Commercial Casting

10:00-11:30 am -- Fashion Theater
Find out how to get cast in National Commercials. meet Award-Winning Agents and Commercial Casting Directors with over 3,000 credits.

Commercials are one the best ways for actors to break into the industry and get experience on-camera. Find out what increases an actor's chances of success to get called back on an audition and to book the job. Casting directors, a commercial agent, and a session director weigh in. Moderated by Jackie Apodaca, Back Stage Columnist, "The Working Actor."

Speakers
-- Chris Game, Casting Director
-- Danielle Eskinazi, Casting Director
-- Hugh Leon, Talent Agent, Coast to Coast.
-- Jamison Reeves, Session Director

SPEAKER BIO

Chris Game
Chances are you have encountered Chris Game's work many a time. With 15 years of experience in the industry, Game has cast national commercial campaigns for Harley-Davidson, Swiffer, Shell, Burger King, Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, Wells Fargo, Beck's, Lego, Oscar Mayer, Kellogg's, PlayStation, Pepsi, Taco Bell, Sears, Mercedes-Benz, Mercury, and many more.

His independent film credits include "The Good Humor Man," featuring Kelsey Grammer, Jason Segel, and Jorge Garcia; "The Uninvited," featuring Colin Hay; "Donner Pass"; and the upcoming feature "Scary or Die," starring Corbin Bleu. He has also cast various music videos, including St. Vincent's "Actor out of Work" and Placebo's "Trigger Happy Hands."

A co-founder and member of the Elephant Theatre Company, Game has been a director, actor, and sound designer for the last 15 years. Among his notable projects are "One Fell Swoop" by Robert Litz, "Serenading Louie" by Lanford Wilson, "Hotline" by Elaine May, "Red Cross" by Sam Shepard, "365 Days/365 Plays" by Suzan-Lori Parks, "Halfway There" by Christopher Game and Michael J. Vaez, "Muppet Maiden" by Alexandra Hoover, "The Princess and the Peon" by Jimmie D. Hudson, "My Only Hopeless," "The Gremlin," "Jerry Tylor's Little Wedding," and Christopher Durang's plays "Beyond Therapy," "The Actor's Nightmare," "Desire, Desire, Desire," and "1-900-Desperate."

As an actor, Game's theater credits include "Search and Destroy" by Howard Korder, "Serenading Louie" by Lanford Wilson, "Never Tell," "Seven Redneck Cheerleaders," "Dear Boys' War," and "The World of Mirth." He has also done theatrical sound design for more than 50 productions in Los Angeles over the last decade.

Game has worked closely with Paul Mazursky and Harold Becker as a sound designer, and he recently worked with Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a casting director for a theatrical project.

Although Game may be found teaching at places such as The Actor's Key, Elizabeth Mestnik Acting Studio, and Actors Creative Workshop, he is in the midst of opening his own acting school. This last year alone, Game has cast 30 of his students in commercials. Back Stage readers voted his workshop a runner-up for favorite in 2009 and 2010.

Danielle Eskinazi
Danielle Eskinazi is an award-winning casting director with an eye for talent and a sixth sense when it comes to spotting substance beneath the surface. In more than two decades casting films, television, theater, and commercials, Eskinazi has cast such talent as David Bowie, Rosanna Arquette, and Woody Harrelson, while also launching the careers of now-successful actors including Hank Azaria and Milla Jovovich. She is highly respected in the business for her creativity, integrity, and ability to draw out audition-nailing performances.

After several years of casting films, Eskinazi dove into the fast-paced world of commercials. Today Danielle Eskinazi Casting has cast more than 3,000 national and regional spots and is known for finding edgy, interesting, and talented actors to suit her directors' and clients' needs.

Eskinazi was nominated for the Talent Managers Association's Seymour Heller Award for commercial casting director of the year in 2009 and was a runner-up twice for the Back Stage L.A. Readers' Choice Award for favorite commercial casting director.

She has been sharing her insights by teaching workshops at such venues as the Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theatre and speaking on panels, including one at the SAG Foundation. She is also affiliated with the AFI Directing Workshop for Women, helping first-time directors cast their shorts.

Eskinazi's latest venture is Actvice, an online service she created to give immediate and invaluable feedback on audition rehearsals, monologues, scenes, reels, and headshots.

Hugh Leon
Hugh Leon heads the adult commercial and celebrity personality departments at Coast to Coast Talent Group in Hollywood. Coast to Coast is one of the leading talent agencies on the West Coast, representing youth and adult actors both commercially and theatrically, as well as print models and voiceover actors.

Coast to Coast books well over 50 national commercials a month with all major brand companies. Leon has secured lead roles for his clients in countless major national campaigns. He received the Seymour Heller Award for "Top Commercial Agent of the Year 2007" and has been nominated for the award seven years in a row.

Leon has also been featured in numerous television program interviews and is quoted in countless national industry publications. He has been an active participant in the entertainment industry for more than three decades.

Leon began his show business career as a child actor in Philadelphia before moving to New York City, and later to Los Angeles. His lifelong experience in show business has contributed to his unparalleled success in representing top commercial talent and celebrities.

Leon travels around the country speaking to aspiring actors about show business, as well as scouting talent for potential representation. His straightforward and honest approach has brought countless actors to competitive levels. Hugh is also an accomplished musician and songwriter.

Jamison Reeves
After graduating from college with a degree in mass communications, Jamison Reeves pursued acting and then casting. Reeves began his career in entertainment as a commercial casting assistant with Monkey Brothers Casting.

That led to his booking as an actor more than 50 commercials for accounts that included Honda, Bud Light, State Farm, Time Warner, Progressive, and Johnsonville Sausage—all directed by some of the best commercial directors in Los Angeles. His commercials led to co-starring roles on "Without a Trace," "Push, Nevada," and "Sex Wars." (His commercial acting reel can be viewed at www.youtube.com/user/MrAuditionbetter.)

Reeves has been directing commercial audition sessions for more than 11 years for some of the top commercial CDs in L.A. His passion for directing comes from acting. Working on both sides of the camera has also given him great perspective on how to get the best performances from actors.

He has created a spec commercial campaign for Bud Light and Vibram shoes and is working on campaigns for other products. He's now a host and producer on INd Television on Time Warner Cable and in the process of directing, for the American Bar Association, 10 educational videos on legal issues affecting teens.

Reeves loves and continues to write spec scripts for commercials, television, and features. Two of his sitcom pilots have been optioned. His director's reel is growing alongside his library of work.  

MODERATOR

Jackie Apodaca
Jackie Apodaca received her BFA in acting at U.C. Santa Barbara, with high honors and distinction, and an MFA in acting from the National Theatre Conservatory. She has worked in theater for more than 20 years, with companies such as the Roundabout Theatre Company, the Denver Center Theatre Company, Summer Repertory Theatre, and the Elephant Theatre Company, which produced her first play, "My Only Hopeless."

She served for many years as the producing director of Shakespeare Santa Barbara, where she directed "The Taming of the Shrew" and played Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Viola in "Twelfth Night," Mistress Page in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing."

Apodaca has been associate artistic director of Venice Theatre Works and a resident artist at the Uprising Theatre Company, where she directed "How Our In-Laws Ruined Our Wedding."

Apodaca spent several years as the head of production for Modern Media, a Los Angeles–based commercial production company. She has produced several indie films and has appeared in numerous commercials. For many years she taught production, acting, directing, and a course on the Hollywood industry at U.C. Santa Barbara.

Apodaca is a senior columnist for Back Stage, for which she has been writing The Working Actor, the paper's signature advice column, since 2003. She is also an associate professor of theatre at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore.