Expert: Taylor Sheppard - 2/23/2009

Question
Dear Taylor,

I am in the midst of a crisis, and would just love some advice!
I am 31 and currently live in Malibu California. I am married to a hand
surgeon. I have been attempting to start my career on and off since I was
about 21. I have worked with a few different agents, mostly for commercials.
I am currently with Vue Models & Talent and getting picked up by a new
agency called Pinkerton. When I started with Vue they were actually called
Equinox at that time, I started out great, getting alot of callbacks and within
the first 3 months I booked my first 2 national commercials for Chevy Impala
and Chevy Malibu. I also booked a body double role for Courtney Cox and a liqueur print ad. I also have friends that have a small production company
who have cast me in 2 independent projects with fairly large speaking roles.
While these are not large noteworthy projects, they will help tremendously in
putting together a reel. I also do modeling as well. If you'd like to check out
some photos you can visit me at ModelMayhem.com/Elissa or also on
myspace.com/elissa78 (in my pictures there is an album entitled Portfolio,
that has tons of photos.

Getting to my question, my husband is having a tough time competing with
the other doctors here in L.A. (he is originally from the Louisiana) And has
gotten a few very lucrative offers in Dallas, and Columbus Georgia. I am
scared to death to move for fear that all my dreams and career aspirations
will end.  I have done a little bit of research and have found that there are
agency's in Dallas and Atlanta that seem to be pretty good. But I just can't
help but feel that I would be going backwards in terms of starting a career,
people usually come to L.A. not move away to start one.
However, since I am aware that the taxes are high for filming in Los Angeles,
alot of projects shoot out of state anyway, and in fact I had heard that
Shreveport Louisiana (where my husband is from) is becoming quite the
Hollywood Hub. The state taxes there are low and so many things have and
are being filmed there now. I even have a sister-in-law who beat out a girl
from L.A. who flew in to Shreveport to audition and the in law got the part.

So, any advice or information you have to offer would be so greatly
appreciated. And I thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Thanks!
Elissa

Answer
Hi Elissa,

Yes, currently Louisiana is kicking our asses here in Texas on the work. We have lost lots of talented crew to them as well and it took years to build their rep but they had to follow the work.

On March 4th, actors, agents, crew and anyone conected are going to descend o the capitol to lobby for an increase in our film incentive program. It is literally "DO or Die"!

We are currently at 5%. Lousiana and New Mexico are at like 10-15%

MICHIGAN is at 45%! But I can't imagine living there as their state is seriously hurting economically.

Good news? My agent: The Atherton Group, now has offices in LA, New Mexico, Austin, Texas (Georgetown) and Louisiana. So we are covered pretty well. We hope with all our hearts things will change and I imagine it will as we have locales that can go from desert to farmland to forests and praries.

Hope this helps!

Taylor