Grasshopper, I don’t need all of the fingers on one hand to count the number of times I have told this story. 

Honestly, if there were some sort of “secret sauce” that would help you make it in the industry this is probably it. 

You know that we do here at Boost My Star is pull the curtain back and reveal everything about the industry that no one else dares talk about. This time, I guess I’m pulling the curtain back on myself? 

In retrospect, it ended up being one of the most important nights of my career for many reasons, but what’s even more important is that I was not alone in that. 

It was completely crazy and I still have to pinch myself to wrap my mind around everything we were able to pull off. 

The great thing about this was that, anyone could do it. It wasn’t difficult at all and all you would need is to put in a little bit of “elbow grease” and think outside the box and in just one night, your career could literally shoot towards the moon. 

Here’s why… 

A couple friends and I had been working on a film for a long time. My schedule was packed at the time, so I mostly worked on the production side. 

If you have ever undertaken a project as big as a feature film and taken it from a simple idea, to production, you know that something strange happens when you finally wrap up post. 

Everyone kind of mentally shrugs and shouts “what now?” 

We decided to get outside of the box a little bit. What most people would do is then show the film to friends and family and ask them for critiques. 

We put that concept on steroids and asked ourselves, what we would like to have happen next. 

In a perfect world, we would like to get feedback from the actors, directors, and other industry decision makers we admire, have a big premier with press, paparazzi, a red carpet, the works! 

Our mission then became to see how close we could get to achieving that. 

So, we decided to throw a highly publicized launch party for a tiny production no one had ever heard of, involving no name actors and that no one gave 2 thoughts about at the time. 

Remember, this is LA where launch events happen all the time so it wasn’t anything special that everyone in town was just dying to go to. If anything, it made things harder because we had to fight for attention and rise above the rest of the noise. 

We set our sights high on who we wanted to invite. We invited some people that we knew would never show up, yet a couple of them actually did come by. 

Of course, we also had friends and fellow actors there too, as well as some that we hoped would come but knew that it was a very slim chance that they would actually come. 

Many of them did! 

That one night led to one of the stars of our film landing a recurring role in a hit Amazon Prime series. 

Another one of us landed a recurring role in what is quickly becoming a cult classic series and best of all, from the connections we made at the event, we were given introductions to some of the most important industry decision makers. 

To pull this off, we created the perfect combination of intrigue and combined it with exclusivity. 

Our friends got a text message invitation of course, but the people that people we never thought would come, got a special invitation. 

We shipped them out a series of 3 packages. The first package was to let them know that another package would be on its way soon and that it would have some great news and to keep an eye out for it. 

The second package, gave them a little bit more. It told them about a special project in town that had just wrapped up and that was super secretive and that only they and a handful of their peers would be receiving a 3rd package soon with the full details. 

When the 3rd package arrived, it told the recipients that the full details about the project would be revealed in a top secret private screening, and gave them the date, time, and venue info. 

We sent these out to 30 people and a handful of them showed up. Some even sent a note back saying they were sorry about not making it. 

I’m not saying you have to do this exactly. 

In fact, that’s why I don’t tell this story often. The “big idea” is not about throwing an event. It’s about thinking outside the box and considering what you can do differently. 

If you want to make it in the industry, you have to always be doing something. 

It’s a Newtonian thing. A career in motion will stay in motion, and if you are going to be doing things to propel you forward in your career, then you might as well be doing things differently than everyone else. 

This event succeeded and actually exceed what we had hoped to accomplish with it because we acted as if we were a force to be taken seriously by the industry and had some credentials to back it up. Here’s a great place for you to start with this.

Had we pulled off the event successfully, gotten the people there that we hoped would come, and then they looked us later and realized we were at 500K on IMDb, the industries marker for success and credibility, that’s where the story would end. 

There’s a screening process that always happens, but you don’t have to throw a launch party for it to happen. It happens all the time! 

The same screening process happens when you have an audition. They are judging you based on who they think you are, your credibility and your social standing.

When you meet a CD, you are attempting to cultivate a relationship and for any relationship to work it has to be a 2 way street. 

There must be something in it for the casting director, for them to pull the trigger and book you for the role. That could be, a pat on the back for finding such a great, new, rising talent. 

It could be the expectation that booking you will lead to a long term casting relationship with you (adding you to the infamous rolodex), or maybe its as simple as they like you and your industry reputation is in order so they feel ok with taking a chance on you.

So start brainstorming how you can approach your career differently. 

How can you put your career in motion so that it “stays in motion?” 

Let me know in the comments below or shoot me an email and run your ideas by me. I’m always happy to help however I can, so that I can… 

See you at the top,
Scott