Brian's Blog Archives - Page 13 of 24

Getting your first paid acting job can seem impossible when you’re new to the industry, but remember, every successful actor was once in exactly the same position as you.

Learning how to be a great actor is, of course, the first thing you need to do if you want to break into the industry, but there are lots of other things you can do to increase your chances of getting that first break.

Understanding what agents, casting directors and other gatekeeper of the profession are looking for is vital. It allows you to present yourself as a professional actor. Master the following and it’s only a matter of application, perseverance and time before you get your first professional acting job.

Headshots

Acting is a profession where how you look matters. This isn’t to say you need to be beautiful to be an actor, but the way you look will strongly influence the types of acting jobs you are offered. Head shots are usually the first thing a casting director will look at when deciding whether they might potentially use you for a role.

Without a set of professional quality head shots you are unlikely to even be considered for acting job. The key thing is to make sure the head shots are taken by an experienced professional and that they actually look like you! It’s no good using photos from 10 years ago or that are heavily photoshopped. Even if you do get an audition you won’t get the part if you don’t look like the person the casting director thought they were meeting!

Your Acting Resume / CV

An actor’s resume CV isn’t quite like a regular CV. It’s all about highlighting your acting experience relevant to the role you are applying for, not just listing your most recent jobs.

As a newbie to the industry, you obviously won’t have any professional credits yet, but you should hopefully have plenty of experience to talk about. Writing a great actor’s CV with a list of the roles you’ve played in drama school and the acting training you’ve undertaken can help prove you are serious about acting and have the skills to be worth auditioning.

Show Reels

A show reel is a professional actor’s ultimate weapon as it leaves nothing to a casting director’s imagination. It shows them exactly what you can do, so they can see straight away that they are dealing with a real actor who is worth their time.

Your show reel needs to be a high quality recording that demonstrates the true range of your acting abilities. Knowing what to put in an acting show reel can be tricky which is why it’s important to get professional advice wherever possible.

Many people making their first steps into the professional acting world won’t have a show reel yet, so if you can put one together it can be a big advantage. This is one of the reasons we include a high quality show reel as part of our Ultimate Acting Programme as it gives our students yet another head start over the competition!

Finding an agent

Hollywood legend Bill Murray famously doesn’t have an agent, but that’s because he spent years getting to a place where he is so in demand, he can get away with it. For the rest of us, and especially people new to the profession, having an agent does two vital things.

First, assuming you’ve found a good agent, they will know the game inside and out and be able to guide you to success much more easily and effectively that you could yourself. They will be able to get you into auditions and connect you with people you otherwise would never have had access to, making it much quicker for you to start getting auditions.

Second, having an agent shows you’ve already convinced an industry player that you have the necessary skills to make it. This in turn makes you more attractive to other people in the business and makes you seem like less of a risk.

Self-promotion

Even if you have an agent, understand that you will still need to be an expert at self-promotion to succeed in this business. These days, you can do a lot of the hard work from the comfort of your own home by maximising your online presence.

Make yourself a website using a popular, easy-to-use platform such as WordPress and get your head shots, CV and show reel up there. This gives you something to link people to online where they can quickly see what you have to offer. A professional-looking website is also increasingly seen as a sign that you are serious about your chosen career.

Once you have your site, make sure to promote it on social media and use it as a point of reference when contacting agents, casting directors and other people you want to work with.

Networking

Promoting yourself online is important, but you definitely shouldn’t overlook connecting with people face-to-face. The old adage “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is still around for a reason – there is some truth to it.

Of course, the reality is that it’s both what you know and who you know, as all the contacts in the world won’t get you acting jobs if you can’t actually act. But assuming you already have the skills, it’s a good idea to know the right people and make sure they’re aware of what you can do and the kind of work your looking for.

Learning how to network as an actor takes time. Make sure you start going to the right kinds of events, including local theatre festivals, launch nights and actors’ groups and you can soon start to make useful connections. Remember, other actors aren’t always rivals, they can be useful contacts who can pass on opportunities and put in a good word for you.

Ace Your Auditions

There are so many tips and tricks about how to ace an audition out there it can be overwhelming. This is why audition technique is a key part of our professional development package. It’s not just about what to do once you get in front of an audition panel though, you also need to know which kinds of auditions to go for.

When putting yourself out there, you have to understand where you fit. Be realistic about the kind of roles people are actually likely to cast you in and don’t expect to be playing the lead in a West End show straight out of the gate. Apply for roles that suit your age, look and level of experience and you’ll make it much more likely to get that first job you can begin to build on.

Dealing with rejection

There’s no getting away from it – being an actor means learning to deal with a lot of rejection. Remember, even really successful actors often spend significantly more time auditioning than they actually do acting.

