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Want to be a working Hollywood Actor? What about on Broadway? or the West End?

What is the true definition of a working Actor? Those Actors you see on TV or Film all the time, but cannot for the life of you remember their names! That must be what a working Actor is, because they are well, working all the time. Or perhaps it is the Actor who hasn’t gotten their big break yet, but spends a great deal of their time honing their craft with acting classes and business classes to refine their marketing initiatives. Working Actors who ‘act’ in all kinds of projects such as; student films, independent films, theatre, commercials, industrials, hosting gigs, web series, voice over projects, etc…the list is endless – yet aren’t recognizable and perhaps don’t make enough money to vacation in the Caribbean. Or perhaps even rent, but are they worthy enough to be considered working Actors? Absolutely!

Here are first hand accounts from professional Hollywood, Broadway and London’s West End working actors about their personal triumphs, disappointments, break-thru’s and challenges that go into being a working professional in the Acting Business.

How Technology is Influencing Storytelling and Film: an Excellent Panel from Sundance

Here’s an excellent panel from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, sponsored by Adobe and featuring Vincent Laforet, Rob Legato, Jacob Rosenberg, and Sharlto Copley. The 77-minute panel follows, in full, with some pulled quotes and highlights:

Sundance Video

Here are some points and quotes I found especially worthwhile:

Vincent Laforet: “The cameras are out there, they’re being used… let’s move onto the next thing, and the interesting thing about technology is how filmmakers reach out to their audience, and social media, and different ways of distribution and connection.”

Sharlto Copley: “Neil Blomkamp was a good example of… if you can do visual effects yourself, if you can composite, if you can do sound, if you can do everything, then you can force yourself into a position where people will notice you. You can’t really worry about whether Hollywood is going to give you a crack or not.”

Finally, you might have noticed that, with this website and Man-child, I’ve been pursuing exactly what Vincent Laforet talks about here:

You share what you do. You don’t hide it, you don’t horde it, we share as much of the process [as we can], because people get really interested, they learn a lot, it becomes a community, and it becomes [part of] the democratization of film… the hope is that someday, you can go back to that audience and… that it can lead to the connection at some point to help make the film better, either by donations or by people buying the film at a small price, as opposed to going begging to Hollywood, and having to adhere to their limitations, and rules, and marketing, etc. Every independent filmmaker wants to break the model — we all want to find a way around the system.

Amen, brother.

[via FilmmakerIQ]

First, I think it’s absolutely horrible the way you positioned your response to Just. Using sarcasm in the face of a legitimate question just shows how lazy and biased your response was. Instead of using negativity, you could have used that space to better position your response and not your (supposed) authority – especially for a professional trade mag such as Backstage.

For example, stating that yes, it will be more difficult to enter the business with little to no experience and no money to build your tools needed to act (resume, headshot, website etc.). But that doesn’t give you the right to state that because of where he is in his life, that his barriers to entry are nil. What you are supposing here is that because of his age and lack of money he has absolutely no chance. I think this is rubbish. How many 20 year olds come into this business with experience and money. Yes, it’s a youth driven business – but to suppose that’s ALL it is, is just irresponsible. You’re buying into all the negativity that Hollywood loves to throw around. Danny Aielo comes to mind when I think of successful older actors coming into the business later in life.

Instead, you could suggest that Just take some acting classes to get his feet wet. Do some exploratory interviews with casting directors and other actors to get a real sense of his place. Read some books, go to workshops; heck there are even free acting classes at community theatres and centers alike. With him being in NJ, he has a plethora of opportunities to get intvolved. He wasn’t asking how to be a ‘movie star’ but rather how to get into acting.

You as a journalist should know better. Unbiased journalism. Yes, I know this is an advice column, but it was an epic fail on your behalf. Shame on you. It just came off as bitter and jaded. Don’t we need less of this in this business. It is a dream factory after all and nobody has the right to squash someone’s dreams. Nobody.

