VAM 230 | How To Take Direction Without Taking It Personally
Welcome to episode 230 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Since 2011, I’ve repeatedly stressed on this podcast the importance of developing professionally competitive acting skills if you want to be successful as a voice actor. It’s why I decided to name the podcast Voice Acting Mastery! If masterful voice acting skills are the prime requisite for succeeding as a professional, and they most certainly are, the next most important skill is the ability to take direction. If you are a brilliant actor who can give truly authentic performances, but you’re unwilling to modify your acting to suit the overall vision a director has for a project, you become an impediment to the production, rather than an asset. Allow me to explain.
When working on a production with multiple characters, like an animated show or a video game, every actor in the project has their own idea of how they would like to play their character. Industrious, proactive actors have taken the time to analyze the script and their character’s point of view very rigorously, working out as many details as they can in order to explore the psychological nuances in each scene. And while this might be enough to create standout individual performances, if a director were simply to allow each of these actors to play their part as they saw fit without considering the project as a whole, the resulting performances may not end up sounding like they go together. Instead, you might end up with as many different opinions about how the project should sound as there are performers working on it!
The director’s job is to have a single point of view or focus for the production and to make sure that every actor’s contribution serves that unifying vision. It’s not dissimilar from the conductor of an orchestra ensuring that every musician is playing on the beat, in tune, and with the appropriate emphasis, emotional nuance, and dynamics to make the music as compelling as possible. No one musician, no matter how brilliant they may be on their own, can remain in the orchestra if they’re not willing to take direction and contribute to a unified performance. The same is true in acting.
The ability to take direction and modify your performance so you can serve the production as a whole is crucial if you want to be valuable to a project. However, I have noticed that some beginning voice actors, especially those who have little to no experience in traditional acting environments like theater, have a tendency to take the direction they receive rather personally. Instead of acknowledging the notes that a director might give them, and then doing their best to perform in a way that aligns with the director’s vision, they instead take that direction as a personal criticism. They feel upset and hurt, as if the direction they received was an insult or a judgement.
I can understand why this happens. Acting is about sharing one’s emotional life through the vehicle of a character in service of a story in the hopes that an audience will find it compelling. I’ve spoken often about the importance of an actor being emotionally vulnerable when playing a character, so the performance will be as authentic and believable as possible. If you make yourself emotionally vulnerable, it’s understandable that any director’s request to modify whatever vulnerability you just shared can feel like a personal rejection.
I’d like to take this episode to implore all my listeners not to take direction personally, and to understand that it’s a means to guide you, not a weapon to attack you. To help you understand this, I’m going to be sharing some techniques that may assist you in taking any direction you receive into consideration without becoming upset. Most directors I work with are generous, supportive people who only want the best for their project and for their actors. I know that when they give me notes, even spirited ones, it’s never a personal criticism, but merely their passion for making a project the best it can be. That being said, the mindset I want to share with you will even help you when working with directors who are not so enlightened. It’s unfortunate, but there’s always a possibility that you might end up interacting with a director who’s less generous and more egotistical. There are a few directors out there who can be controlling, emotionally dismissive, or downright rude. I want you to be able to maintain your emotional equilibrium even in the worst of circumstances!
VAM 229 | How Voice Acting Culture Lost Its Way, And How Reclaiming Its Heritage Can Benefit You
Welcome to episode 229 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
I want to take this episode to talk about a cultural shift that I’ve noticed in the voice acting world, especially amongst younger, more aspiring voice actors. It’s a shift away from the more traditional approach to acting as a form of artistry that deserves attention and devotion for its own sake, and a shift towards acting simply as a means to an end. Whether that end is getting yourself into projects because you’re a fan of animation and video games, or if that end values getting more personal attention as an influencer online, this disconnect from acting for its own sake is not really serving anyone in a sustainable way.
