(All images in this post removed per the request of the NCAA.)
Zach and I have been in Los Angeles for a little over 2 years. I thought we had experienced some odd days as he chases his acting dream. I have to say that Saturday the 15th was the weirdest day we've ever had in Hollywood.
The adventure started the night before at 6pm as we got an audition notice through one of the casting websites. The audition was scheduled for noon. I requested a later time (2pm) because Zach was scheduled to perform at Second City at Noon.
I requested the change...And never heard back from the casting director.
Saturday morning arrived and still no word from the casting people. We were walking out the door to Second City when a note telling us Zach's audition time was confirmed popped up on his account. Unfortunately, the audition was still confirmed for the same time as his show.
We decided to just go to the audition after Second City and see if the casting group would let him audition at 2pm. If they decided not to see him, no harm done driving to the place.
The audition was for a NCAA PSA. They were looking for 9th and 10th graders with football experience. They also asked the kids auditioning for the spot to bring their football gear so the casting team could assess their skill level.
After the Second City show, we made our way from Hollywood to Chatsworth. We arrived at the audition location which turned out to be the local high school. Zach checked in and they handed him a jersey, a helmet and a 10-page test packet.
A 10-page what?????
Zach looked confused but he took his test into the next room. The test consisted of math, geography, spelling and biology questions. He finished the test and was told to wait until it was time for him to leave the room. He stayed in the waiting room with the other football players.
A variety of things struck us as odd the moment we walked into the holding room with Zach:
1. There were 4 or 5 PA's running around and a few line producers. Why would they need all of these guys at an audition?
2. The holding room was full of sandwich platters, deli plates, snacks and drinks. Why was there so much food (enough to feed a film crew) at an audition? A typical audition is 5-15 minutes long (depending on the wait time to see the casting director).
3. After chatting with some of the other parents, it became obvious that Zach was the only kid in the room brought in from the casting website. All of the other kids were recruited from local football programs.
4. We arrived at 1:45pm. Some of the parents had been there with their kids since 10am. Why was it taking so long?
Zach sat in the holding room from 2pm-3:30pm. The kids were only allowed to be in the holding room or in the small patch of grass outside the door. They were not allowed to go near the football field. Parents had to be escorted to the bathrooms as well as any other buildings on the school grounds.
The Artist and his crew of football players made their way to the field at 3:30pm. Our curiosity got the better of us so Dana and I told the parking gate security guy that we needed to get some fresh air since "we weren't feeling well." We made our way around the building to an area of the fence where we could watch the audition without being spotted by the crew.
There are certain body types in football. You can look at a player and tell if he is a running back or a linebacker or a guard. The crew had all of the players lined up together running pass routes. The coach that the casting directors hired was just pointing at the players and having them run routes. There was no planning or breaks. Just one pass after another for 10-15 minutes.
The coach would stop the players every 15 minutes and pick out four players to sit on the bench. The players would not be told anything they did right or wrong, They would just be sent to the bench where they sat there looking around and seeming confused by the whole audition. After another 15 minutes, the players on the bench were sent home for the day and replaced by 4 more players to sit and wonder what was going on at that moment.
The football practice included a full camera crew capturing the practice routes. Why did they need to run so many routes and why did they need to capture the routes from so many angles? And why was the coach making the giant defensive backs run pass routes?
We watched for about an hour and went back to the holding area to a bathroom break with some of the other parents. The guy that shared my bathroom break made a phone call to a friend in the middle of doing his business in the stall. He was talking to his buddy on the speaker phone when they suddenly launched into a version of Todd Rundgren's "Hideaway". I like the song but I could have gone my whole life without hearing a duet of the tune coming from a bathroom stall.
Here's a link to the song if you've never heard it:
Todd Rundgren's "Hideaway"
I escaped the duet and hooked up with Dana and our PA escort to head back to the holding area. He apologized for the audition taking so much time. We told him we were fine but were confused by the amount of people working on a simple audition.
He stopped, looked at us and said "Can you keep a secret?" He then proceeded to tell us the day long audition was actually the commercial shoot. They didn't want to tell the kids so they could capture genuine reaction shots when the bench started talking to them.
Excuse me????
The PSA was conceived by the NCAA to promote good grades and staying in school. The test at the start of the day was to determine the education level of each kid. The players would go to the bench in groups of four. They would sit there for 2-3 minutes and then "the bench" would start asking the players questions about their GPA's and their study habits. The bench was rigged with a hidden mic and speaker with the person asking the questions hidden in the press box.
After the players were done being questioned, they would be taken off the field and sent home so they couldn't tip off the other players.
Zach's group was the last group of the day to be sent to the bench. They were super excited because they were the last players on the field. They were certain they had booked the commercial!
The look on Zach's face was fantastic when he entered the holding room at the end of the day. He walked up to me and asked, "Do you have any idea what happened on the field today?" I smiled and told him I didn't know until about an hour before the shoot ended. He was certain that Dana and I had set him up to be on a hidden camera/prank show.
I told him we would explain everything after we got in the car. We had to make sure the paperwork was filled out to pay the talent fee to Dana or myself.
Why?
The NCAA couldn't pay the kids/athletes because it would mess up their chances for a scholarship down the road if they received a payment from the NCAA. (Don't worry...We'll give him the money when it is mailed to us.)
We explained everything to Zach in the car on the way home. He told us the kids were sitting on the bench when a voice from under the bench started yelling at them. The bench "asked" them about their GPA's and started picking on the kid that had the lowest GPA. The bench "lectured" them and told jokes for 10 minutes and then sent them away.
It also turns out the "coach" was not a real coach. He just returned to Los Angeles from Branson after performing in a series of shows with Kenny Rogers.
All of the kids seemed super confused by the experience!
To recap:
*We received an audition notice
*We requested to reschedule the audition
*We never heard back from the casting people
*The "audition" consisted of a state education test, only one working teen actor (Zach), secrecy,
a Todd Rundgren bathroom duet, talking benches and singing coaches.
It all turned out well but the three of us were brain dead by the end of the day. All of us agree that it was the single weirdest acting experience we've had (so far) in Hollywood.
The IMDb Of The Only Professional Teen Actor On Set
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