 here is my audition tracker and if you also want to keep track of your auditions there's a link in the pinned comment and then let me just give you a quick little tour of like my audition tracker here when it's requested I keep track of the website of course casting director producer all of that and then this year I want to start keeping track of like more details the type and the age range that people are calling me in for like mom 30s to 40s or 25 to 30 like whatever I just want learn more about how people perceive me I'm also keeping track of what headshot I use for a lot of these because my agents are submitting me I'm just putting the main picture on my casting profile that they used so it's a little hard to know like which headshot they really looked at because they're looking at my casting website profile which is like all of my pictures audition types uh yeah I mean pretty much everything is self-tape auditions I actually did get one in person request this year and it was for a callback the first round was self tapes and then the second one it was in person but it was in Arizona so they allowed us to do a live virtual audition I also want to start keeping track of the submission date I just want to know like my turnaround time and see if I can improve that callbacks filming dates all of this that's blank I really just want to start keeping track of and then I also have notes here so the auditions that I did this year were 34 for actual jobs that I was booking and then for practice I did around 30 so it was really really close I have been keeping track of my audition since around 2017 and I actually started by just drawing like the logo or something on my planner and eventually I moved over to google sheets so I can keep better track of more information the reason for my tracking and how I track it has changed a lot over the years before it was to stay motivated and keep auditioning and remember to self submit so I can get more auditions and now it's a bit more of a strategy but today I'm going to show you where I got my auditions and which ones I booked at a respect to the people who allowed me to audition and you know these acting jobs I have lacked out the payment and the ones that were NDA I just went ahead and black them out completely but let's just take a quick look around my audition tracker my booking rate uh this varies a lot for me because back when I used to do a lot of background roles my booking rate was like 50% or something my booking rate in 2023 was 31.4% and this year I did get a lot of direct bookings so I didn't necessarily audition for them so I don't really I didn't want to make it too tricky and then over here I have the type of auditions that I got eight commercial auditions voiceover internal usage short films feature film hand model just did one uh a play and then I got two print auditions which I never almost almost never get any kind of print anything I auditioned for two different reps and I actually got accepted by both of them an industrial workshop actor a host and then PSA where I got my auditions from so here you can see that most of them I got from emails because my agency will usually email me a self tape request or they'll send me a request through casting networks depending on what kind of audition it is and then after that casting networks was the next one which makes a lot of sense because I do a lot of commercials casting workbook I got a couple from backstage and then I got a few in person and those were more like the direct bookings and now where did I get these like connections so most of my auditions uh were from my agency and then a couple of people reached out to me from youtube a bunch of friends recommended me to stuff and then live events I went to the southwest actors conference where I was able to meet my agents from Arizona I went to the brave maker film festival where I was able to meet a bunch of people and I am collaborating with a few people from there but like in the books I have something that we will be filming in February and then industry mixers in general I just went to a lot of them this year and then my agency in Arizona over here I wanted to see like which months I have more auditions than others just so I can like get an idea of like okay during these months I should plan on maybe taking some acting workshops or seeing how I can get more work during those months so in January I got four auditions and that was at the very very beginning of January because I went through a lot that month uh and so then I took February March April June ish is when I started to audition again here in March you can see I technically had an audition it was a direct booking again from a friend June is when I started to audition again a little bit so I got one audition then July six auditions August the same September 4 October November and then December I hardly got anything and for me historically almost never get anything in December which is why this year I did like a version of Vlogmas where I self-taped every day until Christmas Eve until the 23rd or 24th so I got a bunch of practicing and then the same thing in May I did self-tape May and I did not complete the what is it 14 or 15 auditions for the month but doing self-tape May this year really just brought me back to acting and like re-energized me and it showed me like you do love acting you do love life like get up and keep going now let's go over the jobs that I did book because it's not as easy as you self-submit on casting networks you get a self-tape request you send it in and they say you're booked sometimes it can be a little different so let's filter this to the jobs that I did get the first job that I booked was through casting workbook I've made videos about them before they're another casting website this was for an internal usage they were going to Mexico to talk about their services and they were like hey you have user service can you please make a quick video about it and I was like sure so I considered that as booking something because it was something that they asked me to do and then more people were going to see my face basically I was gonna get exposure the next one was I believe it was in March this is when I was taking a break from acting and this filmmaker just contacted me and was like hey