In the past, I’ve talked about the difference between how a fan approaches the professional voice acting world, and how a creator approaches that same environment. I’m sure my regular listeners are familiar with a piece of advice that I often give which is, “Love the art in yourself more than yourself in the art.”. It’s a slight rewording of the advice that the famous acting teacher Stanislavski gave to his students. I’ve actually explored this topic at length way back in episode 44 of the podcast entitled, “Do You Think Like an Artist?” where I expound on that Stanislavski quote in detail. I also touched on the subject in episode 218 entitled, “It’s Not About You: An Actor’s True Purpose Is To Serve The Art, Not To Become A Celebrity.”. In those episodes and others I’ve consistently emphasized that voice acting mastery comes from devotion to the art of acting first and foremost, and many of the voice actors I’ve interviewed on this podcast can confirm this. They’ve spent an enormous amount of time collaborating with other artists in focused acting environments in order for them to develop believable and authentic acting skills.
However, things have changed quite a bit since I first started voice acting. One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed is in my students. When I first began teaching voice acting classes in 2009, many of my students came from more traditional acting backgrounds, like theater or improv. These students might have participated in theater in school, or studied acting on camera. They usually had some experience collaborating with directors, writers, and other actors, and they brought that experience with them into my voice acting classes. What drew them to voice acting was often an appreciation for animation and video games, but they were an actor first, and a fan second.
That’s no longer the case today. At the time of the recording of this episode, the majority of voice acting students I encounter have almost no acting experience whatsoever. Not only have they never been in a traditional acting environment, more and more they seem to lack exposure to certain influential movies or TV shows where they can study some of the best performances out there. What makes things even more challenging is that many of them have been heavily marketed to by online salespeople who insist that voice acting is easy, and that all you need is a microphone and a spare closet and you too can get paid to speak words without knowing anything about acting. What inevitably follows is that a significant number of these students end up frustrated that they are not booking jobs as easily as they expected. This is because many of them are approaching this very challenging profession completely backwards, coming at it from influencer culture or fan culture rather than acting culture. This leaves many aspiring voice actors misinformed and lacking the context they need to succeed both artistically and professionally. A voice acting culture disconnected from a traditional acting culture is not a healthy one.
I want to address this disconnect in the current voice acting world by sharing my observations about how things have gotten this way over the years, and to remind my listeners that not only was it not always this way, but that we as actors have the power to reconnect with what we’ve lost. If any of my listeners out there have grown up in the current toxic soup of online anxiety, ever-shortening trend cycles, and the constant pressure to chase relevance and clout, I want to offer you some hope that you don’t need to feel this way forever. There is a different path. I believe that if I can provide some historical context and share what it was like before these current unhealthy trends took hold, I can help my listeners improve their artistry along with their resilience. A simple mindset shift can recalibrate your priorities and your expectations, which can help with any frustrations you might be experiencing, especially if voice acting is proving to be a bit more challenging than the online salespeople might have promised. In fact, I believe that the more of us who adopt a more traditional artistic mindset, the more we all stand to benefit, both as creative collaborators who get to work on better and better projects, but also as audience members who get to enjoy more nuanced and authentic performances in our entertainment.
So if you’ve been feeling stuck or confused in your voice acting journey, or if things aren’t going as smoothly or as quickly as you’d like, then allow me to help explain why embracing a traditional acting culture can be so beneficial for you.
VAM 228 | How The Power Of Silence Can Help You Become A Better Creator
Welcome to episode 228 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
In previous episodes of this podcast, I’ve stressed how important it is for my listeners to become familiar with some of the best acting performances out there. In episode 204, I encouraged you all to go hunting for the best acting and storytelling you can find, especially in genres and forms of media that you might otherwise not have considered before. Way back in episode 105 of the podcast entitled, Know Your Genre: Better Voice Acting Through Immersion, I explained how crucial it was for an actor to familiarize themselves with the most popular and influential stories in media. And in my most recent interview with Alejandra Reynoso, she shared how she had the opportunity to experience some of the best films in existence because her father worked as a projectionist at movie theaters in Los Angeles. She spent much of her youth watching and enjoying a variety of films with her father.
