Finding Confidence

Everything that you are working toward should make you a stronger and more confident actor. It is important to understand who you are as a person, an actor, a company and the product your company markets. I believe the actor’s product is not his/her look, voice, or uniqueness of personality. For me the actor’s product is the use of life energy to radiate and activate talents to Talent. I believe your product is the ability to penetrate an audience’s life energy and bring them a feeling of peace. I believe it is the power to take reach out to the life energy of the audience and, for the time you are given with them, give them a respite from their internal dialogue of survival. You can do this if you understand the power and control of your product. I have discussed how this power is enhanced by knowing how to follow the process of taking talents to Talent. That ability to acquire knowledge and through physical repetition of that knowledge convert it to muscle memory. This physiological process that I have discussed in detail in earlier blogs is your path to finding success and happiness in this or any life effort.

If you understand the value of knowing how the two businesses within the acting profession can be used by the aspiring actor you will gain an enormous advantage over your competition. This understanding will make your career path clearer and stronger. It will build a greater confidence. And for me, confidence resides with the spirit and, confidence comes from knowledge having been taken to a talent.

The Sound of Confidence

Confidence is not an idea. Once found it is a place that you go that overrides your fears and anxieties. When work on going to that place of confidence you are in control of who you are and what you can expect to achieve. Confidence is solid and therefore when you are in it your whole body takes on the power of being in charge of your destiny.

Many years ago I was helping Madeleine Lee Gilford with casting in New York City for a major California based television producer. Madeline had worked as an actress, a Broadway producer, a teacher and a major casting director. I was fortunate enough to become her protege when I first came to New York to seek my place in the entertainment business. She had asked me to rent an audition hall for this new television show. I found what I thought was a great deal at a convenient location. It was a newly remodeled space and the price seemed just right. When I called to say I had found an audition hall she asked for details. When I described it to her she told me not to take it, it was unacceptable. She told me she should have given me more detail as to what she wanted. She needed a space with wooden floors and at least 15 feet from the door to her desk. When I asked why this was so important she told me something I realized to be of monumental importance to casting, auditioning and life. She told me that she would know if someone was going to be considered for a role by listening to the sound of their footsteps as they approached her desk. That sound indicated the degree of confidence the actor possessed and the determination of their expectations.

I later defined this place of confidence as working as your highest level of physical and emotional control. I defined this physical position as working from your strongest position of knowledge and power to date. I called it being at one’s peak energy performance level.

Peak Energy Performance Level

I want you to be aware of your personal peak energy performance level. I want you to be aware of how you feel when you know that you are in control of what you are doing at any given time and release doubts about those things you yet do not know. That knowledge will come but you must activate what you do know to physical power and know what that physical placement feels like. Being able work from your peak energy performance level to date allows you to always be making that physical place continue to gain strength. To do this you must control your knowledge through physical focus and awareness of that current place of being. When you have the ability to recognize your peak energy performance level to date you control your thoughts and how those thoughts are free from unwanted doubt. Peak energy performance level manifest itself as confidence and can be felt by others in your presence. This physical position allows you to be able to use your five senses inclusively with others rather than exclusively which causes your internal dialogue to often override the power of the now. The physiological change that is activated by going to your peak energy performance level is how you engage and enhance the power that registers as confidence. You have taken a character to have created who is defined as confident by giving the character that feeling that comes from being at a peak energy performance level. It is similar to that place I call basemax which is activated each time you take your body to the physical and mental level of control you have achieved for any talent that you have chosen to develop for your company as well as your life. Those talents are varied and as diverse or common as needed by your desire to succeed. It is therefore most important that you are aware what your personal peak energy performance level feels like to you. I am not talking about what you are thinking when you are at your peak energy performance level but rather what you feel like. You feel taller, stronger, more alive because you are not burdened by thoughts of wanting to be at your best but have achieved an understanding of what it feels like to be at you best which allows you to experience the power of the now. Each time you go to your peak energy performance level it becomes stronger. Just as your base maximum energy becomes stronger each time you take a talent to Talent.

You can practice clarity of your peak energy performance level every time you walk down the street. Place yourself in that feeling of power and control and then let it go. When you let it go you will find that your internal dialogue becomes louder and more judgmental. When you return to that peak energy performance level what you will not notice is the internal dialogue getting in the way of your experiencing the now. You will however become of aware that you are noticed. You exist to those whose life energies you pass by in the now. By becoming aware of you peak energy performance level you can empower your life and your career efforts. This physical place and your control of going there is your “best you”, physically and mentally, as you approach each effort and strive to live in the now. It is the now that holds the success of your destiny. Every moment that is lived with thoughts of the past of fears of the future keep you from the power of the now.

Defining the Two Businesses

Your primary desire as an aspiring actor is to become successful. You expect to become a story teller using characters that have dialogue to define their place in the story. You expect to be a member of the acting unions as that is required in order to be considered a professional actor. You expect to be represented by a strong legitimate agent. You expect your income to come primarily from acting. You expect to be covered by your union insurance and to make your yearly pension contribution. You expect to live a comfortable lifestyle and to fulfill your financial responsibilities to you and your family. In order to get to the place you wish to be as an actor you must accept certain truths. The primary truth is where you are today as a player in this business we call show business. You need to set the path based on where you are now. That will require your acquiring the knowledge needed to present yourself in a way that gives those who will hire you the confidence that you are worth their taking a chance on you. After all, someone has to take a chance on you in the professional world. Every actor found that first time had to happen. Therefore you must make sure that you do not move more quickly that your personal business knowledge and talents support. That is why, based on your position within the hiring word of storytelling, you want to be free to get as much knowledge as possible without drawing attention to yourself. That is the power of the story moving business. Often you may find that it is easier to maneuver in the story moving world of extras and background where words are not used to tell the story. Those who participate are character types that set the flavor and reality of the story telling character’s now so the audience can quickly get a clear understanding of the story telling character’s world in order to clarify and support the genre and medium of the story being told.

The Union Card

How do you get a union card? What you can do to get your cards as quickly as you can based on your companies readiness to pursue those acting jobs. You may want to seek work in the story moving business as you prepare your company for the knowledge you will need in order to work within the storytelling business. There are many talents you can learn while working in the story moving business. You can be on the set and see what the storytellers are doing and learn to recognize those who appear to be doing it well and those who do not. There are three rules for the actor that he must never break. They are to know your lines, show up on time and don’t cause trouble. These each require a talent to do them well. As a story mover you can see why these rules are so important and why you want to make sure your company understands them and practices them on a level of talent that garners your company with the reputation of being someone the business wants to hire. If your acting company needs to learn certain aspects of the business then seeking story moving jobs is basically learning at someone else’s expense. Classes that you may take are designed to improve your abilities as a storyteller. However, there are situations that get in the way of those skills holding focus. Those situations usually are based on fears that might come from expectations not fully realized needed by the story teller on a production set. Many of these learning experiences can be achieved while working lower level story telling roles consisting of characters with dialogue within three or fewer scenes. If you are doing story moving jobs you might discover how many actors given these opening story telling jobs tend to blow them by not following the three basic rules. You do not want to find that your lack of knowledge doing these opening roles or even your first larger speaking roles causes you to justify your ignorance with drawing focus to yourself in the most unwanted ways. Trust me, spending a certain amount of time as a story mover will teach you about the true needs of the story telling actor without finding that actor being you. In that case, getting a union card at this time might not be in your best interest. However, if you feel that your acting skills are in order and you are prepared to do what is necessary to get professional work at a higher pay scale then a union card is the next step. When you have a union card and do story moving jobs you are positioned better to move toward story telling roles than you were doing story moving jobs without a union card. If you follow this story moving knowledge based approach you may find that when your company knows it is now ready to make the next step toward moving up the ladder to storytelling roles finding a way to get your union card will be a much easier. As you move from story moving to storytelling acting roles know that you can not go backwards. Move when you know you are ready and not before.

You expect the big seven areas of your life to support as well as be supported by your acting jobs. Any process leading to this would indicate the road to success.

Product Abilities

I have spoken in detail about the need for clarity your product abilities, your product placement and your product competitiveness. Therefore you want the talents that your company has achieved to be functional regardless of unexpected situations. And you can be sure that the majority of situations that you experience as a story mover or a storyteller will result in unexpected situations. Once you are ready to start you path to employment as an actor you must be prepared to know where the jobs are to be found. This is true regardless of that path first going to story mover or not.

