Welcome back!

And thanks for reading! Acting can be a tough job. Sometimes it just feels like nothing is happening. It can be discouraging at times, and many now well-known actors were at a point in their careers where they were ready to throw in the towel just before they got their big break. An acting career requires diligence to be successful. This week let’s talk a bit about being diligent.

REMEMBER:

Just a reminder here that when I use the term “actor” I mean it to encompass all forms of acting including voice, stage, and screen.  Yeah, I know I say this every week, but it falls under the heading of “The things that go without saying are the things that most need to be said”.  What follows applies relatively equally to all of these forms of acting.

What is diligence?

It’ll come as no surprise to those of you who actually read this blog every week (except last week, since my life is so hectic right now I actually fogot to write!) that I’ve turned to my favorite online dictionary, Merriam-Webster to find the definition of diligence:

;steady, earnest, and energetic effort : devoted and painstaking work and application to accomplish an undertaking : assiduity

Steady, earnest, energetic, devoted and painstaking. THAT’S what you need to be to make it in this industry.

Coming up with things to write about

One of the most difficult things about writing a (mostly) weekly missive is figuring out what things to write about. And of course once finding a topic stretching that out to about 1500 words (my self-imposed word count for this blog), but that is a topic for another day. So how do I come up with a topic? Well, usually I pull from something that happened over the last week, and this week is no different.

A story

I wrote a couple weeks ago about how chaotic my life is these days buying, selling, and improving real estate, as we prepare to move to a different state. As we approach the date our house goes “live” in the real estate market it’s a scramble to get everything done. There is so much to do that in some instances we needed to hire people to help us, and this week was one of those weeks.

The house is dirty

No, not that kind of dirty. It had algae and just general filth all over it from, well, sitting outside all the time. It’s funny how you don’t notice these things until it’s time to have a million pictures taken to showcase your home for other people to want to buy it. Anyway, it needed to be pressure washed so it looks good, and it was just too big of a job for me to do myself. Besides, it is tall and I am afraid of heights. So, we hired a professional power washing company and scheduled them for last Wednesday.

We have a deadline

Pictures are on the 12^th, and the yard guys are coming on the 10^th to landscape, so the house needed to be cleaned by the 9^th. No problem, right? We scheduled the washing for March 27^th to make sure we had plenty of time to get it done before the landscapers arrive NEXT Wednesday. And then…

It rained

Under the heading of things you can’t control, it rained all day Wednesday. So, when I saw the forecast, I called the power wash guy. Of course, he can’t really work in heavy rain so needed to push off the job till the weather was better. And then it rained Thursday. And Friday.

Schedules and Deadlines

Funny thing about schedules and deadlines: They don’t always align. I wish I was his only customer, but that’s not realistic. This coming week was a full schedule for him, and he doesn’t work weekends (especially not Easter weekend) so it looked a lot like it just wasn’t going to be done in time. He wanted the job so we discussed how we might get it done and he agreed to come out Saturday to do the job, even though his wife was not really happy about it.

It’s a big house

Apparently, bidding a job based on Google Earth and pictures on Zillow is not terribly accurate. When he got here and actually saw the job, he realized he had significantly underbid. He’s honorable though and agreed to do the job at the original bid anyway: Good for me, bad for him. He also was doing this job alone because no one in his crew was willing to work the weekend. And he asked me to never tell anyone what he charged if I recommended him (I definitely recommend him – if you want to know and live in Northern VA give me a shout).

Here’s where the diligence comes in

He began working, alone, at around 11:30 Saturday morning. At 8PM he was about ¾ of the way done with the house, but hadn’t started the garage yet – oh, and it rained a bit too. I spoke with him as he was wrapping up for the day, and he said he’d have to get back to me on a time to return. He contacted me later that night and said he’d be back Sunday to finish. True to his word he arrived about 1:30 PM Sunday and got to work. I asked how much trouble he was in at home, and he said “Well, a bit”. An understatement to go along with his under bid.

Aaaaand….

