How do I get started in acting/film/movies/etc.?

If I was given a nickel for every time I was asked that question, well… I’d have a lot of nickels. But I don’t get a nickel, so I’m writing this article so atleast I don’t have to keep repeating myself over and over again.

Let me also say that I am, by no means, an expert on the business or how to get into it and establish yourself. I only know what I have seen, been through, where I have gone right and wrong, as well as others and I am just sharing my personal notes with you. I also happen to make mention of many different resources throughout this article, most of which are just a Google search away. With that said, here’s ten basic steps to get you started:

1. Get Professional

I can’t stress this enough. I’ve seen too many people who might have had great potential and didn’t get very far because of their lack of professionalism. In an environment of flakiness, you can easily set yourself apart simply by standing by your word. Showing up early with everything you need and not being afraid to help out wherever needed go a long way.

Also, be professional in your correspondence as well. Using proper grammar, spelling and punctuation easily set the proper tone. Getting a message like, “hey I see u do dat marshal arts and movie stuff. can I work wit u sumtime? hit me up.” only gives me a headache before I hit the ’delete’ button.  I could go on and on about this part alone, but I’ll keep it at this for now.

2. Get Located

Going through the rest of these steps would not do you much good if there’s not a whole lot of filmmaking going on in your area. The small communities throughout the country may be great places to settle down and live, but you’re not going to do much for your acting career if you’re in some podunk town in Nebraska. You may easily become a big fish in a small pond somewhere, but eventually you’ll need to relocate. The current hotspots include California, New York, Louisiana, North Carolina and sometimes Florida.

3. Get Training

If you think you can just jump right in with your ’natural talent’, you may be in for a surprise. There are too many skilled people in this industry that have put the time into training and sharpening their craft for anyone to ‘bust’ onto the scene with any sort of long term success. Look into schools, seminars, workshops and training academies in your area and ask other established actors where they go and/or recommend. Many universities and community colleges offer classes and programs in drama and theatre, which is where many great actors got their start.

4. Get Educated

Learn as much as you can about the business. Everything from the different roles and jobs of people on set and terminology to the structure and processes of making a movie. That knowledge will help you tremendously the first few times around and maybe you won’t feel so awkward when you don’t know what to do when the casting director asks you to ‘slate’ during the audition process.

5. Get Headshots

Headshots are more important than most care to imagine. In most cases, they present the first impression to producers/directors. In other cases, it helps leave the lasting impression after you’ve already met and auditioned.

When starting out, you can usually find an apprentice photographer that is willing to work with you on what’s called a TFP/TFCD basis. It stands for ‘trade for pics or trade for CD” and it basically means the photographer is willing to work for free to hopefully get great shots as he/she is developing their portfolio.

But as with most things in life, you usually get what you pay for. So as your career progresses (hopefully), there will come a time when you will have to seek out the best photographers in your area and fork out some money for it. Word of mouth go a long way here as well, but you can also search for photographers with online portfolios to look through. You may not be an expert on photography, but most people know good quality when they see it. It’s also a good idea to work with a few different photographers to get different looks and styles so that you have a diverse look to them when you post them up and to switch them out at will when going to an audition.

The standard on headshots is size 8” x 10”. And it’s called a ‘head’ shot for a reason. Submitting full body shots to production companies or any other kind of photo where your face isn’t easily visible is not advisable. Also, don’t have a theme to your photos or make them too gimmicky. A nicely lit, touched up, classic, close-up of you with a warm smile on your face will do just fine. There has also been much debate over whether Full Color or Black & White headshots send the best message, so I’ll let you research all that and decide for yourself.

6. Get A Resume

So you’ve done your homework on the industry and have some nice photos of you; now what? Start booking gigs! There are a lot of great resources for someone starting out to find auditions and casting calls in their area, especially on the internet.

The website, craigslist.com, is a staple in finding productions in need of actors and performers. Just click on your state and area and scroll down to the “Gigs” section and click on ‘talent’. Other websites include mandy.com, greenroomorlando.com (Florida area, which also include greenroomtampabay.com and greenroommiami.com) or even just googling ‘casting call’ with your city and state.