Read the article here: http://www.backstage.com/bso/reviews-movie-tv-reviews/don-t-start-tipping-the-scales-1006133552.story

Documentary has shown to be a malleable genre, with many sub-genres to boot: Travelogues, First Person POVs, Fly-on-the Wall and Biographies (among others) are all present online. Online documentaries are briefer, to-the-point and often involve fewer crew members than feature-length or theatrical documentaries. They can also include interactive or social media elements that enhance the overall story. Lucky for us, there are many places to watch documentaries online. And while websites like YouTube still dominate online video viewership, Web-enabled TVs and portable devices are rising in popularity. Viewing these new online stories can help us in styling our documentary accordingly, as well as showing us what other opportunities might be waiting on the horizon. Understanding the online medium allows us to confidently begin making our rich online stories. As of this writing, roughly 80% of Americans with Internet access watch online video. Now, there’s an audience! Keep reading to find out where to watch, and how to make better online documentaries.

Watching Documentaries Online

To get a feel for what the online documentary landscape is like, some homework is in order. But don’t worry, this kind of homework is fun, and mostly free. Online documentaries fall into two basic categories: Feature length, and short-form or micro-docs. Feature length online documentaries are theatrical feature films that have been ported to the web, while micro-docs are made with the online audience in mind. As of this writing, the average online video is around five minutes in length, according to comScore’s US Online Video Rankings report.

We’ll want to watch some great documentaries before jumping in ourselves. There are several online video destinations where documentaries abound. Hulu.com has a hefty selection of free documentaries at all times. And though their lineup changes frequently, you’re likely to find a broad mix of award-winning documentary icons such as The Thin Blue Line (1988) and Super Size Me (2004). These are feature-length docs that have found new life online. While Hulu doesn’t have as big of an audience as YouTube does, Hulu’s viewers do tend to watch longer videos. So Hulu has shown to be a good home for longer documentaries. A few advantages of watching documentaries on Hulu.com are social networking and Hulu’s custom documentary recommendations. YouTube has attracted many online documentary-makers to create their own channels, like Wholphin DVD which has uploaded a number of great short documentaries including Kung Fu Wang. However, YouTube doesn’t currently curate their own documentary channel or grouping, so you’ll have to go searching. PBS has a number of micro-docs online, in the form of their POV Series. Check out City of Cranes in their online documentary listing. www.pbs.org/pov/cityofcranes/cityofcranes.php .

Openfilm.com is a niche haven for micro-docs, including an independent series called Australia Inside Out. www.openfilm.com/videos/aio-episode-2-part-1. These Web documentaries really personify the kind of stories that are being told online; from local biographies to travelogues covering thousands of miles. VBS.tv also hosts a series of made-for-the-web-micro-docs. Its Toxic series launched with, Toxic: Garbage Patch Island. Later, VBS.tv stitched together its award-winning micro-doc series into a long-format documentary, one that fit into the film festival circuit. More niche online documentaries can be found at The Creators Project. www.thecreatorsproject.com/studio . Here, artists, engineers and musicians share their crafts in the form of the short documentary.

Making Your Micro-Doc

While length might be the most obvious difference between micro-docs and their longer-running brethren, many similarities remain. Seasoned Videomaker readers know what every documentary needs to have: the “Three Legs of the Stool”. The three legs of the stool are Story, Character and Access. The story needs to be compelling – a classic love story, a plot twist or a never-before-seen event. The character or characters must also be enticing to your viewers (hopefully you’ll have several characters to choose from!). And don’t forget your access to the story; this could take the form of limited access such as a tall fence in the way of your camera lens, or it could take the form of a friend-of-a-friend knowing just the right person to help you get your documentary started. A successful documentary has all three. And a micro-doc has all three legs, just shorter. We like to think of this abbreviated time limit as a creative challenge. Making a micro-doc may not allow you to pursue complex stories that unfold over months or years, such as family biographies. If your documentary requires voice-over narration, the writer may overcome the same creative limitations by picking just the right words to use. The number of characters you can realistically fit into a short story may be compromised, so it’s up to you – the video producer- to carve the best story using limited tools.

Smaller scale projects like micro-docs allow a video producer to pursue more subjects, and can help refine his or her process faster. Micro-docs should be manageable. This leaves time to for the video producer to start enacting a distribution plan. Using Twitter can help tell a story and give thanks to those who help out along the way. Search Twitter to find online communities based around the same subject matter as your micro-doc. Including good local musicians can build strong community support and is usually more cost-effective than hiring a film composer. When a documentary is about ready to be uploaded to the world, take care in preparing a full description of your documentary. Your added text helps others find your documentary more easily.

