Actor Growth

While I should be paying more attention to this I really haven’t for some reason.  The only reason I even thought about it recently is that in the process of researching about agencies here I read that a lot of them are holding off in looking for new talent until this issue is in the clear.

I was just reading a bit about it and from what I gather it seems like the disagreement is that the more established actors don’t see any kind of benefit from the proposed deal.  One person suggested to me that a strike would help a Canadian based actor more since there would be no US talent available.  I personally doubt a production would simply just look elsewhere though.

While I guess you can say it is slow from an overall prospective, it still seems like you can do so much though.  I guess this may even be more of a reason where hopefully the new actors group I am with might come up with our own fun film projects to work on.

So last week I sent two e-mails off to a pair of agencies I was interested in meeting.  The good thing about having your portfolio on your own site is that you can tell when someone has viewed it unlike if you sent in your package the traditional way.

Based on what I saw, both agencies looked at my portfolio and one of them replied fairly promptly and was interested in meeting me sometime next month.  They both seemed pretty good based on the feedbacks that I read.

While they say finding an agent is suppose to be one of the hardest things to do, in some ways that is true yet at the same time it feels kind of silly and shouldn’t be the case.  I say that because I see the relationship as a partnership and so in that sense it should be a mutually beneficial thing where either you match or you don’t.

After meeting the other actors yesterday I was talking to one person where we were talking about how it might be a cool idea that we film our meetings as a documentary and publish it in places such as YouTube where people can follow our careers.

When we thought about it, so many people have been able to successfully create their own shows with a large following this way which has definitely helped their careers a lot.  The only thing that could be iffy we thought was that we don’t exactly have the best equipment to film people with.

The main thing that I did like about the whole idea is that we would be pro active in making things happen for ourselves as oppose to relying on other people’s productions to get the opportunity to do some acting work.  It’s just an idea for now, so we’ll see how it goes.

I recently saw an ad from a person who was interested in setting up an acting group where people can teach each other techniques while supporting each other during their acting career.  I thought it was a great idea as with anything in life you usually need to surround yourself with like minded people in order to achieve what it is that you want.

I met with them today and in total there were about 8 people.  It was great to learn about all the different background and experiences that had thus far.  While today was just a meet and greet, next we are hoping to do some monologues or even filming.  An idea flew around too to try and find people who were interested in say script writing or camera work where we can all create our own films to get exposure and experience.

While browsing around through various audition posting sites I found this strange listing that was advertising for over 100 non union people with an age look between 16 to 22 and they dubbed it as contest of some sort.  Apparently it is for an upcoming movie called “Wild Cherry” that is something along the lines of the movie “American Pie”.

Ina nutshell, people auditioning are to tell a story about their first sex experience which can either be real or completely made up and they mentioned that the funnier the better.  The winner gets $500 and they are advertising that this is a great way for young actors to get their name out there in-front of known producers.  Sounds kind of odd huh?

I did try to read a bit about it on the IMDB site and it is indeed a movie.  The setup just seems so strange though and on top of that the person’s contact information is a Gmail address which makes me question about the validity of this a little.  I couldn’t help but to think, based on the style of the advertisement, this is like one of those ads where they advertise for “young models” yet it turns out that it is for some adult site.

But you know what?  As crazy as this sounds I still submitted my acting portfolio to the person and apparently the audition is suppose to happen this Friday in Coquitlam if they decide to call me in.  I figured even if it’s not legitimate at least I will have something interesting to write about.

One topic that seems to always come up between actors that I talk to is the comparison in trying to make it as an actor elsewhere such as Toronto, New York or California.  A lot of times when people don’t seem to be getting to where they want fast enough they assume that moving to a different city will fix all that.

For the most part I have been a Vancouver person all my life.  It’s just kind of funny when I read how so many people would envy the opportunity to be here in “Hollywood North” yet a lot of people here don’t share that sentiment.  I guess it is one of those the grass is greener on the other side mentality.

I bumped into two old film acting classmates before who both coincidentally went to New York to try and start a career.  The girl I bumped into mentioned that she was now doing theatre work there and was doing okay.  The other person mentioned that it was almost impossible for him to get seen since the competition was so huge.  Wouldn’t you know it, he came back to Vancouver and has been doing great since having starred in various TV movies and landing roles on various films.

I always felt that the opportunities are plentiful here and that it is just a matter of getting your name out there.  Especially with the fact that there are so many film schools here that people travel in great lengths to attend, it should be a pretty good place to network and build a film career.

Of course that doesn’t mean travel is not going to be necessary, but sometimes you can probably find what you are looking for right in-front of you already.