I’ve also suggested that my listeners do their best to consume quality entertainment because it is far too easy to allow the algorithms of social media and platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and even Netflix to decide for us what we should watch next. The algorithm chooses media based on what it thinks we want. It gives us more of what we’ve chosen to consume in the past, but it has no conception of what we might need to experience as artists in order to grow, nor does it care. It’s only job is to monetize our attention, which is why in episode 221 I talked about the value of serendipity and how useful it can be for you to break your habitual patterns of media consumption in order to expose yourself to new and inspiring types of art.
In all of the episodes I’ve mentioned and more, I’ve focused on helping my listeners to consume the best, most artistically nourishing media that exists. However, for this episode, I want to do something very different. I want to encourage you not to consume more media, but rather to find moments in your life where you actually seek out and embrace silence. While it is definitely important to build your knowledge of characters, stories, and exceptional acting performances, it turns out it is equally important to find quiet, introspective time to allow all of that knowledge to consolidate in your subconscious so it can inform your choices and your instincts as an artist.
Without that silence, your creative mind cannot engage, it can only imitate and regurgitate what it’s seen before. If you are doing nothing but consuming a veritable firehose of media and you never take the time to listen to your own internal creative spark, you risk never creating anything that isn’t just a copy of what’s come before. This inner wisdom is exactly what differentiates the human mind from the current Large Language Models that power what is spuriously referred to as Artificial Intelligence. AI as we call it today is extremely good at consuming media and regurgitating it somewhat accurately. It can remix the sources it’s trained on and deliver relatively polished results. I’m not sure I’d call that intelligence per se, but many people do find the results impressive. What AI lacks, however, is the power to truly innovate. AI is incapable of being introspectively silent and listening to the quiet voice of inspiration that has fueled some of the greatest artists on the planet.
In this episode, I want to impress upon you just how valuable it can be to sit in silence, even if it feels uncomfortable at first. Our subconscious creative power resides in that silence, and it can only be heard if we take the time to get quiet, be still, and listen to what it has to say. So if you’re ready, I invite you to join me for an exploration of silence and what it has to offer us as artists and performers.
VAM 227 | Interview with Alejandra Reynoso, Part 2
Welcome to episode 227 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
This is the second and final part of my interview with the talented Alejandra Reynoso! You may be familiar with her work in animated shows like Winx Club and Castlevania. In games she’s worked on Metaphor: ReFantazio, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and DOTA 2. In anime she’s worked on Secrets of the Silent Witch, The Medalist, the Mononoke films, and Pokemon Horizons! Alejandra and I have been fortunate enough to cross paths on a number of different projects and I’m always impressed with the authenticity and vulnerability of her performances!
In the previous episode Alejandra shared with me how she got started as a voice actress. She began as a child actress working in commercials and on-camera for many years before her agent recommended her to the voice over department when she was around 16 years old. She booked a guest character in one of the first projects she auditioned for, GI Joe Renegades, and other than taking a short sabbatical during college where she focused on her studies, she’s been voice acting professionally ever since!
In this segment, I ask Alejandra what inspired her to become an actor in the first place. From her perspective, she feels like she just sort of fell into acting and that it was never something she aspired to do on purpose from a young age. However, as we explore the topic more, she admits that she has always loved experiencing imaginary worlds. Playing make believe was one of her favorite pastimes. Also, her father had a great love for films and she took joy in participating in something that he appreciated.
When I ask why Alejandra decided to pursue acting rather than some other artistic endeavor like writing or drawing, she shares that she loved the idea of other people facilitating the process of creating stories and inviting her to collaborate with them while they were playing make believe. That creative endeavor was so important to her that she was willing to find ways to overcome the stage fright and nerves that often made her feel anxious and scared to perform. The characters and stories required her courage, so she jumped in and played pretend despite her fears!
After that, Alejandra and I wrap up our discussion with her advice to the aspiring voice actor. She emphasizes that any actor has to love the work of acting; not the attention, or the acclaim, but the day-to-day effort it takes to get good at acting. Without that work ethic, that stick-to-it-ivness, an actor may become disappointed or even despondent when their career goals don’t manifest quickly. Alejandra even has a great manifesto: The process of acting has to be so satisfying to you that even if you never book that one role you’ve been dreaming of playing, that the rest of your professional accomplishments will feel satisfying and worthwhile. It’s a fabulous way of looking at one’s career and I’m eager to share that and more of Alejandra’s wisdom with you!
