FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Toledo Area Entertainers Shine at IMTA New York

Fourteen Toledo Ohio area actors, models, singers and dancers brought home over seventy awards from the semi-annual International Modeling and Talent Association's (IMTA) event held in New York. IMTA is an organization comprised of leading modeling and talent training centers engaged in the professional promotion of the fashion and talent industry.

More then 400 top fashion and talent agents, casting directors and industry professionals participated as judges and scouts in the weeklong international event. Men, women and children of all ages competed in various modeling and acting competitions. Fourteen talented students from Starbound NYC, ranging in age from 4 to 30, competed and earned over seventy awards. Antonio Banks, Sarah Bomber, Tanner Buchnanan, Cynthia Marsh, Gabriel Olmor, Drew Renken, Manny Sanchez and Stuart Wells all won awards for acting and modeling. Duncan Black, Robert Eadie, Suz Hage, Diana Henzler, Kathryn Henzler and Nate Sepic received recognition and awards in acting competitions.

Event winners included 4-year-old Antonio Banks taking top honors in three modeling categories: fashion print, jeans and runway. Robert Eadie, 19, won a first place award for "Ready for My Close-up." One of Starbound's youngest competitors, 4-year-old Gabriel Omlor, won two first place acting awards for his monologue and sitcom competitions.

Starbound NYC & Margaret O'Brien's has been serving talented individuals in Ohio, Michigan, New York and Los Angeles for over 45 years. Starbound's classes and talent management services have directed actors, models, singers, and dancers toward the entertainment field, helping them get signed with talent agencies throughout the country. Starbound alumni include Katie Holmes, Alyson Stoner, Adrianne Palicki and many more. Actors, models, dancers and singers that have completed the Starbound program have been seen in major films such as Batman Begins, Cheaper By The Dozen, Pop Star, Seven Mummies, Mr. Woodcock, and Christmas With The Kranks and television shows such as Scrubs, Smallville, Dawson's Creek, South Beach, Malcolm in the Middle, and CSI. They have also been featured in national magazines such as GQ, Vogue, Seventeen, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan. More information regarding Starbound and first time auditions can be found at http://www.starboundnyc.com.

The Final Toft's Commercial

Simple and all Gabe had to do was eat ice cream and look cute. Not exactly a stretch :)

Toft's Ice Cream

Gabriel is going to make another commercial appearance. This time for Toft's Ice Cream. I don't have a script but from what I've been told, he will not have any lines. He simply needs to sit there and eat ice cream. Wow, that should be a real hard one for him to pull off :)

A Storybook Election

Gabriel stared in a commercial for Key bank and the Library. A Storybook Election. The idea was pretty cool. In November all the "Big People" get to go out and vote for President, so the library thought it would be cool to get the kids out to the polls as well. Only instead of voting for the boring old people, they get to vote for their favorite Storybook character. Gabriel's role in the commercial is of the person making the announcement to an excited crowd of voters. I think it came out grat and gabriel shined!




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Peanut M&M

Everybody is just winding down and settling back down to reality. At this point we're just waiting to hear back from Wendi. My guess is she's pretty busy

Some of Gab'e Monologue

And here is some of Gabe's Monologue. unfortunately Holly didn't get it all cus there was something in the way, but when she moved up she was able to get a pretty clear shot of him

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Video

I'm working on capturing all the video from the trip. As soon as I get some clips, I'll be sure to share. Holly even managed to capture almost his entire Monologue so I'll be sure to post that one

Decisions to make

Holly will call Wendi on Monday and set up a private appointment. She's going to sit down with us and review each of the agencies interested in Gabriel. She'll be able to tell us which agencies she recommends. Of course, her recommendation will hold a lot of merit, since she's been doing this for quite some time, and we're just newbies from Toledo

Leaving for New York City

Click on each photo to see a larger version

Across the street from Radio City Music Hall

Little Man in a Big City

Enjoying the Park

Central Park Fountain

Across From Time Square

Gabe and his awards

Almost Time to Come home

They're finally coming home !!
Emma and I can't wait to see him

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I few people have asked how Emma is handling all this and I I want to say, she couldn't be happier for Gabe. She loves seeing him do his thing on stage and even practices with him at home. The two of them will take turns pretending to be the audience while the other performs.

