Hadleigh's First TV Commercial!

Hadleigh headed to the K.C. area to film her very first TV commerical!

All went well. We arrived on set at about 2:30 and the crew was on break from filming the mom and dad part all morning. They brought the 3 kids in the house for wardrobe and decked them out in winter coats, ear muffs, mittens, hats, etc. and sent them back outside to keep comfortable. Filming was ready to go at about 3:30 and they shot until about 5:30.

The storyline is a mom and dad shopping online. The dad walks to the window and sees the kids all sitting bundled on the bench in the snow (fake snow) and goes back to the mom to ask what they are doing. She mentions that she told them she was going shopping. They become absorbed w/ the online shopping and the kids come to the door knocking and ringing the doorbell. Hadleigh yells, “It’s really cold out here!”. The boys shout, “I thought we were going to the mall?!”, etc. There’s different scenes of the kids acting bored, sleeping, etc….they don’t know which scenes will make the commercial just yet. Originally the kids had no speaking parts but they were being so good that they decided to give it a try. Seemed like everyone was happy with their performance so it should make the commercial.

The commercial is for a grocery store chain (Giant Eagle) in the Ohio, Pennsylvania areas so we won’t be seeing it on our TV, however, we are supposed to get a link to a streaming feed so we can save to the computer.

This was a pretty big gig for her first round…it’s a union job with SAG (screen actor’s guild) and she’ll receive her base pay and then residuals on it. The producers had flown in from L.A. for the shoot so that was exciting. They set up “house” in a model home in Lee's Summit, blanketed the yard with white sheets and used a snow machine for the flurries. There were caterers with tables of food (kids liked the bowls of candy) and stylists who made sure the hair and makeup was in place and as a bonus we got to keep the wardrobe.

It was all pretty exciting! We can’t wait to see it all put together.

**All this happened about a week after she got "cut" for a Colgate web commercial. She was picked for the gig as the favorite (over 100 tried out) and then cut at the last minute because they changed the dad out and Hadleigh no longer matched. She was devastated so Giant Eagle saved the day in our eyes! She's off to meet Hallmark reps next week so we hope that all goes well.

Campfire Kids Casting

Just returned from another casting call today, It was for Campfire Kids through Bernstein Rein advertising. Hadleigh has already learned so much! She was very confident when we walked in and the entire process took about 5 minutes! We were to Kansas City and back in just 4 hours and that's even after about 20 minutes of 're-routing' due to my inability to follow the GPS accurately.

We were number 126 this time..wow...and there was still an hour and 45 minutes left! Learned that we need to work on laughing when prompted. That's hard to do when there really isn't anything funny going on.

What Hadleigh has to say: They took my picture and made me laugh. I said 'Thank You'. Some of the kids were cute. I wore my poodle outfit and braids.

Casting Call - UPDATE

Darn! No Hoffman models made the cut for the Dawn Foods casting. There's always next time!

First Casting Call

What Hadleigh had to say...

I thought I was going to take the picture in the front of me and put me in a contract. I hoped I could get my hair done. They took my pictures in a Cinderella princess dress. There were lots of kids there and I was shy because I didn't know them so I didn't play. I didn't want to. I broke the camera.

Mom filling in some details...

Hadleigh received a call last Friday for an upcoming casting call for Dawn Foods. We were all so excited! We traveled to Kansas City early this morning for our first adventure in the crazy business. We first headed to Hadleigh's agency, Hoffman International, to pick up her comp cards (the modeling businesses version of a business card...if you want, she'll send you one as she's quite proud of them. Just need your mailing adddress) and spoke with, Pam, the Agency Director who gave Hadleigh some quick words of encouragement and we were off.

Thank heavens for the new car --equipped with GPS...we made it downtown to Rush Wade 2 (check out their site...they ROCK!) studio and nervously made it to the casting room. There we found LOTS of kids between the ages of about 5-6 with all different looks. Both boys and girls. Hadleigh and I signed her in as child #12 (which was mommy's number back in her pageant days) and waited for her turn. The drill was to put on the princess dress, hold a marker board with Hadleigh's name and agency on it for photo #1, no board...just a nice smile for photo #2 and then turn around for a photo from the back for #3. Hadleigh just had to ask "Why do you take a picture of the back of us?" The response she got was that they wanted to make sure they had ALL the awesome parts of each child.

Oh...the "breaking the camera part". When it was Hadleigh's turn the photographer shot her but the photo wouldn't transfer to the computer screen. Just a black square... I had her convinced she broke it:-)

We were in and out in less than 30 minutes...about 25 minutes of waiting and 5 minutes for the testing. No questions were asked and no one really interacted with the kids. This made me think they were in search of a particular "look" and not necessarily a personality or talent.

My eyes were opened to some new things as well. In our short time we encountered a definite pageant child, a stage mom and some kids who really preferred not to be there. There were some shy kids, outgoing ones, some who could only muster fake smiles and some very naturals. I'm sure we'll get to see all kinds of things as we move forward.

Hadleigh did great! Smiled a real smile and left with a "Thanks! That was a lot of fun."

If Hadleigh is chosen we will adventure to our first paid photo shoot on Friday. Hadleigh is excited to get a "job" and when I told her the job was to have her picture taken she refused to accept that. She thought that was too easy and offered, "I can mop their floor too."

Contract Offered!

On February 19th we received the following email message:

Hi Katie!

She is SO cute. Congratulations! We are happy to offer an exclusive agreement with your daughter. Please call or email me wheh you have a minute to come by & sign her.

Congratulations! Looks like she had a good time! Welcome to show biz!

Pam

Pamela Swann
Agency Director
HOFFMAN INTERNATIONAL

Hadleigh wanted to sign it herself...

Getting Ready....Photo Shoot

Before being offered a contract, Hadleigh would have to pass one final test... She would have to experience her first professional photo shoot.

She was very excited that she would have her own stylist, Michele Taylor, and be creating many of her own poses. We all were very impressed with the entire process and felt like the photographer, Jeff Nicholson, was the best!

We'll be adding lots of links to the industry professionals as getting to meet these people is all part of the excitement. Many have been very successful and touched the lives of some true stars.

Here's some of our favorites from the photo shoot which resulted in 200+ photos!