VAM 226 | Interview with Alejandra Reynoso, Part 1
Welcome to episode 226 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
I’m excited to present to you my interview with the very talented Alejandra Reynoso! In the world of animation she’s probably most famous for playing Flora in Winx Club for Nickelodeon and Sypha in the popular Netflix animated series, Castlevania. In games she’s played Gallica in Metaphor: ReFantazio, Neon in Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and Dawnbreaker in DOTA 2. In anime she’s Monica Everett in Secrets of the Silent Witch, Hitomi Takamine in The Medalist, Asa in the series of Mononoke films, and the lead character Liko in the new Pokemon Horizons series!
I first came across Alejandra and her work when we were both cast in Pokemon Horizons where I play the adventurous Pokemon professor, Friede. I heard Alejandra’s performance as Liko and found it hopeful, idealistic, and endearing. Then, I was pleasantly surprised when right after Pokemon Horizons, we were both cast in the anime movie Mononoke: Phantom in the Rain where she voiced one of the main female leads, Asa, and I voiced the Medicine Seller. In that film, Alejandra played a grounded, confident young woman who was negotiating the complicated politics of the Japanese Imperial court. After hearing her in both roles, I was really impressed by her acting range and I knew I had to get her on the podcast!
The beginning of Alejandra’s acting journey almost sounds like it was lifted from a Hollywood fairytale! Her father worked as a film projectionist in Los Angeles and she would often accompany him to work in order to spend time with him and watch movies. When she was only 9 years old, an agent saw her playing in the lobby of the movie theater and thought she might do well as a child actress in commercials. Initially, Alejandra’s parents were nervous about her becoming an actress. They were all too familiar with the pressures put on child actors and they worried it would affect their daughter negatively. However, they didn’t want to restrict Alejandra from doing something that might bring her satisfaction, so they decided to ask her if she’d like to take acting classes to see if it would be something she’d enjoy.
Alejandra was open to the idea, and started studying at a school for child actors. It wasn’t long before she had caught the eye of another agent who wanted to represent her for commercial and on-camera work. After working with that agency for around 6 years, her agent then recommended her to their voice over department which was looking for young talent. Alejandra happened to book the very first audition the voice over department sent her which was for the animated show GI Joe: Renegades, where Troy Baker played her father. Alejandra instantly fell in love with voice acting and realized she wanted to make it her primary focus!
After graduating college, she had to make another choice about what career path to follow. She had been offered a job at a technology company who wanted her to work in their marketing department. While it seemed like a reliable choice, she lacked enthusiasm for the opportunity. She couldn’t stop thinking about pursuing an acting career instead. Fortunately, her parents supported her decision, so she notified her agents and told them that she’d be back in LA soon and was available for auditions. Her agents then sent her an audition for a character named Sypha for a new Castlevania animated series which she booked. It was an auspicious sign! It was as if the universe was endorsing her decision to pursue acting!
Much of Alejandra’s journey to becoming a voice actor can seem so serendipitous as to be almost magical, but if you listen closely, you’ll begin to detect the methods and principles that were supporting her on her path. The actions each aspiring voice actor must take in order to be professionally successful will obviously be unique to every actor, but the fundamental skills and mindset underneath those action journeys is very consistent. Pay attention to the things Alejandra did and the mindsets she adopted in order to be in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves. I think you’ll find it very helpful as you pursue your own voice acting goals!
VAM 225 | Interview with Michael Csurics, Part 2
Welcome to episode 225 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Welcome to the second and final part of my interview with the head of the Los Angeles based recording studio Bright Skull Entertainment, Michael Csurics! As mentioned in the previous episode, Michael has worked as a voice director, casting director and audio engineer on numerous video games including Infinity Nikki, Lord of the Rings: Rise to War, and the current popular hit, Marvel Rivals. Since he’s such an accomplished director, I was very eager to get Michael on the podcast so he could share with my listeners what he’s looking for when it comes to finding actors for the projects he’s hired to record. His insights are especially relevant since this two part interview follows directly after episode 223 of the podcast entitled, “Want To Book More Work? Learn To Think Like A Producer.” If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you listen to the two previous episodes, numbers 223 and 224, before continuing with this one. They will give you important context.
