Actor Growth

Alright, so I will be meeting with the final agency tomorrow. I actually already gave them everything online, but just incase I will bring a hardcopy of my material too. One thing I found a little odd is that they first requested that I prepare a scene which is normal for most agencies. However, I did mention that I have a demo reel which they mentioned that they would love to see.

Usually from my experience before if the agency sees your demo reel then there is no point in seeing the actor perform a scene live too. So in that sense it is a little strange if I still have to do a scene upon arrival. Overall, as mentioned before I already have a working relationship with them so I’m fully relaxed for this.

While going through some of my acting school footages I noticed this one footage where there were five people, including myself, as the goal was to simply improvise a scene with the only thing given to us is the type of characters we are and our relationship with each other.

Essentially, it ended up turning into like some episode of that old sitcom show “Friends”
As we just started rambling on about stuff that was kind of funny as it just kind of flowed. What I was really thinking was how where are we now in our lives in terms of our acting aspirations?

It’s interesting when I was looking at everyone’s different path and circumstances thus far. To my knowledge, one person named Chenier Hundal has done well for himself it seems as I bumped into him not too long ago. He told me how after completing the acting program he went to places like New York to train but found that it was way too hard to get seen. After coming back to Vancouver, everything seemed to fall into place.
Awhile ago I saw him on an infomercial for that Proactive product too and I was like “What? That guy never had an acne problem to my knowledge”.

One of the girls in the scene was named Lara Yanik and she actually never completed the program due to financial difficulties which was unfortunate. Imagine say getting trained in anything for like a year program where after 6 months you just had to stop. Kind of a waste too to not be able to finish it off. True factoid, I thought she would have been the perfect scene partner for the next assignment we were given which unfortunately was not doable as a result. I’m not sure if she is still into acting as I never bumped into her since.

The other girl in the scene was a person named Janice Amano. I’m not sure what it was but she recognized me a few years back and unfortunately I didn’t recognize her immediately. After when it clicked I asked what she was up to and apparently she has moved to New York and was training in theatre and was heavily involved in it.

Lastly, there was this other guy named Jason Cerenzie who I guess I talked to the most out of this group of people during that time. Actually, he is in my demo reel for one of the scenes that I still use. He seems to be on a different path in life as he is still trying to figure out what he wanted to do exactly based on the last time we spoke. At the same time, he thought that waiting wasn’t a bad idea as he will develop a more “mature look” by then.

So that leaves me and where I’m at. Let’s see, after one huge setback since completing the program, I just started last year to seriously get into the mold and make things happen. In general, I got an agent fairly quickly, found and acted in about six different independent short films, participated in a mini film festival event for the first time ever while meeting great people and had about four professional auditions with one callback.

The main setback right now is the issue in trying to find a more ideal agent that I will click better with to further enhance my direction. This sure shows that there are so many ways to get to your goals too and what doesn’t work for one person could work for another. Actually I think I am probably the only one who is publicly documenting my journey thus far too. This can either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what type of circumstances will happen.

I was twiddling around with my demo reel recently and while I pretty much know which footages I am going to use, I am going to try a little different strategy in terms of the presentation. Some points I have read before about an acting demo reel is that the casting director will possibly not watch the whole thing if you don’t grab their attention.

With that thought, before I usually just began with it jumping right into a scene. However, this time what I am doing is that for the first 15 seconds or so I am beginning with a quick montage clip that shows various clips and acting range as a way to grab a person’s attention. That way my thought is there is going to be at least one thing there that is going to grab your curiosity to want to see all the acting clips.

In many ways it is kind of like the notion of a movie trailer I guess without being over the top. Afterwards, at the end of the reel again I am going to have another small montage clip. Example, this will be more action/reaction shots as many times I was told you should just use “acting” parts in the main footage area. These will be mainly to show look/technical skills. Similarly, the goal is hopefully you will see one thing there that would inspire one to inquire more and at the same time I will embed my contact information (or the agent’s once I figure who I am using) so that the viewer knows immediately how to contact me.

Everything so far is under three minutes too which should be great length wise. I’m glad that I have some skills in this area too as I can imagine how expensive it can be to continually pay someone to do this.

I must be on an educational spree this week as I found myself watching another video today about a casting directors talking about actors and what works and doesn’t in their view. For this one, the topic of Internet came up and realistically if posting your work online has any merit in terms of attracting real producers or casting directors.

There was an interesting comment as one person said that some producers definitely seek out for items that are hot and an example of this would be Youtube and videos that get tons of views. Basically, if a video garners say 100,000 views then it is something they are going to seriously look into as obviously it has to be hot for some reason.

So from an actor point of view, that should give you an idea where if you decide to say produce your own mini videos that should give you more reasons to do a good job and try to get as much exposure to your digital work as possible. Another good point too was that the medium is only as good as how you take advantage of it. Example, if you are an actor and all you post up are things such as you being crazy at a party that could do more harm for your career than good.

I think this would be the type of thing that would be good to strategize a bit with your agent too to make sure that you are both marketing yourself in a direction that is best for you.

I got an e-mail today and it looks like this will be my final visit with an agency for principal representation where I can then finally decide and go with a new representation. It’s already like mid February too. Where did the time go?

This visit should be a little unique as I actually already have a working relationship with this one as they represent me for my background work. Funny thing is I actually never met the main agent in-person but rather just the person that recruited me initially.

Guess this will be the most fun and relaxed meeting out of all of them thus far.

I was watching this video interview from a casting director where she was talking about basic items such as how she got into the business as well as how she goes about looking for talent. One of the most interesting lines was how she mentioned that in most cases she did not look for novices or people who were not serious about their craft.

As a result, she mentioned that she looks for the people that are right in her hometown of LA as that is where the action is and is where she can find the serious people. Basically, in her mind the people who are serious about acting too will move to LA to build their career.

That was indeed interesting I thought as people often do say that once you go to LA the film credits that one has gotten here in Vancouver won’t mean much. For myself, I don’t even know anyone personally that lives in LA which would make it really tough if I decided to make the move. Although, I do know some people who are going to try that soon and it will be interesting to see how they do.