Emma just doesn't have the guts t actually do it on stage in front of an audience, but she absolutely loves to see her little brother do well.

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The awards are in!!!!

Holly just called and gave me a break down of all the awards. Gabriel placed in every single event he entered.

6th Place in Swimwear
6th Place in Theatrical Headshot
6th Place in Jeans
6th Place in Runway

3rd Runner up in TV Real People
3rd Runner up in Fashion Print

2nd Runner up in Beauty Commercial
2nd Runner up in Toys “R” us Commercial

WINNER in Sitcom
WINNER in Monologue

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GabeCast: Updates on Agents

There's just Waaaaay too much news to try and type up. I'm a very slow typist so it's just easier for me to record an audio track and load it to the site.

enjoy


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Must be a long day of meetings today cus Holly hasn't been calling me with her usual updates

Call Backs

Well Gabe has 12 call Backs today. Which is great news.

However, Holly tells me she already went to one person who is very interested in Gabriel but is now on the fence. On the fence because Gabe wasn't being himself in the call back. He's being very antisocial and crabby. Not exactly a good thing

So hopefully he cheers up and has some better call backs cus as it stands now he's not exactly nailing his interviews

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now my stomach doesn't feel very good

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Fun Times in NYC

So I've neglected to tell you some of the fun stuff Holly and Gabe have been doing. Like for one thing they visited this big M&M store that I guess is just a heaven for all things M&M related. They also took a log channel boat cruise that took them around Manhattan and over to ellis island where they were able to be right on top of The Statue of Liberty. All lit up at night. Holly said it was amazing. They even had a DJ on the boat so, of course, Gabe and Holly had to do some dancing.

They also went to a shop called Serendipity. The same exact ice cream shop in the movie Serendipity. However, it's a very popular place so they had to wait around for an hour until they could be seated. So in the mean time they walked over to a candy shop called Dylan's Candy Bar. Holly said it was like walking into Willy Wonka's. They had a door man all dressed up who opened the door and greeted you with a big smile and a hello. The entire floor was actual candy varnished to the floor, even the steps to the second level. Just wall to wall candy.

They've been having blast and I can't wait to see all the photos and video

Sitcom.

In sitcom Gabriel has to work with another actor and play off his reactions. So he goes up on stage and begins the dialogue. It's really acting as you would on the set of a television show. Once again, Holly tells me he did an awesome job. Nailed every line and really gave the judges what they were looking for.

Call backs start on Thursday, so anyone who is interested in Gabriel will set up private appointments to meet with Holly and Gabe.

He has one more competition left and then he's all done and they just have to sit back and wait to see if he receives any call backs

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Holly and Gabe have two more appointments with agents today as well

Spoke with an Agent

Holly and Gabriel met with an agent yesterday. This is pretty big news as they haven't even started the call back sessions yet. Those do not begin until Thursday. So clearly he's very interested in Gabriel. It's a little scary to think about actually signing with an agency and Gabriel making national commercials and movies. There's a ton to think about and decide. Not exactly something you want to just rush into.

One thing he did say though, was that he expects Gabriel to receive a ton of call backs. Again, kind of scary. I mean we signed Gabriel up for the sow hoping he would be seen, but now that it's actually here and about to happen, it's a bit surreal

Early Day

Well that's it for competitions today. An early day for him. So now Holly and Gabe can sit back and relax for the rest of the day and night. However, they need to go check the schedule board around 3:30, to see what time tomorrows events will start.

He has another unwary completion, This time swimsuit, and he has his last acting performance. Sitcom. In sitcom he'll be playing off another actor.

Come back tomorrow for more updates, and thank to everyone reading this blog :)

Fashion Runway

Gabriel also did his Fashion Runway today. Once again, he did pretty good but I think it's obvious he really enjoys being in front of the camera more than doing the modeling. He just finds acting much more fun.

Holly said he did give a really good smile at the end of the runway to the judges and he did get a reaction so that's good.

However, there's another boy named Antonio that's killing on the runway. Holly said it's like Usher coming on stage when he walks out. The crowd loves him and he's just the cutest little boy.

All of these events are great for Gabe. If anything he loves the attention and it just continues to build his confidence

Closed Set Commercials.

