The Right Agent For You

Every performer would love to be represented by an agent who is dedicated, powerful, and willing to invest limitless time on the client’s behalf.  This may not always be an attainable goal, particularly when you are new in the Business.  Certainly no reputable agent will really want to sign a client whose work he or she doew not know and appreciate, or whose potentioal he or she doesn’t feel strongly about.

You and the agent should be clear with each other about the contacts you are expected to make on your own.  Be realistic. There will naturally be greater incentive for the agency to make phone calls on behalf of a client whose earnings may be ten times what you can command at present.  therefor, it is smart business practive for you to continue your independent efforts to make yourself known to the potential buyers of your talents. The fruits of your own efforts will affect the representation you get down the road.

 

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Breakdown Services, LTD

Gary A. Marsh began his career as an actor after emigrating from England in 1963.  A few years after his graduation from UCLA in 1971, he created Breakdown Services, Ltd., headquartered in California, as a service for talent agents and managers that synopsizes scripts for the purpose of casting.  Offices are now located in Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver,Toronto, and London.  Clients include every franshised talent agent on both coasts. Abreakdown is a description of all the speaking and nonspeaking roes, with an indication of the size of each role and where the character first appears in the script. There is a short synopsis of the plot and production information.  A typical description read:

Georgia, female, junior in high school, 16 years of age.  Please submit 16-18 to play 16.  Attractive, ahtletic, plays a sport at school.  She flirts with Sean at school and they begin to hang out.  Please submit actor who is over 5′3. Hispanic.

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On The Stage

We are assuming that our readers have some familiarity with theatrical production-the relatively long  rehearsal period and the hoped for long run of perfomance.  In the medium the challenge is to keep the performance fresh, to retain the illusion of the first time. You may be doing the show for the hundredth time, but the audience has never seen it before.  Anthony Lapaglia’s stunningly powerful portrayal of Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge made it the most successful production ever to be mounted by the Roundabout Theatre Company. So enthusiastic was the audience response, the run of the play had to be extended-at Broadway’s Neil Simon Theatre.

Theater,to me, is the only place left where you can’t fake it. You can turn in a lousy performance in movies, and a good editor can make you look decent.  There is a skill to acting short fragments, maintaining your composure for hours, waiting to do your closeup at the end of the day.  There’s a skill making very fast decisions, hoping that they’re the right ones.  But theater! you gotta get up there and give for two, two and a half hours, however long it takes.  And thats becoming a rare thing now because the business has changed so much.  young actors are not attracted to the theater for the most part.  Theres no visibility. theres no money.  Theres no prestige involved-unless you happen to hit a play that really does go over the top…

I did this play merely because I wanted to do it.  I had no idea it would go this far.  I was just commited for a short run.  I wanted to get back onstage, and that was my only motivation for doing it.  The fact that it has gone into an open-ended run on Broadway is gravy.  And I’m enjoying every second of it because i realize, now, that this kind of experience comes along every ten years.  When I was younger I thought they happened every week.  But they don’t,.  This is the best job I’ve had in ten years.  By far in fact, in terms of personal satisfaction, it beats everything I’ve ever done!

 

 

 

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The Tools Of The Trade

if you were working in any other business, youd hand out little calling cards with your company logo, your name, your title, and direct telephone number. In theBusiness, your calling card is an 8×10 black-and-white photo. Actors introduce themselves with a photo: they refresh contacts memories with a photo. That picture is you to all the people you’ve met and hope to meet. The picture must look like you. Not what you want to look like, your fantasy image: not what the photographer thinks you should look like, with elaborate makeup and lighting tricks and electric fans blowing your hair. You. The you that is going to walk into the casting office or the agent’s office. An extended handshake.

Reading Sides

Many actors will read the same material the same way-it becomes bland and one-note. It’s the ones who have an imaginative way of lifting the words off the page that you remember. When Sarah Michelle Gellar auditioned for the ro.le of Kendall on All My Children, she made a great choice that no one else did-it involved a simple,slight little smile that spoke a thousand words. She won the role, and she was only fifteen years old at the time.

Identity

if we are now in agreement and have taken sides with the actor who presents rather than represents: If we understandthe neccesity for developing an organic inner technique aswell as our outer instrument: if we are convinced that a deep sence of ethics, a developmetn of our best character elements is essential for us to become fine artists who can serve and enlighten an audience about the human experience, then the question can be aske: Where do we Begin?

First, you must learn to know who you are. You must find your own sense of identiy, enlarge this sense of self, and your own sense of identity, enlarge this sense of self and learn to see how that knowledge can be put to use in the characters you will portray on stage. I assume that most of you are, at this point theoretically on my side, even though , through your previous training and experience as both actor and audience, are still caught up in th mistaken notion that you are human being in the wings and an “actor” on stage. You have a tendecy to copy what you have seen other do on stage, rather than to seach within your own lifedon on a stage, rather than to searcn within your own life experience to bring forth a new human being on stage.

