We have found 19,995 posts across 4 actor forums:
Demo Reel Debacle by Impossible_Wave_2970 • last post Mar 24th
So we all know that having a reel is essential to booking substantial jobs. It seems like you need one to even submit a self tape. Let’s have a reel discussion. Has anyone successfully made their own reel? Just filmed scenes/monologues yourself? Has anyone paid a company to produce a professional reel for you? I’ve done 5-10 projects that promised a copy and I never got one. I’m also mostly a stage actor, therefore I don’t have a ton of me on film. Any tips for creating a reel are welcome!
Interview with Fallout 4's Captain Kells, Tim Russ by NeoYossarian • last post Mar 23rd
Tim Russ sat down and discussed Fallout 4 and other topics on the podcast Movie Reviews from an Alternate Earth. [https://alternatemovies.buzzsprout.com/1391980/8190218-tim-russ-interview](https://alternatemovies.buzzsprout.com/1391980/8190218-tim-russ-interview) Tim also talks about the experiences he's had doing voiceovers for World of Warcraft, The Last of Us 2, the Elder Scrolls, and others; and he, of course, talks about his long history as an actor on TV and Film.
As a background performer, how do I venture out into bigger “background” type roles? Do I need an agent? by Thankyounext07 • last post Mar 23rd
I apologize if I am using the incorrect term here. By “bigger background role” I mean someone who is not in a giant mosh pit or crowd of people. For example someone who directly interacts with a principal actor... and may have a small speaking role. For example a waitress who directly serves the principal actors/actresses at a restaurant, maybe says thank you etc. I do not have an agent. I am located in canada. . and I get bookings for background work through a casting company that only hires for background roles. Ive been in a couple well known tv shows. Never had any speaking roles . I’m super new to this and would love to explore more. Thanks for the help :)
Is there anything more I should be doing to develop my acting career by Pkemi05 • last post Mar 23rd
Im a 15 year old girl and I’m an aspiring actress. Due to Covid I can’t join a stage school or anything but I’m working from home. Right now I’m practicing my emotions,developing my skills,looking for online castings(I’ve already auditioned for one) and just improving myself etc. Is there anything else I should be working on. I want this to be my career so when I’m 18 i won’t be 100% starting from scratch.Any advice aswell? Thank you
Am I a fraud by Iceycat1234 • last post Mar 23rd
Am I a fraud Hi so I had an audition back in January went real received a callback, callback went great as I’m being moved up in a small window of actors for a lead roll in a feature film. The problem I’m struggling with is 1. I’m nonunion, 2. My acting experience is only about a year and a half, and 3. I have no representation currently and my credits are slim. Am I overthinking this? Do I need to get an agent to get this role ASAP? What should I do any help?
What Surprised You Most When You First Started Working? by trisarajanetops • last post Mar 23rd
I’m trying to put together a list of things that can be unexpected or shocking once you start working. If you don’t have experience but want to contribute a question you have about how something is done, that is also helpful!! I’m putting some examples below. Anything about the industry, audition process, or behind the scenes bits also appreciated! Any cool tricks or practical effects also welcome, no matter how small or silly. ... Film: -Shot lists. I never knew how out of order things were shot or how short some takes are. Did not know how different it would feel doing tiny bits and pieces out of order. -Salem the cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch was a puppet with a remote control and was operated by 3 different people. -Studios, backlots, film ranches, or sound stages and thought if a scene took place in a house, the scene was shot in a house. -ADR (how much you may need to do and how challenging even though it’s your own face) -1st and 2nd units, body doubles. -How little the director works with the actors by comparison to theater directors. -Alternative materials for realistic looking props. -Anything green screen related. -I always assumed all animated stuff was completed first and voices were added and had to sync with the drawings. Oh and cels/different artists working in one image. -so much of Harry Potter was not CGI!! Theater: -I didn’t know about how loud cap guns could be til I used one on stage and had to do the whole scene with earplugs. -How quick quick changes really were. Also how you need to change in front of other cast members. -Lights and sounds are not programmed or pre-recorded and are done live. - You physically need to put colored filters over lights and they don’t just have every color option already up there. -responsibilities of an understudy. Industry: -Just learned about Fi-Core -What producers actually do -How movies/tv networks make money and how TV shows are funded. -what constitutes a Broadway production -how much crew any production has -much of the time casting directors just report best candidates to the director, who makes the finally casting call, rather than the casting director making final call. -also do you know how many actors have insane backstories??? -golden age Hollywood feuds crack me up. I know some are sad but sometimes pretty funny how petty people could be. Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra? So funny. -obsessed with scottpropandroll on Instagram and tiktok. Insider on YouTube has great stuff too. ❤️
The Actor and the Target by TheWalkinFrood • last post Mar 23rd
I found this book while browsing on my kindle and it's amazing. It makes so more sense on an intuitive level than anything I've read or been taught up to this point. Has anyone else read it or found it helpful?
