For many actors pilot season has the most opportunities they will have all year, and they start to realize it around this time of year.
They find themselves busy during pilot season and spend the rest of the year preparing for the next one.
They do it subconsciously, hoping that something else will come along before then. They even attempt to continue building their career by going to workshops, taking classes, and by filling the rest of their free time by doing some kind of networking.
While that may seem like a sound plan, there is a huge problem...
They never stop to see just how reliant they were on pilot season. Relying solely on pilot season to book enough to keep you busy all year is how many actors get stuck in their careers, even when they do have a great pilot season.
To build a successful acting career, actors must pursue opportunities relentlessly and consistently.
What happens when actors rely on pilot season to make their year is that they will end up doing little more than passing time until the next one.
They will never admit to it, because most actors don’t exactly see it that way. However, when you start to look at the things they focus on in between seasons, it becomes clear.
Professional actors don’t do that.
They don’t rely on a single event to generate enough opportunities, because a lot can happen.
Instead they focus on creating opportunities for themselves, regardless of what’s going on in the industry.
If you want to build your career as a professional actor, that is a skill you should master. Here’s where to start.
Being able to adequately and objectively measure career progress is something that most actors overlook, even though it is crucial to building an acting career.
Without being able to measure your career progress, how can you hope to plan the next steps adequately?
So if pilot season did not go as planned, figure out why it turned out that way.
What most actors do instead is keep themselves busy with whatever they can. If you had a lot of auditions available and you did not book any, do not automatically assume that it was because you were not “good enough.”
It could be that you were not reading for projects that were a good fit.
Maybe your headshot and resume presented you in a certain way that did not align with your talent. I see that happen all the time...
The truth is that there can be countless reasons for not booking something, and that is precisely why you should figure out why.
Without knowing why, how can you hope to improve and get on the right track? So, the first thing to do is take an honest, objective look at why things did not turn out the way you hoped.
You should do this at the end of every pilot season, and you can also do it after you learn the results of every audition.
That will help you come up with a career development plan that makes sense, because you can actually focus on improving the things that need improvement.
If you are reading for a particular character type that calls for an emotion range that you are not well versed in, you can either book classes, workshops, and get coaching on that or you can simply start pursuing different character types that are more aligned with your range.
Improving your skills as an actor is a never ending journey, but what makes it an effective tool for building your career is knowing what to work on.
There may also be times when not booking a project has nothing to do with your talent.
In that case, working on improving your range would be of little benefit and that is why adequately and objectively measuring your career progress is so important.
It will keep you from wasting time on the wrong things.
It could be that your headshot and resume present you in a certain way that doesn’t really align with your on set delivery.
On the other hand, if you had struggled to book enough auditions then it may be that your headshot and resume don’t align with what Casting Directors are looking for, in the characters you are hoping to read for.
What many actors do in that case is update their headshots, but before making the decision to update your materials, you have to get clear on why you are updating them, so that your new materials match your career goals.
If you are reading for the wrong character types and you update your headshot, without changing the characters you are reading for, then you haven’t really fixed the problem.
See how it all comes back to being able to figure out why you are not making the kind of progress you should be making?
Over the years I haven’t seen many actors that lacked motivation. Most of them are highly motivated and that leads them to work on building their careers constantly...
Most of them just work on the wrong things.
If pilot season did not go your way, figure out why and then come up with a plan to address the problems.
It could be something that may have never crossed your mind.
For example, most actors know that building a career requires you to be visible to the industry where they are already looking for talent. I created this to help increase your visibility casting directors and industry decision makers.
However, few actors stop and measure how the industry views them and whether or not they are even pursuing the best opportunities for their skillset.
Work with your agent and discuss the types of roles you are being submitted for and whether they truly are the right fit.
Many actors are simply hoping to book anything, and the thought of narrowing their focus is appalling.
We’ll go over why it can actually be one of the best career moves another time.
For now, think about how your career choices have affected your progress and start planning your next steps accordingly.
That will help you make the most of your efforts.
There are also some foundational things that actors can benefit from, regardless of where they are in their career.
When Casting Directors decide who to move forward with in the casting process, they are putting a lot of trust in those actors.
That’s why it is becoming increasingly more common for Casting Directors to do some research on the actors they are considering. It can affect their decision making greatly, so be sure that what they find about you lives up their expectations.
Actors that don’t understand that run the risk of having everything else aligned properly, but still struggle to make career progress because of how the industry views them.
Being highly visible to the industry is important but you also need to be sure that your industry reputation matches your goals and shows Casting Directors and industry decision makers that you are a true professional. Here’s how I can help with that.
There are a few other foundational items that we will talk about over the coming weeks.
Today we covered how to measure your career progress and decide the next steps based on that, which is crucial to getting an acting career to the next level.
It will also help you ensure that you are working on the things that can move your career forward, regardless of what is going on in the rest of the industry.
As you start to work through your progress, feel free to get in touch!
Taking an objective look at your career can be difficult so remember I’m always only a comment or an email away if you have any questions about that or even if you just need to bounce ideas.
I’m always happy to help however I can because I truly want to...
See you at the top,
Scott