Stand out!

Hello All,

Has it really been a week of the new year? Wow where does time go? How are your New Years' resolutions standing up?

An actors faces thousands of auditions throughout their career. It seems that we're are always trying to find that "best impression" or that way to "Stand out" when in a pool of thousands. How do we do it, how do we mange to "be noticed"? I have been thinking about this for sometime. I have my idea, but like every actor they need to find their own path to "standing out" in an audition.

Traditionally an actor will come in with a headshot and resume, hit their mark, introduce, monologue, say thanks, and exit stage left. If I was a casting director I would get very disinterested in this process when I have to sit through hundreds, if not thousands, of the same set up. How do we make this more interesting?

The obvious answer is not to do that, and you would be right. Now the question is how do you break tradition? When I was taking an art class my professor always gave us specific guidelines that would still let us provide our own art, but under certain restrictions. Everyone followed suit, except in the later part of the semester a student combined two different materials in one projects (Before this project was up, we were only working with one material to present. Our professor did not want to complicate things with two materials.) and the professor was impressed by the risk of the student of "breaking the rules." She even stated to the student that I normally would be against this type of project but you [the student] managed to go for it and not back down.

Those last words are exactly how you manage to stand out. Take a risk in something different and don't half ass it, but fully commit to it. Make the casting director pay attention to you. Be different. but how?

As I stated earlier the traditional audition process, well break it. Come up with interesting ways to slate, to perform, to sing, to leave. Make them notice you. I don't want to give ideas because they may not work for you. You, as an artist, need to make the art and present it. The rules are there to be broken, we have heard that so many time, but convince them that it is not wrong to break these rules.

Something to always remember in acting, we are all artist, make your art and present it. Make people want to look at this piece of art.

I hope this helped on some degree?

Daniel Sukup