A Different Direction

Things are changing. The biggest job for me now is to not about making the decision I need to make but to be ok with it. I think its time to slow things down and focus on what needs to be done to stay in London. I have decided to commit myself to jobs away from acting for a while to make sure I have enough money to live and survive in London. Without trying to sound pretentious I can feel my interests evolving out of acting. I have thought for some time now, and may have mentioned it in previous blogs, about creating and directing my own short film. With the birth of a creation my friend Adam and I have made well on its way to being completed ready for film festivals I am writing a script for a trilogy of short films I would love to make this year. Before February this year I never took my mutterings of film ideas seriously. I am so pleased I'm doing something I never thought I would. It really is about who you surround yourself with and how that inspires you to do things differently. There are people in my life who, whenever I'm around them, I get things done with. Whenever I am with them something changes and I become so much more creative and inspired to see that it really isn't hard to complete what for so long was just a whisper of a thought. The surprise of this all is how much my film idea has inspired me and how excited I get about it. It will be a directorial debut and if it works on screen as it does in my head it will be one to remember.

What I am doing will take time. I am making sure I do things the way that I want to do them and will not say yes to anything but the perfect finished performance. It's a new kind of excitement. I have had pieces of my work judged and marked before but this is something I want to hit right on the nail. I will finish my showreel this week and be emailing agents once more and hope for the best. As the case has been these past months I just need more time and time is what I can give myself. I took a long time to come to terms with the idea that I may need to get a full time job and not think about acting for a moment. I was and am maybe still scared that, once I commit to a full time job, it will take me a long time to climb out and get stuck into acting again. It's hard. I know I'm hard on myself but I'm an impatient perfectionist and that mix with this career was always going to produce some bad days. I want to keep my head above worry with the creations that I have made and been a part of so far. If working for a long time is what's needed to give me the best chance to become an actor then I have to bite the bullet and get it done. I look to the end of the year already and feel happy I know I will have achieved all that I wanted to do at the start of the year. It's time to be patient and accept that I can't waltz along hoping a nicely paid acting job will fall on my lap any time soon. I need to get real, get patient, and get writing more.

Bad Day

This blog may be more heartfelt than I'd like but I think its important to show it as it will probably give a good sense of the lows of being an actor. I recently auditioned for a big advert in which the audition and recall went brilliantly though due to various things I believe I have not got it. I feel I have never been so close to achieving something brilliant for it to not happen. This would have been the biggest moment of my acting career so far and the last few hours have been low ones. Its hard to take something when you feel not only you did the best you could but you would have given yourself a strong chance of getting the role. Hope is hard to handle. I feel like I need to juggle it with reality and scepticism and try and keep myself from getting carried away. I honestly thought this would be the moment of 2013 and I would get something I never would have dreamed of getting only 7 months in. I got a bit carried away. I hate that its out of my hands and that despite doing everything to the best of my ability it still wasn't enough.

I remember when I first moved here and there were a few auditions I had where I didn't get the part and I never let it bug me. I always picked myself up and looked for the next project. To stand up and get past what has happened this week does take strength but I need the time to move on. Sometimes I just need to be down for a while before I can pick myself up again. I need to ride through the blues to come out fighting again. It's tough. It was probably going to be tough from the start but I could have really done with a win. I am overdue one. I have a lot to be positive about and I'm not just thinking about the past 7 months but the various projects I'm working on at the moment as well. I will never take for granted the brilliant things I have been lucky enough to be involved in. 2013 is proving difficult on the paid front though and I am starting to feel the pressure. I need to get back on a lucky streak again. I just need a win.