Extra Opportunities

The online medium opens up all sorts of doors for creative storytellers. Micro-docs are popping up on Web-enabled TVs, iPad Apps, Netflix Streaming, and Video On Demand (through your cable provider). Phew! Not only are these up-and-coming ways to watch documentaries – they are potential outlets for your documentary. Posting your video to Openfilm.com could mean a spot in their VOD lineup. Your public YouTube channel is accessible on Google’s Smart TV. With 21% of TVs now shipping with Internet functionality, your micro-doc can take shape on a range of screens.

While online documentary isn’t constrained by our web browser, some documentary producers continue to push the limits of the medium. Take for example Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge’s Pine Point, the 2011 NETART Webby Award Winner. This interactive story re-defines what an online documentary can be, by overlapping several storytelling elements together. Micro-docs, photo flip-books, audio narration and handwritten notes form a rich documentary story about a small mining town. The Pine Point documentary is, well, different. But its Webby award shows that it is worthy of ‘The Oscar of the Internet.’

‘Online documentary’ is a seemingly perfect blend of the imagination of a storyteller, with the technology of the Internet. The two just seem to be made for each other, like ‘peanut butter and jelly’, or ‘peas and carrots’. The Web. The documentary. There are so many stories to watch and be watched, and so many viewers, eager to be transported into your next online documentary. With your help, the micro-doc will be around for a long while to come.

Andrew Burke works as an online media strategist and video producer.

Just like any other story telling device, documentaries can be broken up into three types; Docudrama, Observational Documentation and Cinéma Vérité. Having shot all three styles, cinéma vérité has proven to be most challenging. Roughly described as ‘Film Truth’, cinéma vérité is the filmmaker’s attempt to give an unbiased look at living stories.

The History of Cinéma Vérité

Influenced by the newsreels of turn of the century Russian reporter Dziga Vertov, French documentary filmmakers in the 1960s copied his style of ‘unbiased’ recordings of events and interviews. In honor of Vertov the French filmmakers called their version cinéma vérité. It was those early French Director’s intention to create films that told the unbiased truth. Yet, they immediately ran into the paradox that by the very nature of being human, it is impossible to tell an ‘unbiased’ story. In fact, unlike Observational Documentation where the film subject is unaware of the camera, in cinéma vérité the presence of the camera often influences the opinions and actions of the subject!

That the presence of the camera causes the subject to change their normal behavior is not a stretch to imagine. We’ve all seen people freeze or ham it up the instant a camera is pointed at them. So it should not be hard to believe that the camera can influence the events being filmed. With that in mind, potential cinéma vérité directors should be aware of their unintentional tendency to color what is intended to be a film based on ‘pure truth.’

Completely Unbiased?

So what does all this mean to you the prospective cinéma vérité documentarian? More than you would think. Whether aware of it or not, you’ve seen the style used in various flavors on the big and small screens by filmmakers like Ken Burns, Spike Lee, Michael Moore and many others. One of the best examples of modern cinéma vérité filmmaking is the television show COPS. True to classic cinéma vérité style, COPS gets close as a filmmaker can to shooting ‘pure reality’. What takes the show beyond observational documentation is that the camera is visible to the subjects and therefore influences both the officers and perpetrators behavior.

The most important influence on your potential cinéma vérité project will be your own opinions and biases. Your own background, personality, expectations and ethics will shape the type of story you’ll end up telling. So don’t be disappointed when you set out to ‘tell the truth as it happened’ and realize you’ve bent the story according to your own beliefs. Don’t worry, this is not a bad thing. Cinéma vérité is an art form and you, the filmmaker, will ‘paint’ your story according to your vision. Instead of a made-up narrative story created from a script, the ‘colors’ you’ll use will come from real events and how your presence affected the real people involved.

Research is Crucial

Of course, with any type of filmmaking, there’s ‘good news and bad news’. Making a film in the cinéma vérité style is no different. The bad news is; starting out, making your first cinéma vérité film is hard. I say that because to get enough information to gain a clear idea of how best to cover your story, you’ll need to do some serious research on the topic you’re looking to shoot. Again, that’s not a bad thing. Of course you could just run out and shoot, but you’ll have a difficult time trying to piece together a proper story with a bunch of random footage. I’ve been there, done that and it is zero fun. Once you’ve researched your topic, you’ll need a premise or theme for your film. The theme should be no more than three sentences that sum up your intended story. Once you have your theme then you’ll need to plan out a schedule of who, when and where you can get the best interviews and footage to cover your story.

