An acting career is like any other career in terms of skill level and how well you can market you skills. The one thing that totally separates an acting career from everything else is that what you look like, and what you sound like are probably the most important things.
Here are some things I see every day when looking through talent resumes and some quick fixes to get the disasters to master level in no time:
Disaster Scenario:
An actor DirectSubmits their resume to a casting director for consideration for a role in a film or commercial.
Problems I see often:
– Talent did not send the casting director a complete resume! Maybe they didn’t have their Stats, Contact Info, Size Cards, Special Skills, Training or Credits listed. Maybe their Main Photo is not a good quality or it’s turned sideways. Maybe it was a bad Actors Reel or lack of a Reel.
Any of this is easily fixed by looking at yours now and simply adding or editing what you see. You can get to all of this from your Talent Dashboard now. Since the dashboard tells you what parts of your resume are missing, this should be a snap!
Now, any given part might matter a lot to the casting director, so as they look over resumes they are seeing either your great show business prowess or complete laziness. So just having everything in it’s correct place and looking the best it can is an easy fix to give you a better chance of getting the audition.
If you’re not sure how how this stuff should look or be written, we have examples on our resume pages. You can also do things like research: Actor’s Headshots, What makes a great Actors Reel, How are Actor Resumes formatted. If you want to specifically see how working actors look, do a search for Talent Agencies and have a look at their rosters of talent. That will give you a good indication of the quality you should be presenting.
For Headshots and Reels:
If you don’t have a great Professional Headshot yet, the fix is to get one ASAP. These days people often think their selfies will do the job… maybe it will be depending on the jobs you’re submitting to, but will nearly always make you look like an amateur and therefore get clicked on less resulting in getting waaaay less to no auditions.
For Reels, an Actors Reel is usually made up of the video from past roles they had, if you have this material, keep it continuously updated as better work comes in. Of course it’s free to add these to your resume whenever you have them and the same would go for Audio Reels for Voice-Over and Singing. Actors often make different reels for different kind of work they booked. You will often see they have their Legit Reel (meaning Film, TV or Theater work) and Commercial Reel. They may also have a Dramatic Reel and a Comedic Reel. This all depends on the performer and what types of work they are after.
If you’re newer and don’t have video from past roles yet, you can at least start by adding Self-Taped Monologues and Scenes that you choose for yourself. It’s not the same as an Actor’s Reel, but it’s video that people can see and head your acting skills. These videos give the casting directors a much clear picture of who you are as a performer over just photos and words alone. In fact there are millions of examples of these tapes changing careers overnight!
In conclusion, just doing all of the above better, like a professional would do, is an easy way to turn disasters into masters and will bring more Auditions your way as well as bookings, then money!
