Everyone does have an opinion. Remember that when you ask for feedback on any of your marketing materials. Last week a friend of mine asked me if her reel was good and prefaced it with wanting my honest opinion because one of her friends said she’d seen her better in other roles. Here is the email I sent back to her and I thought it was valuable enough info to post it here:
“A reel is just a short piece that let’s someone know that you are a professional and what you can do. I think your reel is great and exemplifies this nicely. You’ll get called in because of that. When you start getting more material, I would either take out the first or the last piece and replace one of them with something that has a different tone cause they are similar. That’s FINE, though cause it means that is your strong suit. Your reel does what it is supposed to do.
As for your friend. Your friend may be right and may have seen something that they liked you better in (which is their opinion to have and everyone will have a different opinion). Who cares. You can’t please everyone. What matters is how YOU feel about your reel. And if you can hand it to someone without feeling like you don’t want them to see it. Also, take into consideration the source of the comment. Might this person be jealous of you cause you’re taking action? Who knows.
One thing that I would suggest when asking for feedback is to structure your questions so that you get the information that you are looking for. Instead of saying, “What do you think?’ ( Cause that leaves it way open to interpretation and you will definitely get opinions that will hurt your feelings which will disempower you), ask something like,
Does my reel feel like you could be watching scenes from a professional gig?
or What range of emotions do you see? What do you think is missing from that range?
or What do you feel is strong about my reel?
or Where do you think I could improve my reel?
Just structure them so that you only get constructive feedback that you can work with. It’s not your business if somebody likes or dislikes your work or you. That doesn’t help you take a step forward.”
Ahhhh, Research! If you’re an artist first and business person second, sometimes the hugeness of “the business” can be overwhelming. And it is: which is why you take bite sized chunks of it and work with what you’ve got. I found a link to this article (from the Financial Times) on twitter from Robin, an agent at at Lemon Lime Agency. It discusses the roles of the big Agencies in Hollywood, where they started and how they’ve had to adapt to today’s changing technological climate.
Here’s my advice and how this article can help you as an actor/ actress:
1. Know what these agencies are doing and what you would need in order to be repped by them if this is your goal.
2. Know who works there so you can recognize their names/ face in case you come across them somewhere (which is totally not a far fetched idea if you live in LA).
3. Now you have some background about them and have something to talk about when it’s appropriate to bring up this info.
I had a fun shoot and was painted blue for a short we did to help promote David Wood’s new book, “Get Paid for Who You Are“. It was a fun team to work with and that is part of what makes being an actor awesome- when you get to work with people you like. The company that shot David’s video is Elevate Films who host the Elevate Film Festival, a festival that invites filmmakers to make movies that have a message that somehow expands consciousness. Check out the video to get a great tool to add into your tool belt.
I recently became friends with Ben Whitehair, another actor in LA who shares a really cool blog for actors with lots of great information (check out his website too. It was just voted one of the best actor websites by, Casting Director, Marci Liroff). He is one of three bloggers on this blog: Playbills vs Paying Bills, which comes from the perspective of three actors, each tackling the three largest Actor cities in the US: LA, Chicago and NYC. It’s a lot of fun to follow. There are many interesting posts and topics that I could mention here, but I want to point you to Ben’s article on the uses of IMDB. He says it thoroughly, succinctly and
humorously. I’ve quoted it here for your ease, but I would encourage you to check out his blog at the links above. Go BEN!
Ahh, ye olde Internet Movie Database. If you don’t know what it is, then I’m very impressed that you’re reading this blog from a cave. In this 3-part series I will tell you what (I think) you need to know…
I love knowing how others are contributing to a project. I’ve always been ultra curious about what others do on set. I like to understand the big picture and everyone’s role in it cause then it lets me do my job better. Summer and I recently met a Storyboard Artist, Jose Guillen, a freelancer in the LA market who comes from a comic book background. I was excited to learn a bit more about his process and got him to say a few words on the difference between storyboards in each category (Commercial/ Theatrical/ Animation). When you see story boards posted at an audition, look at them. You can garner a lot of intuitive information from them as well as get the full plot. You may want to ask yourself these questions:
How detailed are the boards?
Who’s perspective is the board coming from?
What type of character am I expected to audition as based on the look of the characters in the boards? (ie. If you’re looking at stick figures you have more room to play than if you’re looking at fully colored/rendered characters with facial expressions).
Dear Actors and Actresses and all making your dreams come to life,
Summer and I have been discussing our options as performers and have realized that the opportunities right now for the actor/ actress is like no other. The magic of the web and all of the freedom that lies at our fingertips makes us giddy. We are in an age where the power is being passed to the individual. Was there ever a time/ platform in which you could (as an individual), market yourself, find like minded individuals, go global and say WHATEVER you WANTED to say without spending gazillions of dollars on a team? Nope. We are all so lucky right now and this is exactly where we come from when we’re approaching our careers. We are in an age where you can do it by yourself. Cause here it is, my friends. Define what you want and allow it to unfold. Go for your dreams. They are so in your grasp. You just have to grab what you want. It’s right here for the taking. Now, get clear, and go get your career.
I’ve been a subscriber of Bob Fraser’s news letter Show Biz How-To for a few years now and I’ve learned quite a bit from just his emails. Check out the email I received today! Thanks Bob! -Aurora
From Bob Fraser’s email:
As you know, one of my oft-repeated themes is “be nice.”
I don’t harp on this because I think you should be worried about
being’black-balled,’ or put on a list, or that toadying obsequious
brown-nosing is the way to go – I say this because
I started working on breaking down “Project 2″ and thought that it would be a good opportunity to give you a quick look at what I do to breakdown a script. Using “the Funnel” will make all your choices align. -Aurora
“The Funnel” Super Objective: What your character lives for in the most macro sense. Scene Objective: what they want in the scene that leads them directly to their Super Objective Previous Circumstances: Describe what is happening the moment before the scene. Given Circumstances: Describe what is happening in the scene, including time of day, year, pressing matters (if any), etc. Action: The actionable verb that guides all of your activities. Activities: A list of actionable verbs that are your tactics ( plug these into your script at any beat change at a minimum). This is the smallest, most micro part of your funnel.
Aurora_&_Summer