 

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Casting Directors

The talent director is a talent buyer, and your major link to the people who are in a position to hire you. It has been said that the best casting directors are those who have done some acting, for they are uniquely aware of the problems that actors have and what goes into the creation of a memorable performance. Ideally casting directors go to see as much work as possible, remember all the good actors, and are willing to believe that a mediocre performance is not necessarily the actors fault, but can be the result of bad direction and poor casting. the Casting director is engaged in a never-ending search to find the right actor for the right job. Constantly under the gun to meet a production deadline, the casting director needs to have an encyclopedic knowledge of actors and the talent pool, and to have a computer-brain of information. It also means that after eight or nine hours at a desk looking at pictures, interviewing actors and hearing them read, evenings are spent going to plays, showcases, cabarets and comedy clubs,and watching movies and television. The casting director is always seeking the talent no one else has yet found.

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“schmooze” Factor

Swapping career advice, choosing the next monoloque or audition scene, running lines, criticizing another actor’s performance, batting the breeze about what to do, where to go, who to see next-are all necessary for Maintaining a healthy, positive attitude. Managing the time and the cost of “hanging out” can be tricky. it all depends on what your lifestyle permits. As it becomes ever more necessary, especially in Los Angeles, to answer messages almost as soon as the calls are placed, you may want to consider some of the latest personalezed options, which make it possible for you to be in touch with everyone connected to your business at all times. Some services assign you a local voice -mail phone. You can also get you own personal 800 number: this additional, relatively small investment makes it easy for people in other cities or countries to contact you.

http://www.johannaestevez.com
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http://www.myspace.com/johannaestevez

My Agent

Speaking of the devil my agent called me & i have to go in & read for an NBC eposodic on Thursday so wish me luck! O.k. so i have talked about my ups & downs but it dont stop there, i do got to say that i am blessed im probably not a famous actress but i am a working one, im finally getting paid wich is the most defficult thing in showbiz & in due time i am going to give you the ropes on how to make income while you are persuing you acting career. Doing print work is a great way of making money, in the near future i am going to give you step by step what you need to do in order to make a descent income from print work alone, i wont get to that yet because there are some things that i want to point out but for now i can give you other ways of making an income believe it or not background work is a great way of earning an income & you can also get upgraded. There is a girl i met just the other day maybe one month ago, she was signed with ford models but she wanted to break into acting her agent didn’t want to send her cause he wasnt going to get the perscentage he is use to getting from her, she was use to doing $10,000 jobs. she went in was on set for about 13 hours she calls her agent saying look I am leaving, theres like 20 other girls that look like me i am leaving. Her agent said don’t you dare you gonna make me look bad if you leave. when shes exiting into a wrong door which happens to be the actuall set ,the director screams @ her saying young lady what are you doing? you are disturbing the set, shes like all nervous, to make the story short, the director asked her if she can act, she said yes, he sent her to wardrobe & gave her an under five which was for “Sex in The City” by the way. Well a few months went by a casting director saw the eposodic & called her manger cause they wanted her to audition for an angelina jolie double. do you know how much that job was paying which she got the job & she had to relocate to canada? $4,000 a day plus private trailer, food etc.. just from the background work she did. Im telling this story, because i know alot of peple under estimate background work not only that, if you work five days you can make over seven hundred dollars, believe me i was want of the people that didn’t believe in extra work. Soon i am going to give you the inside scoop on how to get work in theater, film & soaps. So stay tuned my wonderful fans!

http://www.johannaestevez.com
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Getting back to classes

After being terrified of acting classes back in 1999, i enrolled again into classes in 2001 shortly after booked an off broadway play, & shortly after that started booking independent films, three years went by in 2004 I made callback list for Robert Townsened Same year was refered by a classmate to the Kolstein Talent Agency. Went on & hired a private coach Lee Kelly who is awsome by way, she taught me how to do cold readings on the spot with atleast 10 minutes read through. I mean i can do better reading sides @ last minute then have had the script for a day or so. This is how good this lady is. & i know im good @ cold readings cause a few weeks ago I auditioned for “Crimson Mask” (Feature film) & they literally gave me about roughly 10 minutes to go over the sides & the director asked me if i would come read for another role. My agent has sent me out here & there but some how I havn’t booked anything so meaning that this bussiness is so competitive it isnt that im not good cause as you can see i have done everything that an actor should do its just that some how i might not be the look casting directors are looking for, I could of been working for primetime but its ok my years of experience have just got me braver & I can take my knowledge with me for ever! I will continue auditioning & self promoting myself , until the wright role comes my way. @ the moment i continue working on my craft & self promoting myself in a sassy sexy classy way, its part of showbiz, making a name for yourself, planning strategies that work for you, its all part of the game, i mean Haly Berry won an oscar for having sex on screen, Jennifer lopez did a naked seen @ the beginning of her carreer “out of sight”… An agent can believe in you but when they send you out if your not booking & not making them money they will stop sending you out & has nothing to do with you, they just gonna go with their next client who is bringing them that cash. Sometimes you are auditioning well but you still dont book, it took for me to get this far to get up & do something, cause really in this bussiness noone cares about you, or iether you got the look & are good, got the look & will be made or you got money signs written all over you. I just decided im not going to wait for my agent to send me out on my next audition.

http://www.johannaestevez.com
http://www.myspace.com/johannaestevez
http://www.youtube.com/johannaestevez234