Are you taking your career seriously?

I know some people who moan about the industry. They moan about how it's "impossible to make it as a director" before they've even directed a stranger on how to get to the train station. I know actors who moan about being unable to meet director's, who then go on to cancel three meetings in a row with me. The majority of people don't fail in this industry because it's hard, they fail because they're not trying.

Today I did a filming job in the morning. It was meant to finish at 3pm but it finished at 11am. Fine by me. I got paid. I came home. I was reading a screenwriting book on the way back. When I got home, I decided to watch a film. It was 'Milk'. It was difficult to watch, really challenging-- being that it's pretty much the first film I have watched which is very much about homosexuality (I mean, in 'Philadelphia' Tom Hanks is gay, but it's not as primary a thing in every scene as with 'Milk'). The film was fascinating, and Sean Penn was amazing. Then the DVD stopped working on 53 minutes. Those damn rentals. I made some lunch. Then I watched another rental, 'Look Who's Talking'. Stupid thing stopped working after 23 minutes! I got a phone call from a film festival programmer who's going to screen a couple of my short films. We talked for a bit, talked about arrangements. Tonight I watched about six Tom Hanks interviews, then two episodes of 'The Actors Studio' - one with Will Smith, and one with Kevin Costner. I wrote a film blog about Tom Hanks, I wrote a film blog about Kevin Costner. I set up a Facebook event for the film festival and invited my friends. I emailed a feature screenplay I've recently written to the Head Of Development at a medium-sized production company. He said he'd read it. I am constantly doing the work. Now, I'm not saying I'm successful. I'm just saying, I'm doing the work. I'm in the zone. I'm clearing out the movie trash.

Too many actors say they're going to make showreels, and don't. Too many actors wait too many years for too many films they don't even like anyway. Too many actors put DVD's on their cabinet and wait for some magical mystery day before doing anything to make a showreel. Jesus, there's going to be a Black President before these guys get their showreels done!

Too many people are busy. Busy running around meeting for 'coffee' and discussing projects, and quoting lines from George Bernard Shaw, instead of doing the work, creating the work, being the work, finding the work. By work I mean work, and I mean studying, and I mean chasing, and I mean living. You are too talented to be sitting on Facebook. You are too talented to be too tired to work on your business plan, or your storyboards, or your composition. You are too talented to repeatedly meet up with the same 'safe' people who are all industry-talk-but-no-action.


Yesterday, I had a free day. I had nothing to do. Luckily, I had friends who wanted to see me. One of them is a music composer who I've worked with in the past, but we've never really spent much time talking. So we met for coffee. And we talked for hours about all aspects of our industry; and all the things we talk about here like creativity, inner critics, Tom Hanks, gender issues in film, etc -- and he taught me lots about music rights and publishing. How awesome! Instead I could have been at home, talking to some girl on MSN who I don't really know and don't really care about. I learned a lot, and got to understand more about how he works and how he finds and channels his creativity. The only problem was - I paid for the damn coffee.

I know actors that are constantly late for meetings, I know film director's who haven't watched a film in four months, I know writers who know everything that is wrong with every film ever made, yet have never written one right thing themselves; not because their writing is bad but because they've never actually written anything.

The right time to do the work is, surely, right now, otherwise what's the point? If you said you'd read my script, you should. If I said I'd watch that musical from 1937 that you lent me two years ago, then now is a good time. If we said we'd go to the ocean to get some inspiration from nature for our screenplays, then we damn well should. The time is now and the time is now and the time is now. We are too healthy and too privileged and too alive to not do anything now. And if some of you can honestly say "hey, actually, I'm not healthy enough right now," then that's even more of a reason why the rest of us should get off our asses and actually do the work we were put on this Earth to do.

I know you have talent, I know you love movies. Whatever has stopped you, be it laziness, confusion, or a lack of confidence. Whatever is behind that; debt, bad parents, negative teachers, depression;- your freedom will come from your passions, from your dreams, from your talents; if only you bother to start finding them and using them. DO IT.

I beg you
Do something
Learn a dance step
Something to justify your existence
Something that gives you the right
To be dressed in your skin in your body hair
Learn to walk and to laugh
Because it would be too senseless
After all
For so many to have died
While you live
Doing nothing with your life.