Pushing Through

Due to work continuing to not come at the moment I'm making my own opportunities. I realise how lucky I was to get the jobs I got in the last few months of last year. This year has been very different but just as enjoyable. I've been slowly formulating a short film idea that I'd love to make and direct myself over summer. At the same time myself and my friend Adam have been filming a mockumentary (coincidentally about an actor who moves to London) which we have high hopes for. It's a brilliant feeling to have knowing all these ideas I had for sketches or films can be achieved now and without a massive amount of money. I used to think it wouldn't be until I have power over my own show on TV but now all it takes is one conversation with Adam and its already in the making. I've been in a creative mind set the last 2 weeks and its great that due to work not coming in I've made my own work to keep myself busy. Honestly I never thought I would seriously consider making a film let alone direct something but inspiration has hit me and I am in a position to have full power over what I can do with it.

I am getting closer to getting an agent. There is an agent who I'm told will contact me for a meeting at some point. My 2 main aims for this year are to make my film and get an agent (with the underlying main aim of staying in London) and at the moment I'm in a position to potentially achieve both soon. It gets boring having the same answers to questions about whether I have an agent yet and recent work. It has been a tough year for money and jobs and I don't want to sit back and say 'I'm sure things will pick up soon'. I'm never satisfied with how much I'm doing towards it and won't be until I'm getting involved with a lot more than I am now. It's been tough and I hope I can meet with an agent and make a film and make sure my aims for this year are completed. I want to look back after these projects are done and say I can be proud of how I didn't give up through these lulls because at the end of it all its just a bad day to get through for a better day the next.

Post Show Pride

This time a week ago I was in the Hen and Chickens Theatre in Islington doing a tech run for the show myself and the cast of Gameplan were preparing for. I couldn't have been more proud of what was ahead of us. Just the idea of 6 months on I would be performing in the same venue professional stand up comics use to practise their material in was wholehearted pleasure and that really resonated through me as it got closer to opening night last Tuesday. Throughout the week of performances I grew with pride at what we had achieved. The whole cast were superb at their roles and we really made an impact on the audience each night.

There was the hope that I would get some agents along and grow interest. Unfortunately it wasn't the case for me, though many agents and casting directors were in the audience and I got to perform in front of the head of comedy at Channel 4 who I heard was in the audience one night. Despite not being able to progress in a way I had hoped with interest and getting closer to an agent it was always going to be an absolute pleasure just being able to perform for London. I always thought from the start even if no money was made and agents didn't come it was always going to be worth it just for the experience and being on stage again. And also now that its over I can continue focusing on building my showreel and knocking at the door again growing as an actor.

So far this year has showed me that the next few years here may very well be the best years of my life. I have a part time job now so I can hopefully stay in London for as long as I want and I am determined to look back at the end of this year and say I did everything I set out to do this year. Life will always be great if you are where you want to be following what you want to do so money be damned, sleep be damned, and impossibility be damned. I will make the most of this place and already am so bring on the agents. I'm ready to be thrown in at the deep end. The support shown from my family and friends who came up to see it is all I need to reload my determination and bury myself in the never ending opportunity of acting in London.

Goodbye Young Sam

I should probably explain myself. There has been little or, more to the point, no work so far to talk about since my last blog. I have had some brilliant times this year and I would say January has been my favourite month so far in London despite no income. I have begun looking for a part time job as money is as ever a big thought. I want to stay in London and I noticed how much more relaxed I am knowing that a part time job will keep me here for a long time no matter how acting goes. A major thought for me that has come to surface in the last week is that I have no intention of returning to Bournemouth any time soon. London has truly got into my blood and I find if I'm not here looking for work I am not entirely happy. When I visited home last week my sister asked me if I've placed a time limit on being in London and trying for an acting career. I didn't really know how to answer it as the thought of giving up one day has never crossed my mind. As soon as I got here it was about keeping myself going to stay here in London for as long as I can. If I am being honest with myself I will never give up and its not because I'm determined or I want to be an actor. It's because I am and will be a successful actor. My heart grows hungry for more each day I'm here. For more auditions, contacts, jobs, prospects, and success because this is the only thing that makes me happy and I belong in London.

