I'm on TV, Bitch!

Once you have all your marketing materials (resume, headshot, demo reel), you want to get your name and work out into the industry.  There are a few options you can choose from:

MASS MAILING:

1. Use the Ross Reports or IMDBPro to find names and addresses of agents, managers, and casting directors.  If there are a few agents listed under one agency, just pick one, possibly one you’ve heard of, or send to them all.

2. Sort through the ones in which you’re interested.  I’d suggest tier them as Largest Sized, Medium Sized, & Smaller Sized Agencies.  If you don’t know much about an agency, research or ask fellow actors to help categorize.

3. Pick your top choices.  Remember, just because it’s a bigger agency doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you.   You may fall through the cracks if the agency has high profile clients who take up all their time.

4. Craft at least 3 cover letters: 1. Professional 2. Comedic 3. A mixture of both.  Get creative when you can.  Make the cover letter short and sweet (2 paragraphs max).

5.  Put your headshot/resume, reel (if you have one) and cover letter  in a manila envelope.  If you have more than one headshot, keep track whether you gave an agency a smiley look or a serious look.  Same with cover letters.

6.  Paper the City.  I’d suggest you get on a schedule (ie mail X amount of headshots each Monday).  Log when you sent the envelope, to who, what you sent, etc.  There is no timeline with responses.  You may hear back next week, you may hear back in 6 months, you may never hear back.  But that doesn’t mean your headshot isn’t out there.  Get creative.  Resend with different shots.  See which shots get the most responses, etc.

** There’s a service in New York that assists with this process http://shakespearemailing.com/

ONLINE SUBMISSIONS:

Everything is moving online these days.  Here are a few sights that allow you to submit yourself for projects:

http://www.actorsaccess.com/index.cfm?flashplayer=yes

http://www.lacasting.com/la_home.asp

http://www.nycasting.com/ny_home.asp

http://www.sag.org/iactor-online-casting (if you’re in SAG)

– TV, Bitch!

It’s important for an actor to have a demo reel to market themselves and showcase their work.  With the world moving online, more so than ever, the necessity for a digital copy of your work has risen.  So get started today, because it takes a while to develop, collect, and edit a body of work.

Generally actors have two demo reels: Commercial (showcasing their commercial work) and Theatrical (showcasing film and television work).  If you have enough professional footage and are dynamic enough you might even have 2 Theatrical Reels (Comedy and Drama).

1.  Start by collecting copies of all your on-camera work. (ie any television episodes, feature, independent, student films, short films, commercials, industrials, etc).  Separate your commercial clips for your commercial reel and theatrical work for your theatrical reel/s.

2.  Sort through all the scenes in which you appear and choose your best scenes to put on your reel.  Make sure you are prominently featured in the scene and the filming is of good quality.  Contrasting scenes are great to show your range.

3.  Order is important.  Hit them with the most notable work first. What’s going to grab the viewer’s attention because often casting directors do not watch entire reels.  Please don’t save your best work for last.

4.  Short & Sweet = Sexy.  Try to keep your reel under three minutes. Hire a professional editor to put your reel together, or if you have film editing software knowledge, you can compile it yourself. Your name and contact information should be featured at the beginning and end of your demo reel.

5.  Seek help and opinions.  Try to get an objective view of your work.

DON’T Get too fancy with reels.  A long intro will probably get turned off.  Or crazy transitions and effects.  Keep it short and sweet.  Let the work speak for you.

Hiring a professional to craft your reel is helpful.  But not necessary.  Especially if they have a hefty price tag.  These days, children are video editing.

– TV, Bitch!