Another good spot to look is in your local colleges and universities. Most have film production programs where students are needing to make a short film almost every semester and are always in need of actors for them. As your career progresses, however, you may need to seek other sources for higher quality productions that start paying and will truly benefit your performance reel.

Also, when you watch a movie at the theatre… do you ever wonder where all those people in the background came from? What happens most of the time is the production company that is making the film will hire a company that specializes in having a large database of aspiring actors to fill those slots. They almost act as agents, but we’ll get into that subject later. Although they don’t do much for your performance reel, these gigs pay, might earn you points towards getting into the SAG union and will help you score huge, large-budget credits on your resume, even if you were just sipping an expresso at the café in the background. They also provide great networking opportunity while on set, which we‘ll get into in the next section.

One other resource in this section to help get more work is seeking out Casting Companies in your area. These are not agents most times, but sometimes better in that they keep a database of actors themselves and when they are contracted to book talent for a production, they can book you directly without having to go through an agent. There aren’t that many, so you have search around pretty hard to see if there are any in your area. If you’re in Florida, I highly recommend Rita Manyette of Martini Shot Casting based out of Jacksonville.

Once you start to work enough gigs that are worthy enough of using a sheet of paper to print them on, there are also a number of resources on how to properly format your resume with the right information, as well as what should go on there and what you should leave out. As far as the special skills section goes… even though your grandma loves when you come to visit and balance her walking cane on your nose for the enjoyment of her and her nursing home friends, it’s not something that should go on your resume (unless you can balance many different things, and maybe at the same time!). That should be left to skills like singing, dancing, martial arts, etc.

7. Get Noticed

Once you get headshots and a decent resume going, you need to promote yourself. This is where some people go wrong. Putting your name and face out there help to generate some notoriety as long as you have the skill and the resume to back it up.

A website would be the easiest way to get started. Make sure the name of the site is streamlined; something to the effect of ‘your name’.com. It would also need to be a nicely designed site that is user friendly and simple to navigate through. It should include the basics, such as a biography, resume/filmography, headshots and photos of you in character from your projects, contact information and maybe even a news section to keep everyone posted on upcoming projects, current filming, premieres and releases of films you’ve worked on. A poor website that looks like a 7th grader put it together for a school project will almost certainly reflect poorly on you, even if you are a talented actor.  If you need a great website, you should check out Elamintal Multimedia (Shameless self promotion… gotta love it!). A performance reel on YouTube that you can also embed into your website will help out… as people are more inclined to watch a video than to read a resume.

Although it’s a great networking tool to gain exposure, a Myspace profile page would only be fairly acceptable in lieu of a website when you’re just starting out and working the unpaid student productions, but even then, it should look professional and easy to read… with only professional headshots, your resume and a basic biography on it. With the moniker that Myspace already has, you don’t want to send a producer to a page where they are looking at your dog Fluffy and having Linkin Park on autoplay.

You should also make it a point to seek out and attend every industry-oriented meeting and event in your area. Film festivals, networking groups, film reviews and premieres of local films are all great locales for rubbing shoulders with most of the area’s filmmakers.

A key networking tool to have is business cards. Have I ever booked a gig off of a business card alone? No. But you sure do look dumb and unprofessional when you don’t have one. Good ideas are having your headshot on them, name, contact info, website, that you’re an actor (duh), and maybe one other special skill you have as mentioned earlier that would benefit a production.  Anything more or less than that will have the filmmaker wondering why they have your card in their pocket the next day.

8. Get An Agent

This is a bit of a tricky subject to discuss, let alone, task to accomplish. One thing I have come to know is that other actors will not hesitate in telling you what they really think of their agents. I’ve been on many gigs, especially commercials and films with lots of background talent, where actors will spill their guts on the types of gigs they get booked on, how fast or slow they get paid (or not at all, unfortunately) and other little tidbits. Word of mouth goes a long way in this industry.

