Summer Plans

June 21, 2007 by dennisbaker 

I am working with Graphic Design USA three times a week in New York City. The company produces a monthly graphic design magazine that is used by various graphic design companies to track trends. GD USA also runs various contests. I have been hired to help with their website tracking and process the current contest they are running. American Graphic Design Awards is a three decade-old competition sponsored exclusively by Adobe Systems Incorporated. It is open to everyone in the community: advertising agencies, graphic design firms, corporate, institutional and publishing inhouse departments, and more. It honors outstanding new work of all kinds: print and collateral, packaging and point-of-purchase, internet and interactive design, broadcast and motion graphics, corporate identity and logos. Winners receive an embossed Certificate of Excellence for each piece selected and become eligible for reproduction in Graphic Design USA’s Awards Annual, a 300-page edition which will be seen by more than 100,000 at ad agencies, graphic design firms, inhouse departments and more during the course of the year.

I also have signed up with Central Casting, an extra casting company in the city. They are known as the premiere extra casting company in Los Angeles, but only have had offices in NYC for about a year. I am eligible to join actor’s equity, the theater union, once I complete three days of extra work as a SAG member. I also have to wait till I have been a SAG member for a year, which will be in September. The office seems pretty quite right now. They are gearing up to do a movie of the week in July in Connecticut for Oprah’s production company. Hopefully I can get some work on that project. I have also sent in headshots to Extra Extra Casting, Kee Casting, and Amerifilm Casting.

I have researched and found a web design certificate program at Middlesex County College in the nearby town of Edison. I missed the summer dates for the Dreamweaver and Photoshop classes. I will be enrolling in three classes this summer: Database concepts, PHP programming, and PHP and SQL Database. I am excited to get these tools under my belt and be able to get to the next level in this profession. Next summer I am planning on taking classes in Dreamweaver, Flash, and Photoshop. If I am able to also want to do two online courses in JSP and Javascript.

Last, but not least, I am also tutoring in math and SAT math prep. I am currently working with an organization called Club Z. I just completed working with a student in Algebra and now working with a student in Geometry. I have also placed ads on Craigslist in the New York and Central New Jersey area. I am hoping those will create some leads to round out the week of work.

Filed under: Acting, Film, New York, Web Design
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Speech Therapy

June 2, 2007 by dennisbaker 

So I was placed on probation the end of this last semester (could not think of an introduction so I thought I would just throw it out there). I was debating if I wanted to write about this, but then I thought apart of creating this blog is to show the ups and downs of an actor and so here it is.

The faculty decided my speech is not up to standard. What probabtion means is that I have the following semester (and the summer) to “fix” the problem or they have the option of asking me to leave the program. This leaves me with some heavy work to get done. I was given a recomendation to work with Tom Burke and have met with him three times already. He is a great teacher and brings objectivity and specificity to the work. It is a little frustrating for Tom to give me an adjustment and realize if I was given that adjustment during the school year I might not need to be paying for extra work. He says I am doing well and we can change to half hour check-in sessions instead of the hour sessions we have been doing. This bodes well for me financially as the hour session is $80 as well as the $18 train ride to get into the city. I am nervous that my work I am doing this summer will not translate during the school year. Hopefully the trust will grow, but I also know that I have the paper work (Tom is wonderfully thorough is this area) to prove how hard I have worked. Removal from the program is not an option for me and my family. We moved across country, left family and friends, and it will not be in vain, hopefully…

Filed under: Acting, Graduate School, Rutgers
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