The Walsh Effect

So, it started just like any other day off. I was wandering the streets of NYC and wound up in Central Park. It was a beautiful day and tons of people were coming and going in every direction. That’s one of the greatest things about the city: the energy (cliché but true). 

To preface this story, I want to first state that I’m a big believer in synchronicity. I believe I found myself in exactly the place I was supposed to be at exactly the time I was supposed to be there. Trusting in synchronicity means that I also trust my gut instincts without question, almost always. 

So when I walked by what would, to every “normal person” in the world, seem like a private conversation, I trusted my gut when I felt I needed to lend an inconspicuous ear. 

Call me crazy (I may not disagree with you LOL)! 

I took a seat next to that young couple and innocently eavesdropped on something that changed my worldview. After listening to her boyfriend complain about not being cast in yet another production, this wise young lady snapped and said

“Enough already! You’ve been doing the same thing for 3 years. Make your own damn movie!” 

Truer words have never been spoken. 

I sat for a couple more minutes as I heard him actually be encouraged by the thought of doing it. Apparently, he had an idea he’d been “working on” but never really put much action into. 

This guy’s demeanor changed completely! He went from down and out to bursting at the seams with excitement. More on this in a bit. 

See, this is one of the reasons that I trust in synchronicity. Unknowingly, I too was inspired by this random exchange at the park. As I strolled through the park, I was complaining to myself about hitting a plateau in my own career and not being able to get past it. 

Putting my own ideas into action, is how I discovered The Walsh Effect. Really I re-discovered it, but that’s a story for another time. 

If you’re reading this, you can get started with The Walsh Effect right away and you will find yourself in good company. It’s been used by people at the very top of our industry like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Uma Thurman, Molly Ringwald, Russel Crowe, George Clooney, the list goes on and on and on. 

Most of them have used The Walsh Effect several times, hitting new career highs each time. 

It’s pretty a simple concept. 

I’ll explain… 

So, if you’ve been around Boost My Star for any length of time, you probably know that I’m huge fan of Entourage. Personally, I think Ari Gold (yes the character) deserves his own star on the walk of fame. 

Through much of the series, the main character Vincent Chase works on films with an up and coming director: Billy Walsh. Enter The Walsh Effect 

At the time the character was introduced, Vincent needed to find a project to get back in the game after a really long break. He ended up working on a small budget film with Billy Walsh. In the end the relationship allowed both of them to hit new strides and get their careers on track. 

When you study the industry, you can see The Walsh Effect being put into practice all the time, in a couple different ways! It can be an actor that hitches his wagon to the rising star of a director, a director that forms a creative partnership with a rising actor, and it can even happen in behind the scenes roles. Think Steven Spielberg and John Williams, who spent over 30 years scoring Spielberg’s films. 

By leveraging The Walsh Effect, you can unlock a treasure trove of new opportunities. 

Here’s how you do it… 

Find your own Billy Walsh. See, most of us are waiting to be discovered and that’s precisely why getting ahead in the industry seems so hard at times. There is an epidemic in the industry that no one talks about. 

A giant case of the “if only” syndrome has been going around for decades! If only I could get my reel in front X person. If only I could audition for the CD instead of a delegate. If only I could get a better agent… 

It all stems from a feeling of a disempowerment that leads us to believe that our careers are in the hands of others. As if all we could do is wait for “them” to come looking for us. 

When you leverage The Walsh Effect, you flip the script. Go look for your own Billy Walsh and I guarantee that you will find someone. So many actors see the heads of production, even of small productions, as holding the keys to the kingdom. Not so! 

They need you as badly as you need them. 

As a member of the tribe, the key to doing this has been in your possession all along… 

IMDb! 

See, almost no one uses this incredible tool properly. 

IMDb is the largest database of like minded people that are working toward the same goal as you are, that you will ever find. Use it to your advantage. 

The members of our tribe that have the best rankings are finding that things are much easier for them in an audition setting. They have found that their level of credibility and professionalism is a nonissue in a casting decision. It can open doors for you that you never even knew existed. 

That’s half of the equation. When you employ the other half of the equation it’s like an entirely different universe. 

The goal is to find someone to collaborate with. See, in any industry, it takes a team to get to the top. Think sports: Tom Brady is nothing without Gronkowski. In music: Justin Timberlake was stuck until he found Timbaland. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are among the most awarded actor-director duos of all time. 

You can do this one of two ways. You can sign up for an IMDb Pro account, if you don’t already have one. They usually even have a free trial which might suffice for what you are going to accomplish. With the IMDb Pro account, you will have access to the contact information for almost anyone in the industry. 

In under 60 seconds, I was able to get the direct number and email for an Oscar winning director’s Manager. Side note: remember the demonstration of Power Pack? Here’s your chance! 

Think about it. Why do you have your information or your agent’s information listed in IMDb? For the exposure and opportunities, right? So when you reach out to a director that you genuinely admire it’s not weird or out of the norm. It’s what they are hoping for too. 

The other way to do it is to compile a list of people you want to reach out to, using the free IMDb search and do it via social media. This might take a bit longer to do but you should still get to the same destination. 

Here’s what you need to do now. 

Compile a list of 10-20 productions that you would have liked to work on. Don’t aim for the moon just yet, think of smaller productions. 

Next find the director and their contact information, either from IMDb, personal websites, or social media. 

Finally reach out to them and strike up a conversation. People love talking about themselves and you should only be reaching out about productions you genuinely admired. If you want a more tactical approach for how to reach out, spend some time surfing the blog archives. I’ve put out tons of content about this subject. 

Not everyone you contact will respond and not everyone who responds will be interested in having a conversation. That’s ok. You want to find a director that is driven and passionate about their work. 

See, when you contact someone and complement their work, they like you and feel compelled to give you an opportunity. If they don’t have one, they’ll find one. 

Just like you are constantly looking for new roles, directors are constantly looking for new productions to work on and those productions need talent. 

Simple? Make sense? It’s not rocket science. Success in the industry is formulaic. Sadly, so many actors get stuck waiting for something to happen instead of making something happen. Which brings me back to that couple on the park bench. 

Not too long after this encounter I found myself on Indiegogo, supporting a friend’s campaign. Lo and behold, I saw a familiar face prominently featured on the homepage. The guy from the park, has just exceeded his goal and raised $125,000 to make his movie! 

Changing things up is part of the formula. Stuff wasn’t working for him and he changed things. So what will you do grasshopper?

If the above formula doesn’t feel right, it may not be right for you. Just find something that does feel right and make sure that it goes against what everyone else is doing. Chart your own path and make things happen. 

