"When is a TV pilot a good career move and when isn't it?"

Guest Blogger Charles Belk
Charles Belk Management
(for Back Stage - Jan 2009)

If afforded the opportunity to audition for and appear in a pilot, even the newest of actors should jump at it. There are several schools of thought on when a TV pilot may or may not be a good career move. There are some that believe that if you get involved in the pilot season process before you are ready as an actor, that it could affect how casting directors and producers look at you in the future. Some believe that a poor audition could leave that image of you in their minds and cause them to pass on your head shot during future casting sessions.

While this may be true for casting sessions happening within weeks or a few months of that bad audition, as time passes, those casting a project that may remember your really bad audition will take a look at your resume and look for new information -- additional acting classes, workshops and / or stage, tv and film work. We all know that for the most part, the most critical thing that will get you in front of those casting a project will be your look. So, if you peak their interest with that, then they will look at your body of work and gauge whether you are right to bring in for the audition, and if that list has expanded since the time of your bad audition, that will increase your chances of them overlooking it.

I am a firm believer that any exposure is better then no exposure. However, you should always mitigate any potential negative exposure and Commit yourself to your career by taking whatever appropriate steps that are necessary. In the case of pilot season, Focus on working extra hard now and Develop your acting skills. Do as much as possible to Prepare yourself.

You ABSOLUTELY need to be in acting classes. But up and beyond that, find someone to coach you (you will be surprised of how another fellow actor in an advanced acting class would be willing to help you out on a limited bases). Watch as much TV and movies as possible and study the actors. Think about what worked really well in their delivery that made the scene believable, or pick through those elements that didn't work as well to you. Videotape yourself delivering that same scene several times, critiquing it until you think it's perfect, then show it to others for feedback -- actors and non-actors.

Unless you are one of those rare, super naturally gifted actors (and I know you think you are!), it will take you years to perfect your trait. However, don't pass on the opportunity to land that TV role because you are a new actor still learning how to act. But, don't potentially damage your reputation as an actor by not preparing and by not doing as much as you can in the next few weeks to enhance your acting skills.

Commit, Focus, Develop and Prepare.


Thanks Charles for sharing...Emmitt thrower


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Charles Belk Entertainment
http://companies.to/charlesbelkentertainment
(Reprinted with Permission)

Guest Blogger Charles Belk

By: Charles Belk



Thanks Charles for sharing...Emmitt thrower





P.S. SUPPORT CHARLE'S FAN PAGE ON FACEBOOK Charles Belk Entertainment




All actors, working, not working, newbies or academy award winners need an acting teacher. Depending on the actor, this may come by way of acting classes or an acting coach. But utilizing a teacher will help keep you sharp, fresh and "warmed-up", and allow you to continue to sharpen your skills as an actor. When you think of others that excel in their particular industry, say for example, the NBA league MVP. Even that skilled, accomplished, working professional continues to "practice" under the guidance of a coach (a "teacher"), or continues to utilize a shooting coach during drills.

An acting teacher will help you continue to hone in on areas of improvement as well as help remind you of the techniques that are making you successful. Sometimes working actors become comfortable and content with their abilities because they have successfully booked several gigs. With these bookings may come a false sense of security that the actor has the acting thing down and he or she may start to feel that any additional lessons may offer only minimal benefit.

An acting teacher will also help keep you discipline and focused on obtaining your ultimate goal. It's like hiring a personal trainer. You can be an great physical shape, but even a few sessions at the gym with a trainer will help you take your routine and body to the next level. (Sorry for all of the sports analogies but it's the NBA Finals week and I've been hitting the gym heavily recently in preparation for summer....lol)

Ask any of today's high profile, award winning actors and most of them will say that they still utilize an acting coach.

Regardless of where you are in your acting career, you can always get better.


"By Charles Belk
Charles Belk Entertainment
http://companies.to/charlesbelkentertainment
(Reprinted with Permission)"

So You Wanna Be A Star?

Becoming an Actor or Actress

Actors play a key role in the interpretation of a writer's script. Although most famous actors live in Los Angeles or New York, there are thousands of actors that work in local television studios, theatres, or film production companies. This article contains the job description, working conditions, necessary qualifications, salary range, and promotion opportunities for actors. Please read on to find out more.

A career in theatre or film is one of the few vocational paths that offers the possibility of amazing financial opportunity and fame without requiring extensive education or book-smarts. Frequently actors are trained through an acting conservatory or university, but it is quite common for actors to find work based solely on their experience and talent. So, it is best to start preparing for a film or stage career at a young age.