This is how agencies work: You seek out a reputable agency and contact them to set up an audition, just like a film. If they select you, they put you in their database. When a production hires the agency to provide quality talent, they give the agency a list of characters and what they are looking for in those characters. If you fit the role, the agency will contact you, either for the audition or sometimes for a direct booking if you’re lucky.

Another note worth mentioning is the types of agreements you can have with agencies. These are: exclusive, non-exclusive and semi-exclusive. Most agents opt for non-exclusive when you’re starting out, meaning that you have the option of signing with other agents and booking work through them. Reason being, even if you’re booking gigs with other agents, those gigs are still going on your resume and help provide that agent with even more tools to getting you bigger and better projects. If you have attained extensive notoriety within the industry, an agent may request an exclusive agreement, meaning you cannot sign with any other agency, and will offer certain incentives for that within law. Semi-exclusive do not come up very often, but do have a variety of clauses, sometimes including not being able to sign to other agencies within the same state.

As far as pay, the industry standard fee for agents is 20% for non-union gigs and 10% for union gigs. The union percentage is governed by SAG (which I’ll cover later), but if anyone is charging more than 20% for non-union gigs, it’s not worth it. You also have to exhibit a bit of patience when it comes to this part. The agency pays you when they receive the money from the production company AND it clears the bank (which, apparently, is sometimes an issue). The problem with that is sometimes production companies don’t cut checks to the agencies until all production is finished. So if you were booked and worked at the start of production, you may not get paid for a while. This isn’t the agency’s fault, nor that of the production company really, it’s just how the industry works. I would advise you to do your best to have steady money coming in between gigs as it’s a well known struggle in the beginning to be a full time actor.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of scams out there. I won’t try to go over every single one, but one thing to mention is to stay away from any so-called agent that asks for money up front. Agents make money from booking you gigs, period. Some agents may recommend certain services that have fees, such as online actor databases and photography, but requiring them in order to be represented by them is something to avoid and is even illegal in some states. Also, as mentioned earlier, pay close attention to information you hear from other actors, especially stories of not ever getting paid after a good amount of time. Although some stories may need to be taken with a grain of salt, if the individual is a stand-up person with some experience, it may be worth heeding the caution.

With that said, beware of Thomas Link of The Link Agency in Orlando Florida. That guy is a joke and I have yet to get paid my promised expense reimbursement for a MLB commercial gig over two years ago. He never answers the phone and does not return phone calls or emails pertaining to getting paid. It’s the only agent I’ve worked with that has caused any sort of problem and I should have listened to the horror stories before I signed up with him. The amount is not worth going to court over, but I do my best to get the word out about this disgrace of an agency. Great agents in the Central Florida area that I can vouch for are Posh Models, Benz Models & Talent and The Diamond Agency as well as AVA Talent in New Orleans.

9. Get In The Union

This step is optional and for those who want to seriously progress their careers. Once you meet the requirements, you may join the union, Screen Actor’s Guild, commonly referred to as SAG. Although you can visit their website at www.sag.org to find out more info on them and the requirements, I will tell you that it is a serious commitment. Under Global Rule One, a SAG member must always work under a union contract, and must NEVER work non-union. This means no more student productions, no more community center plays or even local independent productions unless they have a SAG contract.

If you decide to take this step once you’re eligible, I would highly suggest relocating to one of the hotspots mentioned earlier to make it worth your while. While productions are being filmed all throughout the country and the world, living and operating within those areas will provide the best advantages of getting the most work. It’s a great step to take and can really boost your career to the next level in the industry.

10. Get Your Own Work And Keep Working

This is where motivation is a big factor. Agents and SAG only go so far to get you work. You have to stay motivated, keep networking and keep climbing up the ladder of success. It’s all about doing the grunt work in the beginning in order to position yourself where you’re in high demand. Even then, it still takes some hard work and dedication to keep it that way. The only person that can ensure your success is you. Good luck and Godspeed!

There you go! Ten basic steps on what it takes for you to go anywhere in this industry. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any comments, suggestions or complaints… or if you’re Thomas Link wanting to know why I put you on blast (as if you didn’t already know), please feel free to leave a comment!