Whether you choose to go down this road or not, you will need to stand out from the crowd with a stellar industry reputation and great social media following. Here’s the solution for that.

Remember that I’m always here to help so if you have any questions, I’m only an email or a comment away. 

See you at the top, 
Scott 

Hollywood Oligarchy

Dear grasshopper, 

I told you about Weinstein months ago… 

Not directly, but his downfall is part of a much larger event. At the dawn of ScottyLeaks, I exposed the Hollywood Cabal. What you see happening is a symptom of a much larger, systemic issue. 

Look at it this way. The allegations against him, were proven multiple times beginning decades ago. It was an open secret in the industry. Which begs the question: why now? 

When he was untouchable for so long, why did Weinstein fall so suddenly? 

In short: he was expendable. The industry in its archaic form has been on a severe decline. Whereas, even as recently as 2 years ago, he was too big a part of the industry to lose, today the industry and its most valuable asset has outgrown the traditional model. 

Here’s what that means and why your career stands at a crossroads… 

For nearly 100 years, Hollywood has been an oligarchy of sorts. It has been controlled by less than a handful of individuals, institutions, and a foreign government. The price of admission into the inner circle was quite high and there was no way around it. 

You play by the rules laid out by a very small group of people or pack your bags. But, the tides have turned. If you needed any further proof that the old system has failed and is on life support, this is it. One of the oligarchs has fallen. 

It’s akin to Prince William being kicked out of the royal family (not that there are any similarities of course). 

This leads us to the next question: why and how did he become expendable? 

Like I said above, the industry’s most valuable asset outgrew it. They took for granted the thing that you and I seek to get the most of: the audience and their attention. 

Since its inception, the industry has enjoyed a monopoly on attention, without any real challengers. This grew over time and reached further into our lives. Actors became heroes, and entertainment became culture. 

What the industry oligarchs failed to account for was a fast moving wave of personal technology at the turn of the millennium. With the advent of blogs, social networks, and smart phones that allowed you to be plugged in 24/7, it became more interesting to watch someone “fire in the hole” at the drive through window, than it was to venture out for several hours just to watch another predictable and formulaic film. 

This paved the way for an entirely new breed of actors: the reality stars and the social media stars. 

In case you’re not already aware, I hate to break it to you…reality shows are highly scripted. Netflix “Unreal” and watch a few episodes and you’ll see what I mean. It’s pretty much a reality TV documentary. 

Rather than embracing what should have been a natural evolution of the industry, the elites fought it in order to preserve the status quo. It wasn’t until they gave up on this idea and embraced the marketing machine that these personalities brought to a project, that the industry began leveraging this hidden asset. More on that in a bit. 

Look at this way. Amazon could go away tomorrow, but you can’t undo what it created. That genie is out of the bottle and there’s no way of getting it back in there. 

And that is phenomenal for you. It means that there’s no oligarchy standing in your way. You can literally start to create the career of your dreams today. 

See, when I talk about the industry crumbling I don’t mean that Hollywood will cease to exist. The industry is a living, breathing, being and at present it’s purging itself of the parasitic entities that have hindered it for so long. 

What we are about to experience is an industry with bountiful opportunity for those that are ready for it. More on that in a sec. 

With this industry evolution will come some growing pains that we’ll have to go through. There’s no way around it, so just buckle up and prepare for a bumpy ride. Weinstein-gate is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s the first domino that will start the chain reaction. 

Unfortunately, even more things will come to light in the near future. What they are, I don’t care to speculate for multiple reasons. Here’s what I know for sure... 

Gary Vaynerchuck has said “the major networks will no longer be ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX…they will be social media and tech companies turned into studios.” 

The only question is whether you will change along with it or wish for the good old days to come back…spoiler alert: they never do. I get so worked up and passionate when I talk or write about this because it’s super important for every one of us that have dedicated our lives to the industry. 

Sadly, if you try to engage in conversation about this with your actor friends, you just might get a blank stare. It’s pretty much business as usual for everyone that is out of the loop. 

Now that you know, what will you choose to do about it? 

Here’s the crossroads. 

You can choose to ignore this and go on about your day as if nothing will change, or feeling that there is nothing you can do to facilitate change. 

OR 

You can strategize for the coming change and be prepared to move to front of the line, leapfrogging all of the actors that didn’t heed the call. 

It’s true that we’ll see an industry devolution of sorts. It’s part of the growing pains I mentioned earlier. That will take place during the reluctant passing of the baton from the old system and the oligarchs, to the new system of alternative media and the new studios. 

It should be short lived and that means two things. 

1. You have to prepare for it now because the window will be open for a very short time
2. By the time you notice it, the shift will have already occurred and you will have missed your chance at being first in line to take advantage of all of the new casting opportunities. 

Here’s where to start.

See once we ride it out and get through the bumpy transition process, the industry will be built anew and operate in ways that we can’t even imagine yet. 

What we know for sure is that you will need two things. A stellar reputation and a great social media presence. Here’s the fix for both of those.

I’m sure you’re seeing it already. Our job as actors has split into two parts. We no longer have the luxury of only being creatives. We also have to create a marketing machine and that’s where this comes in.

Here’s what I find most exciting about this. We’re looking at a future wherein the industry is controlled by tech companies. They specialize in innovation, so who knows, maybe sound studios will become a thing of the past as we hop aboard a Space X capsule and shoot on location in the milky way. That might be a stretch but whatever happens I hope to… 

See you at the top, 
Scott 

The Power of Hunger

Complacency has killed more careers than anything else on the face of the planet. Think about it… 

You start working a few days a week, and all of a sudden, you’re working more than you have in your life. Where do you go from there? Do you keep pushing for bigger and better things? 

Probably not. I know, I can hear you mentally screaming the opposite but stick with me for a sec. 

When you start working more than you ever have before, a couple of things happen: you are now busier than ever before, this leaves less time to work on your career, and you have already shattered a glass ceiling. 

What now? 

Complacency starts to set in. That’s where hunger comes in. See, you can only go 2 or 3 days without water. Dehydration zaps your energy quickly and you don’t really have a chance to “fight.” 

However, you can go much longer without a single morsel of food. In my experience, it goes mostly like this: Day 1 quiet desperation. Day 2 the hunger pains set in and the stomach growling starts to become unbearable. Day 3 is like detox in a day (especially if your diet has been less than stellar to this point). 

Day 4 starts the emotional rollercoaster. You begin to miss your favorite foods, in the same way you miss Grandma. Day 5, stay in bed, you feel like dying. You don’t physically feel like you are, you just wish you were. 