In the last interview segment, Michael shared with me how he got started as a voice director, specifically in the world of video games. While he did participate in theater at a young age, he wasn’t inspired to pursue acting. Instead, he got involved in the music industry as both a performer and a recording engineer. He eventually moved to New York City where he was hired to work at a record label. On his off-hours, Michael would also take jobs working on film post-production projects. Unfortunately, neither field really satisfied him, and it wasn’t until his girlfriend at the time, now his wife, gave him a book on recording audio for video games that he realized he had finally found his true calling. This was in the early 2000s when games were just getting sophisticated enough to be able to include voice actors, so Michael was trailblazing a career for himself in very new territory.
Normally, I begin the second part of any interview with my guests by asking them what inspired them to pursue their artistry in the first place. However, since Michael did such a good job of explaining that in the first part of the interview, I thought it might be better to kick off this part of our discussion by asking him what actors need to know in order to best collaborate with him. His answers should help you understand how better to think like a producer so you can improve both your chances of getting hired, as well as your ability to collaborate fruitfully on a project.
However, before I share Michael’s insights, I want to remind my listeners that at the end of the previous episode, I challenged you to try to anticipate what Michael’s advice might be. I hoped that by listening closely to what inspired Michael and to what he cared about most as an artist, that my audience would be able to predict what Michael is looking for in the actors he collaborates with. So, were you able to come up with any ideas? Do you feel that you were able to anticipate what Michael’s answers might be? Did you happen to write your answers down? If you haven’t, I would encourage you to pause this episode and take some time to put down your best guesses in writing before continuing on. Articulating your ideas in written language will not only keep you honest about what your mindset was before, but will also give you greater awareness and control of your own creative process later when you compare your answers to Michael’s.
Got your answers written down? Ready to know if your ideas match Michael’s? Well, it’s time to find out!
VAM 224 | Interview with Michael Csurics, Part 1
Welcome to episode 224 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
In the previous episode, I explained how valuable it can be to think like a producer if you want to increase your chances of booking work. For this episode, I thought it would be useful to actually interview a producer so my listeners could hear from a professional perspective not only what types of challenges a producer routinely faces, but also what they’re looking for when they’re auditioning actors.
Therefore, allow me to introduce a very special guest, the head of the Los Angeles based recording studio Bright Skull Entertainment, Michael Csurics! Michael is a voice director, casting director, audio engineer, and studio designer! I’m honestly not sure what he can’t do! Michael and his team at Bright Skull focus primarily on recording actors for video games. They’ve worked on titles like Bugsnax, Just Cause 4, Infinity Nikki, Tacoma, Lord of the Rings: Rise to War, Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, and the current popular hit, Marvel Rivals. I’ve worked with Michael on a number of projects and it’s always a pleasure to speak with him.
We begin this interview with Michael sharing with me how he got started as a voice director. He was born in Woodstock, NY and did theater when he was young, but he was also interested in music: both performing it, and recording it. Eventually he found his way to New York City where he started working for a music label company while pursuing his own post-production recording projects from his home studio. Very quickly, he realized that neither the music industry, nor the film post-production process really suited him.
Fortunately, his girlfriend at the time, now his wife, gave him a book about recording audio for video games. This was in the early 2000’s when games were just getting large enough and sophisticated enough to employ actors. Michael fell in love with the culture and the community of recording game audio and embraced it wholeheartedly. He started attending events like GDC, the Game Developer’s Conference, and networking with other audio professionals who worked in games. With his focus and dedication, it didn’t take long before he was recording actors for games himself.
When Michael, and his wife Rachel, had their first child, they decided they wanted to move out of New York City. They were seriously considering a number of different places, but eventually the pull of the entertainment industry in California brought them to the Golden State, first to San Francisco, and eventually to Los Angeles. In addition to the voice production work he was doing for major studios, like 2K games, Michael was also recording game projects in a private studio he built in his own home. Eventually, he got so busy, that he had to purchase a dedicated studio space with three recording booths, and he may still need to expand further at present!
