to record, I know how to film not a cinematographer, not a DP, but enough to enter film festivals and I also know how to edit and kind of like score music. That's not true. I don't know how to score music. I don't know how to do music. You know what I mean. Overall, what I'm saying is I am no longer willing to wait on this industry to affirm my talent. That has been the through line of this podcast over and over again, and I've talked about it, and now it's time for me to be about it.

Speaker 1:

And so, going back to September and October, when I was being jarred out of my sleep from fear, there was one night where I was awakened like couldn't catch my breath. I had a low-key panic attack in my sleep that caused me to get my ass out of bed and start figuring out what was my next move, not just for now, but for the rest of my life. And the first thing I did was lie on the floor on my back for a deep breathing, and then I began holding my breath to regulate my body and dissipate the fear and anxiety in my stomach. And I was reminded girl, you've been here before, in 2007 and 2008, during the last strike, and I realized that I learned something from that time and was doing something right, because I wasn't in the same predicament. This time wasn't as detrimental as the last time. I began to tell myself right here, right now, tawanna. Right here, right now, everything is okay. Right here, right now, in this moment, right here, everything is okay, and I repeated it over and over like a mantra and when I calmed down I received an intuitive hit that steered me to casting networks to see if there was any paid jobs that I could submit for that were not struck companies.

Speaker 1:

I saw breakdowns for audience work, background work for small unstruck films and print work. And then I saw commercial breakdown for principles for a role I was right for, which was odd, because usually commercial breakdowns with principle roles go straight to agents and if a commercial is listed on casting networks looking for principles, they're like looking for, like an amputee or someone who's seven feet tall or maybe twins or something like that. But no, this commercial was a automobile spot and they were looking for security guards in my age range Now, security cops, detectives that's my wheelhouse. Matter of fact, I think 75% of my TV credits are some form of cop, security or authoritative role. So I looked at the usage and the union affiliation. It was SAG-AFTRA, cable Spanish Network, digital Streaming, theatrical, 30-day dealer, but not a Class A, and a Class A is what makes the commercial national. That's when it's airing in all of the markets. So when a national commercial airs and it starts its run. The checks come in like every week and they're pretty juicy, like they're life-changing, but with Cable you get like a lump sum but I think it's like every 21 weeks. Digital would be a lump sum for like six to 12 months and that's a couple of thousand, and I don't know what the Spanish language market is like, or theatrical 30. I don't know those rates.

Speaker 1:

So I hesitated on whether to submit, because automobile spots that run Class A can bring in substantial residual payouts for as long as they run Cable and digital usage could be a fraction of that income. And if I were to book the job I would hold a two-year contractual conflict, meaning I wouldn't be able to audition for any other automobile commercials until this contract was complete, which is typically two years. I considered sending the breakdown to my agent, but it was after hours, way after hours, and I know how agents are funny about actors submitting. But it's my back that's getting close to being against the wall. And something led me here. I felt like, worst case scenario, I'd get an audition or not. But if I booked it I could possibly still audition for this automobile company if a Class A appeared in the breakdowns. So I submitted and I added my agent's info to the notes so that they would be in the mix and my small panic attack had subsided. I was calm. I went back to sleep.

Speaker 1:

Over the next two weeks I received several unrelated commercial auditions from my commercial agents. I had a few callbacks and then was put on a veil for one. Then the following week I was released. Now I didn't feel defeated this time because I knew I had offered some great choices in that audition and the callback and I tried to be content with that instead of getting sad. It was on to the next one, as the agents always say. And then I received a self-tape for the automobile commercial, but there was no mention of my agent. I immediately forwarded the audition to them asking how to proceed, and if you haven't listened to my most recent episodes, I've been with this agent for about five months now, so we're new, we're still learning each other. They inquired if I had self-submitted and I replied yes. They said that they would inform casting on their end and then they requested that I refrain from self-submitting as it could lead to double submissions and frustrate the casting director. Then they offered that I could inform them of jobs that interested me or let them know of any special skills they needed to help make more submissions happen. I agreed and I want to say really quickly like if they were ineffective I would have a problem with them telling me not to submit myself, but thus far they have been really great with the type of auditions they've submitted me for. So I'm not going to make waves and I trust them and if I'm in this space again I'll just ask them to submit me if they haven't already.

Speaker 1:

Now a little side note. I know some of my peers feel that if they get a job without their agent's help, the agent doesn't deserve a commission. And a lot of times I have a lot of friends who actually will not tell their agents that they booked a job or pay them commission. And I feel like this thinking. I think it's bad business, I think it's flawed, because when you think about it, agents submit us for jobs sometimes for several years without earning a commission from us because we haven't booked a job. But they believe in us. So they continue to keep us on the roster because they know one day we will book and we'll book. Often they understand the industry and they understand it may take us a while to find our stride because they've had years of experience of knowing who will one day do well. They can pinpoint it. That's why they bring us on and sign us.