Day 6, you start to think you’re hallucinating. Colors have never seemed so vibrant, nor has the world ever seemed so incredibly beautiful. 

Day 7, you voluntarily stay in bed again, feeling like you have caused brain damage because you can’t stop smiling. 

Day 8, you are sharp as tack. We’re talking Bradley Cooper in Limitless kind of sharp. 

Such is the power of hunger. Before you empty the contents of your refrigerator, let’s talk about a couple of things. 

First, remember that I am not a medical professional, I am a mere actor and I’ve actually never even played any kind of medical professional on TV or elsewhere, so nothing here should be interpreted as medical advice, or any kind of advice for that matter. You should always seek your own qualified medical advice, proceed at your own risk, so on and so forth. 

Ok, now that we got that out of the way. Let me explain the power of hunger and what it can do to your career. The power of hunger is not about fasting, though it is in my opinion a quick and easy way to experience everything that the power of hunger has to offer. 

I was first introduced to this concept by a mentor of mine. She partakes in ritualistic fasting, rather consistently. When she mentioned the benefits of being hungry to me, it was at a time when my career was really starting to go where I wanted it to go. 

I was finally working steadily and though everything seemed fine on the outside, inside I couldn’t get a handle on things. I was always going 3 places at once and my mind was present at none. I felt like I was about to spin out of control like a Lindsay Lohan or Tom Sizemore (may their careers RIP). 

She explained to me the physical things I would go through, much like I just shared with you above. I decided to give it a shot and I abstained from food for 21 days and nights. 

It changed me as a person, and as an actor. Once I got past the initial misery and physical pain, a new world opened up to me. I realized that I was living in a world where I was in control. I didn’t have to head to the fridge every 3rd hour, I didn’t feel obligated to congregate with friends over food, just because it was there, and most of all I realized that I lived through it. 

Those first few days were horrible, and it was as if I flat lined and came back with a new outlook on life. 

See, by day 3 you are just about ready to dive face first into deep fryer at In N Out, consequences be damned! 

Your restraint in that moment creates a reference point in your subconscious mind. When you want success as badly as you want to dive face first, mouth open into a truckload of French fries, you are unstoppable. 

That’s the Power of Hunger in a figurative sense. When you go through something like this and come out on the other side unscathed, you remember those feelings. Because it’s traumatic in a sense, the reference points are exponentially more powerful. It’s why people are more susceptible to mental programming during times of trauma. Don’t take my word for it, do a simple Google search and you’ll find tons and tons of highly respected research. 

When you keep operating this way, you avoid becoming one of those people that just cruises through life existing. Because you now know experientially that you can do things you never thought possible, sitting back and letting the world pass you by just won’t cut it anymore. 

Going 0-5 on the audition circuit just doesn’t faze you anymore. It gives you the courage to go 0-6, 0-7, even 0-10 because you know that no matter what, tomorrow, the sun will rise. And if it doesn’t, you will force it to. 

Once I learned about the Power of Hunger and I experienced it, I learned to live one day at a time. 

My intent here is not to sell you on fasting. Not at all… 

Rather, what I hope you understand goes beyond that. It’s about adopting a modus operandi. See when you get hungry for success, you stop playing by everyone else’s rules. You stop “waiting for your turn” and you start making things happen. 

See, most of our peers will never make any meaningful progress in the industry. I don’t mean that disrespectfully, we all know more than a handful of people that only play “actor.” They never get serious about their craft, even though they may have convinced themselves otherwise. 

They go on auditions often enough, but never make any meaningful effort to reach out to casting directors and decision makers. They don’t do the things you have learned about as a member of the tribe. 

They get caught up in the accolades and the glamour. Most importantly, they caught up in faking it. They don’t appreciate the grind. When you get hungry for success, the trivial things that may have bothered you before (like what your friends would say if you started a YouTube channel) become beyond irrelevant. 

That hunger pulls you to success and you no longer have to push. That means life gets out of your way. Your internal doubt and resistance erode and you accomplish things in days or weeks, instead of months or years. 

Here’s how I can help with that.

When you lock on a target and decide that nothing will stop you, you also have the ability to dictate how long it will take you to hit that target. For example, I enjoy writing and always wanted to take a swing at screen writing. 

Because my mind was unbelievably sharp, during my 21 day challenge, I wrote a full length motion picture script (it actually only took 13 days). I call this time collapsing. How many people do you know that have been working on a script for 2 years? Through the Power of Hunger, I finished mine in under 2 weeks. 

What projects have you had on the back burner for a while? 

Remember, I’m not saying that you have to go on a 21 day fast. Just chase your goals with relentless and unwavering focus. To do that you have to get clear on what you want, and that clarity comes through focusing and slowing your mind. 

The key is to do it like you mean it. So many of us treat this like a New Year’s resolution: January 1st we’re good, January 2nd…what resolution??? 

Tony Robbins states that you should never allow yourself to have a thought about a goal without also doing something that propels you toward achieving that goal. Here’s the most effective thing you can do right now.

If you’re reading this, then you likely want to achieve a degree of success in the industry. In order to do that you will need a stellar industry reputation and social proof. Here is the fix for that.

Once you get that handled, identify the goal you will go after. What will it be? Let me know in the comments below. Allow yourself to dream, so long as you back it up with action. We’ll do our part to keep you on track.

See you at the top, 
Scott

The Johari Window

It was 1955. Two eager, ambitious psychologists sat in a poorly lit and by their own account, creepy, office at UCLA. They were working on what might be the biggest help to your acting career. 

It happened largely by accident. They didn’t set out to create this for actors. They intended to create a model that would make it easier to decipher group dynamics and interpersonal relationships. 

It’s called The Johari Window. 

Chances are that you have never heard of this concept, grasshopper, and you have certainly never heard about in this way. We’ll come back to the Johari window in a moment. 

First, we have to go discuss the job of an actor… 

See, when we think about our profession it’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae. It’s easy to think of our jobs in terms of learning lines, rehearsing, and all of the “technical” aspects of the industry. If ETs landed tomorrow and asked, “what does an actor do” what would your answer be? 

If you don’t have a good answer to that, how well can you truly perform that job? Have you noticed that the most successful shows and the biggest films all share one thing in common: a terrific ensemble cast. 

Modern Family, The Office, Friends, Will and Grace. Think about it. 

There are multiple reasons for this but primarily, a key factor in their success lies with the actors feeding on each other’s energy. As with most things, we can take this concept into the mystical and talk about auras and how the human mind connects to other minds, or we can keep it practical and talk about things we’ve all experienced. 

