I have nothing against extra work, however if you are wanting to be a professional actor that goes after principal speaking roles then you can not put your extra work on your resume or your imdb page. Producers and directors do not think you are any better of an actor because you have done extra work, if extra work is on your resume then they think you are green in this industry. Green is what we call anyone new to the industry. It is more important to have a professional resume than it is to have a resume filled with extra work. I also hate to bust any bubbles, but featured extra work, is still extra work. Having your training displayed is very important and working in small independent films to grow your resume is very important. We can not jump a head of ourselves in this industry. The work is still important. Also find an acting coach that you like that you can learn from continuously. Having a long list of workshops and coaches on your resume is not looked highly upon. It just looks like you have a lot of mixed opinions coming at you to what acting really is. Find one, learn, and continue learning. On your resume next to that coach put (ongoing) that way people know that you are always studying and getting better. Every actor always has room to improve. Don't let your ego stop your career from growing. I hope this helps.
I wanted to follow up with some more info on resumes.
ReplyDeleteYour acting resume should be just that.
You want your acting resume to represent where you want to go also. If you want to do stand in work or production work then you can put your stand in work, etc. on there, but if you want to work on principal work then that is the only thing that should make it to your resume...
Make a separate resume for production work.
I know it is tuff to strip your resume down to one or two indie films, but that is a start. We have to get in there and book some small things, some indie films, some stuff we don't really want to do. Don't be afraid to start at the bottom! We all did.