auditions-how do you where to find them?

Question

does anybody know how to become an actress? like what do you do if you want a part in a tv show or movie or something?

Answer 1

If you have never studied drama, find an acting class or acting school.

If you don't know where to find one, call the University in the city where you live and ask them for names of good acting teachers.

Actors study, many, many years before they audition. Acting is a craft and must be studied for many years.

Do NOT think about being on TV, as most actors NEVER perform on TV. They become acting teachers, waiters, bartenders, or work backstage in theater.

You are not ready to go on auditions. First you must take acting lessons. Actors train for many, many years before they audition for roles. Acting is easy it is one of the most difficult careers one can pursue. You must LEARN how to audition. You are a long way from auditioning.

It takes many years of training as an actor, before one can audition.

Don't rush, acting will always be around.
You are not ready to audition for TV or movies.

Actors study for many years before auditioning for TV or movies.

Answer 2

First of all, you should remember that no one can EVER get onto TV or into movies without proper training and years of acting education.

You should gain more experience by taking acting classes at a place near you. You can also learn to preject your voice and extend your range by hiring a voice coach (if possible.) This helps to create a especially dramatic hysterical laugh or something along those lines.

Meanwhile, you might try out for parts in community theaters around where you live. There has to be at least one where you're parents are willing to drive you to or you are willing to travel to. After countless plays where you've gained much experience and learned what is necessary to give a good performance, you can invite a talent manager or talent agent to see one of your good performances. (I shouldn't be saying
"good". You need to be outstanding and better than the rest to catch an agent's attention.) If the talent manager likes your performance, you may get a chance to try out for something a bit bigger.

All of this will take much time and knowledge of what you are doing. You shouldn't be thinking about entering TV shows, let alone movies, just yet. Especially if you haven't gained experience. Not many people (agents/managers) are willing to show up in a specific town to see a single person out of many, many kids/adults perform a mediocre part of a play. Hard work and perseverence will bee needed. You also have to have "tough skin". In other words, you can't be sensitive. People will be criticizing you (whether constructively or not) and you can't break down at the slightest insult.

Answer 3

Hi,

If you are asking these questions, the first thing you need to concern yourself with at this stage is getting into a good acting technique class with a good teacher.

On the side, you can start to inform yourself about what it really means to be an actor, which is a lot different from what you see on television. To get to that point, there are many things that actors go through such as:

*New to show business and just seem to be wallowing around to find out what you should be doing to get started in the right way!

*Not being sent out on many auditions.

*Rarely getting called back.

*No agent and not sure how to get one.

*Not many industry contacts and can’t seem to meet that industry professional they would really like to meet.

*Difficult to balance work and the demands of an acting career.

*Able to book jobs, but not always able to keep them and don't know why.

*Sending out materials—audition tapes, headshots, and résumés—but not getting the types of responses they would like or none at all!

*Don’t have the money to take classes, so just taking a workshop every now and again instead of going to a school or regular classes. It’s been the situation for months. Maybe even years.

*Having difficulty getting off work for auditions, because the boss doesn’t support employees' acting careers!

*Difficult to prepare well for auditions, because of work. Either too tired or just not enough time in the day to work on their acting career!

*Have to work at a club or restaurant or in a job they don't like until the wee hours of the morning and end up going into auditions looking and feeling like a zombie.

*Having to work at a job that robs them of valuable time they could be using to spend on developing their acting career, auditioning or something else.

*Don't have the cash to make a show-reel or audition tape, get headshots.

*Not sure how to choose a headshot photographer!

*"Don't know how on earth it's possible to make a résumé, if I don’t have anything to put on it! How on earth can I start an acting career!"

There are certainly more issues that actors face. At any rate, this is the reality. I certainly don't want to rain on your parade, but I say all this to let you know, something that you already know which is that there will be a lot of things to do before you get there. You will need clarity about what it is you really want in your life and in your acting career, motivation, determination, thick skin, a method of planning, business skills and you will need to see how real, working actors put these things into practice.

After you've started to think more about the mission on which you are about to embark, you need to study, study, study acting. I would advise you to get information about the different acting techniques and methods that there are and then choose one. To help, look up books by:

Uta Hagen
Lee Strasberg
Sanford Meisner
Stella Adler

Then one of your number one priorities if you are serious about becoming a good actor, a working actor will need to be getting into a good program of study. It is essential to your career! Essential! Here is some other information in the following link that can help you in choosing classes:
http://www.actingcareerstartup.com/acting_classes.html

Start studying the trade papers to get a feel for the industry, what's going on, what's hot, what's not, issues, casting directors who cast certain projects, agents and what they are looking for, etc.:

Backstage (or go to their website www.backstage.com)
Show Business (www.showbusiness.com)
Hollywood Reporter
Ross Reports
Theatrical Index
New York Agencies
Check out www.sag.org , www.aftra.com , www.actorsequity.com for information about the three major unions.

Lastly and maybe most importantly, you MUST realize that the person who will embark on this new mission of becoming an actor is YOU. Whether or not you are successful (and only you can define what success means to you) will depend a lot on how the industry treats you, but it also will depend largely on you. By that I mean, your attitude, your talent, your willingness to learn and be curious, your perseverance, determination and method, your clarity around what you want out of your career, your capacity to find creative solutions and creative ways to promote yourself and set yourself apart from the rest, your ability to first create a financial base so that you can concentrate fully on your craft, your ability to motivate yourself and to handle rejection, your capacity to be disciplined and plan for your success and it will also depend on your capacity to sell and market your acting ability.

I say this to say that you will need to develop and work on yourself. This is true for anyone. These aforementioned things are what many, many, many young actors overlook and thus find starting an acting career to be a difficult endeavor.

So what could your next steps be?. Find a good acting class and a good teacher. DEVELOPING YOUR SKILL AS AN ACTOR should be your number one priority while you do your homework on the industry! Without that skill, you probably won't go very far in this very competitive field.

Gather some information and talk to actors about what it really means to be a working actor, not the Brad Pitts and Julia Roberts', but the average Joe, out there pounding the pavement, getting jobs that last a few days at a time and who are piecing their work together by doing student films, commercials, looking for an agent, auditioning, getting rejected, doing mailings, preparing for auditions, going to class, saving up for months just to be able to get those new headshots, etc. Talk to actors who are working regularly and learn from what they’ve done. Also talk to actors who are struggling and learn from them what not to do! You'll be surprised at the number of people you talk to who are complaining about not getting work or that they don't have an agent, who after months or even years still don't have a plan! Compare your findings and put together your strategy. Have a look at this link in which you can see what a typical day looking for work could be like:
http://www.actingcareerstartup.com/working_as_an_actor.html

One last thing. Be aware of all the other types of acting possibilities there are:
Film, television, theater are the obvious ones and even within them there are subdivisions. There is also hosting, industrials, on-camera commercials, commercial print, student films, independent films, spokesperson, stock photography.
Community Theater, student films, commercial print work and stock photography shoots could be some things you could do to get your feet wet while you are starting out.

I hope this gives you some insight and I hope to have made you think.

Best of luck!

Tony
http://www.actingcareerstartup.com/acs-blog.html