Insider Acting Tip #12

Online Postcard Marketing

To perform in NYC, it’s important to know how to keep yourself top-of-mind for key players.

To postcard or not to postcard, that is the question!

Many actors that I meet don’t use postcards when marketing themselves to agents and New York casting directors.  But with so many actors in the business, you MUST set yourself apart as well as remind the industry that you are out there seeking either representation or work.

Postcards can be used as a thank you, a follow-up, a reminder of availability and more!  A postcard coming in at the right time can many times get you an audition or an agency interview.  As a tip, you should only postcard talent agents when you have something to sell (i.e. a callback or a booking) or after an interview to say thank you for the meeting.

Hard copy mailings of picture, resume and cover letters as well as postcards can be time consuming and laborious.  But what used to take hours and hours to postcard, label and stamp, now only takes minutes once you’ve done the initial setup.

Remember to put your main headshot that you are using on the front of your postcard with your name, contact number, email, website and union affiliations.

For Postcard Marketing, here are two online services that you can use for your business of acting that are both time and budget efficient:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check them out to see which one is right for you!

 

 

Roz Coleman on being fit

Roz Coleman, who will be teaching “inTreatment,” an on-camera New York City acting class, beginning April 26, recently offered some observations on “A-listers” she has worked with in film, stage and television. Here is one observation that she shared about the stars:

Another thing about the stars, they are in much better shape than the rest of us. Touching Tom Cruise, for example, is like touching stone and it makes you feel so unfit. The best I can compare them to is elite olympiads/athletes — but applied to the craft of acting.

They are completely fit: vocally, physically, mentally. It’s very humbling to work with them. These people are really good and I didnt’ realize they were going to be so good. At the same time, they are very human, very down to earth…

Click here to learn more about Roz’s class.

For a list of acting classes in New York City, check out the tabs at the top of this page.

What not to do at an audition…

Courtesy of Playbill.com, Laura Benanti and Seth Rudetsky show you what not to do at a New York casting audition (after recreating a fun moment from Gypsy).

Enjoy!

 

Insider Acting Tip #11

Now You Can Always be a LOCAL!

by Tony Nation

As a working actor performing in NYC, it’s important that agents and New York casting directors ALWAYS recognize your contact phone number as a local number.  You don’t want to lose work because the industry thinks you’re either out of town or too far away to get in for a last minute audition!

Now for FREE, you can get a Google Voice local phone number for incoming calls which is currently available only for users in the United States.
Users may select a single US phone number from various area codes. Incoming calls to the number may ring simultaneously any of the user’s configured phones or the account’s Google Talk feature. Based on the calling number, or contact group (e.g., Family, Friends, Work), or on time of day, e.g., disabling a home phone during business hours and routing calls to mobile or business number, individual numbers may be configured to ring. The service also features voicemail with indexable automated voicemail transcription, accessible via a web browser, e-mail, or by phone. The number of rings before voicemail takes over is preset, however, and cannot be changed by the user. Google Voice provides automatic blocking of known numbers, e.g., telemarketers, the ability to switch lines in mid-call, differentiated voice mail greetings based on caller, SMS forwarding, and call recording.

Follow this link for more information on Google Voice, it’s features and how to get set up.

Now whether you’re in NY or LA or Chicago, you can now always have a local number for your business of acting!

What does a casting director look for?

Casting Director Allyn Simons, of Kipperman Casting, offers her perspective on what a New York casting director looks for:

 

What’s to become of Erica Kane?

All My Children has been on the air for 40 years and, come September, Erica Kane will no longer be a part of the television landscape.

One Life to Live also has been cancelled. Very soon, there will only be 4 daytime soap operas left on t.v.

According to the Chicago Sun Times,

….the demise of daytime soaps also endangers their cherished conventions: evil twins, reversible deaths and commercials signaled by actors with frozen expressions.

They’re also boot camp for stars such as Kim Delaney, Kelly Ripa, Josh Duhamel, Sarah Michelle Gellar and recent Oscar winner Melissa Leo (all seen on “All My Children”), and Dixie Carter, Laurence Fishburne, Tommy Lee Jones and Mario Van Peebles (“One Life to Live”).

The soaps are being replaced by talk shows. Has anyone out there reading this been on one of these daytime dramas? If you do, are there any stories you would be willing to share about how working on soap operas helped you as an actor pursue your dream of acting in New York City?

Tonight! Tonight!

Okay, so we’ve been a little heavy on the self-promotion the last two posts but Richard Kline & Merri Sugarman are exceptions to the rule. 🙂

Merri Sugarman, in case you didn’t know is a casting director with Tara Rubin. Their office currently casting the Broadway and national tours of Jersey Boys, Billy Elliot, Shrek, Mamma Mia!, Mary Poppins, Young Frankenstein, The Little Mermaid and The Phantom of the Opera. Not too bad, huh?

Merri will be leading a musical theater audition master class tonight at 6:30 pm at Actors Connection. If you are interested in learning more about the class, click here.

If you are interested in hearing the types of things you might learn from her at the NYC acting class, click below!

Come and knock on our door!

Remember the hit t.v. show Three’s Company? Well guess who’s going to be teaching a 4-week class about comedy for film and television at Actors Connection starting this Sunday?

Richard Kline, who played the  sleazy neighbor and used car salesman, Larry Dallas, on the sitcom, Three’s Company. What you may not know is that Richard is a professional Broadway/TV actor and award-winning theater director who was most recently seen as the Wizard of Oz in Wicked (1st National Tour), November on Broadway and in the feature film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry starring Adam Sandler.

If you are interested in comedy, this is a wonderful opportunity to learn from a master. So come and knock on our door this Sunday at noon!

Click here to learn more about the class.

Reading this blog too late and missed Richard’s class? Click on the Classes tab at the top of this page to explore our other great NY acting classes.

Do agents look for something other than talent?

Sean Leibowitz of ICM and Val McKeon of Innovative Artists share their perspectives.

Boost your “je ne sais quoi” by attending one of our fabulous and reasonably priced NY acting classes. Click on the Classes tab at the top of the page for more information.

Dance doubles…

Back in 1983, a little film hit the big screen. You may have heard of it: Flashdance. The reviews weren’t great but many critics, including Roger Ebert,  singled out the young Jennifer Beals as an actress with promise and talent. Some reviews even praised Beals’ dancing abilities.

But then someone leaked a little information: Beals had a dance double do most of the dancing. Marine Jahan was the Beals dance double and she didn’t receive credit during the opening or closing credits. If you look at some of the dance work on video (see below), you can certainly tell that it wasn’t Beals. Jahan got a little upset.

They say history repeats itself and now the entertainment media (including a prominent ‘News + Notes’ items in the April 8 issue of Entertainment Weekly, on stands today) is focusing in on Academy Award winning actress’s dance double in The Black Swan. The dance double for Portman is American Ballet Theatre soloist Sarah Lane.

In the credits of the movie, Lane was listed as a “hand model” and “stunt double.” In Portman’s acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, she thanked a lot of people, including “people on films that no one ever talks about.”

Portman forgot Lane. Whoops.

Does this lack of honesty (or “forgetfulness,” perhaps) mean that Portman didn’t deserve her Oscar? Does the lack of credit in Flashdance mean that Beals isn’t “a natural talent” or “fresh and engaging?” Not necessarily.

It does mean one thing: as an actor always remember to thank the people who helped you accomplish what you have achieved — be it winning an Academy Award or being in a financially successful (but really bad) ’80s movie.

What do you think?