Actor Growth

Been awhile since I have been training at a school as there just didn’t seem to be a place that fitted my schedule. I was looking over at the old place I used to go to and it seems like the acting coach I went with before is no longer there.

I was researching a bit and found a new place to tryout. It’s on the weekends too which is perfect for the time being as there are rarely ever any audition or work calls during that time. Let’s see how this goes.

So today I went to visit the agency to have a sit down with my agent since the changes occurred. I must say, this has probably been the best sit down I have ever had with a talent agent. We briefly just talked about what to expect in the future, what my hits are when it comes to film work as well as looking for the types of roles I have been submitted for.

Actually, this is the first time an agent has openly showed me a detailed list of what shows I was submitted for and the casting directors who are responsible for bringing people in. It just makes me so much more confident about this partnership and that the opportunities will definitely be presented soon enough.

I was talking to some people the other day who always wanted to try acting but were simply too scared with the notion that they can’t stand the thought of not knowing when their next job will be. At the same time, I guess everyone has heard the starving artist stories where the majority of performers make less than a minimum wage job for the whole year.

While I don’t have enough examples of diverse acting role payments, today I got a phonecall from my BG agent as I apparently had a ton of cheques from past work that I have yet to pick up. While looking at them today I thought this just reminded me on what you have to prepare for when you are trying to pursue acting as a career. I just scanned these three cheques to demonstrate my example:

Imagine everyday you have no idea what your next gig may be. At the same time, you can’t necessarily predict how much you will earn in a month. Just take a look at those examples and how different the pay was for each production.

In my opinion, the smart way to do this is to have something you can rely on that is flexible. I’m actually surprised at how many real estate agents try to pursue acting for example as you would think every performer would be working at say a restaurant as a server.

But hey, enjoy what you do as always. If you are going to be in a self employed type of environment then you have to enjoy it I’d say. Unpredictable income just comes with the territory regardless of what field you are in until you are semi established.

Some may say that you have to starve yourself on purpose so that it pushes you to reach your goals faster. But, that’s the great thing about situations like this as there are just so many ways to do it that you need to find what way works for you the best.

Happy Canada day all. Today I made a big change and have officially switched to a new agent to handle my principle representation. This took awhile and I thought a lot about it. I felt that this was a better choice for myself in order to progress better in the acting field.

People usually say that getting an agent is one of the hardest things to do as an actor. Just from this journey thus far I would say the main issue is finding one that you will click with. The funny thing is that I may have to redo my portfolio a bit such as getting some additional headshots as we both agreed that I needed one more type of look.

I was thinking of just going back to the same photographer that did mines originally as the quality was really good. However, I thought that changing it up a bit could be a good decision as every photographer has a different style. Time to research about that I guess.

All in all, this agent appears to have the same level of enthusiasm as I do to work together and so hopefully that will equal to a great future. Never a dull moment as everything changes so fast in this business.

Okay, things have been busy for me and I guess that is a very good thing. One of my biggest highlight just the other day while working on set is that I met an actor that was also working on the same set I was. He seemed like he was being very nice to me and eventually started asking me about my background which I openly talked about.

He gave me a lot of advice in terms of his experiences in the industry and as well he has done directing before. The interesting thing was I of course asked him what projects he has been in as he definitely sounded like he has been to big places as an actor. Surprisingly he started to tell me he was on shows like 24 with reoccurring roles.

Okay, of course I immediately had a big reaction to that because as you all know I watch that show all the time. He was then telling me that he played a character named Eddie in season 2 of 24. Everything checks out. I was talking to the actor Douglas O’Keefe http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0641505/?c=1

I was kind of excited to try and learn as much from him as possible and he was nice enough to share it with me. It gets even more interesting. While talking I learned that he was trying to publish some film online but didn’t really know too much about it. During our conversations I blurted out on how I do things like web publishing to earn an income as obviously I am not at a point where my acting income can sustain my lifestyle lone.

This made him ecstatic as he was looking for a person just like me. After talking about it for a bit he asked for my number and he really wanted to meet up sometime to discuss about potentially creating projects together.

Wow, what a great opportunity I thought. I have no idea where this would lead to, but whatever direction it goes I’m sure it will be a great learning experience for my acting journey.

Okay, I am officially on the lookout for a person to create a web series of sorts with. The first question that comes to my mind is “Where to start looking?” I’m trying to think of all of my local contacts here too as obviously I would need to work with someone local.

I actually have a concept in mind that I would personally enjoy a lot as I think it would be entertaining yet educational. At the same time, I think it suits an online audience perfectly as most people will “get it” right away. Technically I think it would work out best to find another actor who is comfortable in doing a little bit of post production.

I think this would work out cool too as it is like on the side we can create our own work for fun as you never know what can happen and at the same time we can keep an eye out for auditions and such. I know I can probably just use like a free classified ad and get hundreds of response, but that isn’t exactly the best odds to find someone who would be equally serious/committed to it I think.

Hey universe, I’m calling you out. Send me someone!