The best way to discover where jobs are to be found is to separate the acting business into its three primary areas. Those are film, television and theatre. Clarify which of these areas your company and its talents are best prepared to compete, as of today, and work accordingly to find the buyers. You should know the various levels of financial expectations as you move on your path toward financial success as an actor. You should know that each medium of the business has variations of rules and responsibilities. Your awareness and application of these rules and responsibilities is important to your growth and development. Remember, you will be paid according to how much the producer believes your contribution has on the return on his investment. These expected returns are calculated by the size of the role, previous roles of note and industry reputation.

The three rules all areas of the business share are know your lines, show up on time and don’t cause trouble. These rules never change. There are far to many actors who find themselves in the enviable position of having reach a level of storytelling roles who do not follow these three rules. Ironically the business will tolerate the breaking of these rules by some of these performers until the value of the actor at the box office is overridden by his disruptive and costly behavior on the set.

Common Denominators of Successful Actors

The common denominator of all successful actors is the awareness of the players within their working areas. You may find yourself not understanding the value of knowing this information and how that information increases the odds of your success. If you don’t understand the value of knowing who the players are on the teams you wish to join, you are going to have a hard time getting into a situation that will bring the game into your reality. You might even discover that there were times that those players important to your growth had already passed through your circle but because you didn’t know who they were you were unable to recognize a possible opportunity.

Networking to Coincidence

It is difficult to network if you don’t have the knowledge base in order to play the networking game. Every aspect of your business that you do not explore is one less opportunity to create a circumstance that can lead to a coincidence. You want to activate circumstances so that coincidences can happen. This can help guide you to your desired destiny. Coincidence is that circumstance that happens just when you were thinking about it on some level. A coincidence can only happen if there have been thoughts and circumstances that make their appearance seem coincidental.

I know I have made my position clear about the power of coincidence. Coincidence can indicate to you the effectiveness of your efforts. After a while you will realize that a coincidence is a clue to where your efforts are taking you. Once you understand this you realize they are not coincidences anymore. They are just expected occurrences of a regular work day for your effort to be a successful actor and to have a successful life. Events will happen that will create different levels of coincidences. Those events, if recognized, will lead you to the next level of your success. Never allow yourself the complacency that negates creating new opportunities that will allow for new coincidences. Just the name coincidence implies the uniqueness of its value. Co is in addition or along with an incident. Be sure to take the coincidences of your life seriously. Not only those leading to good fortune but those leading to bad fortune as well. Allow them the power to infiltrate your awareness. It is an ability that you should strive for and understand as quickly as possible. Remember, is not the event around a coincidence but the happenstance of a coincidence that is important.

There is only one thing you need to do when a coincidence, large or small, comes to you. Take a moment to be grateful and follow the feeling of being grateful by looking at something beautiful around you. It could be the sky. It could be the friend standing in front of you. It could be the trees or the flowers or the grass. It could be anything around you. The awareness of the beauty lets the universe know that it is appreciated for its efforts. The awareness of the beauty and the feeling of gratitude allow the universal flow of energy to continue and allow a higher frequency of energy to come your way. This knowledge of awareness can serve you well.

Often in this career field actors reach a certain level of success or accomplishment and then fall short of ever re-creating the success or being able to achieve it again. This can happen when coincidence is ignored and beauty has not been acknowledged. This is a common problem. Knowing how to avoid this should be learned as soon as possible.

Anticipation

There will be times when the roles are not coming for you. Knowing that this is a circular based circumstance you should also know that you need to be prepared for it, both financially and emotionally. If you do not, you may fall into the same situations as so many performers before you. When they have reached the cycle they see it as a reflection of their value and ability and it stops them. This will eventually lead to fear and desperation and cause the length of the cycle to be extended.

Know how to deal with this by being prepared to be sustained financially and creatively. Enjoy being with yourself. Enjoy the time you spend working toward your career goals. Enjoy that time you spend working toward your life goals. Be your own best friend and let your internal conversation with yourself be between you and your mind. Otherwise you will spend a great deal of your time wishing you were somewhere else and not finding the enjoyment of your own efforts. Do not let that happen. If it is happening make sure you make peace with you. Give yourself the power to keep going, even when your thoughts lead you to believe that you are overwhelmed. You are not overwhelmed. You might be under organized but you are not overwhelmed. To change this you must accept your ability to know how to live in the now. Don’t forget, the now is where your growth resides.

Enlightenment as a Guide

All philosophies of achievement deal with the same principles. They deal with that internal switch that must be turned on allowing your personal ability to manifest. You do not want skepticism and the negative influences of old beliefs to stop you from that magical experience of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is that powerful ability to connect your life energy to the endless energy flow of the universe in the now. You do not want the limitations of the physical world to hinder your quest for fulfillment through the power of the mind in the now. Pump yourself up to be ready to separate and clarify the path that you need to take to become a successful actor. Know how it feels when you are “on” and be able to re-create that feeling at any moment. Create a relationship with yourself as you go out to pursue this information. Allow yourself a right to the knowledge. Create a relationship with yourself that gives you comfort and support. Give yourself permission to be whatever you are willing to work to be. And know that it will happen when you live in the now. To live in the now and be able to accept what it has to offer you must keep returning to your peak energy performance level to remove your internal dialogue of frustration and fear and replace those thoughts with the joy and wonder of not judging but being.

The Progress Chart for Story Moving Jobs

There is a mind set by some that suggests there are only so many jobs out there and only so many opportunities. Perhaps but the number of jobs may be far greater than you ever imagined. Therefore it is important to know how to set your business up to know where they are and who the players are in each. I have created a progress chart that will allow you to first know where all the jobs are and secondly to be able to see where your company to see the progress it is making as it works or chooses to bypass a given opportunity.

The Progress Chart is set up to indicate the levels of production and the mediums of opportunity in each of those levels and mediums. These levels are based on budget. The higher the production level the greater the production budget. Each production level becomes more difficult to penetrate as a story teller as the ability to pay more experienced or tested talent is affordable. This is why the actor wants to be able to understand the levels of production in the three mediums of the acting business.

I have broken down each medium of film, television and stage into A (high) B (middle) and C (low) production levels. Note: when looking for story moving jobs avoid the C level as that is the level that you want to be working on to guide your path to storytelling jobs. Those are the acting jobs with lines and positions of play (everyman, antagonist, bird).

Each of the production levels has its own group of participants that you need to know. Your story moving company wants to place on your progress chart each of these production companies so you can learn the players; the producer, directors and major casting circumstances. While pursuing story moving jobs for your progress chart you must know that these jobs are hired by a completely different set of participants than storytelling jobs. You must know the names and practices of these hiring folk. Many people call them casting for extra roles but they in fact are just providing background needed to bring the story (based on medium) to life. You must get on these hirers lists. You must make every effort to keep up with the changing needs and expectations. And don’t forget if you are a member of the unions you will be dealt with differently. There are reasons your company has decided to do story moving work. I hope you learn what you need to know quickly and your tenure is brief in the story moving business.

It should be noted that there are many actors whose companies are quite happy in the story moving arena. I know many who work often as union members in these story moving situations are hired as regulars in the background of scripted series shows. This is fine if this is going to provide your company and the other areas of your life happiness and well being. Most actor’s companies are working their way up the production level ladder. You want to know who’s moving up and who’s where they want to be. This knowledge will affect your efforts later. You want to surround yourself with like thinking associates.

Progress Chart Job Offerings

Television has sitcoms, scripted dramatic series, scripted comedy series, soap operas, movies of the week, dramatizations and the reality show. These elements have opportunities for both the story moving and the storytelling market. As the production level of the television market becomes lower, so does the size of the market place and the budget. The lower the budget and market place the easier it becomes to be hired and begin working your way up the storytelling ladder. Creating your own progress chart helps you separate the different production levels and the different players in those levels.

As I have stated the one sure common denominator for successful actors is to know the players. You want to help the law of attraction bring those you want to know into your vibration and frequency. If you create a progress chart will become aware of the vast number of opportunities available and who to pursue. As a story mover you want to focus toward the higher production levels. You want to learn from the best.

Story Moving Opportunities

The opportunities for getting hired as a story moving actor on an A or B level production set should be built into your understanding of story moving A and B production level opportunities. And don’t forget your opportunities for storytelling roles are in the C or low B level production categories.