Around 8:30 PM I went out to check on him again. He was just finishing up the garage, but still had ¼ of the house to finish. And it was full dark. And he hadn’t eaten all day. Clearly, he wasn’t going to be able to finish (and get paid) so he said he’d be back Tuesday for the last little bit. And of course it is predicting rain all day Tuesday. April showers and all. I have no doubt he’ll get it done by the deadline, though, because I can see he is very DILIGENT. I plan to give him a good-sized tip, partly because he has done an amazing job this far, and partly because I feel kinda bad for him.

What does all that have to do with acting?

I’m glad you asked. I’ll start by saying that’s the kind of actor I want to be. No, not the kind that has to start a power washing business to survive, the kind that just doesn’t give up even in the face of major difficulty and does an amazing job to boot. I want to be a diligent actor. Steady, earnest, energetic, devoted and painstaking (remember those from earlier?). Just like this guy.

Sometimes

Sometimes this work can be discouraging. You submit, and submit, and submit. Audition, and audition, and audition. And Nothing. When you do book work, it seems the roles are small (there are no small roles BTW), or the project is small and won’t be seen by many people, or the project doesn’t have much of a budget, so the pay is low, or the project never gets done. It’s enough to make you want to quit. And a lot of people do.

DON’T

Jenna Fischer (Pam in The Office) writes in her book: The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide, that just before she booked the role of Pam she was considering giving up acting and concentrating on a 9-5. Bryan Cranston (Walter White in Breaking Bad among many others) writes in his book: A Life in Parts about his struggles early in his career and considering giving up acting. But neither did, and now you know them. There are a lot more, but you get the idea. 

IMDB

Take a look at any well-known actor’s IMDB page and you will see tons of projects you’ve never heard of nestled in between all the ones you know well. Unknown projects, low paid roles, weeks, months, sometimes years between gigs is common in the industry. The one thing (besides great acting) that sets these well-known people apart is this: Diligence. They never gave up. They were steady, earnest, energetic, devoted and painstaking in pursuing their craft and career. You (and I) should be too.

So, just don’t

Don’t give up. I’d say don’t get discouraged, but that may be a bridge too far, just: Don’t. Give. Up. Stay focused. Be Steady. Be earnest. Be energetic. Be devoted. Be painstaking. And keep on going. To be honest, the odds of you becoming a Jenna Fischer or Bryan Cranston are small (very small actually) but the odds of you becoming a working actor who is able to support themselves with their craft? WAY bigger. And besides, the odds of you being able to do either of those things is exactly ZERO if you give up! So, just don’t.

 If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!  And please feel free to share this blog on social media or with other people you think might enjoy it.

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything – and as a thank you receive a free copy of my E-Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About getting Started in Voice Over but Didn’t Know Who to Ask! 

Welcome back!

And thanks for reading! If you’re an actor, you know very well what rejection feels like. The question is, how do you handle rejection? A better question is: IS it really rejection? This week let’s talk about rejection and how to handle it.

REMEMBER:

Just a reminder here that when I use the term “actor” I mean it to encompass all forms of acting including voice, stage, and screen.  Yeah, I know I say this every week, but it falls under the heading of “The things that go without saying are the things that most need to be said”.  What follows applies relatively equally to all of these forms of acting.

Job Hunting

Acting is one of the only jobs you can have where you are constantly looking for work. Most people spend some time trying to find a job and then when they find one, they work at it for at least a few years (normally) before having to find another. And most of the time they are looking while working so it is relatively stress free. Most of the time. As an actor, finding a job typically means being employed for days or maybe weeks before you are looking for another job. Very few actors get long term roles that last for years.

What is Rejection?

I like to turn to my favorite resource to answer questions like this: The Dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster – my go-to dictionary – here is the definition of rejection:

• a : the action of rejecting : the state of being rejected

b: an immune response in which foreign tissue (as of a skin graft or transplanted organ) is attacked by immune system components of the recipient organism

• : something rejected

Not really much help when they use the word they are defining to define that word. I guess they expect everyone to already know what it means. Let’s turn to the Cambridge Dictionary:

the act of refusing to accept, use, or believe someone or something:

There we go! For an actor, it is the “refusing to accept” part we’ll be focusing on.

