IT’S A NUMBERS GAME by Neil Schell     2-10-2009 How many times have you heard that? Does it apply to acting? You bet. It is obvious to me that if you want to increase your bookings, you have to increase your audition numbers. Many actors feel a bit defeated when confronting the idea of increasing their audition numbers. It all seems to be in the hands of the casting directors or their agent or both. Too often actors think that once they land a good agent or any agent their audition rate will increase immediately. Maybe. Maybe not. Because their agent is the person they have direct contact with, they wind up focusing on maintaining good relations with them and make sure they are available for that most important phone call. Unfortunately, this is far from enough. Let’s look at the reality of this situation of getting auditions. When a casting director puts out a breakdown requesting submissions from the local agents, they will get nothing short of 150 submissions for any given role. For series television, 5 to 6 actors will be brought in for an audition. For a feature film up to 20 actors could be brought in. Obviously, the more times you are submitted, the higher your chances are of being seen for a role. The more times you are seen for roles, the better chance you have of being cast. This is just simple mathematics. Two factors can be worked on to increase your booking rate - number of auditions versus number of bookings. One is the quality of your work. This is pretty much completely under your control. Through study and practice you can most certainly deliver what is wanted in that audition room. The study part - going to classes, reading books, learning new techniques - is not too difficult as long as you have a budget. The practice part can be more difficult even though it’s “free.” How many of you reading this article practice acting everyday? My experience is only 5% of actors practice every day. What would happen if you increased the number of hours you practiced every day? Well, if you truly did practice with the intent of improving, you would get better. As long as you were practicing the correct things (the subject of another newsletter). This step of increasing your practice is difficult for most actors because their days are filled with various activities that, obviously at this point, are more important to them than practicing their acting. I mean, let’s face it, no one does nothing. People are always doing something. Your strength in putting your acting practice in front of other things is what has be focused on. And that can be difficult. One of the things you can do to build that strength is figure out what your long term vision is. Know where you are going and how you are going to get there. (I highly recommend you sign up for Bob Fraser’s newsletter so you can get your free copy of “ACTION! The Actors Workbook” to help you with figuring what your long term vision really is. Go to http://www.showbizhowto.com/asuboffer.html) With long term certainty and direction, increasing our practice hours becomes a much easier task and you will start increasing them on a daily basis. That is the first number you can increase on your own without spending any money - your practice hours. Another way to increase your numbers is to mail out head shots and resumes to casting directors. This one costs a bit more on the financial side of things but it is pretty much directly under you control and has a certain level of effectiveness. There is much more to this than just sending out any old head shot but, for the purpose of this newsletter, you can easily see that sending out head shots and resumes to the people who are doing the casting is a way to increase your numbers. There is another way to increase your numbers that is extremely exciting. It is fairly new and extremely effective when done right. There are easy-to-access technologies that allow actors to reach into casting rooms in far off lands. This can increase your numbers in a big way. No matter where you live, it is possible to submit an audition for a role that is casting half-way around the world. Just think, you can, given the right set of circumstances, get your audition for a role that is being cast in the U.K. seen by a casting director in their office in London when you live in Tuktoyaktuk, Yukon (yes, such a place exists - pronounced “tuck-toy-yuk-tuck”). I will give you a couple of real-life examples to illustrate what I mean. While cruising a website that has sides (scenes) posted for professional auditions, I noticed a role that I wanted to read for. I called my agent and requested to send in a self-taped audition to the casting director if I couldn’t get an appointment to do my work in person. (“Self-taped” is an old term that is still used for this way of doing things. The way I do it has absolutely no tape involved.) Because I was not given an audition time, my agent got an okay from the casting director for me to send in a self-taped audition for the role. I immediately went to work on my self-taping. I did it at home with my camera and computer. My wife was my reader. After a few takes, some easy editing and a quick upload to a free website, my audition was in the casting director’s office. And, best of all, he looked at it! I would love to tell you I won that role but the truth is I didn’t. What did occur was the casting director who I submitted my self-taped audition to brought me in two weeks later for a nice role being cast for the NBC TV series “Eureka.” That role I did book. And I am certain I wouldn’t have been considered for the “Eureka” role had I not sent in that self-taped audition earlier. That’s an example of a “local” self-taped audition that increased the numbers and got a good result. Here’s an example of a long-distance self-taping that got an excellent result directly from the taping. A young man, in what would be considered to be an isolated city in the world of TV and film, Winnipeg, had his dad tape his audition in their back-yard for a role in the blockbuster film “Watchmen.” Using his agent, like I did, that young man booked that role and can be seen in one of the biggest budget movies of our time. These are just two successes that are related to increasing your numbers by utilizing today’s technology. One was done in close proximity to the casting office and the other was 1,500 miles from the casting office. Both used the self-taping method. Obviously there are elements that must be put in place before you go out self-taping for everything under the sun without an agent and without correct information regarding the scenes being auditioned and when the auditions are taking place. You need to know things like where to find the valid, professional casting calls, what equipment to use, how to shoot it, how to upload it and send it and all that. I go into those details and much more at my workshops. What’s most exciting is that YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE NUMBERS. And that in itself keeps you in the game and having fun and booking roles! My next workshop regarding this very subject is being held in Toronto, Ontario on March 12 and 13, 2009. It’s all about building your acting career through auditioning and how to make those numbers go up, up, up! Seating is very limited for this workshop. To register for my BUILDING YOUR CAREER THROUGH AUDITIONING workshop, go online to the web page below and sign up: http://www.actorworkshops.com/shop/?shop=1&cat=2 © Copyright 2009 by Neil Schell Until the next newsletter… Neil PS Feel 'free' to write to me at  anytime. I will answer. PROFESSIONALS HAVE COACHES, AMATEURS DON'T