If you are working within the story moving business you need to make a progress chart for it separate to your storytelling progress chart. To make your own progress chart place a heading for each of the mediums available for the actor for the story moving business. They include work extra, bit or focused extra, one line, under five lines and multiple scenes recurring as same character without lines. The categories on the progress chart are theatre, film and television. Your story moving progress chart for theatre would include off-off Broadway, small legitimate union/non-union theaters, community theatre and college guest artist theatres, and local markets. Under film in the C category are cable access, the minor independent studios, the independent film maker, local industrial film companies and local level advertising production companies. Under television in the C category are cable access video production companies, local independent digital beta production companies and smaller industrials video and commercial production companies. These are the major areas of employment for the C level. You want to start your knowledge by knowing at least one buyer/producer/company to fill each of the blank spaces under each of the sub-categories for the C market. Remember, as the budgets get smaller the ability to buy the best becomes less and less feasible. The C category productions need you.
Break your chart into A and B levels of production. Make sure you know what is being shot in town based on the medium. Make sure you know who casts the story moving jobs for each of the mediums. This information is written on your progress chart. Mark each circumstance on the progress chart that you have worked. This will show you your progress as an aspiring actor and also be used as an opportunity chart.

Storytelling Opportunities

The Storytelling Business is where you want to be. You want to be one of the actors who use words and character development to tell a story regardless of the category of medium or production.

The C category on your story telling progress chart is your most direct path to storytelling roles. The C level would be the minors in all areas.

On your progress chart you want to know what positions you have played at each level of production in the world of storytelling. These storytelling jobs include being in more than one scene with lines, sidekick to support character without lines, side kick support to supporting character with lines, major supporting character who plays story telling responsibility to one of the three major position of play (everyman, antagonist, bird), lead character (male or female), lead antagonist character (male or female), story changing character for everyman (bird).

Knowing the Difference

As the levels get higher the budgets get bigger and more proven actor’s can be hired. It is the C level that offers the greatest ability for growth of your product, confidence, and ability. Having separated the story moving from the storytelling business opportunities I hope you will realize that they have different buyers and different expectation from you. Your ability to take advantage of the story moving circumstances will allow you more opportunities by awareness and self effort to move into storytelling jobs.

Expanding your Progress Charts

The A, B, and C levels can also be subdivided further into high A, middle A, low A, high B, middle B, etc. If you fill out your progress chart with only one company per job area you’ll soon discover the number of job opportunities available to you.

If you break the A category into 3 sub-levels, the B category into 3 sub-levels and the C category into 3 sub-levels you’ll find that with three job areas per sub level you have 9 companies or circumstances for employment in the A levels in stage, 9 companies for the B level in stage, and 9 opportunities in companies for the C level in stage. That is 27 job circumstances under the category of stage with listing only one company under each category.

Film would be another 27 circumstances. Television would be another 27 circumstances. That would be a total of 81 circumstances for story moving job opportunities.

Once you do the same thing in the B category and C category you will have another 162circumstances listing only one production company for each category and sub-category. As you know in some areas of the business there may be as many as 200 companies per category. You want to know who they are. You want to know where they are. There are industry books that come out monthly listing all of them. Seek out this information for your company. Make the power of circumstance and the law of attraction be in your control.

These are the major areas of employment for A level production companies. You want to start your efforts by learning who one buyer/producer/company are so that you can fill in blank spaces for each of the sub-categories for the A market. The A level are your major players. They would include Broadway producers, major film studios etc. Under theatre now list the B category: Bus and Truck Tours, Dinner Theatres, and LORT theaters.

Under theatre in the A category write on your progress charat the headings: Broadway, off Broadway, regional theater, national tours. Under film in the A category write on your progress chart theatrical release, video release, movies of the week, industrial/commercials. Under television in the A category on your progress chart write soap operas, sitcoms, scripted series, dramatizations, and industrial/commercial.

The B level production companies have lesser budgets and therefore pay accordingly. Some are union and some are not. Under film in the B category write on your progress chart cable networks, the major independent studios, industrial film companies and medium level advertising production companies. Under television in the B category list the cable production companies, independent digital beta production companies and smaller industrials, video and commercial production companies. These are the major areas of employment for the B level. You want to be able to learn at least one producer and production company to fill each of the blank spaces under each of the sub-categories for the B market.

Your progress chart is something you must create for your company and deal with its uniqueness and abilities. Make your production chart and find out what work your acting company has done to date. The more areas of the business you can mark as having worked the clearer you will be of your companies progress.

Have a great day and know…
I wish you well.
Russ

The Two Businesses for the Aspiring Actor

Following a single path to becoming a successful actor is not based on any set rules. It is based on recognizing that there are levels of success that can be followed. This requires that you accept that the actor could go from extra, to bit, to day player, to small supporting role, to supporting role, to primary supporting role, to secondary lead, to lead role. Each of these jobs has certain expectations. You want to know what you can expect to get from them. Once you have acknowledged this you want to recognize the levels of production and the corresponding levels of financial expectation.

The two businesses for the actor are the story moving business and the story telling business. It is important for you to understand the difference between the story moving business and the storytelling business. Without the separation of these responsibilities you could run the risk of placing emphasis on certain areas that cause the body to misread your ultimate achievement level potential. You don’t want this to happen. Everything you do toward this business needs to be put into its proper perspective. You want to enjoy each step along the way, but you want to be sure you recognize it is only a step. Don’t hang out rather than move on.

The Story Moving Business

The story moving business allows the actor to go from being background to small speaking roles. In the story moving business the actor is given little responsibility for the character’s development. There are many people who still believe that taking small story moving positions label them. They believe taking these jobs (extras – under 5’s – etc,) will limit their chances of being taken seriously. One of the great values for the actor doing story moving jobs in high level productions is his ability to learn about his craft and the things expected of him when he gets larger roles. It is assumed that the actor knows what to do when he is hired for a speaking role. It is assumed the actor knows:

how to maintain his character’s physically/emotionally position from take to take.
how to mark a scene and take direction.
how do find his key light and avoid shadows.
how to control his vocal levels based on the sound equipment placement and ambient noises.
his relationship to the collaborators such as make-up and wardrobe etc.
and
the actor understands the politics involved with other cast members and crew.

Many of these assumptions are incorrect and can affect the actor’s performance and fear level. It is this fear level that can cause lackluster auditions and lackluster performances. The best approach as you work at getting your union cards and seeking audition for larger roles in lower-level productions you seek high-level story moving jobs in high-level productions. You could think of these circumstances as being a paid apprentice.

You do these jobs with the purpose of learning everything you can about the shoot(production set). You want to take notes. Ask unobtrusive questions of crew members while they are taking a break. Be supportive and complementary of their efforts. Learn names of the cast, crew and production staff and send thank you notes to those who went out of their way to be supportive of your efforts.

If you don’t know what a best boy does or what a key grip is or a wrangler then you can see where you might have some things to learn. It is always best to read books on all aspects of your business. These books come from knowledge of the technical and the creative. The information from these books will become the basis of your question list you take to a set. If there are different A or B level projects in your area you should be able to get on all of the sets with at least a low-level story moving job. You want to understand the two businesses with which the levels of production are divided. These are two separate businesses, for the most part, are handled differently from casting to payment.

If you look at the progressive line of advancement you would see that the actor, going from extra, to bit, to day player, to small supporting role, fall under, what I call, the story moving business. Story Moving Jobs require little uniqueness of the actor’s ability. Story Moving Jobs do require a clear physical reference of type for the audience to understand the flavor of the setting, relationship, socio-economic circumstance, mood and ambiance the director wants to convey. The actor’s primary responsibilities in the story moving jobs are to show up on time and not cause trouble on the set. These acting jobs are usually self generated and can be union and non-union in pay scale. Let’s look at union story moving jobs.

Equity (AEA or Actor’s Equity Association – the stage union.), doesn’t have the same type of categories of story moving jobs as do SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild) or AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Actors). The irony is the story moving jobs in Equity are chorus jobs which require extreme talents in the areas of song and dance. These jobs still pay far more than extra, and bits, and small supporting roles for SAG and AFTRA productions but they do tend to have little advancement to the star story telling level. The reasons behind this are many but the primary one is the comfort zone that comes with chorus success and thus the undermining of the need level.