You need to be prepared to accept rejection calmly and professionally and always remember to thank people for the opportunity. Throw a tantrum or try to argue your case after a casting director has already made their decision and they’re likely to remember you for all the wrong reasons. If you want that casting director to give you another shot in future auditions, make sure you leave them thinking of you as a polite professional.

Professionalism

Giving off a professional impression needs to be on your mind at all times when looking for work. This covers everything, from making sure your head shots, CV and show reel look the part, to your conduct at every stage of the audition process.

Pay attention to the basics, like turning up on time, learning your lines, looking appropriate for the role and knowing people’s names and that will speak volumes. People want to know that you will act like a professional if they give you the job, so don’t underestimate the importance of making the right impression from the beginning.

Learn how to become a professional actor in 1 year

There are two things you need to be a professional acting – the ability to act to a high standard and the business knowhow to take those skills into the industry and get work. On our 1-Year Ultimate Acting Programme we teach you both sets of skills, meaning you won’t just know how to act like a pro, you’ll also know how to find and win the acting jobs you need to turn your dream into a reality.

Our programme also includes a career development support package that will set you up with everything you need to start winning roles, including head shots, an actor’s CV and a professional quality show reel.

The 2016-17 Ultimate Acting Programme starts in October and the deadline for applications is 8th June for auctions on 15th June. To find out more please take a look around the rest of the site or feel free to get in touch.

If you want to be a great actor you need commitment. Sounds simple, right? But what does it actually mean? For most truly great actors, commitment is about really immersing yourself in a role, finding a way to stop “acting” and start giving the audience something real. That means not having to pretend to feel the emotions required by the script, but actually being able to feel them on demand.

This is the goal of method acting.

Method actors often go to extreme lengths to find the right headspace for their characters. They will put themselves through the same experiences their character goes through so that they don’t have to pretend to know how their character feels – they will have lived it. This sort of commitment to character is what separates so many elite actors from the rest, which is why it’s not surprising that over 80% of Oscar-winning actors this century have been method actors.

The following are just some of the most famous examples of actors going the extra mile to really inhabit their characters. If you want to up your acting game and kick-start a professional acting career, you could do a lot worse than following their example.

Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2

Mickey Rourke’s performance as tragic villain Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2 is one of the most memorable things about the film – not a bad achievement when starring opposite the ever charismatic Robert Downey Jr.

Rourke’s character starts the film having spent years in a Russian prison, so what did the actor do to prepare? He went to Russian and spent time in a prison himself. Now, an actor of Mickey Rourke’s standing does not need to spend time in a Russian prison in order to get roles. The reason he does it so he doesn’t have to pretend, he doesn’t have to use his imagination, he’s “been there and done that”.

Natalie Portman – Black Swan

Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Black Swan playing an elite ballet dancer who slowly loses her grip on reality. Portman prepared for the role with over a year of ballet training, including spending 6 months training 5 hours a day, six days a week.

As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:

You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.

As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.

Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver

Robert De Niro has had many memorable roles over the years, but one of the first that helped to cement him as Hollywood royalty was 1976’s Taxi Driver. For his role as the eponymous taxi driver, Travis Bickle, De Niro prepared by working 12-hour shifts as an actual cab driver in New York.

This is just one example of the lengths De Niro has gone to over the years for his craft – a level of commitment that has earned his 2 Academy Awards and a further 5 nominations. Robert De Niro’s ability to truly become his characters is why he is one of the most successful actors working today with his most recent Oscar nomination coming in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook.

Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.

Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry

How many people can say they’ve put in two Oscar-winning performances by the time they turned 30? Hilary Swank is one, having won the Best Actress Oscar for both 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.

Although her preparation for Million Dollar Baby was gruelling, it was the work she did as the transgender Brandon Teena in Boy Don’t Cry that really made people sit up and pay attention. In preparation for the role Swank spent months going out disguised as a man to get as close as she possibly good to experiencing what it’s like to enter the world as a transgender person.

Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:

It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.

Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans

Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best known method actors of our time and with good reason – he really knows how to commit to a role. The tales of the extremes he goes to in preparing for a part are legendary, but perhaps most amazing is how we went about getting into character for Last of the Mohicans.

Day-Lewis spent 6 months living alone in the wilderness in Alabama tracking, hunting and skinning animals for food. Supposedly the actor was so committed he refused to eat anything he hadn’t killed himself as he didn’t want to undermine the authenticity of his preparation.

This dedication to character has earned Daniel Day-Lewis the Academy Award for Best Actor 3 times, a feat no other actor has yet achieved. With his first Oscar coming for 1989’s My Left Foot and the most recent for 2012’s Lincoln, Day-Lewis is another actor who proves that method acting provides a formula for long-term acting success.

