So you’re trying to further your acting career. You want to give yourself a leg up on all the others who fit the same general sort of profile as you. Actors who are all at the same auditions and up for the same jobs, wherever you go. But, there are ways to separate yourself from the rest. Build your own brand to make sure that you, and not they, are the ones to where the jobs go to.
There are a lot of things you can do but they all involve hard work and some serious dedication to achieve a successful acting career. The reality is, if you’re unwilling to build yourself as a brand, you’re in the wrong place. Take this to the bank, you can’t be at the top of the masses if you don’t have your own brand set.
Here are some suggestions you might not have thought about in making yourself known in a way you might not have previously been.
USING THE NET:
Seems pretty simple on the surface but most actors aren’t doing that extra bit of self-promotion. This goes far beyond just doing some audition tapes or getting the occasional part here and there. The media world is not the vertical place it was once considered, and there are just numerous opportunities for a performer to make themselves much more visible.
Here are some rules that used to apply “once upon a time”. Being in film was being on top and then there was TV just below that, with most everyone looking down on the internet and ads. Those rules are long gone into the past. Now-a-days everyone does movies and tv and ads combined, regardless of how big they are in the industry. It has all converged. If you seriously want to be a megastar and starting from zero, you have to put yourself on camera and put yourself out there.
Short version: Network with friends in the business and come up with some original content that will showcase the one or two things you do better than anyone else.
RESEARCH:
Think you might be even interested in making your own TV pilot? Great! But understand that your outlets are limited. Yet, if you take a 20 or so minute short story and break it up into 4, 6 or 7 smaller chapters, they become tailor-made for YouTube, or even Facebook’s new paradigm. You may be Interested in being a snarky pundit? Well then Twitter is perfect for that. You want to match the right concept with the right outlet.
It’s about defining visibility, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, has its own kind of content and audience. Understand the business model and use it. Use data and knowledge to increase your odds.
News Flash! On average, Thirty thousand people move to Los Angeles to get into the entertainment industry every month and almost just as many move out disappointed. The odds are enormous, so you must set yourself apart from the crowd. Just slapping something together and tossing it online isn’t going to help you. Target your audience.
BE AUTHENTIC
Authenticity is paramount. Establish your voice as unique and totally your own. Be someone that an audience can trust. Your content needs to be very poignant and seriously reach reach them, in making them laugh, cry, or think. Not just being an orgy of creative editing, or creative pictures and sets, or mindless avant gardeness or some kind of fashion statement. An audience needs to be emotionally moved, in some way and not left confused. They also know when you’re trying to put one over on them.
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
The obvious conclusion an actor might make about whatever their content is, is that it has to showcase them, ya’ know, actual acting. That’s not really the entire goal. What you’re trying to do is build a brand, which means gaining followers. Perhaps your specialty has nothing to do with acting, but rather with an interest or skill that you can market to others.
Who you want to be, ripples into everything you’re doing. For example. Say you’re an actor that sings or plays an instrument or into cars or has kids at home, you can choose for your social world to be about cars, motorcycles music, motherhood, or whatever because you want to own it. You start putting out Instagram posts about places your performing, instruments, cars, racing, clubs, horses, motherhood, etc. about these things of interest that you’re about and you get followers. The thing is, if you have a couple hundred thousand followers, or more, and you’re up for a job, people will give you a leg up because you’re automatically bringing in an audience. Artists reach out to their followers to contribute to their creative endeavors, and get success.
PREPARE TO WORK YOUR ASS OFF
It’s a brand new world today, in that individual people have the very same opportunities as large companies, and just like those companies, you have to think about your brand and your business, because how you build it will define your career.
If you don’t make those decisions, the marketplace will make them for you, and you might not get the career you want and you might get pigeonholed into a place where you really don’t want to be. Straightforward, it’s an overwhelming endeavor. Big stars have teams helping them, but they had to work their asses off to get there in the first place.”
If you don’t do the work, someone else is going to, and you’ll be left in the dust. People are naturally lazy, but if you want to succeed, you can’t be. You also have to push through the failures and missteps. Learn from your mistakes, fight as long as you have to, because if you’re not in it for the long haul, you might as well pack it in now.
CAS has helped countless careers with this theory and know it works. We can put you in the right path and be right there next to you, supporting you’re dream, but you have to do the work. There are more people trying to get into the business, and more opportunities, but the success rate is the same. There are much easier ways to make money, so if you’re building a career, you have to be willing to do the work. Nowadays, that work means social, building an audience, and running with it. Successful people work their butts off to become so. There are no short cuts. You do this right, and at some point, the phone starts ringing.
Wishing you much success.
Edward Dennis Fogell
Artistic Director/CAS
773-645-0222
PS – Sign up for our career counseling program for personalized guidance in jumpstarting your acting career!
Chicago Actors Studio 