-Charlotte Delbo, Holocaust Survivor.

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Why Struggling Actors Should Produce Their Own Work

If I hear one more actor say "there's just nothing out there at the moment" or "I don't have anything for my showreel" I am going to scream.

When you're starting out in the industry it's hard, I get it. But the industry doesn't owe you anything. And that can really frustrate me about young actors; they feel like they are owed acting roles, owed great showreels, owed everything. But the industry owes you nothing. And the thing most of you don't realise is that there are thousands of actors out there working harder than you. You need to catch up.

Acting, like Producing and Directing, is creating. Something didn't exist and now it does. If you do a short film TODAY, then you have put something out there into the world. It is a part of your legacy. Now it may suck, so you may not want to make it. But what's better, a film that sucks or a film that doesn't exist? To begin with, just by making something that sucks, you wipe out 50% of the competition, because the other half is sitting in offices and supermarkets saying "I want to be an actor".

Most actors get a bit scared when they get DVD's of their performances. It's usually "oh God, I wasn't as good as I thought". But imagine if before doing that film; you had made five of your own shorts and acted in them-- chances are your performance in the DVD you just received might be a bit better.

There is no need for an actor to wait for roles, CREATE the roles. If you want to play a nurse, make a film about a nurse. You want to be an astronaut, be an astronaut. You want to play a whore, play a whore. "But I have no money!" you say. Okay, well - how about you and two other struggling actors make a short film set in one location. 'An Astronaut misses his last day of training due to being caught with a whore by his girlfriend - who uses her nursing skills to help the whore who's struck down by a fever.' - there you go. Grab a camera, shoot it. You have a film.
Make a mockumentary about an out of work actor who has a fear of leaving his house. Make a film about a man who keeps watch over his garden as he's convinced the pigeons are Nazi's. Film a bunch of your acting friends talking about their fears and hopes and put it on YouTube, it's footage of YOU.

If you have showreel footage, you immediately overtake 80% of the actors currently doing the short film circuit.

Back to creating. Maybe you're scared by the term 'Producing'. A producer takes nothing and turns it into a product. He finds a story and finds the people needed to make it end up on the screen. You can do that. You can do it by borrowing your Aunt's camera, getting a friend to press record whilst you perform.
"But it doesn't look professional," you say. Casting Directors don't care. Whether it was Patrick Fugit in Almost Famous or Katie Holmes in Dawson's Creek; the industry is full of cases where some struggling nobody who lived in a farm in nowhere managed to win a role by showing Producers/Casting Directors who they are. Tom Hanks on 35mm is Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks on your Aunt's camera is still Tom Hanks. I was watching a behind the scenes video of 'Vanilla Sky' yesterday; it was just Cameron Crowe and the crew messing around-- but every time Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz are on screen; they steal the show. Why? Because they have that thing. In their eyes, in their movement, in who they are -- they are great personalities, great actors. It shines through. YOU WILL SHINE THROUGH if you create video content of yourself, being yourself, and showing the world your talents.

There is no need to be distraught if you are not getting roles, or if Directors everywhere are ignoring you or saying "I may be casting next month," who cares; a lot of their films will be terrible anyway.

Go watch 'Ellie Parker' - it's Naomi Watts in a horribly rough and cheaply shot feature film; but what she does in the film is show off every aspect of her acting skills. She proves to the world how great she is. You can do exactly that.
Some of the best short films I have seen have been terribly shot. But if you can act, you should show people. You want to know what is worse? Terrible acting with beautiful photography.
It will ruin you. If a casting director sees you on TV or in your showreel or, even worse, in the cinema and your performance is wooden and stagey - then you're screwed. So go pick up a camera; this is the most freedom you'll ever have as an actor. Go create, go and become the very characters you want to play. The ball is in your court - and you need to smash it right into the Casting Directors face so he can't miss you.

"I am getting my reel together soon" should not be a sentence you ever utter.

This was a REPOST from June 2009. The KITFW is currently on holiday, and will be returning very soon. Stick around this week though for some GREAT Guest Writers!

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