Two of the most frustrating aspects of the acting profession are the intense competition and the continual rejection (both are common occupational hazards.) Although some people assume that all actors live the 'Hollywood lifestyle,' there are lots of actors that live perfectly normal lives. The majority of actors make a living by performing in television, radio, video, stage, or motion picture productions. Furthermore, fledgling actors gain experience by performing in local cabarets, nightclubs, theme parks, commercials, and films for training or educational purposes.

Salaried actors earned about $23,470 in 2002, though the top 10% of actors made over $100,000 a year.

Acting is mostly a labor of Love. The joy of performing and the process of working with a cast on a production is a very rewarding experience. Making a living solely on acting is a challenge for most artists. Most have other jobs to maintain there life while practicing their craft. Hard work, determination and persistence are key to the growth of the actor.

Just a word of advice if you wanna be a star. There are millions of actors competing for a handful of TOP paying acting opportunities. So understand the playing field. In other words, don't quit your day job.

HEADSHOTS OR SHOT IN THE HEAD PICTURES
Better Get Them Right and Professionally done.
Cheap pictures look...well cheap...See above

Do you read The National Inquirer? People? The Star?

Even if you don't read them, you can't help but notice
them - as you are checking out at the supermarket. Face
it, the tabloids are a part of our everyday experience.

Did you realize that there's a big lesson to be learned
from them? If you are pursuing a career as an actor, I
urge you to give the tabloids a closer look and discover
something very important about getting your headshots...

Here's the way it works: The tabloids offer good money to
photographers who can come up with a photo of a star
looking like something the cat dragged in. Why? Because
they know that their readers are curious. Everyone wants
to know what the stars REALLY look like. (They can't all
be beautiful, can they?)

Of course, the stars are aware that the paparazzi are out
there. The paparazzi's goal is to get a money shot: An
unflattering photograph of Jennifer or Ben. The stars'
goal is to look like the stars they are, in every picture.

So that's the game. The photogs snap and the stars pose.

Watch any red carpet ceremony and you'll see the game
being played out. Hundreds of people with cameras - scores
of stars doing their best to look like, well, stars.

IT'S YOUR JOB

So what's the lesson? It's just this - no matter who the
photographer is, it's the actor's job to make sure that the
photos turn out well - for the actor.

This is especially true when you are paying the photographer
to take your pictures. The idea that a certain photographer
is going to produce a great headshot FOR YOU ... without your
involvement ... is just not reality.

No matter who the photographer is, (and remember there are
hundreds... of varying skills, at every red carpet event)
it's your responsibility to look good in any photograph of
you.

Is this a matter of "looks?" No, it's a matter of knowing the
skills needed when you are in front of the camera. Stars get
to be stars because they know this ... and they work at these
skills.

Most actors discover the hard way that spending hundreds of
dollars to get headshots doesn't guarantee success. For some
it takes years of frustration and disappointment (& sometimes
thousands of dollars) ... before they finally get a headshot
that gets them called in.

Why? Because most actors learn these skills through a process
called "figuring it out on my own." This is a costly approach
... guaranteed to cause career problems for actors ... until
they get a headshot that works - a headshot that gets them
called in.

Let's get down to the facts ... nothing can happen until you

GET IN THE DOOR.

Getting in the door is all about your headshot. Not getting
called in? It's probably not you - it's more probably your
headshot.

I urge all actors to watch the red carpet - and see what the
actors who've succeeded are doing.

And don't forget to check out the tabloids while you're in
line with your groceries - and see what happens when stars
are not "in the game" and doing their part.

Emmitt Says...Talent is just one part of the actors arsenal. You have to learn to be a top sales person. The product is you and if you don't sell yourself nobody will care or get the opportunity to see your talent. If you don't take the time to fully dedicate to the things that make you a valuable looking product. Your career will not go anywhere. Headshots are the trailers of your personal movie. They are your invitations to casting directors to check you out because you have "it" whatever "it" is.

So take the time to get good headshots. Get feedback from friends and professionals about the pictures you choose to use. Remember what you write in your resume paints a picture about what the image they see. It enhances what they feel you can do and what you have done. Put down the things on your resume that make you unique. Things that make you stand out. Can you play the harmonica with your nose? Can you roll your eyes in opposite directions? Can you belch on cue? Put it down on your resume. It may get you a role. Don't be a cookie cutter. Don't be afraid. Take the risk. Show your uniqueness to the potential employers. You are the product so don't sell yourself short. You want the chance then take a risk and put in the effort. It will all pay off for you.

Thanks to Bob Fraser for his Lesson about Headshots...

