Your materials consist of your 3 main actor tools: your headshot, your resume & your reel. So when someone asks you for your materials, that’s what they mean. We’ve talked a lot about headshots and reels already, so let’s dive more specifically into resumes today. The purpose of your resume is to tell us your experience, training & skill set. That’s it! We’re gotten to be pretty good at reading them quickly. And because of that, it’s helpful if YOU …
Workshops are just pay-to-play auditions. Ready to sing it? 🎶 Nopity nope nope 🎶 Before we dive more into today’s myth, let’s first properly define a casting director workshop: A casting director workshop is a class taught by a casting professional (casting associate & above) with the intent to teach and inform actors of varying casting perspectives. Now, you may or may not remember the 2017 lawsuit. It was big news. And there was a lot of words being floated …
Also known as “walla” and, most correctly, as group ADR: Automated Dialogue Replacement. It’s also considered one of the cushiest jobs in the biz. More on that in a bit. In TV and film, only the principal actors are mic’d; the background actors are not. This is so that sound can stay clean for each scene and the principal actors can be heard. The loop group then comes in to create the ambiance for the entire …
In the famous words of @prattprattpratt, “I didn’t have a plan B.” This might be scary to hear, but you don’t need a “back up plan.” It doesn’t have to be THIS or THAT. You can still pour your heart, soul & energy into your acting and also pour energy right into… anything else. There is no limit to the number of dreams and goals you are allowed to have. And …
Also known as a board or schedule, a DOOD is a chart used by a film or TV production to tally the number of paid days for each cast member. A lot of factors go into making these schedules. Predominantly: locations and contracted actor availabilities. Casting offices use DOODs for a variety of important reasons: · To determine whether a co-star is a day player or on a 3-day/weekly contract · To make sure that certain actor requests have been …
*sigh* mailers. What are mailers? Mailers are anything that actors mail to us or drop off in person (RIP to drop-off days though, at least for now). They come in forms of postcards, letters, flyers, cards, headshots, stacks of headshots, USB thumb drives, Blu-Rays, QR codes, hand sanitizers, headshots within a retro 90’s View-Master, Starbucks gift cards, post-it notes, bags of candy with your headshot on every wrapper… you name it. We’ve seen it all. But is it effective? And …
We thought this would be a good term to follow yesterday’s #MondayMythDebunker. What exactly does it mean to be a local hire? A local hire means that you are able able to work in the shooting location without the need for travel expenses. If you consider yourself to be a local hire, it means you are willing to: fly yourself to the shooting location, put yourself up at a hotel or other residence, and get yourself to/from set without …
We’ll just jump right in with a big, fat NOPE! Let’s start with this fun fact: In 2016, Georgia overtook California as the state location with the most feature films produced 🤯 Productions have been venturing out of LA/NY for years and it’s mostly due to the tax rebates and lower costs of shooting. The film/TV world has been surging (during the non-Covid world) in places like New Orleans, Atlanta, New Mexico, and Austin. Let’s sweeten the deal …
Double-tap if you’ve been told this at least once in your career. Is there any validity to it? Well, maybe. But let’s sprinkle some truth in there too. Nepotism might appear to be your biggest Hollywood enemy. And while it’s not necessarily encouraged, there are definitely times when “knowing someone” might have pushed you in the door or helped you book the job (hence why almost every creative will shout from all angles to network your socks off). …
Since commercials seem to be among the few survivors of production during Covid, we felt talking about buyouts could be helpful. A buyout is a flat fee/lump sum that is paid to talent in lieu of receiving residuals (residuals are those fun checks you get in the mail every time your commercial or TV episode airs). Most of the time, buyouts are used for low budget or non-union commercials since there is more leeway. For most union commercial jobs (and …