If you have ever attended a sporting event you know that group think is real. When the home team wins big, you can feel the energy of the crowd. Everyone’s on cloud 9 and the air is almost electrified. 

When the home town gets blown out, you can feel the heaviness in the arena. You can feel the disappointment. 

That is group-think at work. What world class actors are able to do is use the concepts that you will learn today and tap into group-think in order to make the audience feel a certain way. While there are many, many different models with all kinds of variables that really smart dudes (yes that’s sarcasm in text form) have spent countless hours coming up with, you can really boil it down to just 4 things. 

I’ll cover those in just a moment. 

When an actor performs, their top priority is to allow the audience to suspend belief and enter a frame of mind that makes their performance real in the mind of the viewer. In other words, you are charged with telling a story (believably). 

Where most actors fail is in delivering a flat, one dimensional performance. 

This happens when: 

1. No “character rooting” has occurred and the actor doesn’t have the depth of emotion necessary to make a character real.
2. The actor is performing using the conscious mind. This is what makes it seem as though you are just reading from a script. 
3. The actor relies on the director to guide the performance. Counter intuitive? Yes!...more on that in a bit…

When one of these factors is present, your performance will suffer big time!...Sadly, I have found that all 3 of these factors are typically present, even in highly seasoned actors. 

One of the reasons for this, probably the biggest reason, is that we tend to think in terms of the character arc that we have been taught all along. While this is a useful tool and you should definitely be well versed in mapping out your character arc, the truth is that you should be guided not by your character but by the story. 

See, your character only exists within the story. It is the story that pushes the character along on the arc, not the other way around. When you approach a scene with the character centric model, you are prone to overacting, and your performance is likely to be unnatural. 

In order to move from being character centric to story centric you have to do something that seems paradoxical on the surface. That’s where the Johari window comes in to play. 

The Johari window is a simple model that allows you to plot your actions (or in this case your characters actions) in such a way that you will immediately know how to program that action in your subconscious mind in order to make your delivery much more believable. 

Here's an example:

Let’s say you are playing a character that is an alcoholic. It’s easy to make character choices for an alcoholic and deliver an OK, one dimensional performance. 

Alcohol stimulates blood flow and increases body temperature so your sleeves are likely to be rolled up. You might have balance issues and trip over stuff as you walk across the room. You might even scrunch your eyes from blurred vision. 

What happens in character rooting is that you plot your character choices on the Johari Window (seen above). By working your character choices through the Johari Window model, you instantly add depth. 

Back to the example. 

Is your character’s alcoholism known only to himself? Delivering a performance of an alcoholic that is self aware is very different than delivering a performance for one that is in denial. If you’re character is in denial (the trait would be plotted in the “Not known to self” box) they wouldn’t be worried about monitoring their behavior. 

If the character is self aware of, does anyone else know? You will look to the storyline to find that answer of course. Here’s how your performance might be impacted. 

Let’s say your character is self aware but the trait (alcoholism) is not known to others. A one dimensional performance would just have you delivering your lines normally, maybe with a shade of apprehension: like you’re holding a secret. 

Once you run this through the model a whole new world opens up to you. Since your character is aware but no one else is, would you be chewing gum constantly to hide the beer-breather? Would your character be seemingly uncharacteristically able to keep their balance? Wouldn’t your sleeves always be neatly unrolled? Would you perhaps powder your neck instead, to absorb moisture from the increased body temperature? 

If your character is actively keeping the secret, would they even drink in front of others, knowing their secret would come out? Would you have some kind of tick from abstaining throughout the day? 

These are the character choices that fill out a performance and cause it to transcend the fourth wall and become real in the mind of the audience. 

You can use this model anytime you feel that your performance is shaky. Dissect your actions within the scene and run it through the model. 

Ask yourself, why does my character feel this way? Is that factor known or unknown to them? Is it known to the others in the scene, is it known to the audience at large. This will immediately layer your performance. 

Lastly, you have to root the character within you. I’ll cover that in detail in a later release. As you know, I like to keep my releases quick and full of actionable information instead of sending you off in multiple directions. 

Simply stated, character rooting is what happens when Meryl Streep becomes Miranda Priestly or Jamie Foxx becomes Ray Charles. The easiest and most convenient way to do this is to enter alpha, as described previously. 

Relax, close your eyes and tilt your eyeballs slightly upward. Count down from 50 to 1 as you picture yourself descending a ladder. At the bottom you will find yourself in a perfectly lit bright white room, call forward your character by name and imagine yourself entering the characters body. 

Now simply act out the scene. No one is watching and only you know what’s happening. This allows your subconscious mind to take over. Act the scene over and over again until you feel satisfied with it and then count from 1 to 5, open your eyes and say AWAKE. 

Next time you’re on set, your conscious mind will seek the information from your subconscious mind and bring forward the way you created the character at alpha. There is no better acting class anywhere in the world. 

Go forth grasshopper and use this to add dimension to your performance. Use the Johari Window model to prepare for your next audition. If you don’t have any auditions coming up, check this out.

You can be the greatest actor of our generation, and armed with what you have learned today, you are certainly on your way. This doesn’t matter if you don’t have a platform to share your talent with the world. In order to do that you need to have a great industry reputation and attention.

Here’s a quick fix for both of those. See, when you know that you will nail the audition, and you have a great industry reputation, plus you have attention to leverage…you will be unstoppable. 

Just remember. Use the force for good, grasshopper. 

See you at the top,
Scott

Media Optics

How do you feel today grasshopper? 

Seriously, how is your day going? The way you answer that question speaks volumes. More on that in a bit… 

We’re living in interesting times. That may just be the understatement of the day. LOL 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, by now you know that the Kardashian clan is growing. That’s right Khloe is pregnant! Relax, this isn’t TMZ, so we won’t be breaking out the Big Book of Baby Names and thumbing to the letter K. 

There are more important things afoot. 

If you’ve been around Boost My Star for any length of time, you already know that I like to keep negativity as far away as possible. The news app on my iPhone has finally had it catch up to me though! 

(Side note: if you know how to block CNN, FOX, etc. on the app, let me know in the comments below PLEASE!) 

“Rocket Man” is everywhere these days, isn’t he? Far be from it to try and dissect international politics. I have absolutely no interest in doing that, but in my recent news binge I noticed something fascinating. 

If you have a trained eye, you may have noticed it too… 

The people that grab headlines most often are inherently skilled in “Media Optics.” If you think that this has nothing to do with you and your career, guess again. 

Think of it on a different scale. 

