Should I learn improvisation?

The short answer to this question is YES! Absolutely. In fact it is one of the few things in this business that I can give an unconditional answer to. You need improv!

Sometimes when I say this, an actor will ask me, “If I'm just going to be performing from a (film, stage, or television) script, why do I need to learn to improvise?”

So here are some of the reasons why every actor should get plenty of improv training.

You will often be asked to do some improvisation at an audition, even if you are using a script. For example, when I auditioned for a Harrison Ford film, I did the dialogue from the script and when the scene was supposed to end, the casting director keep it going by asking my character another question. Had I not been used to doing improv this might have thrown me, but I just answered his question and we kept going like that for several minutes.

Almost every commercial audition will involve something that is not in the script, even if it's just the action. Also, there are some auditions that only use “interview” questions – meaning the casting person will simply ask you a question or two. In fact, you will almost never know everything you are going to be doing at any audition until you get into the room.

Having improv skills gives you the confidence to know you can handle something new in an audition. Like they want you to improvise catching a mouse, or sneaking through a dark house, even though that was not in the script you got.

On the set, the director may want to try something new at the last minute. I've had directors shoot the scene as written and then say, “Let's do it again and try improvising the dialogue this time. You won't believe how often improv is used on a film or television set. And the director will expect you to be able to handle that. (Which means not only being able to do it, but to do it well.)

A good improv class will help you set the scene at an audition. It will teach you to visualize your environment.

Improv will aid you in learning to be “in the moment.” Because there is no script, you must really listen to the other person and react honestly to what they say.

So there are a few of the reasons to get into an improv class and stay there for awhile. I know some people are a little afraid of doing improv, but once you get a little comfortable doing it, it's a lot of fun. And you will learn to develop some interesting characters that you may be able to use at auditions and for sketch shows. (In fact, doing improv scenes is a great way to develop material for sketches.)

I've trained, and/or performed with many improv companies over the years, including The Groundlings and Dee Marcus at Off The Wall. I've done improv sketches with Robin Williams, and George Lopez, as well as various members of SNL. I even co-founded a couple of improv troupes. I continue to do improv every chance I get in order to keep my actor tools sharp and ready to go.

If you have any other questions – about improv or anything else - leave a comment or drop me an email.


Cheers,

Michael

What am I doing to keep from going nuts???

I'm waiting again this week for a call from my agent about my last audition. He called the other day to say that I was on avail for a nice role on a network show. But in truth I'd go nuts if I just sat and waited for the call.

So, what am I doing? One of the things I do to take my mind off waiting for a call is to work on my own projects – something, that I have more control over. I've talked about this before, but it's worth mentioning again:

Although we actors have control when we are auditioning, after we leave the casting office, it's out of our hands. We'd like to think that the best actor gets the role – regardless of things like our height, weight, hair color, and many other factors that are out of our hands - but for co-star, and guest star roles, and especially with commercials, these other factors can play a big part in the final casting.

So, doing our own projects and other creative activities, is a way of taking control of our creative life. We shouldn't put everything in the hands of others!

I finally finished my latest screenplay a couple of months ago and I'm now getting it ready to submit to a major contest. After that, it's back to finishing up the post production on my latest sketch, which I'll post on Funny or Die and maybe YouTube.

Of course I also uploaded my guide to auditioning on Amazon recently (the link is over there on the right side of this page) – and let's not forget my plans to take over the world! Lots of work to be done there.

The point is, there are things we can do to not only fill the time with our own creativity, but that will also help advance our careers. Casting directors (or their assistants) do check out stuff that is posted online on sites like the ones I mentioned above (if you like to perform comedy, you might want to seriously think about getting some sketches up on Funny or Die).

What do you do that's creative besides acting? Writing, directing, juggling?

Let me know and we'll discuss ways of using it to advance your acting career.


Cheers,

Michael

Getting ready to audition

I've got an audition tomorrow at CBS, so I thought I'd write about a few things I'm doing to get ready. 

As usual, my agent sent a copy of the sides in PDF format. There are several pages, but what I do is type them into my word processing program so I can condense them down to a page or two. I don't need all of everybody else's lines. The only ones I keep are the ones that effect my lines, or are cue lines for me.