The Acting Grind Or I Love Rejection

THE ACTING GRIND

or

I LOVE REJECTION

"I found this commentary from a newbie actor. I reminded me that we as artists all go through the same pains no matter what decade we did it in pursueing our dream. I found that facinating..."

Acting.

There's such a weird mystique about acting. Landing a role depends on whether you're tall enough or have the right skin color. You need to accept yourself as an artist and be who you are. Accepting that is a huge thing."Networking. "

Networking

Is too impersonal of a word. It's more about fostering meaningful artistic relationships with people. Get involved with the right people. Who you know can really step up your game. "Meeting people in The Acting Company has been terrific because there are a lot of people into the kinds of things that I'm doing. Having someone there backing you up can be really great."

Accepting criticism.

"Criticism is so essential. You have to keep developing, and you need your peers to tell you when something isn't working."

Auditioning. "It's such a weird Catch-22. You have to go into a room and offer up your soul and crack open your heart. Then you have to turn all of that off, and say 'it's work, and this is who I am,' and if you like it, that's fine. You have to walk out and leave it at the door."

Choosing roles.

"It's my first year out (of graduate school), so I'll go for anything: film work, commercial work, all of it. At some point, the industry is going to accept you for who you are. My fiancee is doing a lot of TV work, she's been on "Gossip Girl" and "Lipstick Jungle," and I seem to be getting a lot of theater work."

The down side of being an actor.

"You're always wondering when the next job is coming. Do I have enough money to pay the rent? And it puts a real strain on relationships."But every day I wake up and say, 'today I am an actor. I am an artist.' If you don't do that, you go nuts."

Emmitt Says....

As an artist you have to feel the need to do what you do. Yes their are many rewards at the top in the financial sense and the notariety sense, but the real value is the jackpot you hit by working at perfecting your craft. The exhilaration of audiences responding to you the artist. That, you can't put a price on. The value of those moments are what we as artists work long and hard for. The war stories we all have about the process as we develope are just that. Battle scars that we are proud of. When Theater actors say we have paid our dues you really understand what they mean. You respect what they have endured just for the opportunity to practice their craft and give their gift.

There is something to be said for fame. But their is more to be said for enduring and surviving as an Artist, GOD smiles at your creations even when no one else even see them. Trust your work and believe in yourself. Don't fool yourself into thinking there is a short cut. There are NO shortcuts in a process. Short Cuts are by it's very meaning a short version of something more meaningful. Don't try to drink the water without first getting a cup. You may be able to drink out of your hands but you never know what else you may be drinking that is on your hands. Instead use your hands to applaude for the Artist that has done the work and continues to do the work trying to be in the moment, for only a moment.

THEATER ARTISTS UNITE

Join ArtistMagnet.ning.com

Emmitt Thrower

I Just Found This Fascinating...
Theater of Code — with Ursula Endlicher, Adrianne Wortzel, MTAA; Curated by Christiane Paul :: March 3, 2009; 7:30 pm :: Light Industry, 220 36th Street, 5th Floor, Brooklyn, New York.
Theater of Code will present three performance / interventions that explore how computer code, scripting language, and software applications relate to the movement of bodies and the staging and choreography of our lives. Adrianne Wortzel’s A Re-enactment of The Battle of the Pyramids is a performance installation of reconfigured robotic toys performing military maneuvers in rigid choreographed formations. Clusters of these toys snap to synchronization in response to a call to arms, their movements emulating the rigid and postured fighting strategies of Napoleonic warfare. These strategies, employed in Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, were particularly idiosyncratic in Egypt where they were persistently performed without consideration of either the desert environment or the fighting strategies of the enemy. The work is intended as a testimony to the tragic consequences of imperialism and the dangers, follies and sadness of a rationale for blind obedience that makes victims out of warriors. Ursula Endlicher’s Website Impersonations: The Ten Most Visited is a ten-part live performance series, which utilizes Web code as choreography. In the performance of facebook on March 3, 2009, at Light Industry, three dancers, the audience, and the artist will shape the course of the performance. The source of the website — its HTML tags — is interpreted live on stage into new dance movements, which are immediately translated into text-based descriptions and then stored online in the html-movement-library. This information is reused on stage as new instruction material. As the data performance progresses, more html-movements are developed, stored and altered by the participants. The user (=the audience) takes an active role in the performance of facebook.com. The inclusion of the html-movement-library on stage enables a simultaneous exchange of instruction and performance, data and movement input and output, and a continuous transfer between Web and body. MTAA returns to Light Industry with two new performances of code-based art. In the first work — titled $”##’ — MTAA re-stages John Cage’s 4′33″ within a framework of a new media lecture. The second project is a demonstration of Autotrace, a software-generated appropriation and shape creation system. As part of the Autotrace performance, MTAA will use one of the newly generated “Autotraced shapes” to create a ridiculously large, two-dimensional, site-specific work right in front of the audience’s eyes. Together, the three projects comment on the various levels in which our movements—from military maneuvers to social interaction and the presentation of a lecture—are encoded by technologies.
Emmitt Says... How is technology impacting the art of theater? I think in some ways technology has had less impact upon theater as opposed to everything else in the world. It certainly has impacted Broadway as they have technological explosions to attract the tourism side of theater. But at the gut level of theater, Community theater, off and off off Broadway theater, it is for the most part just as it has always been. It is the pureness of word, sound and form that propels theater forward and captivates the minds and souls of theater lovers. It is a close mimic of our own lives and realities. Examining us at the most basic levels.
There have and still are many trying to incorporate technology into the Art of Theater. Some with more success than others. The trick of course is how do we take theater to another level using technology but still maintaing the attributes of a theater we care about and love. The theater that emotionally appeals to something deeper inside us that seems to need this basic live interaction to justify our existence.
I don't know what the answer is, but feel that we must pursue that model where technology and theater co exist peacefully along side each other. Theater of Code may be part of the puzzle. Maybe connecting Artists Globally, as is the ambition of Artist Magnet, to do it on a Global basis in a central location can be the bridge leading us into finding those answers with our fellow International Artist.