If you look at the way Rocket Man is portrayed in the media, you will notice something peculiar. First, you have to realize that we only have photos of him released by the official state media so we would never get anything less than flattering, but that’s secondary. 

Google photos of him for just a minute or two and you will see that it always looks like he is “doing something.” He is studying something with binoculars, inspecting machinery, touring labs, etc. This is all important stuff that you would expect a head of state to be doing. 

If you follow Khloe or any of the Kardashian clan, you will notice the same thing, adapted for their status. Google Khloe and you will find photos of her “doing something” too. You will see her shopping, getting glammed up, attending events, etc. These are the things that you would expect a socialite and personality to be doing too. 

Notice the parallel? 

Here’s a real world example. A couple of weeks ago, I was at Whole Foods stocking up on spices. Bear in mind that my cooking skills are pretty much limited to microwave dinners and Digiorno, but Bobby Flay just makes everything look so easy LOL! 

Anyway, I was at Whole Foods with my recipe card fumbling around the isle with all the bulk spices trying to find everything, to no avail. There was also a guy there that was having no problem getting what he was looking for. 

He would grab a bag fill it up, put it on the scale, grab another and wasted no time thinking about stuff. “This guy must be a master chef or something” I thought. 

So, I asked him if he could point me in the direction of cumin. He did and went about his business. Then I stopped him again, told him about my mission and started asking him for suggestions. He showed me what he had so far and why he likes to keep it around. 

As I probed him for more cooking info he admitted “I don’t really know what I’m doing either. I just try a little bit of this and little bit of that when I cook.” We shared a laugh and an awkward bro hug and went our separate ways. 

Here’s why I tell you that story. 

This guy in the spice isle was elevated to a certain status in my mind, because he too was “doing.” Had he just been wandering around aimlessly like I was, I would have never thought to ask him for help. I certainly wouldn’t have flagged him down in the cereal aisle and asked him for advice on spices and cooking. 

It was the act of “doing” coupled with his level of decisive activity. Notice, however, that he too said he didn’t really know what he was doing. It was the deliberate nature of his actions that led me to think otherwise. 

No matter what stage of your career you find yourself in, the optics of your actions are of supreme importance. Thankfully, this is something you have complete control over. 

There’s a great scene in What Women Want when Marissa Tomei’s character admits that she is worried that she’ll never be booked for anything meaningful and be stuck playing a ditsy coffee house waitress for the rest of her life. 

The optics of her life certainly fit the failed actor stereotype. If you’re in the service industry, don’t sweat it, that’s not what this is about. What you have to ensure is that the image you are projecting is in line with what you want to become. 

See, whether you’re leading a rogue regime, a reality TV personality, or a star in the making, it’s all about the optics. I can’t exactly put it into words, but I have become insanely good at spotting an actor from a mile away. 

I don’t just mean in LA, that’s easy! I can do this even when I travel home or anywhere in the developed world. The optics and the way we carry ourselves are a dead giveaway. 

This can be a good thing or a bad thing… 

In an audition setting for example, do you want to immediately be thrown into the category of “actor” (with air quotes) or would you prefer to stand out from the crowd? I have given you so many strategies and tips for how to accomplish this in other releases, so be sure to spend some time reading them and refreshing your memory. 

The bottom line is that if you want to be taken seriously as an actor you have to ensure that the optics match your goals. In order for this to happen you have to be engaged in the “doing” of things that successful actors do. 

And when you are doing those things, you are actively pushing your career forward. Therein lies the synergistic beauty of it all. 

If you’re thinking “Gee Scott that sounds great but I have no one to do this for.” 

Don’t worry about it, like I said above it’s not just about media optics. Everything comes into play. So, next time you’re headed to an audition stop for a moment and look in the mirror. If you look like an “actor”, change your outfit until you look and feel like a marquee actor. 

Even young tech entrepreneurs use this concept when raising money. Instead of trying to fill out dad’s suit, techies trying to raise money to start a company began wearing hoodies and t-shirts to meetings with potential investors. 

They realized that wearing hoodies gave them a better chance at raising money, because the optics matched. It looked as if they went to the meeting straight after a long night of coding. 

Here’s what you need to do now. Take an honest assessment of the optics you are projecting. If you’re using Instagram to post pics of brunch… go here for a quick fix.

Analyze what you would think of yourself, as an outsider, meeting you for the first time. What would go through head when you share your career choice? “That figures” or “Interesting”? 

Look through what you’re doing on social media and evaluate whether you’re projecting the optics of an “actor” or if you are using them as a tool to boost your status in the industry?

See, there’s something to be said about an actor that talks the talk, walks the walk, and has the industry reputation and social following to back it up. Here’s the easy way to do that.

So grasshopper what are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. Please use, this information responsibly. By applying this you can bring the world to once in a generation levels of paranoia or you can use it to build an empire that can bend the industry to your will. 

The choice is yours.

See you at the top, 
Scott

Enter Alpha

Whatever happened to the values of the industry? Whatever happened to the fairness and equality? Instead of spreading love we’re spreading animosity. 

It’s leading us away from unity. It’s feeling like I’m walking on the boulevard of broken dreams. 

There comes a time when we must heed a certain call. When the world comes together as one. We are the industry… 

Nothing like a 2000s song(s) parody to get us started, grasshopper. You probably recognized some of the lyrics form The Black Eyed, Green Day, or We Are The World. 

I’ve had these songs on my playlist for the past week or so. They’re so powerful and they have a lot to do with our subject today. 

As we get into the nitty gritty of what I promised would be a very tactical release, I want to ask you to mentally push aside everything I’ve shared with you to this point... 

Only because I want to get tactical and talk only about the things that you can do today to move your career forward. 

Personally, I think the best feeling in the world comes after a nailing a performance. Because you have to nail the audition, before you can nail a performance, that will be our focus today. 

Whether you’re reading for a lead role, supporting character, or even if you’re going out for a one liner, the principles are largely the same. Yep, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. 

The only difference is how deep you go. 

For example, a one line role doesn’t require a character story that is as detailed as what you would construct for a leading character. 

Even if you wanted to build one that detailed, it just wouldn’t happen. You only have to go deep enough to be able to breathe life into the dialogue. 

You decide what exactly that means. Your character story could be a page, a paragraph, or even a single sentence. 

See, something almost magical happens when you get “in the zone.” It’s almost as if you cease to exist and you become a messenger for the character. I don’t know a top tier actor that doesn’t identify with this. 

The most important thing is to realize your place in the scene. Are you creating it (as with a lead role), supporting it, or are you merely existing in it. 

