Kazz Lewsader: Actor in Los Angeles, California.

Awesome!!!

welcome

Very nice!

your very welcome Kazz

Thank you for accepting, Kazz!

Thanks and that's a great topic. I'll see what I can do.

You're more than welcome, Kazz. Appreciate you commenting!

Jeremy Saulnier is one of my favourites. Super excited for the next season of True Detctive.

It's an inspired choice. Here's hoping it provides a return to form.

My pleasure! Break a leg.

A difficult balancing act. Where are you in your journey in life? Why are your current needs besides shelter, money and food? What are you willing to forego to have the flexibility to leave for an audition at a moments notice? If you land the part, what kind of jobs are going to be okay with you leaving for a few days, week, month?

I'm in an office job. I've used my vacation days for background and part time work. My boss saw me on TV recently and cant stop talking about how awesome it was. That may help me take off in the future. Being honest and upfront has made a difference on that. I would love more flexibility, but so far so good. I plan on acting classes which will require me leaving early one day a week after the first of the year, hopefully he'll be supportive of it also

I am a Deputy Director for the Federal Government. I supervise a staff of 21 people and my Secretary cannot even keep up with managing my calendar. It's definately a balancing act for me to work my day job and try and audition for gigs. I have been on this path for about three years now of trying to transition from the Federal Government to Acting. Believe it or not, there are quite a few of us at the Senior Leadership level that are trying to make the transition. The love of our craft and dedication is what keeps us on this path. Good luck to everyone, Acting is a life long journey!

As for making a demo reel, I use to volunteer for a company who solicited projects that needed vo artists but couldn't pay them. It was great practice for me and I was able to use the clips for my reel. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the organization. Maybe you could find it by Googling.

You could try Voice Acting Alliance and Voice Acting Club. Nothing professional, mostly fandubs and audio plays, but they're still good sites to find VO work.

Shoot me your email address and I'll get you a ton of info. bzthevoice@gmail.com Peace.

Tom Hanks had to AUDITION???

Good advice, Phil. I have actually broken my reel into 3 different clips. I select and attach the most appropriate one to each audition submission.

Get it professionally done. A demo reel is the only thing casting directors can see until you are actually in the room. If it is unprofessional, it screams "amateur". Also, so much is done online now that decisions are often made from the reel. What is also changing is that cd's are not even watching entire clips. They often only want to see 15-30 seconds of an appropriate scene, like Kazz wrote. Be patient and wait until you have good material, and then use it.

Erin - one other thought. Before you integrate material into your reel, you might consider letting other people, actor friends, take a look. (As a writer, I trade material for comments with other writers I know from time to time. And it often works.)

Thank you dear friends for your valuable suggestions and loved it...

Did you try to write your own?

One of my coaches, Joe Salazar, is a writer. If you contact him, he'll meet with you, then write a monologue specifically for your brand and type. He's very reasonably priced. Mention you know me from Stage 32. Here's Joes contact info: http://www.theactorscompanyla.com/