History will answer that...

Emmitt thrower
et@wabisabiproductions.com

Turn Off The Lights On Broadway

I thought this Article about Theater in the Mecca of Theater New York City says a lot about Theater Nationally and worldwide. Things are getting Dark! More Reason for us in the Theater Commmunity to join together and get our ACT together.


Broadway: The Show Won’t Go On if Tax Imposed
By JENNIFER MILLMAN

("Broadway: The Show Won’t Go On if Tax Imposed ", ""The Phantom of the Opera" is one of the most iconic shows on Broadway.

If Broadway tickets are taxed, you can count on some of your favorite shows having early curtain calls.
Thirteen Broadway shows already closed in January because of the bad economy and expensive tickets, according to the Daily News, and more will do the same if Gov. David Paterson’s proposed tax plan takes effect.
Paterson wants a 4 percent sales tax on theater, but Matthew Loeb, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, told the Daily News that would mean “lights out” for many shows.
"A show doesn't downsize," Loeb said. "It's dead. That means the lights go off, the workers go home, no more tickets get sold - or taxed - and unemployment claims get filed."
And if the curtain falls, the city may lose out on some money. Broadway pours $5 billion into the economy -- $2 billion in theater tickets and $3 billion in shopping, restaurants, hotels and taxis, according to Rocco Landesman, president of the Jujamcyn Theaters.
Landesman wants to know why the Yankees and Mets get all the goods. How come those sports teams get all this help from government and Broadway has to fend for itself?
"Don’t kill the golden goose," Landesman said. "People do not come into New York to see the Yankees and Mets. They come to see theater."

Emmitt Says...

No Truer words have been spoken. Theater is part of the life blood of NYC. So I am always bewildered when they state these facts and yet the ones who provide the base for these services (shows) Us the Artists, Directors, Stage workers, Designers and Technicians are not proplerly appreciated or compensated for their part. Instead we are prey for the huge giant producers of the Bright Lights and Pomp.

We as Artists need to answer the call and begin taking responsibility for our future out of the hands those who have the least concern for us and our overall success and into the hands of compassionate Artists who understand that change is sorely needed if we and the theaterare to prosper. That takes us becoming more unified. That takes all Artists in ALL unions and Non Unions Artist dropping down the swords and come to terms with each other. To me it is ridiculous to have to pay 3 Artists unions (SAG-AFTRA-AEA) for the privilage of us practicing our art.

Most artists don't make enough money from their art to pay the dues for one union let alone 3. The unions don't unify us but in fact separate us from our Non-Union Brother and Sister Artists. Shrinking our numbers and overall effectiveness. What are they really doing that wouldn't be cheaper if the unions combined. Some at the top would lose their jobs in the merger but it is a waste anyway for all this duplication and serves no reasonable purpose. Don't get it wrong unions are important to us and we need them, but somewhere along the road they got bigger than those who they represent.

We all started out as Non-Union, were you talent and creativity less valuable then? What i am saying is we need to rethink some of these old ways. Maybe we need to re invent this entire relationship we as Artists have with the Production community. Because when darkness falls on Broadway and Off Broadway nobody will suffer more than us.