The smaller the role, the more you have to let go. Don’t sweat it though. Most actors see these small roles as part of “paying your dues.” It couldn’t be farther from the truth. 

When approached properly, these roles are your pregame workout. They exist, not as a stepping stone, but as preparation. Remember when you first learned to read? 

You started by learning one syllable at a time. You then moved on to combining two syllables, then three, and so on. If you had been presented with the word Ecclesiastical on day 1 of kindergarten, you might still be there LOL. 

Acting is no different. 

You can use these small roles to learn how to merely exist inside of a scene. It’s a huge blow to our actor’s ego to think of it this way, but that’s what it is. However, once you master existing in a scene, learning how to support a scene is as easy tacking on another syllable. 

Stephen Colbert started out exactly this way. Soon he graduated to one liners, where so many actors stay. What was different about Colbert, was that audiences remembered him. 

When he later joined the cast of The Daily Show, he didn’t fight for the spotlight. He accepted his place in the show and in every scene and supported them masterfully. 

This led to him being offered his own show. It didn’t happen by accident. Everyone at the network just thought there was “something about him.” 

Knowing your place in the production and operating within those parameters is what that “something” is. It’s one of the leading ways to endear a production staff to you. 

No one likes to have to tone down the guy that tries to steal every scene, which is what our training conditions us to do. Do this instead and employ the other strategies that you have learned about here at Boost My Star (like the Palm Trick) to make an impression and you’ll be set! 

If you have had any kind of training, you’re familiar with the “backstory” process that coaches like to teach. The whole “what did your character, eat for breakfast, what they dream about, blah, blah, blah…” sounds good. 

In fact, it feels good when you’re going through the exercise for your own character but it’s way overcomplicated. 

You only need to answer one question about your character. Everything else stems from that. Remember, it’s up to you to decide how deep to go with the back story that will develop from there. 

All you need to know about your character is: what is the chip on their shoulder. 

Simple enough? 

Think about real people, not characters, for a moment. There’s something that drives every one of us. Some of us want to prove to someone that we could defy the odds and make something of ourselves. 

Some of us are trying to live up to someone else’s expectation of us. Some of us are trying to __________ fill in the blank with whatever that is for yourself or for your character. 

That is what we call the “chip on your shoulder.” Once you master how to uncover this for your character, the acting world is your oyster. 

No Boost My Star release would be complete without a super stealth, you won’t get it anywhere else strategy, right? 

Here it is. 

The easiest and simplest way to do this is something that legendary actors have quietly talked about forever. Anytime they mention it, it typically gets swept under the rug, and only the sexier parts of the interview make it to print instead. 

It requires you to open your mind for a moment. 

The way you can discover the chip on your character’s shoulder and consciously become a vessel for your character to reside in while you are “in character” is to enter Alpha. 

Here’s how you do that… 

Close your eyes and tilt your eyeballs about 20 degrees upward. Count backwards from 50 and imagine yourself descending a ladder with each number. 

When you reach 1 picture yourself in a perfectly lit, bright-white room. See yourself as the character you are playing, standing before you. Then, ask your character anything you want to know. 

What drives you, why does this affect you in that way, is this line accurate or would you say it differently in reality?... 

There are 2 schools of thought for why this works so well. 

1. There’s the mystical that states that when you enter this level of brain activity (the Alpha level) the information you seek is available to you from the ether or the collective human consciousness. 
2. Then there’s the practical. When you quiet your mind, and mentally detach from a given situation, you give yourself “permission” to get creative without the filters present in a busy mind. 

Use whichever school of thought suits you best. What happens when you perform this simple exercise is that you quiet the noise of the outside world. If you were to hook up to a monitor you would see your brain function slow, and that is the level at which creativity thrives. 

Tilting your eyes upward a few degrees, activates the visual neurons which amplifies the experience for your purpose of interacting with your character. 

Once you are finished, slowly count from 1 to 10 and picture yourself climbing back up that ladder and reentering the real world. Then say “I’m wide awake.” 

Do this anytime you are prepping for an audition. Do it anytime you need direction for your character on set. 

You can even use this technique to solve real world problems, but that’s a release for another time. 

So there you have it grasshopper. 

Go forth and use it now. Today. 

Prepare for your upcoming audition using the technique you just learned. Let me know how it goes, in the comments below or shoot me an email. 

If you don’t have an audition to prepare for right now, that’s where this comes in. It’s the key to getting you the attention of the people you need to be in front of, in order to push your career to the next level. 

Oh yeah, the reason I’ve had those songs (from my parody above LOL) on repeat lately is that, the industry is so fragmented and ultra competitive now that I often wonder “where is the love?” 

Isn’t it time that we start looking out for one another instead of looking for ways to one up the competition. Actors are among the tightest knit group of people on the planet but the nature of the industry is so divisive. We all know someone that ruined a friendship over a role. 

It doesn’t have to be this way though. In fact, my own career trajectory really went skywards when I did this. I started Boost My Star out of a sense of duty and a sincere desire to help as many actors as possible. 

Since I can’t stroll with every one of you down Hollywood Blvd. (you know the one of broken dreams), and make introductions, this is the next best thing.

So, now that you know how to nail an audition the next logical step is to get yourself as many auditions as possible. To do this, you will need a stellar industry reputation and attention. Here’s the way to do that.

Look, I know that doing something differently is scary sometimes. But if you do what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else got. So if you want to be one that stands out above the crowd, do something differently. 

You will end up in good company among your fellow tribe members, that are experiencing careers they never would have even dared to imagine. 

See you at the top,
Scott 

Goal Number 1

If this release offends you grasshopper, it’s probably because you know that you’re doing the things I’m describing. 

For most of our careers, we actors tend to operate as a warm body, with the ability to memorize a few lines, for hire. We hang out our “actor’s shingle” and go out hat in hand hoping that someone, somewhere will be so kind as to bestow a role on us. 

Anything will do: one liners, cat food commercials, “you name it, I can do it!” That’s the starving actor’s motto… 

And therein lies the problem! I don’t have to tell you that actors are in one of the most competitive industries in the world. We don’t have the luxury of playing supply or demand, or do we? 

I want to talk about someone that was able to exert total control over the marketplace and force it to bend to his will. 

His reputation preceded him everywhere he went, yet he was not exceptionally talented. When the world was melting down all around him, his empire stood strong and grew more powerful than ever. He’s a polarizing figure that most people hate, and some just can’t help but admire. 

Bernie Madoff. 

As a member of the tribe, you know that I love to bring you outside the box thinking and little known strategies that give you an edge over everyone else. Today’s release is no different, and it’s probably one of the most important to date. 

