TMT: ON THE SET with "The Game"

This past Wed I had an opportunity to star in my first Television show. I've been on TV a few times before but this was the first TV appearance. Keyword here is FIRST! :) It was fun!

I landed the "specialty male model server" role by posting pictures of a recent photo shoot up on modelmayhem.com. I got an email from Hylton castings saying I was being considered. I replied back through email, answered the phone a few days later and spoke with lady who asked if I was okay with shooting on Wed.

Luckily I have a very cool boss who is supportive of these kind of things so I told her "YES!"

The next day I got a call from someone asking for my measurements for wardrobe. Pretty Cool! lol

The show I am going to be in is on BET, on "The Game" season 7.

We filmed 2 scenes, 1 in my role as the male model server and the other as an extra in the restaurant scene. Being on camera as much as I have made things pretty easy and I didn't get nervous once we got rolling. It was interesting to see how these shows are filmed.

When I first arrived at 9 am, I checked in and was sent to wardrobe to get my outfit which was a black wifebeater, black levi jeans, converses, and a chain for my pants. The told me I could get changed in the "Honey wagon?" Huh? I didn't ask any questions. I guess I'll pick up the lingo as I go.

Here's one of my co-workers that day. I think she likes me... ;)

I immediately made friends with the other 3 guys playing the same role and we got to talk modeling and fitness competitions looking swol whole we waited for instructions. LOL

The guy right next to me won a recent Muscle Mania competition in Vegas. He told me he beat the current Men's Physique Olympia winner Mark Anthony. Good Stuff! The guy next to him was looking into getting more into print work and we knew a few of the same photographers. I was glad to hear he knew and respected a Facebook friend of mine who had been giving me advice on getting more commercial work; a recruiting agent in Miami named Marvin Bienaime. Swol guy number 4 has been doing various modeling and acting all over the east coast.

A guy named Chris who I believe had the title of assistant director gave us the rundown on the scenes we were filming and a background of the show and basically gave us the scenario we should be playing out. I was glad to hear it was a comedy and that we could just have fun.

The premise of our scene was Malek, the owner of this restaurant called "Fatties" was having employee appreciation day and the women servers were going to get a break while us 4 men took over their roles for the day. LOL - time to get objectified! He asked if I minded if the girls touched my arm or flirted with me....no sir, not a problem! Hahahahaha

First we ran through the scene a few times with "secondaries" filling in for the lead actors and actresses. Then the real stars, the "primaries" came in and we filmed the scene a few times. It took me awhile to learn that some of the practices we were doing were actual takes and we moved on to shoot again from a different angle. Here is where things actually got a little tricky. Chris had to make sure when filming from the other angles, that people were walking past at the same time, the same people were in same place, and they even took pictures of everyone after shooting to see what they were wearing in case they needed to do a reshoot later.

The lead star was a funny guy and would sing stupid songs and joke around with everyone between takes. One of the other models commented that these guys had some egos. There were a few egos on the set but NOTHING like the platinum selling egos I worked with at Patchwerk Recording Studios.

In the second scene I was re-casted as an extra and changed into my regular clothes. Here I got a wife for the day :) and got to practice pantomiming. We were supposed to act like we were having a good time at the bar and then on our cue, we were to get up and walk by the camera. YES! More camera time! :D Although we had to do the same thing over and over again approximately 3 times per angle, I had fun pretending to get everyone hammered.

Some people were asked to go back to holding area since they weren't going to be in certain scenes and I learned the polite way to ask them to leave was saying "you can go rest." If they didn't move, I had to laugh at Chris becasue we was very professional and just repeated himself. "You can go rest. Take a break in the holding area.....go ahead." Get up...GO REST!

Just one of those things you pick up while your sitting around waiting all day.

3 MUST HAVE ITEMS FOR WORKING ON THE SET

1. Phone Charger

2. Coffee

3. Six Pack Bags with meals already prepared

I was glad to run into Jeff Karantza, who works as an actor full time. I met him through an awesome client of mine Cynthia Stillwell, who runs Cynthia Stillwell Casting. Jeff really broke things down as far as how to get work, what to expect as far as pay and how the day would look, and really gave me some great advice on how to make this really happen should I decide to pursue acting. (I just wanted to get in Muscle & Fitness lol) Who am I kidding? I'm addicted to the spotlight. You'll see me again.