Actor Growth

I was talking to my new agent recently about possibly taking another one of those casting workshops except this time around it was conducted by a different person. Interestingly enough, he suggested that it would probably be a better investment at this point to find an acting coach of sort as casting directors generally like to see that people are constantly working on their craft. Hence, they have more confident to call you in for roles.

In many ways that makes sense too. As I mentioned before, this industry attracts a lot of fly by people and so you need things like that to show that you are not one of them. Like a lot of performers too though, I have that little reserve where it doesn’t make sense to keep spending money for training until you land bigger things to justify the investment.

In terms of training we aren’t talking about getting together with a bunch of actors either. We are talking about spending money with well known coaches that could range from about $50 to $80 an hour. As you all too, in many cases it is about luck and meeting the right people as oppose to being the most skilled.

With that, I try to do a balance. Mostly though, I treat acting like a regular job resume too. Example, like a regular job an employer could see real world experience just as equal to someone who spent years in school. From my understanding, a casting director can see it the same way where the education can make up for the lack of experience and vice versa.

My path right now is to keep doing things like independent films and at the same time train with people if they are offering a program that seems reasonable. I wouldn’t just spend thousands of dollars in a blind way though hoping that it will be the key to getting the bigger opportunities.

As you may all know, I recently signed on with a different agent for my principal representation. On a personal level, I didn’t really have an issue with them as they seemed to be very nice and open. However, from a business side I just felt that I needed to be with a different agency that could better guide and push me towards my goals.

So as of today, I sent them a good bye letter of sort and mentioned how it was tough decision for me. They were actually fully understanding too and wished me the best which was great. I was just thinking too how “firing an agent” isn’t fun at all when you get along with people on a personal level.

As you may expect, I am represented by a different agency now. Business wise I feel really confident that it was the right thing to do and have gotten some good input and direction so far. Now I can just focus on the acting and audition parts of the field now.

Interesting experience I had today. Not too long ago I attended that workshop where the casting director mentioned how they could care less which agent you are with. While that may be true from their end in calling you in, as I discovered from an actor’s point of view that sure is not the case.

Basically, having an agent who is knowledgeable about the industry can be crucial as they can provide you with advice and direction on what you need to do to make things happen for your career. Example, they can tell you who to train with, where you should advertise yourself and give you input about your portfolio.

Essentially, you want someone that will guide and help push your career as oppose to just submitting you for roles. I remember with my first agent all he did really was act as the middle person and a result I was basically on my own for the most part.

The agent and actor relationship shouldn’t be like that I’d say as it should be more like a partnership. So no, from an actor’s point of view just signing up with any agent isn’t going to be the same in terms of helping your career.

So recently I made a deal with a local photographer where I exchanged some web services for him in exchange for his photography services. It was a pretty good barter too as both of what we wanted were fairly easy for each other where normally we would have to pay hundreds of dollars for someone else to do.

As a result, I am currently trying to decide the type of look that I should try to get for these photos as I currently still want to use the shots that I currently have too. So far, I think the main thing I need extra of are more casual looks.

At the same time, I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some good photos to use for my website as well. There is usually a difference between a good headshot for acting purposes and general use though. Hoping I can decide by the end of the week.

Not too long ago I saw that new martial arts movie called Ip Man that starred an actor called Donnie Yen. He is pretty well known as a martial arts star in the East such as Hong Kong. While reading more about the movie since I thought it was very well done production wise and acting, I was reading some online postings from fans wondering why a person like this hasn’t received more attention in Hollywood for the North America crowd to see him.

Apparently he has but apparently he was only being offered roles that he didn’t really think was suitable for him. Therefore, for the most part he has stayed within the Asia film market. Some fans were even saying how it’s better that way as Hollywood would probably destroy the image that he has now and that he doesn’t really need it.

That is kind of interesting as usually most people say LA or Hollywood is the only way to get anywhere if you are serious about an acting career. In many ways it does make sense to just focus becoming established locally though. If you think about it, people will come knocking at your door from all places once you become established enough.

This was such an interesting take when it comes to acting out what you read on the script I thought. During the workshop one of the coaches mentioned that many times when you read a script there are a lot of actions in it. Example, saying that the character is happy, sad, breathing heavily, etc.

She then used an example on how many times you have to ignore those and simply just do it based on what you think the character would do as the direction makes no literal sense. The example she gave was reading a script where the direction is something along the lines of “His heart begins to beat heavily and pounds his chest”. She was like “How the heck are you suppose to act that?”

It was kind of funny too I thought as that is correct if you think about it from a literal sense. But basically, that is an example of how when you read those types of actions on a script you should think of it more as a guidance as oppose to thinking that you must follow it. She labeled that as the moments where writer’s think that they are actors. Wonder if any writer’s would take offense to that.