See, you have to duplicate the success of those that have come before you and that doesn’t necessarily have to be only industry people. 

Do you think that duplicating the success strategies of people like Sara Blakely, Thomas Edison, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Jack Canfield, T. Harv Ecker, or Tony Robbins might serve you well? 

Of course it would, you just have to make sure that you tweak them to serve your purpose. One of my pet peeves is when a buddy of mine goes to a seminar or reads a new book, gets all pumped and starts preaching about all the new things they picked up. 

We all know someone that pesters us with this stuff. It’s annoying because most of it is the same, out dated stuff repackaged and resold. They love to focus on goal setting specifically, yet virtually no one does this correctly. 

You only need to have one goal, ever. I’ll come back to that in a moment. 

After that they go on about to-do lists and “little victories”, dream boards, affirmations, etc. I love that stuff as much as anyone else, but it has been so skewed and diluted that it barely resembles the original ideas. 

Plus, because you seldom have access to the gurus (unless you write a gigantic check) you’re left to figure out how to adapt those strategies to fulfill your own desires. 

What no one that puts on seminars or sells books and courses will ever tell you is that the psychology of success boils down to 2 points. 

Setting the right goal for yourself (yes goal=singular), and creating an environment conducive to attracting that goal to you. 

That’s it. Everything else, falls under the category of preparing yourself for that goal and attracting it. 

The only goal you should ever set is to feel good. 

Here’s why… 

When you feel good, you’re happy. When you’re happy, you tend to take care good care of yourself so you’re healthy. People like to be around other happy people, so your social life and even your love life flourishes. When you approach everyday “on purpose” rather than as something you just have to get through, you perform better in your career and climb the ladder. 

When you’re happy, you tend do only do things that make you happy. Coincidentally, the things that make you happy are the things that push your career forward. 

If you focus on this, you will eliminate all of the unproductive things that actors do, just to feel as though they’re making progress. 

You will stop tinkering with your reel, you will stop going to mundane acting classes that are little more than read throughs critiqued by has-beens two decades after their last role. Side note: there’s nothing wrong with taking the right acting classes. 

You will stop going on cattle calls that are generally a big waste of time. 

What’s more is that, the routine things that you do have to accomplish will feel completely different. 

Look at it this way: washing your Toyota Tercel (if you don’t know what that is, you’ve had it too easy LOL) is chore, polishing your Ferrari is completely different. 

So, that begs the question: how do you go about “feeling good” all the time. 

Simple. Eliminate the things that don’t make you feel good. If you hate going to the gym, stop going to the gym. Figure out another way. Swim, Kayak, train for an Iron Man, whatever makes you feel good. 

I have a friend that couldn’t drag himself to the gym after years of going 5-6 times a week. 

He was incredibly competitive though, so he started training for an Iron Man instead. That shift was all he needed to make him look forward to working out again. 

So many of our tribe members tell me that they’re building careers doing something they hate. For example, they want to star in action films but they’ve been pigeon holed into doing comedy. 

What do you do in this case? Enjoy the climb. Comedy teaches you timing, which is what action is all about. 

That’s not to say that you won’t have to do something you don’t like. Rather, operating this way will give you a new outlook on those things. 

So once you have accomplished your goal of feeling good, all that’s left is creating an environment that attracts your career goal to you. This is really the same thing we’ve been talking about, but for simplicity we’ll separate the two. 

One of the most uncomfortable parts of being an actor is going around town with our actor’s hat in hand begging for a role. Not a single actor I’ve ever known enjoyed this, yet it’s what we allow ourselves to be consumed with. 

What you have to do instead is create a vacuum that pulls the opportunities to you. The beauty is that this works no matter how many credits you have. 

In order to pull opportunity to you, you have to start rejecting it. 

BOOM! Wrap your mind around that one. 

You don’t take yourself out of the game completely, rather you shed the air of desperation that follows actors around everywhere. 

Picture this, you’re sitting at a bar and Michael Bay strolls in and sits down next to you. How long would it be until you threw your headshot and resume at him? That would make you just another desperate actor and the world has too many of them already. 

What if instead, you just had a conversation? What if you just talked one human to another. When he inevitably asks you what you do, and you answer that you’re an actor and you don’t scream in desperation, wouldn’t you feel much about your place in the world? 

A funny thing would happen at the point, he would likely follow up with an opportunity for you. A project he’s working on that could use a person like you on set. See, there’s something magical about not actively looking for opportunity: it finds you. 

We can stay on the side of “practicality” and avoid the mystical and metaphysical. 

Simply stated. Success attracts success. Think about it. If a street beggar walks into a restaurant looking for a sandwich he’s 99.9% likely to walk out empty handed. 

Bill Gates on the other hand is 99.9% likely to have his sandwich comped. 

No one was better at attracting success than Bernie Madoff. When his empire had a whopping $12 in the bank, he didn’t fret and start chasing clients. He stayed calm and kept turning away money, operating “by referral only.” 

Everyone wants something they can’t have. Bernie Madoff was turning away millions from pension funds because his company was closed to new investors (or so they thought). 

What happened then is that he attracted tens of millions of dollars and later hundreds of millions of dollars (adding up to billions) from high net worth individuals. His clients would see their incredible, (alleged) returns and beg Madoff to meet one of their friends. 

When Madoff agreed to meet with you, it was 100% on his terms. He set the fees, the minimum amount of money you would “invest”, how long he would keep your money before you could withdraw a penny, he controlled everything. 

Because, these people were so honored to even have a meeting with Madoff, they agreed to the nonnegotiable terms without blinking. 

So how can you apply this to your own career? 

Set your goal of feeling good, eliminate doing anything that doesn’t make you feel good, and stop being an actor for hire. Create demand for yourself, even if there isn’t any outside demand right now. 

When someone asks you what you’re working on, say that you’re looking for the right project to work on. Admittedly this gets easier when you have some attention to leverage and an industry reputation that you can back it up with. 

The details on that are right here.

That doesn’t mean that you need to have a ton of credits and run in the industry’s inner circles right now. You just need to carry yourself as though you are. The way to do that is here.

At this point in your career you can either make moves to push yourself to the next level, or you can keep doing more of the same. I don’t need to go into detail about where that will get you. I’m not saying that you have to do this. All I’m saying is that you have to do something. 

Whatever it is, just make sure that it makes you feel good. 

See you at the top,
Scott

2018 Studio planning minutes

You know the saying “it’s so ridiculous that it must be true?” That might start running through your head as you read this release, grasshopper.

