When I was growing up on Long Island, my friends and I traveled in packs. Every party, every football game, every slice of pizza was all done in a group. Go by ourselves?!?! Never!!! This is how we rolled from first grade to twelfth. Every conversation ended with, “ya wanna come with me?” and so that was what I was used to. Go to a party at a house we didn’t know? Sure, as long as seven of us walked in together. This wasn’t a bad thing. While I was meeting new people I had the safety net of my friends. Which brings me to the subject at hand.
There are a lot of things you do in show business that you may not feel comfortable doing or you’re not good at. Some actors don’t like to audition, some don’t like to go to workshops, some hate marketing and so on. For me, I never really liked what I call the “Blind Networking”, the kind of networking that involves you walking into that party alone. If it’s a cast party, a wrap party or any other kind of party that involves people I know, people I love or people I have worked with, great! But ask me to crash so and so’s party because so and so may be there and all systems shut down. For me, that is like walking into that pizza joint without my peeps. It feels weird, it feels uncomfortable. It even at times feels a little desperate. So, of course this is the thing I have to change. “Blind Networking” is now in my bag of show business tricks. And so it began.
I get invites to tons of events, as I’m sure we all do, between Facebook Events, SAG/AFTRA Events, TV Academy Events, etc. There is never a night of the week something isn’t going on. Now in my defense I work a lot as a stand-in on TV shows. It is a great job to have for many reasons, but the days can be long and exhausting. Up very early, on your feet all day, and home late at night. So after a twelve hour day, would you feel like going home and cleaning up again to start your night to be with people you don’t know for the possibility you may make a good connection with someone? Well I can tell you most of the time, I have one connection in mind and that’s my pillow to my head. I also do a lot of theatre, so my day may start on set at 7am and end in a rehearsal hall at a theatre at 11pm. But in my quest to add things to my life, I have to take the step and fit it in.
I decided to start this week. I belong to IAWTV (International Academy of Web TV). Last year’s goal was to create my own web series. While in production and working my way through the web world I applied and became a member of IAWTV. I get many emails for events from them and decided while on a hiatus from my long days of stand-in gigs, I would begin my new goal. It was an event at a club in Marina del Rey for “WeVideo”, a new something that is helpful for something. As you can see I wasn’t even completely sure what it was about, but I thought you only learn by showing up, so off I went. It was a free event for members, included wine & cheese and you could bring a guest. I did have a wing man, my husband, who can walk into any room and strike up a conversation with anyone. Something I’ve always been awed by as I tend to observe. Although I have a very outgoing personality, it tends to be outgoing with people I know, and observant with people I don’t. Don’t ask me why, it’s just where my brain goes. So I decided I was going to go in and make at least one connection. I didn’t care if it was with the bartender, I was going to connect with someone. So after forty-five minutes in annoying LA traffic to get about 10 miles through the west side, I arrived. It was a nice, up scale club in Marina del Rey and there seemed to be a few hundred people there. It was a decent turn out. I wandered around a bit. I didn’t feel uncomfortable but I also didn’t feel like I really knew why I was there other than to reach my goal. Within the first hour, there were a few speakers that talked about “WeVideo” which is a company where you create content and it goes into Cloud. From there, it can be sent anywhere for editing or to be worked on in other ways. From what I understood, you can access your content from anywhere because you don’t store it, it floats around in this Cloud place. OK, then a woman was pushing her app for when you felt you were about to be attacked or were in a sticky situation. You would use this App to ask for help. I was lost on this one. You’re about to be assaulted and you open an app? I always assume it’s me who’s not getting it and the rest of the room is on the cutting edge. So as the room was nodding in understanding, I was thinking “don’t walk down the dark alley looking at your phone for an app, look for a way out or look for a weapon.” But maybe that’s just the New Yorker in me.
But now my goal after actually getting to the event was to make a connection with someone. So I looked around the room, wandered around not sure how to approach this without looking like a kid at a seventh grade school dance who doesn’t have her six girlfriends behind her. My husband crossed by me at some point (I made a decision not to shadow him) and said, “What do you think? Do you want to stay?” I said, “I haven’t spoken with anyone yet, so I should stay.” I didn’t sound very convincing. And then my luck shifted. I turned around and across the room I saw her. I said to my husband, “I think I know that girl, over there by the chair, I think she’s someone I went to film school with over ten years ago.” I slide in closer, “yep, I think that’s her.” Suddenly, I felt a renewed energy. I had something to hang my hat on. So I waited until she was done with her conversation and then walked up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. “Is your name Abby?” I asked. “Yes.” she said. Now let me state before I continue, I have a freakishly good memory. So if you cross my path at some point in life, there is a very good chance I’ll remember you and every conversation we’ve had. I don’t know, something about the activity in my frontal lobe. I think it’s also why I see dead people, but that’s off point. The point is you will be confused as I recount all of the conversations we’ve had while you’re still trying to place my face. So Abby stared at me, happy to see someone that knew her, but not immediately making the connection. I said, “I’m April, we were in film school together.” It clicked and we spoke for the next forty five minutes. “What are you doing? What am I doing?” She was a little scared about the details of my memory, but also figured out how it would make a good TV show. Got to love us show biz folks, there isn’t a situation we don’t think would make a good TV show. We exchanged information and because we’ve both stayed in the game, felt good to catch up on business and pleasure. Although it wasn’t a “new” connection, it was a reconnection with someone still very active in the industry and someone I liked.
So there you go. I went out of my comfort zone, walked into a party where I knew no one (granted, my husband was wandering about, but ya know, baby steps), I listened to the information about things I didn’t really understand going in and I didn’t leave until I had a conversation with someone. And the cherry on top, it ended up being someone I knew from years ago that I really liked but somehow lost touch with. Mission accomplished. I am going to try to do this once a month or if schedule doesn’t permit, twelve times a year even if I have to double up on certain months. I’m hoping I get better at it. I’m hoping there is a day I can walk into a room of complete strangers alone and comfortably mix in. I’m also curious to see if within a year, the connections I’ve made at these events have played a part in my journey or if it was basically free wine and cheese. I have a feeling something will come out of one of these events. I’ll keep you posted.