After re-typing them in 12 pt font, I go through and make my lines 14 pt. After printing the sides out, I will also underline the lines in red ink. With the bigger font size and the red ink, my lines really pop if I need to quickly glance at the sides during the audition.

After I do that, I look at the given circumstances: the who, what, where, when, why and how. Where does the scene take place? How does that affect the character? I answer all of those questions and establish the character's motivation - what does he want, and how badly does he want it? Why does he want it? What happens if he doesn't get it? Answering these questions help us to "raise the stakes." The more important something is for the character, the more interesting his actions will be.

Now I work on memorizing the lines. And I don't just sit in a chair and do it - we need to move around and do other things while we're memorizing. This not only helps us memorize, it saves our butt if the casting director decides to have us do some action at the audition, because getting directions to move can throw us off if we have only been sitting in a chair memorizing. (The exception might be if your character is going to be sitting in a chair the whole time at an audition, but you never know if the CD will decide to try something different. You want to be ready for anything at an audition!)

If I have a chance, maybe I'll take a couple of pics of the studio lot tomorrow and post them next week.

Cheers,

Michael

Making your own video for an audition

Last week I posted about the basic equipment that is needed in order to tape yourself for an audition. So I thought that this week I would explore some of the ins and outs of the actual taping.

Let's assume your agent or manager has submitted you for a role, or you've submitted yourself for a project using one of the casting sites like Casting Networks or Actors Access (the links to those two are under "Show Biz" links on the right side of my post, but there are others like Backstage, etc.).

Now you get a call or email notifying you that the casting director wants you to send them a video of you auditioning.

There are several ways you can accomplish this. First, and most expensive, you can have a company that shoots auditions, and scenes for demo reels, shoot your audition. The problem is that requests for self-taped auditions are becoming more common, and the costs of having a service shoot your audition can start to really add up.

The quickest and least expensive is to DIY (do it yourself). A friend of mine just got a part in a film by using her smart phone to shoot her audition and send it to the casting director.

Here is a screenshot from an audition I self-taped a few months ago using my new camera:

I used two clamp lights w/reflectors - one main one (100 watts) is on the right, and the other (60 watts) is on the left. (The image is reversed, so the lights were on the opposite sides during the actual shooting.) This gives some depth to the video so that it doesn't just look "flat." What didn't come out in this screenshot is that you can see a little of the background in the video. This is good as it adds more depth and interest to the scene. (Just make sure your background fits the scene at least a little, so that it isn't distracting.)

I had a friend read the other character's lines while I recorded them. That way he didn't have to hang around and keep doing his lines over and over. (The person helping you shouldn't be seen in the video - it's your audition!)

When I got a take that I liked, I put the sound into Garageband so that I could adjust the levels. During the shoot I put the camera on top of a stack of books on my desk and used that for a tripod - you don't need to shoot the audition like a million-dollar film!

If your audition is a monologue, you can get away with recording it on a smart phone and hitting send (like my friend did).

As more and more projects (especially low-budget ones) ask for self-taped auditions, a problem is going to occur. We are going to run out of friends who are willing to drop what they are doing and come over to spend a couple of hours helping you to record your audition. My suggestion is to make a deal with several friends that you will trade off helping each other.

Tip: If you learn to use a sound editing program like Garageband or Audacity, you can have your friend record his lines on his phone or computer and send them to you. That way, they don't have to come over to where you are!

Another Tip: This is an audition - you don't need to build a great background and have the perfect costume. However, the sound should be loud and clear and we should be able to see you (especially your face).

I have more tips for shooting your own audition, so drop me a note if you want me to write another post with more technical details in it, or you have a specific question.

Cheers,
Michael

What's a good, inexpensive camera to use for videos?

I bought a new digital camera a few months ago and have shot a couple of short videos with it so far. I'm still learning some of the manual controls, but the auto controls do a pretty good job of shooting as well.

The camera is a Canon Vixia HF R300. I did a lot of research on cameras before I bought this one because I wanted a camera under $300 that I could plug in both headphones and a mic. This was the only camera I found on which you could do that for the price I was looking to pay.

You want to have a headphone input so that you can hear the sound that you're recording, and a mic input so that you can use an external mic to record sound if you need it. So far, because what I've been shooting is fairly close up and in a quiet room, I've only used the built-in mic that comes with the camera, but it works pretty well when recording regular speaking voices.

