My two girls were approached by Shawnae Jebbia (Miss USA 1998, yes she did mention that!!) at The LA County Fair. They were told how cute they were and were asked to come to a 'Casting Call' for a commercial! She gave us a business card with her name and phone number on it, 310-863-8037. I called the number and there was a recording describing how they will not ask for any money and details of where to come for the casting call. You are also told there will be directors there and people from SAG, yada yad yada.
So I took five hours off work and drove 150 miles round trip. There was a line of kids there, maybe 20-30. Shawnae was there with a big smile on her face, she put a mark on our paperwork (she probably gets her commission for getting us there.) They will ask your kid to stand in front of some guy on a couch who says 'Slate' Your child is suppose to Say their name and age. He then tells you to go to another room where there is a nice guy in a chair. Your child then stands on a stage in front of a green screen and is on camera. He asks them questions and says how good they look on camera, how they could be Disney Kids and how comfortable they look up there.
About 2-3 days later you get a call for a second appearance. We had realized the scam by then ( they want 3000 dollars and call everyone) and did not go but we did get two calls from Gary Spatz Film inviting our child back. (yea sure thing) We have since found out this is nothing more than an big time scam school. We feel stupid that we got sucked into this waste of time and money but with a former Miss USA using her influence, we fell for it. Shame on her. Must not be too many real jobs for old beauty queens. lol
I have done a lot of checking on Gary Spatz and I'm glad we did not give them any money. Now that I think about it, it was obvious that they were a scam. I have talked to three agents that work with kids and they have informed me that this company is been ripping people off for a good long time. They said NO COMPANY should "work" public places hustling children to go their "tryout". This is only done by scam artists who can't make a living any other way. I'm also very suspicious of all these reviews.