I created a free Android app to help actors make stronger choices for their verbs / intentions! by appsbylynic • last post Mar 23rd
**NOTE: Link to download the app from the Google Play Store is in the comments!** If you're an actor you are probably familiar with the idea of *verbs and intentions*, in other words **how you are going to get what you want** from your scene partner(s). This app serves as a reference to help you make stronger choices for your verbs and should be used as a complement to your scene analysis. The app features 300+ verbs and all are categorized by their general intent (loving, manipulative, etc). There are books which serve the same general purpose (e.g. *Actions The Actors' Thesaurus*), but the best part about this app is that it's totally **free**! There is a small ad at the bottom but it is non-intrusive. Let me know what you all think, I welcome all feedback!
I just started voice acting and an author wants me to voice act a commercial for his new book. What should I do to make sure it will turn out great? by ryan337250 • last post Mar 23rd
I recently have gotten into voice acting and one of the professors at my university knows a childrens book author who needed a voice actor for a commercial on one of his new childrens books he is releasing, and my professor told him about me, and he is interested in letting me audition for it, this is a HUGE thing for me, and I want to know what I should do so I don't screw this up. (Sorry about my poor grammar, english IS my first language, I'm just dumb lol)
Read Jenna Fischer's book - it'll answer your questions! by ActionOn4 • last post Mar 23rd
I think I've seen it mentioned in the comments here before, but I just want to reemphasize that **Jenna Fischer's book "The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide"** is absolute must-read material. I'd venture to guess it answers 95% of the questions I see posted in this sub (though of course there are always additional insights you can gain from posting here). I'm listening to the audiobook now and it's super enlightening and encouraging. Being from St. Louis and not knowing anyone in LA, she took a similar path to what many in this sub would need to follow for success. That includes patience, hard work, fearlessness, and a little bit of luck. To top it off, I literally saw this clip posted on FB at the same time that I was listening to her chapter about auditioning (and she gives details about her audition for The Office too). Note the strong, decisive choices the actors are making. They know who their characters are already. It's fascinating to hear Jenna describe her approach to the audition and then see her put those choices into action. [https://youtu.be/sItKwZdGkTM](https://youtu.be/sItKwZdGkTM)
The career seems to keep calling my interest! by ButterfliesAreCute • last post Mar 22nd
Acting has actually been my childhood dream since I was a teenager. I'm 30 now and still have not started my career yet. I'm actually not deterred by that because there are people who started professionally acting in their 30s, 40s, shit even their 50s I heard. Anyway, due to lack of resources I could never seem to get my career off the ground. Also, around I wanna say 2009... ish... I became less interested in acting and more in filmmaking. I still love the art of TV and film production. It's fascinating to me to see movies being made and filmed on location. I did take one acting class when I was in community college taking classes. I was a backup dancer in two high school plays and I had one of my teachers keep recommending i audition for one of the plays at this theater playhouse thing a couple towns away from me. Never did... yet. My interest in acting resumed in like 2010-2015 or so as I decided I wasn't all that much interested in acting after all. Well guess what, now I'm interested again. I guess I've always been interested in acting! I suppose what I'm learning here is you don't choose the career, the career chooses you. I really am starting to feel that being an actor is my calling. Where I hope to go with my acting career is I would like to do stage plays and theater work. Oh, and note this important thing: I'M NOT LOOKING FOR FAME. I DON'T WANT TO BE A BIG-NAME CELEBRITY though I would love to have some film and TV credits under my belt. Soaps, primetime TV, indie films, short films, things like that. That's where I hope to take my acting career. I guess I kinda do know where to start -- get a professional headshot, visit LA or NYC where the business is, find a talent agent somehow, etc. that sorta thing. I guess I'm not actually asking a question here, but posting this just as an OMC (off my chest) type of post haha...