I want to introduce you to Ben (of course it’s an alias) whom I’ve known very well for over a decade. Not only is he a great friend, he has also been a big part of my career and has played a big role in the careers of many Hollywood A listers.

He’s one of the leading power brokers in the industry, he’s highly respected, and he has a seat at the proverbial table.

What he shared with me shook me to the core.

You would assume that a meeting between the heads of every studio, every major network, every super agency, and their key stake holders would make headlines, right? Sure, it may not trigger mainstream headlines but you would think that at least Variety would cover it, or that their reps would issue some kind of a statement. 

Even a tweet would suffice…instead we got nothing. 

It’s about to become crystal clear why this was. If you have been a member of the tribe for any length of time you know that “the industry politics” are far more sinister than most of us could ever imagine. 

Some of what Ben told me was confirmation. Some was utterly shocking! 

I don’t intend to simply go over industry politics, I’m also going to show you how you can benefit from what’s happening to skyrocket your career. 

I don’t know about you, but it makes me incredibly uncomfortable to know that the industry I love and have devoted my life to, is being steered behind closed doors. It’s shrouded in a veil of secrecy for good reason. 

See, there’s actually a big anti-trust problem in the industry. This is because the major networks and studios control about 98% of mainstream media. To put that into perspective that would be the same as Chili’s being 98% of the restaurants. 

That’s crazy and would never be allowed to happen in any other industry. 

Here’s the 2 sentence backstory: the industry is in the fight of its life against new media, and it’s fighting back using dirty “backroom” tricks, like bribery and intimidation. This has backfired and set them further back, drawing attention from regulatory agencies. 

See, the industry, in its entirety is owned by less than a handful of people. Literally, if you follow the money it’s controlled by 4 individuals, a few large institutional investors, and 1 foreign government. This means that there is 0 competition. 

Because these individuals, investors, and (yes) even that rogue government own almost identical stakes in every one of the studios and networks (through the parent companies), they’re playing a game of heads I win, tails you lose at the box office. This is catching up to them. It’s no secret that box office quality has been on a steep decline for quite some time. 

In a recent interview, Brett Ratner stated that Rotten Tomatoes was to blame for dismal audience turnouts. He said that when films received poor reviews, the audiences stayed away (DUH!). He actually said that “It’s the destruction of our business.” 

What’s funny about this is that Rotten Tomatoes is owned by (drumroll) the studios! If you follow the trends you will see a pattern emerge wherein the studios win at the box office in an almost round-robin fashion. 

I want to be clear, I’m not bashing anyone’s work. I have nothing but the utmost respect for my industry peers, but I feel like our artistic abilities are being hampered by bottom-line thinking. 

This rails against what the greatest projects of our time had going for them. No one was pinching pennies on the set of Titanic. 

When was the last time a project like that was greenlit? The studios have lost interest in projects like this. Instead they are opting for smaller budgets and bigger slates. They throw projects at the wall and hope that one sticks and covers the losses from the flops. 

This has caused our audiences to slowly lose interest. There are some other factors at play, but what’s telling is that the 2017 summer season was the worst on record in over a decade...the worst part is that the numbers the studios are reporting are highly sugarcoated and don’t tell the full story. More on that in a bit. 

For a while, we’ve been speculating that the social media networks would begin buying up studios and networks…according to Ben the studios were not very fond of this and a deal was brokered at this secret summit. 

Enter Facebook Watch. You’ve probably heard of it by now. It’s Facebook’s new streaming service. 

Here’s why this is huge… 

In order to avoid a messy, and highly public anti-trust battle, the industry must allow new competitors into the marketplace. They are allowing this to happen with Facebook Watch. 

It doesn’t matter that they cherry picked the competition, as long it’s legitimate competition. 

Initially, the platform is featuring content that you would find elsewhere, but over time Facebook will begin producing its own big budget shows and it is already putting some original content into production. 

Being that the company’s focus is on social media, the natural evolution is to open up this distribution channel to user-driven content. This is a direct aim at toppling YouTube, a long time industry foe that was conspicuously absent at the summit. 

What is happening, almost by accident is that you will soon have access to a huge audience in need of content. Even if you don’t want to hop into the role of producer, this huge industry move will usher in a new wave of production houses in need of actors. 

Will you be in a position to take advantage of the new opportunities? 

It’s never too early to make your move. This is evidenced by the original content that Facebook has already commissioned. 

Guess who will be starring in the new projects? If you guessed Facebook stars and Instagrammers, you are right! It makes perfect sense, because it’s like rooting for the home team. 

On that note, one of the key points of discussion at this summit was aimed directly at casting directors. For the last couple of years, they have been tasked with finding talent that is on an upward trajectory. It makes the studio’s job easier when marketing the new project, because they’re not starting from scratch. 

Earlier this year, we broke the story about algorithms being used to aid CDs with scouting and casting decisions. Now, they have officially been put on notice. Artificial intelligence will be taking over this role its entirety by the 2020. 

We see what has happened in the music industry since AI started taking over the duties of talent scouts. No one gets discovered at karaoke anymore. 

The same thing is bound to happen in our business too. Gone will be the days of reels, resumes, and headshots. Casting decisions will be dictated by followers, likes, and comments. 

So, if you haven’t yet begun building your online presence and industry reputation, when would be a good time to start? The countdown has officially begun and the window is literally closing. You can no longer put this off until someday. 

The good news is that if you simply do this, you will be so far ahead of the game that you will go from 0 to 100. Remember that the shift will not be an overnight event, the industry will continue to evolve steadily over the next few years. 

Mark my words, the summer of 2017 will be looked upon as the greatest shift in industry history. It will be a time that you will either look back on with fondness or regret. 

I think it was Patton that said, “a half baked plan executed today is 1000 times better than a perfect plan executed someday.” I’ve already hammered out the details for how to do this for you.

However, only you can decide if you will go down this road. The coming shift will separate the actors from the “actors.” Which will you be?

There is so much opportunity on the horizon that I can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring. As I sign off and return to working on furthering my own career, I sincerely hope that I… 

See you at the top! 

-Scott

P.S. In my last email I asked you a “if silence is golden, then why do theaters offer free WiFi?” Ready for the answer?...strange but true: world governments have long been experimenting with altering WiFi signal frequencies. They found that slight adjustments can create different moods. Well, the studios adopted this technology and are using it to improve the (they hope) the audience’s mood while watching a movie. If you think this sounds crazy, remember that they have a long history with dabbling in things like subliminal messaging. Ethics aside, consider it a helping hand. After all, it’s ultimately irrelevant if you’re nowhere to be found on screen. Go here for help with that.