Shoot and Shoot, then Shoot Some More

The next hard things will occur during shooting. First, you’re going to need a lot of extra footage. Don’t be surprised if you end up with a 10:1 ratio of interviews versus coverage (B-roll) footage or much more. Remember, you’ll need supporting shots to illustrate what your interviewees discuss on camera. The more they talk, the more footage you’ll need. In my opinion, the next most difficult part of shooting in the cinéma vérité style films is; getting the shots. If you want to have those memorable moments on film which capture your audience’s imagination, you’re going to have to be where things happen, when they happen. That’s where all that research, your theme and the plan you put together will come in real handy.

Expect the Unexpected

The last exasperating, but exhilarating thing about shooting cinéma vérité style is: all that stuff I just mentioned about having a plan will almost always go out the window. But that’s part of the good news. When shooting unpredictable events, at any given moment you may have to pick up your camera and start running to get the shot. Consider how television news shooters gather their footage. They just shoot the events as they unfold in front of them and when planned events take a turn for the unexpected, they hike up their pants, adjust their focus and continue on with the shoot. Cinéma vérité is notorious for being an unpredictable type of filmmaking. However, if you have done your research and have your initial plan, you’ll more than likely be in the right place at the right time to capture something memorable. The other good news about shooting cinéma vérité documentaries is; it gets easier to do. When you get accustomed to dealing with the unpredictable, your storytelling ability will become much more flexible. The flexibility you picked up during shooting will come in handy when it comes to editing.

Now Comes the Fun Part

With no comparison, editing a cinéma vérité story is the hardest story you can do. But, just as shooting cinéma vérité stories gets easier, so does editing them. What makes a cinéma vérité film difficult to edit is; ‘the story wants to tell itself’. That may sound crazy, but it’s true. The story wanting to tell itself means; when you envisioned your film, you no doubt had definite ideas about what the story was about. What will happen is when you get into the edit bay with all your clips, interviews, photos, graphics, etc., you will quickly find that the story you wanted to tell isn’t all that interesting. What you will find within all that material is a story you hadn’t thought of and it’s better than what you imagined. The story will still be related to what you wanted to tell, but it will lead you in a different direction and it will be much closer to the ‘truth’ than you imagined. To me, that is the coolest thing about cinéma vérité.

If It Doesn’t Fit, Don’t use It

One thing that will cause you hours of endless headaches and hair-pulling is trying to ‘fight the story’. You’ll know when you’re fighting the story when you keep trying to force your material to follow the exact idea you started out with. As I said, the story wants to tell itself and you’ll realize it when you hit a creative wall where nothing seems to be working. When that happens (and it will), take a step back and consider the original theme you started out with. Strangely enough, that’s the one thing that will change very little. So for example; the person you wanted to feature turns out to not be as interesting as someone else you interviewed. However, the more interesting person represents your film’s theme exactly. You must be prepared to do follow-up work with that person (including getting supporting shots) and keep your original theme in mind as the project goes in another direction. Keeping your original theme in mind will help you from going too far off from your topic (which is very easy to do when shooting in cinéma vérité.)

So when you’re thinking about doing a documentary, you’ll most likely be making a cinéma vérité style film. You’ll need to bring your passion along and keep it high. You’ll need that passion to keep focused during the research, production and post-production phases. You’ll no doubt have to spend much more time to get supporting footage and be prepared to leave brilliant shots ‘on the cutting room floor’ because they don’t fit the evolving story. On the back-end, you should also be prepared to reach into the ‘trash bin’ and pull those shots out if they can be used elsewhere in your film. As long as you keep your original theme in mind, you’ll be able to keep your film from going off-topic and your hair on your scalp where it belongs.

In order to create a believable cinéma vérité movie, you’ll need to keep an open mind, be flexible enough to handle the unpredictability of the shoots and the editing process, and accept that your subjects will be influenced by the presence of both you and the camera. But if you want to ‘shoot the truth’, don’t forget that you – the director – will ultimately make that ‘truth’ what you think it should be. Cinéma vérité in reality is ‘Film Truth’ created as you – the filmmaker – saw it.

Writer-producer-director H. Wolfgang Porter is a former U.S. Navel Combat Cameraman who now produces independent film and published works. He is also a Videomaker forum mediator.