A QUESTION ALL TEENAGERS HAVE by areyan07 • last post Mar 22nd
Hi, I am 17 and I live in india. I will be pursuing my further studies in the US and I have decided to do my major in theater. A lot of people told me to do else and keep a BACKUP but if I really love the craft, I don't see a reason as to why I should do anything else. The question that I have is that I find it difficult to envision a roadmap as to where I am right now and how to pursue a career in it. Being an international student, I won't be able to work my student visa also. How would I be able to connect those dots and be able to become an actor?
New voice actor looking for help on starting off? by Parzi8l • last post Mar 22nd
So I’ve been looking into getting into voice acting and I have a kinda good mic, I have a hyper x quad cast but I’m looking into getting into voice acting such as gigs and just practicing getting my voice better so any help would be nice!
question by penguin_reddit • last post Mar 22nd
I just got new headshots and the photographer sent them to me as both “Hi-Res edits” and “Web-Res edits”. Does it matter which ones I send to my agents/which ones to put on casting sites, print out, etc. ? Which ones do I use for what ? I already put the web res ones on actors access and i’m a bit worried. I’m confused about this.
Acting Pitfalls, Pet Peeves & Cringe by Extinction-Events • last post Mar 22nd
We’ve all seen the videos. Terrible, over dramatic acting. Or under dramatic acting. It’s fun and painful in equal measures to watch a disaster in motion; but what are some of the things that *make* those disasters? What, in your opinion, identifies a bad performance? What makes you cringe in acting, and how would you correct the behaviour? What are some things you just hate in performances, or some acting tropes you’re tired of? What screams “I’m bad,” or maybe worse, “I’m garden variety?” (Because at least if an actor is bad, they can be comically bad.)
Paid Female Voice Actors for Web Horror/Anime Series Bananarama by Iam_Human_YouToo • last post Mar 22nd
I don’t know whether I should go back to my acting workshop by honeymoon9 • last post Mar 22nd
I originally attended a local theatre group when I was 14, I did a play with them in our towns theatre but when I was 15 the group got shut down and the only theatre in town was shut down. A year later I started attending a workshop for film and television in the city, it’s a successful workshop and it’s opened a lot of doors for actors, my teacher is also a casting director. I’ve been attending that for 4 years and I’ve learned so much, of course I have so much more to learn though. I’m paying £100 a term to attend but my only issue is I got regrouped into a new class of teenagers because of my age (I’m 22) I’m too young to join the official adult class because it’s 25 and up. I feel like a jerk saying this but no one in the class takes it seriously...whenever we get put into groups to learn our lines everyone just goes off topic and talks about school drama and nothing ever gets done. There was one instance where me and my partner had to completely improvise because she spent the entire time we were supposed to be practicing talking to the group next to us about some people at school, even though I had asked and asked if we could practice. I wanna improve and learn so bad but it’s not happening with the group I’m in and I feel like I’m wasting my money just to listen to a bunch of people talk about school drama. It’s been closed for the last year because of Covid but it’s set to open again in June or July. But during the time it’s closed I’ve been watching YouTube lessons and I truly feel that I’ve learned more this way since being put into the new group. I love my teachers so much and I’m so incredibly thankful for them and for what they have taught them, but I really do feel like I’m wasting time in this new group. And I don’t know what to do, because I feel like if I leave I’m throwing away opportunities since my teacher is a casting director who helps us get roles in TV series etc. I really don’t know what to do.
Paid Female Voice Actors for Web Horror/Anime Series Bananarama by Iam_Human_YouToo • last post Mar 22nd
Do you compensate your readers for self-tapes? If so, how? by galaxyprintleggings • last post Mar 21st
I usually ask my sister or my mom to be my reader when I do self-tapes. They're super gracious about it, but I'd love to start taping with my actor buddies, either via Zoom or at a local studio space, depending on everyone's comfort level. I usually buy my family a meal or something. When you ask friends to help you do a self-tape, what do you work out with them? Do you pay them (and if so, how much)? Do you buy them a coffee? Do you help them tape in exchange? Does your compensation vary if you do it via Zoom or in-person (provided it's safe)?