Actor Growth

As planned I did that music video today. They were definitely behind schedule and we waited like an hour or two before any real shooting began. It was pretty straight forward and all the guys were dressed in suits. The name of the music is something called “End of the world” or something like that by a group called “The New Royales”. Again, I’m not much of a music fanatic and so the names aren’t exactly familiar to me.

There was definitely a lot of running and for the music video in general I was in most of the last half of the video it seems. Apparently there is suppose to be some special effects added too so that will be neat to see at he end. Also, since this is technically the first music video I have been in I’m not exactly sure how one writes this on their resume or if people even care if you are pursuing acting mainly.

Not really sure when it will be up, but apparently they are going to heavily distribute it on the Internet such as a website and using YouTube.

So my friend contacted me and a bunch of other people about some music video tomorrow that needed actors to be businessmen in it. I’m personally not too into the music industry per se, but it sounded like a fun experience and so I agreed to volunteer to do it.

He mentioned that the part wasn’t huge or anything as it was mostly reaction shots. I guess it is kind of like those silent on camera parts when it comes to commercials. Let’s see what happens.

So my background agent contacted me today and I received information on what the big Asian call was for. Apparently, it is for that movie Farewell Atlantis that is being shot here. This looks like it is going to be a cattle call too and a pretty big one at that.

I talked to one person who was in the actors group today and he mentioned that he worked on it once and wouldn’t do it again. Reason being was that there was just too many people on the set which made the experience unpleasant for him.

I personally always see stuff like this as a great experience to learn more as I work towards establishing myself. Maybe I’m crazy, but I told my agent that I was willing to do the six days that were requested. The first day starts next week.

One way I find gigs usually is through good old craigslist as this is usually where a lot of independent filmmakers advertise for actors. While browsing today though, I noticed that there were quite a few postings looking for Asian/Chinese men as seen here:

That was kind of odd I thought and so I clicked to see what the posting was about. Apparently they were both from agencies looking for Asian background performers which is nothing too new I suppose. But then one posting I read was from the agency Boss management and as you can see here they specifically write “search for 180 Asian (Chinese) men between 18 – 65 yrs”.

180??? I was just thinking how an agency could add that many background extras at once. Not only that, but I guess this shows how little Chinese people there are in an overall scale that work as a performer in this industry. Even my background agent asked if I could do all the dates as well.

At this point I did say that I would be open to doing them, but I’m not exactly sure for which film this is for.

I saw a couple of advertisements recently about casting directors that are holding a workshop which costs $250 and up. Essentially, these workshops are supposed to educate actors about the industry and to get some advice on what casting directors look for and at the same time getting seen by one by attending this workshop.

I always had mixed feelings about this as in many ways it is almost like paying money for a job interview which people shouldn’t ever have to do. At the same time, I guess it can be a good way to get your face in-front of more people who have an impact on whether or not you will be considered for a role.

Never been to one myself though. My way of thinking for this is that if they haven’t seen me yet then either I am not ready or don’t have enough credibility to be in front of them yet. So in that sense it would be bad to throw myself in-front of them without having the work to back myself up.

I have been casually trying to create a website specifically for an acting portfolio as I figured it would be a great way to direct people to a place where they can see everything from my headshots to my demo reel. Another factor is that I figured it is important to try and establish the web presence early as more than likely as I get to do more work people will naturally try to find an official site to learn more about it.

So far it is coming along pretty well. One thing I am debating is how to separate the video clips. For example, should I design it more for the viewers as I’m sure they want to see more things like behind the scene footage or should I simply make it as a way to cater to say a casting director who is interested in learning more about me?

At this point I am leaning towards making it more targeted for people who work in the industry. But, who knows as maybe I’ll get some good ideas or advise.