Want to know how to achieve real acting commitment? Our One Year Ultimate Acting Programme will teach you the attitude and skills you need. The course starts in October and the deadline for applications is 8th June with auctions taking place on 15th June. There are only 16 places available, so don’t delay as we are always inundated with applications each year. Need to find out more? Please feel free to get in touch.

This is the goal of method acting.

Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2

Natalie Portman – Black Swan

As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:

You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.

As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.

Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver

Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.

Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry

Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:

It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.

Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans

This is the goal of method acting.

Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2

Natalie Portman – Black Swan

As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:

You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.

As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.

Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver

Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.

Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry

Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:

It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.

Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans

This is the goal of method acting.

Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2

Natalie Portman – Black Swan

As well as getting her into the right physical shape for the role, Portman said:

You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.

As noted, Portman’s commitment paid off and she was rewarded with an Oscar for her efforts, earning herself a renewed respect both within the industry and with the public for her acting abilities.

Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver

Anyone who’s still getting that kind of recognition 38 years after their first Oscar win has to be doing something right! And this is the kind of consistency you can achieve with method acting.

Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry

Swank cut her hair, bound her breasts and stuffed her underwear with socks to create the illusion, saying:

It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate.

Daniel Day-Lewis – Last of the Mohicans

Whether you have an upcoming acting job or a pending audition, you need to be prepared, and part of that preparation should be constructing your own acting ‘process’. A process will ensure you can perform at your highest level every time, and bring the same skill to each role you take on. With over 80% of ‘Best Actor’ Academy Awards being won by method actors in the last decade, it is certainly worth considering making use of a few method acting techniques when it comes to creating your process.

Inspired by the work of Stanislavsky in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, method acting is one of the most talked about group of acting techniques. Championing naturalism, and helping performers create realistic characters by truly connecting with them, it is used by actors many of the worlds leading actors.

The Basic Elements

So you’ve just received a new script, and need to know how to really perform this character to the best of your ability. The basic elements of your acting process could be as follows:

1. Analyse the role

Go through the script thoroughly and fill in all the gaps on your character for a clear picture
Define the character’s goals and objectives

2. Prepare psychologically and emotionally

Make a connection with your character and try to imagine yourself in their situation, and react as they would to it (method acting techniques are helpful here)
Find a way to identify with your character

3. Work out their movements and gestures

Decide how your character would move and express themselves
This may come naturally if you have delved deep enough into the psyche of your character

4. Decide on vocal characteristics

The vocal characteristics of your character may already be hinted at by the script (e.g. regional accent)
You should always try to allow a natural voice to form, and get feedback from others on the project

When it comes to an acting process, arguably one of the most important aspects is getting a deep understanding of your character, which is where method acting comes into its own. Mastering a few core techniques can really come in handy.

Using Method Acting to Your Advantage

You don’t have to be a ‘method actor’ to benefit from its practices, and while it might be worth researching further if you think it could work for you, you can get a taste of it by trying out some of its key techniques.

1. The ‘Magic if’

The ‘Magic if‘ was one of Stanislavsky’s key ideas, and it is simple enough to understand. You must imagine yourself as your character, in so far as you’ve had their upbringing, and find yourself in their circumstances. You can then ask yourself a question unrelated to the story-line, such as ‘what I do if that man started arguing with me‘, and work out your character’s true and most likely reaction to such a situation. It will help you unlock things about your character that you never could know if you stuck exclusively to what is written in the script.

2. Affective Memory

Affective memory is a widely known and used technique, and in basic terms is the act of using your own experiences to bring humanity and truth to the pain and suffering of your character. You parallel your own life with the character arc of the role you are playing. Take time to sit and reflect on your past experiences and try to find a few that will work in the context of the story. Remember the sensory elements of the experience: how things looked, the smells, the sounds and the tastes. Relating your real memories to the role will allow for a genuine response to be triggered, creating a more natural performance. There is a risk with this technique however, as it may unearth painful or traumatic memories. As a result it is recommended that you try it for the first time in a professional method acting course.

3. Sense Memory

Sense Memory is all about creating an effective and believable emotional recall in performance. In other words, giving an authentic response to imagined events in the story, such as the death of your character’s mother. This is achieved by unlocking your own sense memory, and using it to your advantage when it comes to the performance. Say for example you are playing a mourner at a funeral. Think about the memories you may have from a similar situation, and try to remember what your five senses experienced. Could you hear a strange sounding bird, for example? Or did you sit down on something uncomfortable? Focusing on a specific sense memory can help to trigger responses and help you give a much more authentic portrayal. After training yourself to work this way, it should become a lot easier and natural for you to use the technique for ongoing work.