This morning Gabriel had to do his closed set commercials. These are commercials with no judges, no parents, and no audience. They're shot pretty much like a normal commercial would be shot. He stands in front of a white screen while a camera crew films his performance. They also display his performance on a monitor for everyone in the shoot to see. Basically they want to see how he handles direction and how he does in a real world set.

Now normally Holly would never leave Gabe alone on a set but this is just how they do the competition. So with that in mind all the parents were quiet as a church mouse in the waiting room and when their child went in they all went up to the door to listen in and peak through the peep hole.

Holly said Gabriel, once again, did a great job on both his Beauty commercial and his Real People commercial. He nailed them both and Holly said she couldn't have been prouder. Especially since they were really running behind on the first commercial. He was suppose to shoot at 8:15 but didn't get in until 9:20. Not good for a 4 year old. Once he finished his was rushed into the next commercial and Holly was nervous he may stumble. But no. They guy is something. I'm most impressed with Gabe's ability to remember every single word. He never forgets.

I'm not sure what's next for him, since I needed to let Holly go. But I'll fill you in as soon as I get more news

Monologue

I just received another update from Holly. Gabe had his monologue at 7 tonight. He ended up being the third from the last guy to give his performance, in his group. They separate the actors into smaller groups for the monologues and have them do it in front of a smaller group of judges. I assume, because the monologues are so much longer than a15 second commercial. Oh and they still need to perform in front of an audience.

Holly said the judges stay pretty quite through all of the monologues and didn't say much. That is until Gabriel came up to do his. Holly said he did his monologue as good as she's ever seen him do it. He had the judges reacting, and laughing hard. In fact she said one judge looked like we was going to fall out of his chair when he said "she probably picks her boogers and eats them" When he was done they gave him a big round of applause and one judge even stood up and walked over to a separate area to make, what looked like a special note of his performance.

I have to say, Holly and I couldn't be more proud of our little man. He shows no fear in front of a big crowd and people he doesn't even know. Poor Holly is far more nervous than Gabriel ever is.

Well that's it for today. Tomorrow the day starts bright and early. He has three performances before noon

Runway Jeans

OK, so Gabe just had his Runway Jeans walk.
Holly said he did good but not great. Unfortunately they walked a little different at IMTA than they did in class so that threw him for a loop. He ended up missing one of his stops and walked off without giving one last stop and smile.

That was kind of a bummer but you know what, that's OK. he's doing his best and having a blast that's what really counts.

Toys "R" Us Commercial

Holly just called and told me that Gabe KILLED on his Toys "R" Us commercial. She was nervous as heck for him but Gabe was a cool cucumber on stage. She said there was about 20-30 judges watching his performance on stage in front of a pretty good sized audience.

He nailed it and even made the crowd laugh, Which is great cus it's a pretty funny and interesting skit

Arrived in New York

Well Gabe and Holly are in New York and already soaking in the environment. They arrived at 10 am but didn't actually check into their room until 2 pm. Holly tells me the drive in was pretty amazing. They drove through neighborhood after neighborhood until eventually the neighborhoods turned to downtown. She says it truly is a whole new world in NYC compared to little Toledo.

Their room is on the 30th floor of the Hilton and just a couple blocks away from Radio City Music Hall. Holly has already taken a photo of Gabriel in front of the Late Show entrance, as well as, eaten lunch in Time Square. It sounds to me like they're having a great time

Tonight is his first competition. Actually he has three tonight. Toys "R" Us, jeans modeling (on the Catwalk), and finally his monologue.

AS the info come in, I'll keep everyone posted

Only 2 more weeks until Gabe and Holly head off to NYC. The time just flew by. I hope to get some video on here of Gabriel performing his commercial and other acting tasks.

Wendi would like him to perform in another showcase so I would really like to bring the camera for that day.

Plus Holly will take a camera with her to NYC to capture the entire event. She won't be able to tape the auditions of course but she'll tape what she can. After all she'll be there for Gabe, not to tape everything for me

Gabriel had his showcase on Monday. Of course, HE ROCKED!!!!!

I'm not trying to brag (well maybe a little) but I felt he really did a great job. I was a little concerned about how he would do. I mean he's been practicing in front of his class for weeks now but doing it in front of strangers is a whole new ball game.