It should be noted that in the history of the stage there were many small and non speaking roles in the theatre. You can look at scripts written before 1940 and see that most of them have long lists of characters that serve to support and flavor the everyman character’s world. However, with the onset of stronger union contracts and economics, the stage play was forced to narrow its supernumeraries (extras) and small speaking roles to a minimum. This resulted in losing one of the major learning paths for the actor. It also removed one of the primary networking opportunities for actor advancement. (When you make yourself familiar with the different union contracts and how they manifest themselves into job opportunities you can begin to create a marketing plan for the various areas in relation to your abilities.) Your advancement in this profession is based on many things: talent growth, industry awareness, business networking, opportunities and dedication. This is a great way to explore the value of the four “D’s” (desire, dedication, determination and discipline). You can clarify your dedication to your knowledge base. You can define your desire to achieve the knowledge and skills necessary to do an acting job. You can practice your determination to stick to your goals. And, you can master your discipline to organize your time on a consistent basis to achieve the knowledge and repetition to make your goals realities and your talents competitive.

Accept that the story moving business has within it a step by step advancement process leading to its highest level. That highest level of story moving jobs blends into the lowest level of story telling jobs. There is a path you can take for success. Story moving jobs require far less technical ability and character development than story telling jobs.

It should be noted that the highest levels of story moving jobs do require a certain degree of the formula A+B = C (actor + book = character) to create the character type needed. In the highest levels of story moving jobs the uniqueness of the actor, his type and point of reference for the audience must be blended with the book, or the script, to make more interesting and compelling characters. Even though the character will only be seen briefly in the story moving job, the character is still a part of the storytelling process and could be picked out and remembered in the retelling of the story. As these parts in story moving elevate themselves to the attention of the director then they can become a path for the actor working his way toward industry, and ultimately, audience recognition. Don't forget, an actor’s star status is primarily based on his value to the box office.

If being cast will not affect the box office then the above union scale payments are not justified. It is your job to make sure you have value to the industry with audience and industry awareness. This is not always easy but it is always possible. If you are clear as to your abilities to go to make believe in the various media, and you are clear as to your uniqueness of personality, and your need to be integrated into your story moving jobs, you will then see the process necessary to get story telling jobs.

Understanding the opportunities for knowledge through the story moving business will serve you greatly if you take advantage of it. If you hold on to some ego based belief that you are “too good” to allow yourself the story moving opportunities you, perhaps, should reevaluate your reason for entering this career in the first place. A career is a long time. It should last a lifetime. There is no such thing as forced retirement for actors, only different types of characters to create. Be clear about the story moving business and how it differs from the story telling business. Understand all the work possibilities and the path to success that can be followed. Let patience be your guide. Enjoy the learning and growth. Know how to take advantage of the story moving business by learning who the buyers for these markets are. Know which tools for marketing you will use to give you power. Know how to work the system to support your goals.

Once you are clear about the differences between the two businesses you can then begin to focus on their likenesses. You can begin to take advantage of your “knowledge base” and networking skills. You want your luck to be based on design, not happenstance. Nothing just happens in this, or any, business. Everything has a reason. Know how to decipher those reasons to design your course of action. The course of action will take you to the results you want.

Educational Stipend

The lower-level story moving jobs should be viewed as paid course work. For that reason these jobs should not be flaunted about as accomplishments. All you need to know is their value to you. Do not assume someone else will share your same enthusiasm. People in the industry may misread your bragging as an indicator that your feeling of accomplishment is out of sync with the reality of the situation. The real danger here is the energy flow disruption that may happen as a result of friends and family thinking that perhaps your expectations are too low.

When you get these story moving jobs you might look at them as if they are just classes that someone else is paying for you to take. Take full advantage of these classes. Reap the rewards from the knowledge learned.

When you clarify the difference between the story moving business and the story telling business you will be able to take advantage of how each business operates. You will realize how you can use that operation to best serve your career growth. Everything about this industry that you do not know will ultimately affect your ability to act. Realize how this lack of knowledge manifests itself as fear. Acknowledge how fear manifests in your ability to control your life energy.

There are many things that I will discuss in these lessons that are needed by the story telling actor. However, it is important to know that getting to the storytelling business may require going through the story moving business. It is there for you. It is one of the actor’s true educational processes. It is how the actor views the process and how much the actor chooses to learn that will decide the speed and level of the actor’s story telling success.

Story Telling Business

The story telling business is made up of acting jobs that require learning lines, auditioning, having an agent, knowing what you are suppose to do. I classify a low story telling job to be two or more scenes with five or more lines. As the story telling roles get larger the characters become more important to the telling of the story. The character will either be a support character to the everyman(protagonist), the dragon (antagonist), or bird (savior) or will be the everyman, the dragon or the bird. The primary lead characters (the ones with most of the lines) fall into the everyman and dragon category. It is interesting to note that although the bird character (a structural concept) may have fewer lines their scenes are crucial to the telling of the story and become the catalyst for the climax. In the story telling business the actor is expected to know what he is doing.

As the roles become larger this knowledge is supported by past efforts and successes as well as level of agent representation. The aspiring actor can make sure that his/her awareness of ability level is developed by large roles in low level production opportunities. This can be a key to your growth.

You want to look for story telling roles in venues that will hire you. Low budget film and television projects are a perfect place to seek these larger roles. You might also want to find a boutique agent (a very small one or two man office dedicated to new talent). These boutique agents/managers are excited to work for you and many do have access to story telling roles in C and low B venues as well as A level productions.

These lower level venues will give you an opportunity because you can act and are right for the role and, you guessed it, affordable. You can be sure of one thing your first big score will not register in your bank account. You will, however, be put in a position to have one of the major agencies take notice of you and put you in their stable. No major agent is going to deal with you unless you have proven yourself somehow. (Or you are very young and gorgeous) That is why the C and low B level productions are so important to you. The C and low B are determined by their budgets and star power or lack there of.

You want to know who the players are in these levels. Get that lead in an off-off Broadway play. Work with an up and coming membership Theatre Company. Know who the local independent film companies are. Be aware of the disciplined aspirants with the willingness to take a chance. Somebody has to come up with cold hard cash for these productions and it won’t be you. You want to support those who do.

The Story Telling Business is about telling the story. It is not about background. It is not about flavor. It is not about ambiance. It is about using words and actions to create characters that tell a story. Each medium uses the positions of play (everyman, dragon and bird) in various ways to tell a story. The genre (style) of a story is supported by these uses. You have to experience how the positions of play affect the different mediums of story telling and how it impacts you.

Once you become a story teller your responsibilities are greatly increased. Your responsibility to your product and your package are paramount. Your ability to know the business and how your talents affect the business are essential. As a story teller your advancement to one of the primary positions of play (everyman, dragon or bird) is based on your choices, talents, work ethic, determination, discipline, courage, expectation, energy control, willing to do what it takes to gain experience and your desire to be happy with the journey.

You will never know enough as a story teller. Once you become one of the primary three (everyman, dragon, or bird) you will spend your entire career searching out better ways to support and enhance your characters. You will seek ways to incorporate your characters as you mature and move from one category to another (juvenile lead, lead, mature lead). You do not want this growth process to undermine your efforts or lessen your power. You want to be aware of the changes in you and the ability to use those changes to support characters that have changed as well.

The story telling business will require that you be responsible for the audience. It is about energy and your use of it. It is about talent and control. It is about focus and awareness. It is about accountability, commitment and dedication to your craft. It is about being bigger than you. It is knowing that you have the power to make the lives of those you touch better, physically and emotionally. Your growth as a story teller will happen when you accept the power of your talents and your ability to understand the place of Talent.

Take the time to see what is available to you as a story mover as well as a story teller. I'll talk later about how to structure each of these efforts as separate businesses. I'll suggest ways to make sure you have tools and goals dedicated to each.
I wish you well,
Russ

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is giving up something you want in order to achieve something else. For the actor, sacrifice means that he has to take time away from other aspects of his life in order to fill his responsibility to his career. Sacrifice is about time, focus, and use of resources. Sacrifice is about discipline. When you have made it as a successful professional actor the sacrifices will be looked at more kindly because they will be compensated with money and fame.

There are sacrifices you will need to make to advance your career plan. There is the sacrifice of time with your family and significant others and there is the sacrifice of time with friends.

Sacrifice is not about your values or your self worth. Going against your true beliefs and values is not a sacrifice. It is a moral choice of self deception. If you think that you can sacrifice a personal moral value for expediency then you may find that you are wrong.

You may have beliefs that some things should not be sacrificed for your career. You may have the belief that you seriously doubt you can make it. You may have the belief that there never will be a career because acting is not a real job. You may have the belief that you shouldn't take time away from another need in your life in order to pursue a pipe dream. You may have the belief, “what the heck, I can do it tomorrow." These beliefs serve to undermine your desired beliefs. They will, however, spotlight what you truly value.

