Acting Auditions Tips

If your looking for acting audition tips this is a good place to start, It’ll give you a few things to consider though because of space its not totally exhaustive, so just consider this a starting point.

Acting auditions can broken down into roughly three sections, The Preparation, The Performance and The Result. We’ll look at all three which will give you enough ideas to make you a little more relaxed about the whole process.

THE PREPARATION

Preparation, as any job interview book will tell you, is essential.

Firstly, do as much research as you can, be it the character you going to play, the director, the company or even the writer. It will show thoroughness and dedication that could be the deciding factor in your favor.

Secondly, make sure you know your monologues, you should have practiced them out loud in front of a variety of people to get as any opinions as possible, if you can’t get a wide range of opinions you may find it useful to record yourself(video or audio), this gives you the chance to evaluate your own performance from a slightly different perspective.

Thirdly, know exactly where the location of the interview is, how long it takes to get there and arrive early. This allows you to relax and find some where to warm up.

You could be hanging around for a long time so take a book, some water and food or something like an ipod to keep you relaxed and occupied.

When in the audition environment it pays dividends to be nice to everyone, remember, todays rival actor could be tomorrows hot new director. This Don't be intimidated by the other actors auditioning with you, they will be just as nervous as you are. even if they appear cocky that doesn't make them a better actor than you!

THE PERFORMANCE

First impressions count, so upon entering the acting audition room be confident, positive and friendly. It may be helpful to remind yourself that these people in front of you are on your side, they actually want you to be great! Its good to be as open and personable as possible because you want the director to want to work with you personally as well as professionally and any advantage is an advantage.

Try to keep any questions you may have to a minimum, these are busy people and too many questions can seem overly ingratiating.

Your initial monologue should not really be more than two minutes long, have others prepared, these should show your range and diversity, and also have a longer monologue prepared, just in case the Director requests it.

The director may ask you to reread after direction, so good listening skills are important, at this point its better to ask questions than to assume that you know what the director wants, accepting direction also requires flexibility, so don’t stick too tightly to the same old way you’ve done the reading in the past.

THE RESULT

No article on acting audition tips would be complete without a word or two about rejection.

As you have read there are many ways that you can improve your chances of getting a role, but most actors will get turned down for most jobs most of the time. You could do all of the above and more and still be overlooked, but you should not take this as a comment on your ability. It just indicates that the casting panel thought that someone else was more suitable to that particular role at that particular time.

If you do get called back for a second audition then well done. The same basic rules apply with a few subtle tweaks that will have to wait for another article.

Thanks for taking the time to read my acting audition tips and I hope it gave you a few things to think about.

Acting Courses, What You Need To Know!

Acting courses come in various shapes, sizes and most importantly costs. How do you know which is a good one? What I have below is a list of requirements, some obvious, some not, so when you are looking for a course the more of these boxes they tick the better. Some points may not be as relevant as others, but all are, to some degree, valid and worth considering. The order is no indication of importance - thats up to you.

A good acting course will give you a thorough appreciation of the filmmaking process. This will allow you to access and develop so many vital tools. It will give you understanding of how to create a character which is rounded and believable on screen. Understanding the technical process will hopefully help develop your confidence in front of the camera, if you know what a director wants, it should be easier to give it to them. Therefor any knowledge regarding the technical aspects of filmmaking will be to your advantage.

Any acting course should have be a positive learning environment. The classroom should be a forum for ideas and criticism, where no one is afraid to open up and enthusiasm encouraged. Large class sizes are not always a bad thing they give you the opportunity to network and make a few friends too.

Look for acting courses that provide script analysis and understanding as part of the curriculum. The script is your starting point and being able to see which characters work better than others or are more believable and three-dimensional, will enable you to work more efficiently with the director or writer.

The course should also highlight the difference between stage and film scripts, being good at understanding one doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be as competent with the other.

Even a film acting course can contain information and techniques for stage acting, they are quite different, but some aspects of stage craft can prove useful in front of the camera.

All of the above training and coaching will hopefully be provided by industry veterans or experienced professionals. Most courses will provide a resume for their instructors, but if no information is provided about the people who will be coaching you then the internet can provide quick and easy access to a persons professional background.

A good acting course will be able to supply you with plenty of testimonials from previous students to help you decide if its the right one for you. Don’t be blinded by one famous alumni, better a school produces a lot of good working actors than one superstar.

If you are to get a thorough understanding of the life of an actor your course should give guidance on auditions, including such aspects as monologues, casting call requirements and even details on agents. Lets not forget that they should be realistic and give you an incite into how to survive the arduous life of an actor.

Well thanks for taking the time to read my article. Acting courses really can be useful, even for experienced actors, I hope its been helpful.

Acting Extras

Would you like to be rich and famous? Most of us would be happy with just one of these, but acting extras usually end up neither! Having said that it can be fun and also a foot in the door of the film and TV world. Here are a few things to bear in mind.

Be Aware Of The Con Tricks.

There are many scams and cons that take advantage of peoples desire to be acting extras. The most cons common usually involve very high fees to sign up to an acting extras agency. These fees can be in $100s and usually entitle you to composites or head shots that are at best pointless and at worst misleading, or the promise a series of acting classes which, if they materialize, are of no real benefit.

To avoid these traps, look for a well established reputable agency. There will be a one off registration fee $20 or $30 to pay for the initial admin. But after that they make money when you do - thats their job! They will work to find you auditions that suit your skills and physical type.If you have a specific skill or physical attribute you may get paid more. Its worth pointing out that if you have an agent and get a job yourself, without their input, you still have to pay them. If you are with an agent and they don’t get you any work at all you can move to another by giving them 30 days notice of the cancelation of the contract in writing.