He did goof around a little but once he finally stopped messing around with Wendi and the teachers, he went out on stage and belted out his lines like a true champ.

Wendi has also asked Gabriel to come back again for the older group showcase. Again, the more practice he has the better. I think they'll actually walk the runway at this showcase, so that should be pretty cool to see. Of course they'll do their commercials and monologue as well so we'll all get to see that one more time.

It's memorial day weekend so not class today. In fact no class this past saturday either. So Holly has been practicing Gabe's new lines with him. He has a whole new set of commercials he needs to practice for the show. He's already memorizing them very quickly.

I finally got to see him do his runway walk the other day. I went into Starbound and could hear the music jamming. I walked around the corner just in time to see Gabe doing his walk. Needless to say I was very proud of him. He did a great job and just looked like such a little man

His showcase is this coming Monday so we'll all get to see him do his stuff in front of a crowd of people. It's all in an effort to get him used to doing stuff in front of a large crowd. Something he'll really need to be ready to do in NYC

Ok, so after having a few weekends off for the holiday and Bad weather , Gabe finally had another class. He was very excited. The cool thing is, Wendi wants to move hi,m up to the older kids level. She feels he's pretty much gotten everything he can from the lower level. We're, of course, excited to hear this. So next week he's up with the older kids.

Gabe's class was canceled last week due to the giant snowfall we had. He was a little bummed he couldn't go to his class but we did our best to try and make up for it and went sledding on both Saturday and Sunday.

Today Wendi, once again, said he's doing a great job and would like him to begin working on a monologue. This should be fun. Holly has already selected the monologue she thinks fits him best, one that allows his spitfire attitude to shine through. Once he has it memorized, I'll be sure to tape it and share it with you all

A commercial for the Toledo Food Bank. He doesn't say anything, but I think he does a fine job pulling off sad, cold, and hungry

This is the line they gave Gabriel to practice. It's for a Band Aid commercial. He had the thing memorized before I did.


Make me want to buy some Band Aids :)

Gabriel's First Commercial. They needed some young kids for the Lucas County Library spot. They knew I had two children under the age of five. So they asked me if they would be interested. They were very excited about being on TV. Not only is Gabriel in the spot but you'll notice Emma makes an appearance as well.


They actually made two spots for this particular campaign. They look similar but have different scripts.

Gabriel had his first official acting class today. As expected he's the youngest one of the group. There's a special "Little Stars" class he attends so, at least he's not the only mini man there. Right now they're focusing on pretend and role playing. For example, they were doing things like pretending they were walking in thick mud, or walking on marbles, or on ice.



They also gave everyone some techniques to take home and practice. Little stuff to help with annunciation, and even some commercial lines to practice and deliver.

As you can see in the photo they also had the kids walk on the runway. This is Gabe at the end of the runway giving his "I'm Cool" pose

The Pink Cupcake

I'm a little late in making this announcement but oh well. Sommer and Beth have made there decision on the Pink Cupcake Website. They actually made there decision before this blog was up and running so I'm just going to catch everyone up. You may be asking, "Why is this even on Gabe's blog?" well I'll tell ya why. Cus we're going to place every penny we're charging for the site design will go towards Gabe's trip.

OK, back to the Website. Sommer and Beth have decided to take the plug and establish a web presence for The Pink Cupcake. A couple weeks ago Ryan and I traveled to Mt Vernon. I had never been to the shop and I felt it was important to actually visit the shop before I even considered designing a website for it.

the best part of the trip (besides the goodies of course) was the open minds Beth and Sommer brought to the table. They were completely open to just about anything I came up with. A refreshing twist from the normal client who seems to have no idea what looks good but has no problem telling you how to design.

As you can see I've included a very small image of the site they selected. It's still in the very early stages of development, so I figure if Sommer or Beth want to share they can. Otherwise you'll all have to squint really hard to get a sneak peak

OK, so I just got this blog up and running. I still need to make some adjustments but I hope to start posting updates whenever we have them.

Since Emma started Kindergarten she's been going on field trips, making new friends, and joined the girl scouts. Gabriel has been feeling a bit cheated. So Holly saw an ad on TV for the school StarBound, and decided to take him in. We always felt Gabe was a little character so we wanted to take him somewhere he could express himself. Starbound has classes for little ones called "Little stars" where young kids can get up on stage and do some role laying, and overall just have fun.