Your true beliefs are usually developed by religion, social status, race, educational status, or something else that occurred during your early years. If you were to look at your political party affiliation such as Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist, Nationalists, Green, etc., you would have a general idea of what your true beliefs are on almost every subject. Your true beliefs may not need to correspond with the true beliefs generally associated with a storyteller, but you need to know what those true beliefs are.

For example, if you pursue a liberal career field and yet your true beliefs are conservative you can see why your true beliefs are probably not going to support your desired value system. Even though your external value system may appear to be open and non judgmental, your true beliefs and values may not. You may find that your true beliefs could be supporting non action in order to avoid some self confrontation.

The Power of Cultural Beliefs

What is it that makes it possible for a student of medicine or law to make the time sacrifices of other aspects of their lives in order to secure their medical or law degrees? The educational systems of law and medicine have a reality built in. Everyone expects a law student or medical student to be out of pocket for the four to eight years necessary to qualify for these professions. There are preset true beliefs that law and medical students are special. There are preset true beliefs that becoming a doctor or a lawyer is the greatest career for your children. There are true beliefs supported by true values that law and medical students are the cream of the crop. Because of these culturally defined beliefs no sacrifice of time or money is too great for them or for those who support them.

The medical and law students know these preset beliefs exist and they are fueled by these beliefs. What about you? What preset true beliefs fuel your career efforts? “Acting is a nowhere occupation?” “Acting is an excuse to stay away from the responsibility of working toward a real profession?” “Chances of succeeding as an actor are almost nonexistent.” The list of negative preset true beliefs about the profession of acting is boundless. These preset true beliefs may well be your operating beliefs. Your preset true beliefs may have allowed your focus to be shifted from your external career values to your internal survival values.

You may be sacrificing for the wrong reason. This will happen if your belief system is working on automatic pilot. Your negative preset true beliefs about becoming a successful professional actor may be just useless baggage. These preset beliefs may be stopping you from realizing your career plan. You can change your preset true beliefs by addressing them.

You found your values by becoming aware of your use of time. Now you need to find the true beliefs that may be detouring you from your desired career. If you want to know what your true beliefs are, ask yourself questions about the non actions toward your career. Listen to your justifications or excuses.

Your justifications and excuses are your true beliefs.

You cannot succeed if your values are not supported by beliefs of positive achievement. It is critical that you lead your life in public and in private with the same set of values and beliefs. You do not wish to manipulate the public with one set of values and your private life with another. “You may deceive some of the people some of the time, all of people some of the time but never will you be able to deceive all of the people all of the time.” Always know what you have done is the best you could. Know that your true beliefs support your public declaration that you are an actor. Know that you are doing everything possible to increase your odds of success. Very few aspiring actors can say this. The reason they can’t lies in their counter productive preset true beliefs that sabotage and disheartened them from their desired goals.

Your true beliefs are based on certain truths. These true beliefs are the rules you set for your participation in winning the game of life. If you avoid seeking the knowledge about your true beliefs you are at the mercy of your own fears. It becomes a vicious circle that can undermine the enjoyment of the living experience.

Paradigm Shift

A paradigm is a plan; a proven path of success; a model. A plan based on a proven track record. They are not based on beliefs which are subjective in design. They are provable because they get desired results. Whenever you’re making the changes necessary to take control of your life, you need to follow the proven rules of success. Nothing can be more dangerous to your goals than beliefs that are steeped in subjectivity.

It is important that your beliefs are based on facts rather than opinions. The rules of a plan for success start by knowing clearly and specifically what you want from that success. Have an agenda for that knowledge. Identify each implementing action you need to take to get the results you want. Evaluate the results from a particular plan of action for positive results. Change the actions if you are not getting the result you want.

Evaluate your plan of action by modeling those who have achieved the results you are after. Learn from those who are getting what you want. There are industry supported beliefs that allow motivated aspiring actors to throw themselves into a process of promotion that only supports a cottage industry of non working performers. Know what those industry supported beliefs are. Don’t follow patterns and techniques that are out dated. Avoid sending mass mailings of pictures and resumes to agents. Find more interesting approaches in trying to get industry people to come to your showcases.

Most career techniques that worked 20 years ago do not apply to today’s marketing strategies. Anyone who suggests they do is running a business to support themselves at your expense. This is true for many acting classes and university programs as well. The process of teaching must fit the demands of the business as it applies to you. Your uniqueness within this industry is the common denominator to your success. Try to conform and you will lose your individual power to be a successful professional actor.

Making a Living

The first concern for the actor is how to make a living in this business of storytelling. Do what actors have done for hundreds of years. Make your own work. Become your own producer. De-program yourself from the belief that the collaborative process includes non artistic people. The career opportunities for the actor have been taken away by middlemen. These middlemen can come in many guises but their effect is still the same. They do things that you should be able to do for yourself. Create your own storytelling opportunities. Practice your instrument by doing showcases and co-oped scene classes. Explore efforts to clarify your product/package and your ability to create exciting and believable characters. Find efforts to practice creating these character with your uniqueness included. You’ll always be able to work if you are clever, dedicated, and disciplined enough to create your own jobs.

Generate the kind of financial rewards that come from controlling your own destiny. Search out the jobs that will give you insight into your professional skills and talents. And remember, your true beliefs are what decide whether you are pursuing your career or not.

The pursuit of an acting career should add to your quality of life, not detract from it. Any sacrifices you make should be sacrifices of love and participation. As stated, your perception of your circumstance is controlled by your true beliefs. “I never win anyway. No one would hire me; why bother to go to the audition. I should get new head shots but why spend the money.” These thoughts are supported by beliefs that must be changed.

Incentive to Change

Enhancing the power towards your personal goals can happen if you demand more from yourself. The process of taking action begins with this personal knowledge. This change cannot happen without finding the incentives to make the change.

If something makes you burst into a display of bad behavior you are responsible for that bad behavior. It is not what causes the bad behavior that needs to be addressed. It is what causes you to go to bad behavior and the beliefs that led you to that behavioral pattern that must be changed. It is the knowledge that you are working at a frequency that will attract the same. No matter how down you feel for holding negative true beliefs it doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do about those beliefs now.

Where is your focus going in order to avoid your career responsibility? Are you taking drugs? Are you drinking more than you should? Are you watching television endlessly? Are you getting lost looking for sex? Are you eating to fill the time and getting more out of shape so you can have yet another limiting belief?

Give yourself permission to change. Create your own incentive by knowing that you have the power to change the energy frequency that you are radiating. You can shift to a higher frequency and therefore inspire yourself to change.

Reflecting Your Personal Beliefs

You know that the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual justifications for material wealth as the gauge of personal success boil down to hogwash. If others decide how you value yourself, it is because that is what you believe. If your beliefs are not what you want they can be changed by you in the now. Know what you want specifically, and create an activity necessary to implement a goal. This can be done over time, using discipline, consistency and competition.

Evaluate the progress and results of your actions for specific outcome and change the actions if the results you want are not forthcoming. You are capable of making this happen. It is not only about your willingness to do the work. It’s also about believing that you deserve the work. It is about believing that you have a right to be a successful professional actor. Believe you have the right to be an accomplished storyteller. Believe it is your right to be a physical healer with the control of your energy. Believe it is your right to be a member of a career field as old as civilization.

The ability to believe is connected to the glorious gift of imagination. To believe is to have access to life’s ultimate bounty. Acting is a career where ultimate power brings with it many obstacles. The greatest of these obstacles is you. If you make the choice you can change anything that is getting in the way of your desired beliefs. Recognize what those obstacles are to you. Evaluate their effect on you and then remove them from your life.

Take some time and evaluate what you are doing with your time. Find those activities that are keeping you from your purported goals. It is in those activities that you will find your true beliefs. If those true beliefs do not support your expectations then take away their power by changing the activities.

As always I wish you well,
Russ

Harmonizing Your Values

Harmonizing Your Values
It is important that you learn the difference between the core and cover of your reality. If they are not on the same page with each other they will work against you. As we know your true values are easily uncovered by looking at your use of time and your desired values are revealed by clarifying your wants. You now know that your true beliefs may be controlling your life while your desired beliefs may have little power for you. You want to find the priorities of your life. If you have done that you should recognize how your time priorities show your true values.