Of course you need a few more things to go with the camera. If you shoot mostly indoors like I do, you'll need a couple of lights - but they can be regular clamp lights with reflectors that you can get at places like Home Depot. They're around $10 and work fine for a start.



Also a tripod is real handy to keep your shots from shaking. And of course you'll need some storage drives (I use Sun Disk extreme 16's).

There's always more stuff you can add, but the above will get you started making short vids and self-submission auditions.

So far I've used the camera to shoot a sketch for Funny or Die:

The Grimble World Championships



and then taped myself for a self-submission audition for an acting role on a feature film. The whole self-submit thing (where you are given sides and then record yourself auditioning) is becoming more and more popular. It allows actors, who don't live in the same city as the casting director, to audition for a role. In fact - that's what I will talk about on my next post.

Cheers,

Michael

A few thoughts about wearing make-up to auditions

An actor emailed me recently asking about wearing make-up to an audition. My first advice was pretty standard: women should wear a minimum of make-up and men shouldn't wear any at all.

But then I got to thinking a little more about it and realized that I occasionally wear a tiny amount of make-up to an audition. I have a small birthmark on my upper lip, which because I usually play character roles, doesn't matter. But sometimes when I get the job (after wearing no make-up to the audition) the make-up people on the set will cover my birthmark before we shoot. It all depends on how "rough" they want my face to look.

This means I do occasionally cover the birthmark for a commercial audition. If the role is for a butler or a professional (like a teacher, or doctor), the clients usually don't want an actor to look too "charactery." A birthmark, even one as small as mine, can be a distraction for the viewer, so the director or clients may not want it to show (especially in close-ups). 

For these types of commercial auditions I may cover it with a bit of make-up before the audition. (I don't wear the make-up to the set - I let the pros in the hair and make-up department take care of it.) The key here is that I use the absolute minimum necessary to cover it. The last thing a guy should want is for the make-up to show up on camera (actually, this is true for women as well - less is better).

But what if I'm going in for the part of a zombie or other "weird" type of character? No make-up! The people in charge know that their make-up person can make you look like a zombie, they just want to see if you can do the role - how you say the lines, how you move (like a zombie), etc. There are all different types of zombie looks, so if I were to wear make-up, it might be really different from what they have in mind for the character, and that would probably cause them to not hire me. (See the two different zombie pictures below - one was for a video game commercial, the other for a sports website in Australia). For both auditions I went as myself - including my birthmark. 

One last thought - I hate wearing make-up and try to avoid it whenever I can. When I'm on the set, I can usually I get away with the make-up people just giving me a light coat of powder to take the shine off my face. The zombie make-up I wore in the pictures above took hours to put on and over an hour to take off. In fact, for the one on the left, I was in the make-up trailer for four and a half hours! That's not a mask - everything on my face was put on by hand. And, man - what a relief to get it off at the end of the day!

And don't forget - if you have questions, drop me an email or write it in the comments box, and I'll get you an answer.

Cheers,

Michael

What I'm doing while I wait for the phone to ring.

Well, I'm still waiting to hear whether I've booked the Disney show that has me on hold. In the meantime, I'm starting post-production on a sketch that a friend and I shot a few weeks back. I bring this up because it's a good example of the DIY philosophy (Do It Yourself).

What my friend Sally and I did was to come up with a simple idea for a comedy improv sketch - a daffy reporter interviewing an artist about whom she knows nothing. That was it. 

Then we sat down in front of the computer, turned on the built-in camera, and shot a 5 minute "interview." Because I didn't use my good camera with all the bells and whistles, I only had to click "record" on the computer and we were off and running. And because it was improvised, the whole thing took about 5 minutes to do. Now there will be some editing to get it down to a running time of about 2 or 3 minutes, and we're going to add an intro at the beginning and a "credit card" at the end. That will take a few more hours. 

And when we're done - up it goes onto YouTube and Funny or Die. I may have said this before, but it's worth repeating - we can't just sit around and wait to get an agent, or an audition, or a booking. If you have a love of performing, there are simple ways (like an improv sketch) to do it and get your work out to an audience. No, you probably won't make tons of money from a sketch on YouTube, but more and more casting directors and other people who hire actors, are looking at stuff that is online to find talent.

So go forth and create! And if you do, let me know and maybe we'll link to your work on this blog.

Cheers,

Michael