Speaker 1:

So when we book commercials or we get auditions, whether on our own or from an industry friend I just think it's important to inform your agents, because one you want them to negotiate the deal. Commercial bookings are so complicated, there's a lot of intricacies to it and your commercial agent knows what's best in terms of getting the higher amount of money, in terms of getting less edit. There's all types of things. And if you don't know about your conflicts and you audition for something where you already have a conflict floor, you're really putting yourself in a bad position to possibly be sued by production if you book it. But also, I want everybody to win. If anybody is on my team, if we're working together, I want them to have the commission for all the work they've put in on my behalf, because I'm contractually obligated to pay them a commission for every commercial I book within this state. So it's just anyone who's doing their agents dirty. Don't be surprised if they find out, because what happens in the dark always comes out in the light. And do you really want to risk sullying the relationship or being sued because you signed a contract, and I realize a lot of my peers don't even know what they signed.

Speaker 1:

So when I have friends come to me and they say, hey, tawana, I'm thinking about leaving my agent, the first thing I say is well, what does your contract say? Can you leave now? Have you booked something in the past four months? Is there an out clause? And a lot of times they're like oh, I don't know. It's very important to pay attention to these things. I believe in doing good business and good faith and respecting the law of reciprocity. I receive what I put out. Okay, that's my TED Talk. Thank you for coming. I'm going to move on.

Speaker 1:

So for the automobile commercial, I submitted my self-tape and after about I'd say, two weeks I received a callback. And a callback was interesting because they had moved the time up. And whenever they moved the time up, I'm always like, oh, did they already find the person that they want and now they just need to get through us and move on? I don't know. There could be a whole heap of reasons of why they moved the time up. I'll never know because I'm not privy to that information, but I just made sure that I didn't give up when I got there. I made sure that I still went in there and did my best work and I booked the job. So this was mid-September and we were scheduled to shoot the second week in October. I was so happy that this 13-month dry spell was over, you know. So I show up gracious when I'm on set.

Speaker 1:

I'm not the one who's trying to cozy up to the director or the client or the agency. I'm cordial yet professional. I'm not one with the witty banter or trying to crack jokes. This is business. Everybody is busy. It's stressful for everyone, especially the director, because on the day of the shoot the director has to manage the entire set and all the people working on it. He or she or they needs to make everything run smoothly and fulfill upon what they promised to the client. So they don't really need actors trying to be besties. And, quite frankly, I have my bestie when I get to set. I adapt to the energy of the set.

Speaker 1:

Every commercial shoot is unique, mainly because every director has their own way of directing. There is no telling what type of personality I will encounter on set, so I kind of like prepare myself. I take the temperature, I read the room like a comedian does and I follow the lead of how everyone else is doing things. Some directors are friendly, compassionate and collaborative. They have excellent communication skills and can convey their vision to actors using descriptive language that we can easily understand and translate into action. Unfortunately, these types of directors are few and far in between. You've noticed that newer directors tend to have these qualities or notable feature film directors who work with celebrity actors, collaborating to bring the vision to life. They also embody these traits.

Speaker 1:

What I find mostly are the commercial directors who are kind of like curmudgeonly fussy buckets, a little rude, running the set like a military drill sergeant who expects the actors to read their minds, who wants everybody to call him sir, yes, sir. It's a little uncomfortable for me and at first I used to get defensive and match their aggression with aggression. I no longer do that because it's exhausting for me. But I will be assertive and stand my ground. Look them in the eye. I don't shy away because I won't be bullied and I demand respect. I watch a lot of my actor peers try to win these types of directors over and it's always to the actor's detriment because it gives the director more ammunition to ignore us or to mistreat us or to disrespect us or to bulldoze us or to like, take jabs at our craft. And I watch my peers get their feelings hurt and it's like I wish we would stop doing that. I wish we would just stand in our autonomy because we deserve to be there. We got the job and now come and do our work and leave.

Speaker 1:

There's an old interview with George Clooney I believe it was on the actor's studio where he talks about why he doesn't work with directors who are assholes and how he had to call out a bad behaving director who was purposely trying to make an actor's job hard in front of George. And this is why the term the actor's director exists and why actors, especially those like George Clooney or Denzel Washington or you name any big star actor choose to only work with certain directors. On this commercial audition I got the old school curmudgeon guy who was just brass tacks but also very gruff, and because I was the only principal opening the first scene of the day, I discovered that director was loud and incomprehensible and a bad communicator very quickly and I had to listen carefully to understand him. It was difficult at first, but I knew how to handle such behavior Because although he was gruff, he wasn't disrespectful and he talked to everyone in the same manner. So it wasn't personal. And besides, I was too happy to be back on set working to be rattled by anyone. Nobody's going to steal my joy. But one of the other principals was feeling the pressure because she was trying to crack little jokey jokes and went him over. And you know, I just find that curmudgeons. They lose respect for those who try to be nice. I think they see it or read it as disingenuous and they're not interested in it.

Speaker 1:

But also, the dude had a full schedule. He had over 30 background performers, three adult principals and one kid. There were cars involved being driven forward and reversed and forward and reversed. Safety, timing and getting the shots were paramount. Commercials are hard work and I think people that don't work them often don't know that or don't realize that. And I'm here to tell you commercials are work. They had a very tight schedule and when they got to the child actor it was scheduled that the child actor would have been done before lunch but he wasn't. It took a long time before lunch and a long time after lunch. The kid was losing energy and I was up after the kid. I knew they were behind schedule and I knew they would expect me to nail all the takes to get them back on schedule. It's a huge responsibility and full transparency.