um can you read this script and let me know if you want to play this character and how he found out about me is that I produced a short film called pizza monster back in late 2022 the person who was in charge of the costumes wardrobe recommended me so this next one is a short film that I'm going to be filming in February this is my third direct booking because I went to the brave maker film festival and during the festival you can go to workshops and panels and of course greetings for films but one of the ones I went to was a filming on your iPhone and we had to do a one minute film for that well I happened to be on a team with a filmmaker she enjoyed working with me and everybody else in our team she got everybody's contact info and so now I'm collaborating with her this is making me realize like I got a lot of direct bookings and I'm so grateful because if I didn't get these direct bookings I would have only booked like one or two things this year again related to that short film that I produced pizza monster the writer and director of that film is a great friend of mine we've been working together on films for years since like 2019 and so he recommended me to somebody who's in charge of a art space slash theater space and it was a direct booking for a play in development that one was a quick like Instagram chat then a phone call of like okay do you want to do this this is what this is and it was a whole week of rehearsing and workshopping the play and then a couple of performances also in august I auditioned for an agency in Utah and this was because at the brave maker film festival in July I ran into an old friend and he was like hey I have reps in Utah like I think you would do well there because they have like a big commercial need especially for bilingual actors like Latinx actors so I auditioned for them and they were like we do like you but we also have a lot of hallmark movies in Utah so you just don't have what we need as far as being able to market you that one is currently on hold until I can get like a better reel of what they need in order to successfully market me because I am online Bella Hibbs knows who I am and I've gone to the Southwest Actors Conference twice and this year she asked me if I could be an actor in the keynote speech which was I don't know how I said yes because I was just like wait of course yeah of course I'll do it but then when I was there I was like wait I'm gonna do an audition in front of hundreds of people thankfully it went well but um that was another direct booking a lot of people obviously were in the audience including managers and casting directors producers lots of actors mostly actors so I was in September and then in October I auditioned for an agency in Arizona and got in so now I'm represented in Arizona because I got to meet a couple of the agents from that agency at the Southwest Actors Conference so I'm now represented in San Francisco by MDT agency and then in Arizona by signature models and talent for the agency in Arizona I did send in a bunch of my pictures and reels and resume things like that and then we did a live virtual audition where they had me do a scene asked me some questions and then a few days later offered me representation in October I went to the Bay Area Film Mixer which is an event that happens a few times a year Tony Gapastone who is a creator of Brave Maker org and the Brave Maker Film Festival I've just I actually met him at the Bay Area Film Mixer years ago I've been wanting to work with him for a while he's just a great person I've talked about his acting class and I've now talked about his film festival as well but we had just not worked together yet well we're at the mixer he was talking about like oh yeah I'm about to make this short film where the actors are actually paying for part of the makeup because it's a lot of special effects makeup and I was like oh that's interesting I was like Tony do you need any more actors to pay to be in this short film and he's like yeah are you available blah blah and I was like send me the details we'll see if we can make it work I it was still a direct booking because I didn't have to audition and I'm sure he's seen some of my work somewhere before because I have like reels and stuff online also in October I went to a different industry event and the San Jose Film Collective will do screenings and they're also going to do a speed mixer they just host a lot of events so because I've gotten to know a lot of people that are in the collective they actually asked me to host an event that's coming up so I will be moderating a speed mixer then in November I booked an industrial for PG&E and this is eternal usage so I'll probably I'll probably never even see what it was but it was like short sweet I think I was there for like two hours it was great this was through aura casting and my agency and then the last one that's an NDA I didn't actually do so this was for a voiceover job for a director producer that I've worked with before on a short film but unfortunately the budget was just really small and I just had to walk away from the job I felt really really bad because I wanted to work with him again so bad he's a great person to work with but I just had to say no so that was 2023 that gives me a lot of confidence for this year in 2024 because it just makes me feel like I can book more things because I was mostly just depending on my agencies and my friends to just like book me you know even though I have worked really hard by the way this is not normal I have worked really hard to make a lot of friends in the industry and I just love people so I believe that I got a lot of direct bookings because I've put in the hard work for a long time because I go to in-person events and I send quality auditions if you want to use this tracker I have linked it in the pinned comment thank you so much for watching and please just just tell me something I just want to know who's watching this by the way if you're somebody who's like maybe I want to get into acting or you're just newer and want to learn more things I have a playlist here on how to get into acting and I'm not an acting coach so these videos are really like if you're my friend and you're asking me like hey Benjika how how do I even get started on this here you go