Rejection

We’ve all experienced rejection from time to time in searching for work. You just don’t get every job you apply for. It’s normal, but it can still suck. For most people, that form of rejection occurs every few years and then there is a long break. For actors? Rejection occurs almost daily. And not just once for each job. For an actor, each job provides three opportunities to be rejected, each one slightly worse than the last.

Submission

The first step in applying for any acting job is the submission. This is where you see a role you think you may be a fit for and you submit your “materials”. Your materials are head shots, resumes and acting reels (for VO it’s usually just a voice reel). Casting takes a look (or listen) to your materials and then decides if you really could be a good fit for the role. This step is by far the easiest rejection to take because you typically hear nothing back from submissions. Actors get used to this level of rejection very quickly in their career and just move on to submit to other roles. We submit for multiple roles every day.

Audition

Then, it happens. One of your submissions hits and you get the much sought after request for an audition. You pour yourself into preparing for the audition, studying the script, figuring out the “who, what, where” of the scene, the tone of scene and who your character is. Then you spend some time familiarizing yourself with the dialog and actions in the scene, memorize your lines and put on some clothes that suggests the character. You find a reader (if you need one) and head to whatever studio setup you have, record 2-3 takes (honestly, don’t drive yourself nuts doing 10 takes). Then it’s off to your computer to pick the best take, edit it, make sure sound and lighting are good and send the audition off to casting.

Crickets

Even after all the work of preparing for, recording, and editing your audition, crickets is usually what you hear back from casting. Honestly, not even crickets. Silence. The most likely outcome of sending an audition is: Nothing. This rejection is much harder to take. You worked hard, did all the prep, rehearsed the scene, and gave your best performance. And then not even a “Thank you for your time, we are going another way”.  It can be discouraging.

Call Back

And then it happens – you get a call back! Of course, a call back means they liked your audition and are considering you for the role. This is a very exciting time for an actor because it means you might get cast! YEA! So, you take another look at the scene, rehearse a little more and then make yourself available to meet with the casting team and perhaps the director or producer of the project, either in-person or more likely these days virtually. It can be nerve wracking and anxiety producing. I mean, you might actually get a job! Then, the call back meeting lasts about ten minutes, and you are done. It’s kind of anti-climactic.

More Crickets

Yep, the usual result is even more crickets after the call back. Sometimes they may ask about availability (this is a good sign!) or even “pin” you (an even better sign) for the day or days you’d be working. At least if they pin you when they decide to go with another actor, they’ll tell you they are releasing you, so you know for sure you didn’t get it. This is the hardest rejection to take since you had high expectations of getting the role.

But….

There’s always a but, right!? AS bad as it can feel to be rejected, the thing is these are NOT rejections. Yes, they can feel like rejection, but there is a much better way to look at casting when you don’t get the role. It may even make not getting cast feel less like a rejection.

Selection

Casting is a process of selection, NOT rejection. The first thing to understand is that, for a given project/role, there are dozens, if not hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of submissions. Casting has a tough job to sort through them all to find the perfect actor for the role. What they are not doing is looking for people to exclude, they are looking for people to INclude. Actors are being selected, not rejected.

The Menu Analogy

Let’s say you decide to go out to dinner at your favorite restaurant (the project). You sit down and the waiter brings you a menu (submissions). Even though you may be familiar with the menu offerings you peruse the menu deciding what to have for dinner. You are leaning toward either a steak or roast chicken, so you ignore the pork, fish, pasta, and salads. Finally, you decide on the chicken and that’s what you order. Enjoy your meal. Have you rejected pork, fish, pasta, salad, and steak? Not at all, you may order one of those next time.

You’re The Menu Item!