Behave On Set.

As an acting extra bad on-set behavior can have a massive affect how much work you get.

Some good rules are;

Arrive early,

If you are new, watch and learn from your more experienced colleagues,

It’s worth bringing a book because you can be on set with nothing to do for hours, be patient. But when you are asked to do something do it straight away.

Treat the cast and crew with courtesy and respect,

Food is provided, but know your place in the pecking order - the bottom,

Never bother to the stars! If they initiate a conversation then reply, but you are there to do a job, you are not being paid to be a fan or to fill up your autograph book.

On set misbehavior will endanger your chances of being asked back or even sent from set there and then.

Keep Your Eyes And Ears Open.

This not only applies to taking advice from more experienced extras on set as mentioned above, but it also applies to finding work. Adverts, films and TV shows are filmed all over the country and when an outdoor scene is shot then locals can get work as extras. The adverts for these jobs can be found in the local press and though they are at the lower end of the pay-scale, they could be the start of something bigger or just a good experience.

Get A SAG Card.

There are two types of extras, those with a Screen Actors Guild card (SAG) and those without. The Screen Actors Guild was set up to improve the working condition of actors. A SAG card means you get paid more and hopefully your career develops more quickly. Every extra starts without the card then as they do more and more work their chances of getting one improve. The basic rule is the more work you get the more more likely it is you'll get the card, once you get the card the more money you get paid. Easy!

I hope that this brief article has helped. Acting as an extra can be fun, it probably won’t make you rich and famous, but you might make some good friends and have some excellent diner party stories!

Acting – Bringing a story to life

Since ancient times men and women have practised the art of acting- playing the role of a character in a story, for the entertainment of an audience. Why simply read a story when you can take part in it, playing the roles and turning it into a display of skill?

Actors have found various mediums over the centuries, from voice acting on radio, theatre acting and cinema. From the Latin word agĕre meaning “to do” (see Wikipedia), actors literally play a role, speaking written dialogue and physically performing in a way that the character would. In most acting, a director is present, whose job is to tell the other actors what to do and make sure that the whole act is going smoothly and as the writer of the scenario wanted.

Actors are required to possess many skills such as physical strength and dexterity, vocal imitation and charisma. The modern cinema industry employs thousands of actors to play the roles of characters in movie scripts, recording them for show on the silver screen. Acting in cinema is rarely done before an audience, but has the added pressure of being seen by millions on the later screen release.

Acting is a traditional art form and many actors learn by going to established academic institutions. Famous institutions include the London Academy of Film, Radio and TV and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Some actors train at a variety of different places, learning classical acting techniques and modern ones such as Method Acting. This is a style of acting in which the actor strives to be as realistic as possible, drawing on personal experience of emotional situations rather than dramatising.

The tradition of acting goes back to ancient times, with ancient Egyptians and Greeks performing either for religious purposes or more so in the case of the Greeks, for entertainment. A man named Thespis is acclaimed as being the first recognised actor way back in 560 BC, and his name inspired the term thespian as another word for actor (see New York Film Academy website). He is claimed by some to be among the first to personify a character for the purpose of story telling, using masks to discern between identities.

ACTING OPPORTUNITIES

Here are a few ideas on maximizing your any acting opportunities that might come your way, or creating the opportunities in the first place.

HAVING AN AGENT

An agent can get your face seen in places that you alone could not. This increases the likelihood of you getting work. The more swings you make the more balls you hit! But there are many acting opportunities to be found without an agent. Though nearly all Film, TV, Broadway and Off Broadway productions will exclusively use agent submissions, you can still find work without an agent. Community and Dinner Theatre, student and some Indie films will take unrepresented actors.

The more experience and skills you have the more likely it is that an agent will take you on. An agent makes money when you work, so they will be keen to sign you up if you can show what an asset you will be to them. There is nothing wrong with sending a Resume and Headshot (more on those later), but it’s essential that you send follow-up cards letting the agent know where and when you will be working, so they can see for themselves what a good actor you are.

RESUMES

Resumes help, they help in getting an agent but once you have one, your agent will use it to get you auditions. There are some rules for resumes, here are are the major ones.

Keep it to one page (8.5 x 11), if its more than one page the pages might get separated and details lost.

Make it neat. People have been known to get around the above restriction by using a small font size, its a judgement call but if the type is too small it will be hard to read.

The Headshot should be recent, but use a photograph that shows you at your absolute best.

Make sure that all your contact information is correct, its also an idea to set up an email address specifically for your acting correspondence, this may stop you deleting essential emails.

The big tip for resumes is DON’T LIE! We have all exaggerated something on an application form at some time, but you should be very careful about what you say you can do on your resume. Future opportunities could be endangered if you lie and you will look foolish if you’ve put motorcycle riding down as a skill and on your first day on set you have to admit you just to get the part.

LOCAL COMMERCIALS

The majority of acting opportunities are focused around the major cities like New York and L.A. But other opportunities crop up all over the country, some of which I mentioned in the opening paragraph. The most lucrative can be commercials for local car dealerships, restaurants and large local stores. These are usually produced by local agencies who will normally use local talent because it’s easier and cheaper than flying in someone from L.A. The director will still only hire actors with the relevant skill and look, but you can improve your opportunities if you have a diverse or “ethnically ambiguous” look, i.e. if you can pass for more than one type of race.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article, I hope that it’s given you a few ideas on maximizing your acting opportunities.I hope it helped and gave you a few ideas.