I am currently on the way home from my first feature film audition. Today was the biggest day of my career so far. I did all I could and I did my best and that's all I could ask for. I hope I can continue to get these auditions because I feel myself growing in London. I am getting bigger and better opportunities the longer I'm here and its only a matter of time before the success begins to flourish. A year ago it was crazy to move to London with nothing. A year on and it would be crazy to move away with everything happening here. I hope I blog again soon and have so much more to talk about. God bless this capital.

2013

So there's a reason I haven't blogged yet this year despite being back in London almost 2 weeks already. I always had a system in my head of if you apply loads for jobs one week then the next week you will see results from those jobs and things will pick up. Last week was my applying week in which, apart from an audition for a play, nothing came up. I never felt like blogging about what was going on because the week was pretty dull really. Things have felt a lot more serious now I'm back. Money has become an even bigger thought than before and the next few months are absolutely crucial for income to afford the London life. I guess I'm just impatient to hear back from applications. As soon as I was back in London I emailed every contact I had about future projects and work that could be going on fairly soon. That mixed with applying for jobs is going to require a lot of patience and faith.

Despite this seriousness and worry there has been plenty to be happy about. The audition for the play I had was successful and I got the role I was going for which is brilliant. I am in a play in London. Not quite west end but I have something I can invite agents to and something I can put my all into with a lot of time to do so. Also this weekend I went to Devon to shoot a short film for a friend. I always had in mind that if the weekend went well and I was happy with how I performed in it then this could be my showreel wrapped up for agents. Now after a long sleep and a hard working weekend I am so pleased to have spent it with such great people and after looking at a few shots back I think I can be happy with my performance. I awoke this morning inspired and thinking a lot about how 'all it takes is one idea' to get the ball rolling and seeing how easy it can be to put your idea into motion.

I'm so pleased to say I have started writing again towards clowning ideas. A long time ago in my final year of university I wrote and performed a 20 minute sketch as my inner clown. The performance got a 1st and lecturers likened it to Mr Bean. Ever since that performance I always thought if I put my all into this clown I know it would take me somewhere. I made a list before I moved to London of things I could do when I was living here and clowning was one of them but I never wrote anything down until now. Through some contacts I may be performing in March some time with my own material again. One of the reasons Rowan Atkinson is my number 1 hero is what he did with Mr Bean and how accessible it was to all audiences. My hope is to do exactly that and if by September I do have to move back to Bournemouth I want to have at least some memories of clowning performances on the stages of London, no matter how big or small.

I'm unemployed, I'm tight on money, I'm living on luck and faith, but I'm also recharged with determination, stocked full of contacts and feeling pretty lucky anyway. I will do all I can to cling on to London beyond September because this is where I'm happiest now. I have had tasters of my dream job and I am not going to let go of this chance I have now.

3 months, 2 weeks and 2 days later

I am currently on the way home for Christmas and couldn't have asked for a better time here since I moved. I've made a brilliant start to my career and will make sure 2013 is an even better year than this one. In the final 19 days of the year I can safely say this has been the best year of my life. I made what could easily be argued as the most foolhardy decision I ever have by moving to London without a plan or agent or agenda. I did it to try and make it on my own but above that reason is I would never have been fully happy in my heart if I didn't. I got impatient and depressed and I wasn't going to wait another year to try for drama school to possibly not get in again. The way I decided that moving to London was the best idea was by asking myself what would make me happy right now. It was always going to be the foolhardy decision which I am so glad I made. The determination in me called for a better Sam who would jump into the middle of it all and hold his own. I will never stop being proud of this moment looking back and seeing how I've grown into someone I am starting to really believe in.

I have earned my Christmas. I'm pleased I'm already thinking of the new plan of action for 2013 with agents in mind and just battling to earn enough to stay another year. I'm going to let the determination bubble up over Christmas so when I'm back to London next I'm out ready to fight for my place again. I won't be blogging again until 2013 so want to say thank you to everyone I know. Anyone who has read the blog and supported me in any way. You keep me going. I could not do this without your support. Everyone I've met has made me who I am now so thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will never have words brilliant enough to express my gratitude. Have an amazing peaceful Christmas and brilliant new year. God bless. X