Setting Action
As you may have noticed I believe that it is critical that you make sure that acting is really the profession you want(internal belief based on desire). It is important you are sure that acting is the profession you are willing to make your number one priority in life (external beliefs or use of time). But, you must acknowledge the possibility of your having external and internal turmoil. Without acknowledging this possible turmoil, you may never have what you desire for this career. And there is the possibility that your true beliefs of defeat will never loosen their grip on your destiny so that you can fulfill your desired beliefs. Remember, it is your true beliefs that dictate your actions.

Try these few simple tests to see if acting is both your true and your desired occupation. If acting is your true and desired profession then you are not embarrassed by those efforts needed to achieve your goals.

You are not embarrassed to go to make believe.
You do not criticize the physical actions needed for repetition.
You do not try and justify the art of acting.
You talk about your character in the third person.
You do not feel silly doing the job.
You expect to make a comfortable living and career success.

If you are challenged by any of these thoughts then there may be in conflict with your true values and your desired values. Meaning, there may be conflict between your true beliefs and your desired beliefs.

Beliefs are what create the countless reasons for your actions. Values are the attitudes and the qualities you consider important and are revealed in the way you live and conduct your life.

Some values motivate your behavior and some values motivate your thoughts.

They can be described as external or presentational values or internal or protective values. They really must be in sync. These internal and external values/beliefs must be focused on the same thing. If not, you’ll work against yourself without knowing it.

Your external values are your presentations, accompanied by your physical and emotional attitude. They present how you want to be perceived in relation to someone else. Your external values are what you want other people to observe as important to you. Your external values lead to the actions used to define you as a person. Often the presentation of some people’s external values is like "praying in public" to show they are pious.

In many cases a person’s external values are not supported by the internal values/beliefs. These folk risk being exposed for who they really are inside. There is nothing more pathetic in the human experience than presenting yourself as one thing but believing something else. The only thing worse could be not recognizing the difference. How terrible it is to be respected for your presentation and then to be discovered that your internal values negate your supposed truth. This is often the case with characters that you will play.

I had a friend who became mayor of a small town. He was respected and loved by the entire community. A married city councilman, who had decided to run against him for mayor, received a videotape of himself having sex with a woman, not his wife, in an abandoned parking lot. The councilman decided to expose the blackmail attempt at the cost of his reputation. His outrage of being blackmailed was greater than his fear of shame. When it looked as if the mayor was behind the whole scheme, the mayor denied his involvement. When an innocent deputy sheriff was charged, convicted and sentenced, the mayor denied his involvement. When the mayor’s closest friend began to crumble under the weight of the secret, it was finally exposed and yet the mayor still denied any involvement. The mayor denied any involvement even after he was convicted on Federal extortion charges and sent to prison. Two years later the husband of the mayor’s former secretary, a local minister, admitted that he had written the blackmail letter at the request of the mayor. With this revelation, the mayor finally confessed. After two years in prison, after being divorced by his wife, after going bankrupt, the innocent deputy sheriff was released. And, the culpable minister was given a new car by his parish for coming forward. Go figure.

What internal belief/value did the mayor possess that was more powerful than his external belief/value of decency and honor? What internal beliefs did the councilman have that made him think that his responsibility to his wife, his children and the community were more important that a quick sex act? What internal beliefs did the minister hold that allowed him to become involved in the ridiculous effort by writing the letter when he should have stopped it from happening. What value of his beliefs would allow him to let an innocent man stay in prison for two years before coming forward? What internal motivation did a moral reformer governor of a state possess that allowed him to be caught spending campaign funds on prostitutes or the internal motivation and beliefs of a close friend of the President of the United States and CEO of a major Wall Street company who tells all his employees to buy as much stock in the company as they can as he is secretly selling all of his or the internal beliefs of United States Senator that would allow him to actively support legislation to limit the rights of homosexuals while he cruises the men’s rooms in airports for anonymous gay sex?

These convoluted internal beliefs are what make up the stories we tell. None of these men would appear to be willing to let these selfish internal beliefs risk destroying everything they had created for themselves and their friends and family. But they did and they still do.

Look at the extent the mayor was willing to go to in order to protect his external value presentation. Look at the extent the mayor was willing to go in order to protect his internal belief system from being exposed. It is important that you make sure the external values you demonstrate in your life are supported by your true internal beliefs.

It is frustrating when you recognize that your external values (use of time) needed for a successful career are hampered by your internal beliefs/values for security and respectability. Identify the actual beliefs you hold that support an internal belief that acting is a profession of security and respectability. When you find those true beliefs of fear that contradict your goals then you can work to replace them with your desired beliefs for success. You can then change their value with your use of time.

If you don’t know the difference between your beliefs and values how can you expect to keep them working in harmony? The primary reason for the 98% failure rate in the entertainment industry is the conflict between true and desired values and beliefs. By uncovering your values of these beliefs you can distinguish between the two.

Make sure your external values of presentation are in harmony with your internal true and desired values. Make sure your behaviors match your internal and external goals. Your goals must be in harmony with your use of time and your belief in the outcome of the goal.

Therefore you must create an agenda. You must create a plan. Arrange your time so that it puts your values in there proper place. Any goal requires being consistent and willing to sacrifice your time and efforts. It requires that you persevere. A goal requires action for results. This action can only be maintained if your beliefs are supported by both your true and desired values with your use of time.

One of the most difficult concepts to accept is that “all things are possible, if you only believe." It is difficult because it requires that you know your own truth. That means you need to believe in the truth of yourself and the truth of your beliefs. When you realize that your desired beliefs are real, supportive and powerful you’ll also realize that your success is in direct relationship to their harmony with your true values (indicated by how you spend your time). Your priorities, as defined by your use of time, will reflect if your true and desired values have merged and are moving you toward a successful acting career.

Remember, your true beliefs control your internal values that support action. Your brain does not evaluate the pros and cons of the instructions you give it when it is on automatic pilot. And on automatic pilot your true beliefs are the operating values you depend on to become a successful professional actor. They must be in harmony.

Your desired values and your desired beliefs can only be working with positive focus, awareness and accountability. Until you find a way to ferret out the true beliefs that are non supportive you’ll continue to be at the mercy of your own limitations. Don’t support beliefs (rules for living) that stop you from winning the game of life. It is your choice which beliefs (rules) you accept for yourself. That is why you want to know if your true beliefs are also your desired beliefs. You want to know if the things you really value most by the use of your time are supportive of an acting career or some other life affirming circumstance.

To be eliminated they have to be acknowledged as true beliefs that support true values rather than desired beliefs that support desired values. You must know the difference in order to put harmony in your life. You cannot wish yourself to be something different. You will have to work at it. Learn to accept your true beliefs and values by being accountable for your use of time. Own your use of time and be accountable for how you go about doing what you do.

The Comfortable Pain of Mediocrity
The power to change your life is completely up to you. Sometimes you may find yourself in a state of mind where your focus and actions are counter productive. Remember that your physical body has the power to keep you from your desired course. Your body can set an energy vibration that causes the law of attraction to work against you. Change this. Recognize when your thoughts are at a frequency level making you think as a victim. Recognize than in truth you are the victimizer. You victimize yourself. You do this because it is more comfortable to live in the pain of mediocrity than to risk the failure of action. Risk could force you to deal with humiliation and ridicule. The irony is that only you can feel badly about what you have done. But, to feel badly when you know your best was thwarted by your own true beliefs is a waste of time.

You do not want to accept mediocrity. That should be one of your new true and desired beliefs. You should believe that if one person has made it to the top of the mountain, it can happen to you. You should know what the top of the mountain is for you. You want to know what you expect from yourself. You should expect that if everything goes according to plan you will know where your career will be five years from now. If you know that, you also know how to describe your plan.

Put your plan into writing. You will feel empowered knowing that you actually have a plan. Identify what is keeping you from focusing on having a plan. Then, identify the priorities you have set for yourself that are your values and beliefs. Once you see your priorities (use of time) you can begin to understand what the true values are in your life.

It is important that you identify those beliefs that are keeping you away from your desired values. If you can’t put your desired values (the way you want to live your life) on your goal list then you really don’t want them. You must control your beliefs with awareness. Make sure all the pieces to your life puzzle are in place. And, most of all, make sure being a professional actor is where you really want to spend your life.

Character Types
You want to recognize any beliefs you have about acting that are keeping you from an acting career. They may be unconscious so you are seeking to understand what you truly believe to make them conscious.

