This may be the worst time for it to happen...but I get it!
I always like to take the most practical approach and share with you what you need to be doing right now to advance your acting career and make it in the industry.
I like to give you the A-Z, instead of just rehashing the same stuff you’ve heard over and over again.
Lately I’ve been getting a sense about something that actors are lacking, and it actually goes beyond the A-Z processes we normally stick to.
In fact it may even be the difference maker between sending your acting career skyrocketing or admitting that it’s better off being a hobby.
It sounds harsh but if you truly want to make it as a professional actor, you can’t afford to let this time of opportunity pass you by.
Here’s why...
Actors tend to be somewhat grand in our thinking. You kind of have to be but if left unchecked it can turn into weakness that is responsible for more actors “retiring” early than probably anything else.
Stick with me for a sec...
Going from nothing to being the next big thing to hit Hollywood overnight, has crossed every actor’s mind, and every actor has had the experience of being humbled by the pace of their first few years in the industry.
It’s why most actors don’t make it past those first few years. They are a real struggle.
Those years tend to not be the most rewarding or even stimulating, since you are stuck doing extra work, one liners, or working on productions that are below your caliber.
What I’m seeing unfold right now is that way too many actors are at a crossroad.
The lack of career progress most have felt this year is hard enough to overcome, emotionally, and it’s an entirely different thing to overcome it professionally.
After all, having an extended break in the industry can be a career killer in many cases.
Over the past several months I have received a truly incalculable number of messages from actors all talking about how “everything is shut down” and “nothing is going on right now.”
That means most of them are under the impression that they are not one of those industry breaks, since everyone else is.
At the same time, I’ve heard from another group of actors, raving about how they have never made so much progress in such a short amount of time.
See, the industry is a giant organization with many, many moving pieces. Just because things were upended doesn’t mean they became chaotic.
If you have been paying attention to what the studios have been upto, you will actually see that they are operating under a highly detailed contingency plan.
Remember, the studios are massive. In fact, they are economically bigger than entire countries. They didn’t leave things to chance.
If you’ve ever worked at DisneyLand, you have seen a tiny bit of that. Ride operators must always have an operations manual at their stands. It gives them the basics of which button to push and when.
It goes even further and gives them details on how to load people into the ride, how to distribute their weight safely, etc.
It even covers things like lightning strikes on the ride, earthquakes while the ride is in operation and everything else imaginable in between.
Going back to the production side, when editing bays began limiting capacity or going remote altogether, it was part of an orchestrated plan.
Some productions have tens of millions of dollars of production costs per episode. They weren’t going to leave the completion of those episodes to chance.
Somewhat thought about what to do in a worst case scenario, a long time ago.
The same happened with casting departments and it’s why they were able to scale up so quickly and move to self taped auditions and Zoom follow up meetings.
The point I’m trying to get across isn’t about how well planned out the industry’s plans are.
It was built by high performers and if you want to succeed in the industry you have to become a high performer as well.
Only high performers succeed in the industry, precisely because of what we’re seeing happen right now.
If all you want out of your time in the industry is a few stories about going out with your castmates and about running into an A lister on set because you “accidentally” went somewhere that extra #997 wasn’t supposed to go, then it’s ok not to be a high performer.
It’s ok to treat acting as a hobby and waiting for things to come your way.
But if you want to make acting a career and become a fulltime, professional actor then you can’t do what everyone else does.
When the chaos hit earlier in the year, everyone sat on their hands as if waiting for someone to yell “action” as the signal that everything had gone back to normal.
Months and months later we’re still not back to “normal.” However, the wheels of the industry never stopped turning.
That group of actors that I mentioned earlier, did the exact opposite of the crowd. Instead of sitting and waiting, they went to work.
They looked for opportunities. What they found were opportunities that had no competition and that would have been closed to them under any other circumstances.
This group of actors are high performers, and they were looking to the future before it was even on anyone’s mind.
If you want to become a professional actor, you have to do the same and make that shift into high performance.
Take an honest look at what you’ve been up to lately and if you have been part of the group of actors waiting for things to normalize, then change things up now.
Make a list of people you could get in touch with, or get back in touch with, and do it. Touch base on a personal level and a professional level but don’t ask for anything outright.
Trust me, if there’s anything you can work on together, the outreach will be sufficient. There’s a valuable, but really long lesson on human psychology in there but we can touch on that another time.
For now, I just want to be sure that you’re making forward progress in some way. Incremental, daily progress adds up.
Somedays, you can work on your outreach. Other days you can focus on your platform and being more visible to the industry. Here’s how I can help you get the ball rolling on that.
There won’t be a single moment when someone yells “action” and productions magically resume at full capacity.
If you wait for that to happen, then you will simply wake up one day and realize that the window of opportunity has closed.
When things are back in full swing, the competition will be back as well.
Whether you are auditioning against 5 or against 50 other actors and regardless of what’s going on in the industry, it will always be built on reputation. This is the measure of an actor’s industry reputation and how I can help keep yours in shape.
There is a huge backlog and shortage of content brewing. That means accelerated production schedules, thus more opportunities for actors in a shorter amount of time.
So be sure that you are in a great position to take advantage of that massive wave opportunity. Here’s how I can help.
Also, remember that I’m always only an email or a comment away. If you’re unsure of what your next steps should be or even if you just need someone to bounce ideas with, feel free to get in touch anytime.
I’m always happy to help, because I truly want to...
See you at the top,
Scott