It was just me taking a chance: I saw an audition call posted on a job board last fall, and all I did was write in and tell them my story.
After taking a hit over the summer doing art fairs and not selling much, I was searching for other projects to bring in a bit of cash. They were looking for “real people” who had “interesting and unusual jobs and hobbies.” Across the board, that’s me — the Raku was only a start (there’s the ceramic drum-making, drumming, study trips to Morocco every few years, oh, and don’t forget cave exploring).
What a wild ride. I went and did two screen tests, the second being in front of a panel of 10 people including writers, directors and representatives from US Cellular. A location scout visited the studio, and that was that. We did the filming last September; it took 3.5 hours and they brought a crew of about 40 people, in several RVs & vans. So if I look at all nervous on the commercial, you can understand why!
Originally, I was hoping they would get into the cave exploring (I just thought it would be cool to get paid to go caving!)- but now I’m very glad they chose not only the Raku, but the ceramic drums.
At the end of last year, I decided to leave Raku Vessels sculpture studio behind and venture on to new things. That was a hard decision, because we really did do amazing work together, but that’s just the way things worked out.
Last November, my husband Quentin (also a drum-maker- working in steel) and I moved into a 2-story building in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. We live upstairs and are currently in the process of setting up our art studios and performance space in the 1,000 square foot storefront.
The timing of the commercial’s release couldn’t have been better. The demand for my work has soared through the roof, and I’m scrambling to get all of my equipment installed so I can get to work! It’s an incredibly good momentum for the start of my new drum-making business, DrumFace. Plus, I got the honor of being a pseudo-Olympian, because it ran during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games- and they just told me it’s going to run during American Idol, too!
Part of the commercial includes the appearance of a phone number on the screen, which people are invited to call (to see if I’m real!- and to promote the fact that all of the USC plans feature free incoming calls). I get just under 300 phone calls a day on that phone, of which I answer about 90 calls. Half of those are hang-ups, so I’m talking to roughly 40 people a day, from all over the country. I don’t get paid to answer it, but the potential of future work keeps me interested in doing it- and I even listen to all the voicemails and try to return calls to people who sound like they’re sincerely interested in knowing more about what I’m doing. I even have a FaceBook fan page for Heather Drums.