When you submit to a role, you become one of many menu items to choose from. Casting looks through all the menu items and selects several they might be interested in then considers only those (audition) they narrow it down to just one or two choices (callback) and eventually decide on just one to order (cast). Just like you don’t always feel like pork or fish or pasta, not every actor (no matter how talented) is right for every role. They were not rejected; they just weren’t selected.

It has nothing to do with…

Their selection of someone else has nothing to do with how talented you are as an actor. Does eating chicken mean steak or pasta are terrible? NO! They just weren’t the right selection for that day. There are SO many reasons a person may or may not be selected that have nothing to do with their talent. How tall are they? Hair color? Eye color? Accent? Body type? Availability? All of these (and many more) are reasons a given actor may not be selected for a role, even when they absolutely nail the audition. They just don’t fit for some reason.

Remember

If you’ve been asked to audition, you were selected. If you’ve been invited to a call back, you were selected. If you’ve been pinned (even if later released) you’ve been selected. And, of course, if you’ve been offered the role you were selected. By the time you get a role, you’ve been selected numerous times! So, rejoice in getting the audition and give them the most attractive menu item you can be, then celebrate the actor who was selected for the role, one day it will be you!

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!  And please feel free to share this blog on social media or with other people you think might enjoy it.

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything – and as a thank you receive a free copy of my E-Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About getting Started in Voice Over but Didn’t Know Who to Ask! 

Looking for your next great non-fiction read? Look no further! Check out this promotion: Spring Into Action 

Welcome back!

And thanks for reading! Moving sucks. There I said it! We are presently in a transition period, moving from Virginia to South Carolina. And while I look forward to our new home (someday) the transition period is pretty chaotic. And it definitely impacts an acting career! This week let’s talk about chaotic life events!

REMEMBER:

Just a reminder here that when I use the term “actor” I mean it to encompass all forms of acting including voice, stage, and screen.  Yeah, I know I say this every week, but it falls under the heading of “The things that go without saying are the things that most need to be said”.  What follows applies relatively equally to all of these forms of acting.

It’s a LOT

Have you ever changed houses? Locations? Doing both certainly adds a level of complexity to life. We are doing that right now and there are a LOT of moving pieces. As I sit typing this at 6:15AM on Monday March 11, 2024 I am working with four realtors. Well, actually, today it’s three since we actually completed one transaction, but I am talking to yet another so it will likely be four again soon. Just keeping their names and what each is doing for me straight is chaos enough!

Here’s what is happening

First, I am attempting to sell my home. That’s one realtor (and she is fantastic – if you are in Northern Virginia and need a realtor, reach out and I’ll recommend). We own a very nice, large, home. Some might call it a McMansion, although it was originally built way back in the 1950’s. I don’t mention this to brag, but it bears on preparation to sell. This type of home requires a particular type of executive buyer, so it has to be marketed just right. Enter the realtors staging expert. She’s really a nice lady, but I hate her. If you’re not familiar with staging I envy you. This is where someone goes through your house and tells you what to get rid of and how to arrange everything.

You kind of have to pre-pack

In order to properly stage a house, you kind of have to pre-pack most of it and store the extra stuff…what I call the things you use every day and the stager calls “clutter”. As you can see by the picture our garage is filling up with the stuff we packed. To be fair, Karen has packed most of it but I have moved it all down to the garage.  I won’t show you a picture, but the house is a wreck with moving boxes and packing paper everywhere. Chaos.

Second

Next, we are having a house built in South Carolina. If you didn’t know, South Carolina is a 7-hour drive from Northern Virginia, and in the last two months we have been down there for one thing or another seven or eight times. I’m actually sitting in South Carolina right NOW, as my son moved down here yesterday and we had a truck and car load of stuff to bring down. Enter realtor number 5 (well, 4 now I suppose) to help him find a new place so he doesn’t live with his sister too long.  Anyway, having a house built means a bajillion design decisions and tracking progress, hence realtor number two. She’s ALSO fantastic so if you are looking to have a house built (or buy one) in the Charleston area, I can recommend her too.