Crafting your process carefully is important, and method acting can help you to truly realise your potential as an actor. To find out more check out my book, The Ultimate Guide to Method Acting – You could also sign up to my FREE 7 day email and video acting course.

Confidence is hugely important for an actor. You need to have a lot of self-belief if you’re going to put yourself out there and find work, but even more fundamentally you need it when acting if you are going to convince others with your performance.

While it’s certainly true that some people seem more naturally confident than others, it’s not just down to a mix of genetics and having the right upbringing! Whoever you are, no matter how naturally confident you feel, you can learn to believe in yourself as an actor if you take the right steps.

Know your stuff

People often say you have to “fake it ‘til you make it”, but wouldn’t you rather not have to fake it? This is very much the philosophy behind method acting – we don’t want you to fake anything, we want you to learn how to unlock your potential and harness what’s already inside you to create something real.

This is how you increase your confidence as an actor too. The goal is not to learn how to mimic what you imagine confidence looks like! We want you to put the work in to gain the skills and experience so you will feel genuinely confident in your abilities. After all, if you know you’ve got the chops, why wouldn’t you feel confident about it?

Faking confidence (if you can pull it off) might well open a lot of doors for you, but when you’re up on stage or in front of a camera, if that confidence isn’t based on something real, it will soon show. Being exposed for a fraud won’t do anything for your long term confidence, so make sure you really know what you’re doing and your confidence will continue to grow with each success.

Be prepared

There’s a reason the Scouts have “be prepared” as their motto. They believe that if you always know “the right thing to do at the right moment” you will be able to cope with any situation. This is the root of confidence – believing you can handle any situation you find yourself in. So how do you do that as an actor?

Preparing for an audition or performance includes the obvious things, like learning your lines, researching your role and looking the part, but there’s more to it than that. Method acting means learning how to produce genuine emotion on demand, so that whatever feelings you are required to portray as an actor, you know you can call them up when needed.

Having a repeatable process for doing this means you can deliver the goods every time and you’re not leaving anything to chance. Method acting training teaches you how to develop that repeatable process so you can always be prepared for whatever is required of you as an actor.

Get experience

All the training in the world will…help you a lot, actually! But it’s also important to get out there and get experience. Building confidence means having the courage to go outside your comfort zone and show yourself that you can not only survive out there, but thrive.

For an actor, this means getting out there and actually acting in front of people over and over until it no longer seems so scary. However nervous you might be before a performance, getting through it and to the applause at the end is guaranteed to help build your acting confidence.

Whether you have to start small in local theatre productions or amateur short films or are lucky enough to get professional work right away it all helps. Putting yourself out there and doing it, succeeding and then doing it again is the way to build genuine self-belief that will help propel you to each next step in your career.

Learn from the best

Copy successful people and you’ll have the confidence of knowing that what you’re doing works. After all, if something works for Robert De Niro or Christian Bale, why wouldn’t it work for you? Knowing you are using a winning formula is one of the surest ways to boost your self-confidence as an actor. And what is that winning formula? Why, method acting, of course!

80% of Oscar winning actors this century have been method actors, which really ought to tell you something. And if they can do it, so can you! These Academy Award winners have provided a blueprint for acting success that you can learn to emulate. Do that and you’ll be absolutely justified in believing you have the necessary skills to give a great performance. And once you know that, then guess what? Everyone else will be able to see it too!

Gaining confidence in yourself and your acting abilities certainly isn’t an overnight job, but with the right help and the willingness to learn and apply yourself you can become as confident as anyone.

Looking for a way to really build acting confidence? Why not apply for our 2016-17 Ultimate Acting Programme starting in October? The deadline for applications is 8th June and auctions are taking place on 15th June. Need to know more? Please feel free to get in touch with your questions.

In this episode, Brian and Joe sit down to chat about honing your rehearsal skills, with tips and guidance based on their own personal experiences – from the first read of a new script, to the read-through with the cast, through to the rehearsals – to make sure you rehearse like a pro.

11 things you will learn about:
• The script: What to look for when you first read it through
• Understanding your character’s journey
• Get scribbling: The importance of making notes on the script
• Gut reaction – Why that first script read is so important
• Lessons from the Greats: How De Niro and Hopkins do it
• The read-through – Why you shouldn’t over-prepare
• Permission to develop: Taking your hands off the flight controls
• Explore, Investigate, Create: Bringing a little flavour
• The impact of the “hidden culture” in a cast
• The rehearsal: Adding subtlety and colour – Layers
• The next level: Method Acting and sensorial improvisation