I have already discussed that characters come as four basic types. Not just physical type by appearance but also what the person wants someone to see by their look. Some people choose to appear nice on the outside but at their core they are selfish and dangerous. I call these people light on dark. There are others who choose to appear to be nice on the outside at their core they are truly decent loving people. I call these people light on light. Then, there are others who choose to appear to be dangerous on the outside but, at their core, are unselfish and loving people. I call these people dark on light. And, finally, there are those who appear evil or dangerous on the outside and, at their core, they are. I call these people dark on dark.

Of the four types of people, the most honest are those who are light on light and those who are dark on dark. That is the honesty factor. You know where you stand with these people. Their true and desired values and beliefs are in harmony. What you see is what you get. Dark on dark types are not trying to intimidate without cause or trying to be intimidating without motive. They know that their selfish internal and external beliefs are in harmony and they let you know it, too.

The same is true with those who are light on light. They appear kind and compassionate on the outside and, in truth, are the same from their internal belief system. They, too, present to the world the truth of who and what they are. Characters are quickly defined this way whereas in reality it is a bit more complicated. Where do you fit in this list of types? What true beliefs have led you to a presentation that may or may not support the truth of your internal beliefs? You need to have this awareness in order to create harmony in yourself.

Self Serving
Self serving is only a negative experience if the feelings and needs of others are sacrificed in order for us to get what we want. Based on topic and circumstance any of us can be self-serving. What is important it that you be true to yourself. If you choose to sleep your way to the top yet that is counter to your true belief system you’ll find the end result may not be worth the sacrifice. If, on the other hand, your true belief system accepts sleeping to the top then may not become an issue. However, choices you make today will surface to haunt you if they are made against your true beliefs. Do not try and go around them. That is why it is important to know what they are and change them if you can. Be sure that you know what your true beliefs are or you may be in for a surprise.

Have a great week. Focus on what you are doing with your time. See if that time expenditure matches the things you are saying about what you want from this life. You might be surprised.

As always,
I wish you well.
Russ

Formula for Creating a Character or a Life

Formula for Creating a Character
The characters that you play as an actor are looking for the same things as you. Character types come from an internal position of value that is either based on being selfless or selfish. That core belief system will determine whether the character’s internal motivation is positive or negative. A character that appears to be open and nonthreatening from his external presentation has a light cover (presentation). The character that appears to be intimidating or superior from the external presentation has a dark cover (presentation). They first come from a point of reference both emotionally and physically. This, as you know, is a presentation of expected value.

If the character’s internal motivation appears to be selfless, then his operating beliefs or his core is light (nonthreatening). If the character’s operating belief system appears to be selfish, then his core is dark (threatening). These are character qualities that you will deal with. There will be clues in the script to guide you to this knowledge of the character. There will also be clues that the casting director or director will give you to help guide you to the core/cover choice you will make. The four cover and core combination possibilities are: Dark on Dark, Dark on Light, Light on Dark and Light on Light.

Your ability to create and play characters, with a strong point of reference for the audience, has a great deal to do with your physical and presentational clarity. There are two types of characters from the presentation position. The first are those characters that appear to be nonthreatening by their external physical and emotional presentation. This physical presentation includes both non threatening physical characteristics and non intimidating choice of dress. These elements constitute a light cover position. There are also those characters that appear threatening and intimidating from their external physical presentation. This includes the physical characteristics and their choice of intimidating clothing. This constitutes the dark cover position.

Your physical reference point will help guide you to what acting jobs you might be best suited to seek and what areas of storytelling you most comfortable fit. Many actors or aspiring actors choose not to clarify their type (including stock and stereotypes). This lack of position of play clarity may keep one from finding an agent or business representation. Unfortunately, in many cases the truth of the presentation is counter to the actor’s grasp on reality.

The first major way to know what characters you are best suited to play is if the character is liberal or conservative. Most people don’t want to deal with this kind of apparent discrimination. They feel it is unfair and prejudicial. And of course, it is unfair and prejudicial. That’s part of the purpose of story telling. Story telling shows the audience how we class each other and strive to be better than each other even within our own race and subcultures. Presentation of style and affluence is primarily an effort to convey a class distinction. For example, certain class distinction indicates that the character values education, elitism, style, affluence, breeding, culture, propriety… etc.

You should use your understanding of creating a character to help you find your own quality traits and values both good and bad. You need to know your strengths, weakness, talents and fears that make you who you are. Not being aware of these will keep you from being the person and the actor you wish to be. In your own life this is also true. Finding your values and qualities to achieve the goals for your life need to be as clear to you as it is for any character you are creating.

Formula for Creating Yourself

There is a formula for creating a character. That formula is A + B = C. The A is the actor, the B is the book/script, and the C the collaborators. All of these elements constitute the creating of a character. The book refers to the script’s clues or suggestions given by the director. The director’s clues come from the literal as well as his vision of the script. Later clues come from the contribution of the other creative collaborators.

By understanding this formula you will serve yourself as a storyteller. Without this blend of your qualities and the needs of the script you may well serve the character in the play but not serve yourself playing the character. Knowing how to make the blend will serve you as someone the audience loves to see telling stories from one of the four cover/core presentational styles. The knowledge of the blend will make you special and get people to pay attention to you and therefore, it will provide financial security.

You also want to be able to translate a director’s interpretation and script clues for a character. You want to recognize the character traits and physical presentation that the director lifts from the script and the ones he brings from his own vision. You can then take that knowledge and blend them with your understanding of your own core and cover combination.

As you strive to create your own acting career, what you are really starting is your own company. And, if that company is successful you will be responsible for the income of others. While you’re working to become a successful professional actor it is important that you are accepting that you’re going into business for yourself. And, like anyone who owns his own business, you need to believe you can do it well. You must believe you have the spirit and ability that makes you a competitive business in this diverse industry. You must make sure the rules you have set for yourself are based on beliefs that support your true abilities to be successful.

You want to know how to translate the rules that others play by. With this knowledge you can interpret their physical dark or light cover presentation as well as interpret their selfish or selfless core motivation. Knowing the purpose of the core /cover combination used by others in relation to you will give you an advantage in the choices you make.

But, it depends on what you really want. It would be wonderful if seeking this career gives you a feeling of importance and accomplishment. It would be wonderful if this career makes you proud knowing that your work affects lives and makes things better for your audience. It would be wonderful if your time with an audience removes them from their personal pain. It would be grand if a reason to pursue this career was to heal others. It would be awesome if these were your reasons. But the real reasons may be more personal and complex.

It is said by many self help advocates that life is not a destination, it is a process. If you do not enjoy the process you will not enjoy the destination. Life is to be lived and the living is filled with ups as well as downs. It should be filled with the excitement of the adventure. If the trip isn't fun chances are the memories won’t be either. Beliefs that are not matched with responsibility and intelligence are more than likely going to result in your possible unhappiness. Therefore, you want to make your beliefs pleasure oriented. Make sure your belief’s support your priorities (true and desired).

Make sure your beliefs support your pursuing a successful professional acting career. Make sure your beliefs or rules for living are not interfering with your ability to achieve a successful professional acting career. Assess those beliefs that are working against you.

If you want to be successful begin by feeling as if you are successful. If you can fool other people, chances are you can fool yourself. Catch yourself whenever you are holding on to beliefs that are nothing more than instructions to support a negative low energy vibration. Make sure your rules for living are not so difficult that you can’t pull away from negative thoughts in order to win the game of life. You must truly want to be successful in this business. Circumstances will happen that create a detour from your set goals. It is not the event of the detour that will change your fate. It is the belief that you attach to the event which will determine the power of the detour.

If you believe you can or you believe you can’t you’re right. And, remember, beliefs are not permanent unless they go unchallenged.

Have a great week.
I wish you well.
Russ

How Your Negative Realities Become Your True Values
Before you start to change something, you need to know what it is that you are going to change. Uncover your true values by analyzing your behavior patterns. Find out how they originated in your life. Most of your patterns of behavior are learned from your family. I believe that the first 18 years of a person’s life are critical to setting up life-time patterns.

We are taught impression management. While growing up we are making choices. While growing up we are taught what values are acceptable according to the society of our origin. We see people make choices that result in pain. We see other people who make choices that give pleasure. Often the two are in conflict. What some choose that gives apparent pleasure are often choices that go against the beliefs we have been taught about right and wrong. Most of us are taught how to conduct ourselves in front of other people. Most of us are taught to value what other people think of us. We have learned to value our ability to deceive others and we may even have learned to value our right to stand up for ourselves even when we are wrong. We may have learned what works and what doesn’t work to get us what we want.