Then

We are also selling a piece of land we thought we might build on here in South Carolina (realtor number 3). This one is pretty easy, since it is bare land and nothing to get ready…but also not a lot of offers rolling in.  This one hardly adds to the chaos, although it does to some extent, and if we don’t sell quickly it’s not a tragedy.

And of course…

Since we are moving away from one grandson (but closer to a soon-to-be granddaughter though) we purchased an acre in West Virginia (near that grandson) where we can park our RV for extended visits. We closed on that land last week, which is why that realtor dropped off the list, but added a General Contractor to coordinate a well, septic system, and electric service installation there. We’re barely started there so finishing the purchase will just ADD to the chaos.

My life is all over the place

Between getting our Virginia home ready, tracking and making decisions on the South Carolina home, preparing the West Virginia land for the RV and fielding offers (not as many as I’d like) on the South Carolina property – we are all over the place. Literally. We spend a LOT of time traveling back and forth between all these places. Sometimes I feel like I need an extra 12 hours for each day in order to be ready for everything. Oh, yeah, and my daughter is having a baby next month so I also have all the stuff associated with that to contend with (baby showers and the birth too!). And did I mention I am also producing a podcast? I’ll let you know when it releases. And, of course, regular life as well…that hasn’t gone away.

And then…work

I’m fortunate to be retired from my day job, and don’t require income from my acting career to be able to live. I still want to (and do) work though. I’ve had to make some adjustments. Those adjustments are really kind of the point of this post, sorry you had to wade through all of the above first, but I felt it was important to provide context in describing the adjustments. The real message here is that if you love what you do, you can do it even in the midst of chaos.

Acting class

Sadly, when you have a lot on your plate some things just have to fall off. For me, that meant pausing acting classes/coaching.  It’s temporary and I am already researching acting classes in South Carolina, but we won’t be here full time until late this year (the builder is telling us November). Since we put our house on the market next month and expect to be out by June, that means several nomadic months in the RV which is not conducive to attending a weekly class. So, pause to acting classes. I’ve got two more paid up guitar lessons and then that pauses too.

The booth

One of the things the staging lady called “clutter” is my VO booth. It’s not down yet, but will have to be in the next couple weeks. If you know anyone looking for a broadcast quality booth, let me know I’ve got one at a good price since it won’t fit in the new house. Anyway, the adjustment is figuring out a temporary portable solution. I’m ready there, but don’t need to implement it till the booth comes down.

The Studio

My audition filming studio is, apparently, also clutter. That has to also come down in the next couple weeks. As a result, I’ve had to not only figure out a temporary solution for at home, but come up with a way to audition from the RV. I’ve locked down the RV solution (even booked a job with an RV audition!) even though it is not optimal. I suspect my home solution (which is on my to-do list) won’t be optimal either.

Scheduling

I’ve had to cut back on the number of roles I submit for. With my present schedule, I simply can’t submit for everything I am a fit for like I was doing. So, I’ve had to really pay close attention to not only production dates, but locations as well and then be very selective. It means I’m not able to work as much as I’d like to. The timing on this is actually pretty good, since there is a bit of a contraction in the industry right now and I am not missing out on too many jobs anyway, because they are not there.

The message

My point in all of this is not to complain. Far from it. This is a very exciting time in our lives and I am looking forward to making the move, even though things are a bit hectic at the moment. The real message here is that if you love what you do you can keep doing it even in the face of this much chaos. It would be very easy to simply “pause” my acting career till all of this is done, but that would likely lead to stagnation and maybe never un-pausing it. So, if your life looks chaotic right now like mine does, don’t stop! Make whatever adjustments you need and keep moving forward, even if it is slowly. I think you’ll be glad you did. I’ll let you know when my chaos dies down.

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!  And please feel free to share this blog on social media or with other people you think might enjoy it.

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything – and as a thank you receive a free copy of my E-Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About getting Started in Voice Over but Didn’t Know Who to Ask! 

Looking for your next great non-fiction read? Look no further! Check out this promotion: Spring Into Action