Well after the first class Holly was approached by the director of the school. She was very impressed with Gabriel., and wanted to know if we would be willing to come back in on Saturday for an audition. Turns out they were doing a talent search in the area. Starbound is based in New York City but has an office in Toledo. The Toledo office is where Katie Holmes and Alyson Stoner were discovered. Well we went in on Saturday to give it a try. Gabriel was by far the youngest person in the room, out of about thirty people. They gave him a little line to recite up on stage ahead of time. He was so excited to be there. Before they even started he was walking around on stage singing to everyone. The director explained how it would work and who would be called up. When she asked if anyone had any questions, Gabe raised his hand and started to recite his line. Which she thought was adorable. When he got up on stage he did an amazing job on his little line. He then went on to do a walk on the catwalk, he put his hand on his hip and strutted down smiling. Later he also wanted to sing again so he did The Itsy Bitsy Spider. All without a single inhibition. Holly said she was so proud of our little guy she was about to cry.

The next Monday, Wendi (Starbound) called Holly at work. THEY LOVED HIM! She explained that Gabriel is a very special and unique little boy. She said she would have to look at hundreds of kids his age to find one like him. She said not only is he cute, but not very many children his age are so friendly, and fearless to get up in front of everyone. She then explained to Holly that every year in New York City, there is a scouting event called the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA). Where over 450, Agents, Directors, Producers and scouts come from all over the world to find their new models, talent, or actors. Several people were found at this show. It is apparently the place to go to be found. Stars like Alyson Stoner, Katie Holmes, Ashton Kucther, Eva Longoria, Elijiah Wood, and others were discovered here. You can only come by invitation from their accredited schools.

Wendi and Starbound is one of these schools. She gets calls from people all over the country to look at their kids. She can only take 15 children out of the hundreds she sees. She wants to take Gabriel! She said that she is 99% positive he would be approached by several agencies. She also doesn't make any money unless the children she takes get signed at the end of the show. So she can only take her top choices. Whom she has complete faith in. Her school has won several awards for the talent she brings. The IMTA is a week long event held in July of 2008. She wants to scholarship him to go to this show. Which means he would take the classes at her school for free. In preparation for the show in July. Holly would be going with him as part of a package set forth by the IMTA. Wendi at StarBound uses her own airline miles and hotel credits to help pay for the children she takes. She also uses money from local sponsors to go toward each child's trip. The package includes airfare, registration, auditions, hotel accommodations, photos with a New York studio, rehearsals, etc.....

This is something we are very excited about for Gabriel and he is actually really syked about it! He just thinks the whole thing is so much fun. So Holly and I have about 7 1/2 months to come up with the money we need to pay for the rest of the IMTA package. So obviously, no vacation this year! Wendi has given us a packet on how to help raise money from businesses to sponsor Gabriel. There are a few things we are going to do in an attempt to raise money for the trip. First, I'm going to speak with WTOL, and ask about a Saturday spot on the show, which could be an ongoing thing following his trip and mentioning StarBound of course. There are a few area businesses that Holly's sister knows of that could use some website services or commercials. And since Holly and I can perform these services, we could possibly get donations in exchange for our help. Wendi also suggested asking family members to help sponsor Gabriel as well. This is the point in our speech where we BEG for help! We are in fact BEGGING. We don't usually ask for things like this but it is expensive. So if there are any family members who would like to help us, we would be so very grateful for any amount of help. Please don't feel like you have to give us anything! We are simply asking. We are even willing to offer an exchange of our skills for donations from anyone. Also, if anyone has any other ideas on fundraising or would like to help do any fundraising, PLEASE let us know or feel free to give us a hand. If you have any other questions or would just like to talk about it give us a buzz. Below are the links to StarBound and The IMTA Event. We will put our address below as well if anyone would like to help us.

We are so very proud and excited for Gabriel. This is something we have talked over a lot. Thanks to everyone. We appreciate it!


StarBound
http://www.starboundnyc.com/

International Model and Talent Association
http://www.imta.com/
http://imta.com/pressVideoHigh.aspx