What is fascinating to me about Michael’s story is even though he did theater in school, an experience that the majority of my voice acting guests share, Michael did not decide to pursue an acting career. Instead, he chose to work on the production side of the process of making games as a voice director and audio engineer, an occupation that has fascinated him from the moment he discovered it. His journey towards his desired career path is a serendipitous one, with a lot of trial and error involved. It also required him to be truly honest with himself about what would bring him the most joy. I hope that all of my listeners can be as honest with themselves about which career pursuits truly bring them joy, whether it’s voice acting, or something else entirely. If your highest excitement is voice acting, then pay close attention to Michael’s enthusiasm for the art of recording for games. The more you understand what inspires him to pursue excellence in game audio, the more likely you’ll be able to match his passion for video game performances with your own acting abilities!
VAM 223 | Want To Book More Work? Learn To Think Like A Producer.
Welcome to episode 223 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
One of the most common questions I get asked by voice actors, especially when they’re early in their career, is how they can book more work. Once an aspiring voice actor starts to develop their skills to the level where they can be competitive when auditioning for projects, they quickly realize that they will audition for many more characters than they will ever be hired for. The goal is to increase one’s booking ratio, which is calculated by figuring out how many auditions you tend to submit before you finally book a part. SAG-AFTRA statistics have shown that working actors, who are professionally competitive, tend to audition for 30 parts before they book a single job. Competition in the entertainment industry is fierce and voice actors early in their careers may feel like they audition for hundreds of parts before booking anything.
Every voice actor wants to increase their booking ratio. After all, it’s always more enjoyable to be cast as more characters rather than fewer. If an actor is industrious, they’ll focus on sensible things to improve their booking ratio, such as improving their acting skills, expanding the kinds of characters they can play, updating their marketing materials like demos and websites, and networking with industry professionals to make sure they are kept in mind when someone is thinking of actors to call for their next project.
And yet, I have noticed that many aspiring voice actors don’t pursue these activities with a practical mindset. Rather than focusing on improving their objective skills and marketability, they tend to approach the audition process like a test of personal approval. They may use language like, “How can I get casting directors to notice me?”, or “Who do I contact so I can get a job?”, or even, “If only someone would give me a chance, I’m sure I would be successful.” At the core of all of these statements is a common mindset: the actor is looking for approval from an authority figure. This mindset is often bolstered by TV shows that capitalize on this kind of wish fulfillment. Shows like American Idol, The Voice, America’s Got Talent, and others, can set an expectation in people who are unfamiliar with the entertainment industry, that the secret to becoming a success is to get the right people to approve of you.
In this episode, I want to suggest that a better way to improve your chances of getting cast, is not to look for approval from a producer, but rather, to start thinking like a producer. What is a producer looking for? What do they need to make their project successful? What sort of collaborators are they eager to find? If you start thinking like a producer, it will begin to shift your mindset. You’ll be less likely to pursue getting approval, and you’ll be more likely to start thinking in terms of what you have to offer a project and why they should hire you over everyone else auditioning for the same part.
As you start to think more like a producer, you’ll realize what sorts of actors you’d like to hire to bring your project to life if you were producing one. As you begin to imagine those ideal acting collaborators, you can start to model your own behavior as an actor to try and satisfy what producers are looking for. You’ll realize how important it is to be able to accurately evaluate your skills as an actor, and also to know which types of characters you can believably and competitively play. You’ll start to appreciate that if you can anticipate a producer’s needs, you can make their life easier. And if you make their life easier, they’ll be far more inclined to hire you for their project. They’ll do this both because you’re perfect for the role they’re looking to cast, and because you’re a reliable actor who’s easy to work with.
Thinking like a producer is a great way to reverse engineer the casting process so as to demystify it for you. No longer will you be wondering what the producers are looking for and if they approve of you. Instead, you’ll have walked in the producer’s proverbial shoes, if only in your imagination, which will help you approach the industry in a much more practical and effective way. So let’s spend this episode learning how to think like a producer!