Speaker 1:

I don't know that I nailed every take, but I kept adjusting to the badly communicated redirects and saying copy that, copy, no chit chat, no whole bunch of oh. I was just trying to up. Maybe you said no straight to it One time. The director told me he didn't believe me, that I looked sluggish and I took that in for a moment, like, but I thought the direction was, I was supposed to be exhausted, so I made a quick decision and I shot back quickly, do you mean with conviction? He said yeah. So I went through another series of takes and finally he said, yeah, that was better. I guess that was his way of complimenting. I don't know, I'm not in his head, but I'm not going to let it affect me. Because after that he spoke with video village and he said and they shouted new deal. And they shouted new deal, which meant they were moving on.

Speaker 1:

Neither the director nor the first AD said goodbye to me or the other actor and we were wrapped. And there's even moments in that where I feel away because it's like, dude, we just worked together. You can say goodbye. But no, I have to recognize the type of director that I'm working with and expect nothing more and keep it pushing. And again, I was too happy that my 13 month dry spell was broken, even though it was a curmudgeon director, whatever, I'm happy. So now I'll wait and see what the final looks like.

Speaker 1:

As one of my previous commercial agents would always remind us, she would say you can only expect the session fee. Don't count the residuals until they're in the bank, because anything can happen Outgrades, downgrades. The commercial may never see the light of day. I look forward to receiving my session fee. It's another check that goes into my savings that lets me survive another day. And one thing I know for sure is the commercial will be beautifully shot.

Speaker 1:

Because what I found out after I looked the director up when I got home that evening is he's a cinematographer who is a director. But he's a cinematographer first because that's what his bio said, and then it all made sense, because cinematographers don't typically deal with talent. So how would they possibly know how to really communicate with us unless they actually sought out doing that? They don't have the bedside manner, and these are the things that we should know when we're working with someone, so that we don't take things so personally. So, now that the strike is over, as I said earlier, everything remains to be seen and we're hoping or I'm hoping, no, we're all hoping that we can get back to work soon. I have a feeling things are going to be really robust, and the one thing I heard somebody speak on today on Instagram I don't know her name off the top of my head, someone shared it with me, but she talked about how there are people who are going straight back to work because they had jobs before the strike, and then there are those of us who will not be going straight to work. And so for us to be gentle with ourselves, because here we were when we were striking, we were unified, we were together, and now we kind of have this separation to deal with again. But in all of this, between the strike, the lockdown, the pandemic, there's something here that's birthing, that's unfolding, that's birthing for all of us to see that it's time for us to figure out what it is that we truly want to do and how to go about it without constraints, without constantly having to wait for someone to recognize us and say yes to us. Yeah, we will do that as well. Sure, because that is Hollywood. But we are in the prime time of creating our own content and, with that said, this is the last episode of Acting Lessons Learned for 2023. It will come back in 2024. I'm thinking mid-January.

Speaker 1:

I've been wanting to start my YouTube channel for a while. I initially called it Actor Business School, but that feels really formal to me and it feels academic, and I really want to be able to feel like I'm talking to my peers and we're learning together as I share information and insights, and so I'm going to continue to keep the name of Act lessons learned. It will live on YouTube. You can go there now and subscribe if you want to, if you want to already be attached to it once I start launching episodes or videos, and then what I'll do is anything that I find pertinent. I will turn it into a podcast for all of my people who listen while driving, because then I want to be able to keep both platforms, to be able to continue to create my own IP in the video form and the audio form. Video was really my thing. I do good here on audio as well, I have to say for myself, but I do like video. So that is what's next you can look forward to hearing from acting lessons learned in January of 2024.

Speaker 1:

I'm thinking the third week of January and that's going to be on YouTube, but also I'm still on Instagram and I've moved away from doing my videos there for a little bit because I've just been overwhelmed in my systems, which is like not in place. So I'm going to take this time to put my systems in place and I'll be back with content, sharing all types of stories and all types of knowledge that I hope that you'll continue to find helpful and I hope that you will join me on in the future. So do I wish you a happy Thanksgiving and a merry Christmas and a happy New Year right now? Yeah, yeah, I do. I wish you all of those things, and you know, if you see me in the streets, I was up, and if not, I'll see you soon. Be well, thank you for listening.

Speaker 1:

Acting lessons learned started as a blog in 2014 and I wanted to turn it into a podcast, and last year, may of 2022, it became a podcast, and here I am a year later, consistently putting it out. There have been some weeks where I've been a little slow, like this. This was supposed to air last week, but I'm still here and I'm still pushing through. But now I'm going to take some time off to put some systems in place and, plus, we might be working soon, I hope. Yeah, we're going to be working. I'm going to claim that we're going to be working. You, I'm talking to you. You're going to be working All right, so take care and until next time, bye.

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Tiwana Floyd

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