As an actor you know how values are presented through a character. Like the clues given in a script, many of your values, true and desired, are shown in your personal presentation. For example: Your values are shown in how you dress. They are shown in how you communicate to friends, family, and strangers. They are shown in how you respond to different types of people, from acceptance to judgment. Your values are shown in how you entertain yourself and in the places you frequent. Your values are evidenced by what you believe in terms of being just or unjust. Your values are seen in your priorities. Your values are seen in the types of movies and television you watch. They are seen in the kind of friends you have. They live in the secrets that you keep. They are reflected in your honesty. They are reflected in your decency. They are reflected in your expectations of yourself and of others.

When creating a character we become aware of the deception techniques used by the character because during the course of the play those techniques will be exposed as the story unfolds. Just like characters you may develop you discover deception techniques are tied to the values that the character may have adopted for survival. As you study your character you can acknowledge that each of their values may be supported by beliefs that come from your own life experiences.

Like a character, your true values that create negative experiences are found in your hidden fears. And, as with a character, you realize that most of your values were learned and accepted by you as you were growing up. Your family, your social and economic circumstance, your religion, your race, your peers, and your education are among the many things that created your accepted values, both true and desired.

To become more effective in your career and life you need to be aware of those values that you may have turned into beliefs that are stopping you from doing the work that is necessary to move you toward a successful professional acting career.

Changing Your Values by Default
There is another reason you need to be consciously aware of your value system, both true and desired. You know what gives you physical pleasure and what gives you physical pain. You also know what gives you emotional pleasure and what gives you emotional pain. Emotional pleasure and pain are often used in this business. The more you control you have of what causes them in you the better prepared you are to override disabling techniques used by some casting directors, producers, agents and, unfortunately, other actors. You need to know their values if you want to share their playing field. If you wish to play only by your rules you may find the road to success a difficult and painful one.

Knowing how to recognize your true values in relation to your desired values affords you the opportunity to become aware of the behavioral patterns of those you will come into contact with in this business. It keeps you from being vulnerable to the manipulation and abuse that can be experienced in this business. Pushing buttons is a term used to explain someone’s ability to control your emotional responses. If someone knows how to read your true values (through your use of time) they also know how to push your buttons. With this ability they have the power to control your emotional state and therefore your state of mind.

Leaving your emotional state to the mercy of others is a tragic mistake. You may have found learned to alter your desired values because you wanted certain people to be your friend. People who are going to be in a position to hire you or promote you are going to be using their understanding of the game to move up the ladder of success. You need to know what the game means to them.

Many actors or aspiring actors may be using values to operate their careers that do not support their desired values. Look at your own career choices. There may be things that you have done in order to promote your career that are disagreeable to you. Develop a clear path for your career and you will become less vulnerable to others’ agendas. Have a clear path so you can determine whether your values and beliefs are supporting your desire to be a successful professional actor. Remember, your values are being affected all the time. They are being affected by your peers, your family, and your most personal relationships.

No Dogs or Actors
The acting profession does not sit high on most cultural lists of acceptable occupations. It wasn’t that long ago hotels had signs reading “no dogs or actors”. Times may be changing due to the enormous amount of work being generated for successful actors, but the old beliefs and old reputations still haunt the aspiring actor. Some of your beliefs and true values may be subconsciously affected by history. It is important to acknowledge how many of your pre-instilled beliefs are freely residing in your brain. You may have unknown beliefs that limit your thoughts. And, you may be evaluating your efforts with these limiting beliefs.

Some of these beliefs could be: If I had a great showcase I would get an agent. If I had an agent then I could get an acting job. If I had an Equity card I could get a professional audition. If I knew the right people I could get the right job. If I won the lottery I would have the money I need to pursue all my dreams.

Your own rules for living may be making the pursuit of acting in this game of life difficult for you to win. Your beliefs can determine the possibility of your reaching your goals by the choices you make. Those choices are indicated by your use of time. What you choose to believe is up to you. You do not want to accept beliefs that are too difficult to follow. It is possible to have a belief that you can have a successful career as an actor and, at the same time, have a belief that acting is not a vocation but an avocation with no hope for financial security. The goals for your life are dictated by your values and your choice of beliefs will indicate the importance you put on the way your life is to be lived. You could have many beliefs that are built-in detractors and saboteurs. You may even have beliefs that are designed to justify poverty and survival.

Acknowledging the Ifs
It is my contention that your “ifs” are excuses for non action. The “ifs” are the result of the conflict between your true values and beliefs. You need to know where any belief comes from. You should also know that it is not the individual belief that is important. You need to find the purpose your belief system serves. That knowledge will lead you to your core beliefs that are controlling your process of thought under the guise of logical support. A core belief may be: ‘someone else needs to make it happen for me because my personal power must be validated from the outside’. Core beliefs are coded as rules we have accepted as truths. Once you can identify what those rules are you can weed out those that do not support your desired career oriented values.

These beliefs may have been ingrained into you at such an early age that you do not realize that they are actually a part of your reality. Yet, these beliefs may be subconsciously undermining the desired values you need to support your chosen destiny

Success and Rejection
You need to verbalize your life purpose. You need to know what you really want out of life. It is important that you know if your values and beliefs support your goals for becoming a successful professional actor. You need to know what is most important to you and what is your life going to be about. Therefore, you need to know your rules or beliefs for your life.

Success in your chosen career requires much effort in order to achieve the knowledge and repetitions needed to acquire talent and take it to Talent. There will be rejection along the way. Your desire for success may be in direct conflict with your fear of rejection. This may result in non-action

I know of many actors whose personal beliefs or rules for living do not support a successful acting career. Many actors have set their rules for succeeding so high that the actions to go after the career become impossible. It may also be true for you that many of your beliefs, both personal and universal, are making success too difficult.

The origin of these rules could be found by looking at your circumstances of growing up. Many of your beliefs about acting were set when your becoming a professional actor was not a major focus. Many of your acting beliefs could have come from people you love and respect who shared information that they felt you needed in order to pursue an acting career. Their concern was activated when you began to indicate that this might be an interest that could lead to a career effort. These well meaning people in your life may not have believed that an acting career was best for you.

Regardless of where or why, their beliefs were shared with you and the fact remains that they became part of your subconscious beliefs. If left unchallenged they can secretly distract you from your career efforts. There is a part of you that won’t let your dream come true. The result is pursuing the idea of an acting career while rarely doing the efforts necessary to move the career to a legitimate effort. This often leads to a convoluted idea of an acting career.

Even though many cannot make a living as an actor, based on the average income statistics, they may claim success from a three scene guest acting job on a second rate television series. This could be a problem, especially if these actors are using that credit years after the series has left the air. Their belief that success, even this minor effort, qualifies them for lifetime storytelling status is a public announcement of a defeating belief.

An additional problem with this acceptance of such a low bar for success is that it creates a built-in defeat position. I had a student during a private session mention he had not spoken to his parents in over five years. I expressed my regret for this and he proceeded to tell me the circumstances of this estrangement. It seems that he was doing an extra job on a network soap opera. He told his parents to be sure to watch the show. After the show aired he received a call from his parents. They didn’t understand what was wrong? Did they miss his part? He told them that walking behind the lead character was his part. They found this curious. “When will you be getting any lines?” With this, he tells me, he expressed to his parents his anger at their lack of support and their naivete at how hard it was even to get a walk on. If that was as supportive as they could be then he didn’t need them or their support.

When he finished his story I was at a loss for words. I asked if he planned to make contact with his parents and he said no. He felt he had done the right thing. My response to him was to acknowledge his parent’s position, which I felt had nothing to do with their support, or love for him. It dealt with more practical matters. If he believed that getting an extra job was so difficult, and if he believed that others should look at this as an achievement, then he had set the value or expected goals, for achievement as an actor too low. His belief about what could be classified as acting success did not have the power of expectation. The issue was not resolved during my tenure with this delightful and sad young man. He was unaware that his own beliefs did not support him. I hope he has become more aware of the beliefs that he holds that could, because of lack of logic, end up hurting him. With the pain comes non-action. And, with non-action comes unwanted results.

If you want to know the true values which may be undermining your desired values ask a friend. Ask the friend a question about you. Example: "Do you think I'm working hard enough on my acting career." Once they respond ask for more detail "how do you know?" Their follow up answer will reflect the true belief you have that supports the topic of the question. In their answer is the belief that may or may not be supporting your desires.

Have a great week and become aware of the actions you are taking that support your beliefs, desired or true. Look at the rules for the game that you have set for yourself.

I wish you well.
Russ