Hello beautiful people!
Let’s self-tape before we’re asked!
Think about it! You’re already so certain of your brand alignment with particular shows, filmmakers, genres. You already know the worlds you were born to inhabit. You say you want there to be absolutely NO question in the minds of the buyers that you are a slam-dunk hell-yes bullseye fit for their projects. And here’s how we not only work out the muscle that makes that an unquestionable eventuality but also possibly creates an earlier intersection than even you anticipated or dreamed possible.
As with most things SMFA, it’s not about the what, it’s about the how. Having this knowledge isn’t enough. Indiscriminately self-taping and flinging the footage toward the buyers is not only not ninja, it’s anti-ninja. It can get you blacklisted. Don’t do it. And if you DO do it, never tell a soul you ever once took a course from me, because your doing a non-researched, non-targeted, non-OMG-amazing proactive self-tape doesn’t make any of us look good.
And the whole reason we’re here is to get you to the next tier while having a whole lot of joy along the way — of course — looking damn good while we have all this fun! 🙂
When you start to doubt whether there’s value in proactively self-taping — especially while you’re at the “for the habit of it” stage and not yet finding something so aligned as to take that next step to get it into the hands of the buyers — remember that no one is retiring tomorrow. You’ve got decades of working with these buyers stretched out ahead of you and that means the reputation you’re building as a professional who regularly solves their problems is one that will pay you back many times over… eventually.
The quickest way to get on my list for an audition? Be on the list the producers hand me when I’m hired. Yup. Every producer, every director, every writer, every showrunner, every exec has the option of handing to the casting director a list of actors whose work they want to see for every project. So all this work everyone seems to do to try and get in front of casting directors? It may not even be the most effective option! I don’t have to know you at all for you to get in on a read when the person who pays ME to cast their project gives me your name before we start up sessions.
That said, the filtering process is in place for a reason, so — again — your ninja research is your best friend here! If you’ve been filling your show bible with delicious information about the storytellers you’re targeting and you can safely say that your outreach to them will be made with some of the most spectacular self-taped footage you’ve ever shot (and, due to your consistent practice, that’s happening more and more often), even sharing that footage with above-the-casting-level targets is fair game! You needn’t even wait for sides to go up at Showfax or hope to run into full scripts on Screenplay Online if you’ve already been transcribing on-brand scenes to make them your own (Day 24), getting creative about sources of inspiration to be the characters who live in these worlds (Day 34), and even creating fully-produced bits of content to showcase your rightness for these projects (Day 43), perhaps even getting them out there on a major scale (Day 78). You may already have showpieces that make these buyers fans of yours! Let them target you, baby! THAT is the ultimate in ninjosity!
On an upcoming course day we’ll get into some more great places to find material for the workout at the daily level (in case you’re feeling not-yet-ready to shoot actual audition footage you find) and ’til then, you should be transcribing and shooting, writing your own variations of scenes that could fit in on-brand projects, tweaking the gender or age of existing characters from these worlds, and creating characters whose worlds intersect organically with those you’re targeting.
And if you’d like a little inspo from a ninja’s self-taped footage out in the world, check out how Alex Collins showed them EXACTLY what they were gonna see on set in his first self-taped read right here.
Now, before we get to the homework of it all (if I haven’t lost you already because you’ve sooooo decided this self-taping/content-creation stuff is a piece of your Get in Gear Life Pie you’ll just let sit at the dinky level), I want to ask that you come at all of this from a place of service.
Let’s go to my life for a story of why this works so well. I wrote a weekly column for actors pretty much every single week for more than 16 solid years, plus my blog posts after those columns wrapped. More than three million words, free, archived, and searchable, all available for “my buyers” so that when the decision comes to spend some money on the work that I’m capable of, it’s a no-brainer. SMFA Hot Sheets, free quarterly SMFA Tune-Up calls, my podcast THE WORK, copious vids on my YouTube channel, not to mention all the countless hours spent answering questions on the internet at message boards and in forums and on Clubhouse and at speaking engagements around the world — much of this functions as a “Let me show you why it’s worth your money” sample and, because it is all my form of service to the industry I want to help create, it is presented without disdain for those who will never spend a penny for any of it.
I say this as a parallel for you with the self-taping. See it as a form of advertising to your buyers, yes. See it as a ridiculously efficient workout for the type of job you hope to have very soon. See it as muscle-building for turning around auditions that make your agent and manager so much more excited to pitch you for projects because they know you’ve got it in you to get this done on the fly (and so freakin’ professionally, at that). But most of all, see it as an act of service! See it as an apprenticeship. And — drug dealer code — if that first, free taste is addictive enough, they’ll pay to receive a steady dose of it for life!
Today’s work: Think about ways in which you can approach self-taping with more gusto than ever before. Whether you come from a place of service, see these self-tape sessions as a form of advertising, treat it all as a pro-level workout to help you get to the level that allows you to contend at a new tier the next time you’re actually invited to do it, create a character whose storyline organically intersects with your buyers’ worlds and get those stories out in front of a fanbase that can help you make that happen sooner, or decide you’re tired of having me harp on this as that elusive “edge” you so crave and JFDI to shut me up, let’s do this. Practice in the 30-Day Self-Tape Challenge group if you want some ninja support Facebook style. Share below what you’ll commit to and when you’ll be getting this on your calendar if you’re not starting today.
Have I said enough about the power in this? Do you think it’s because I have some vested interest in your doing this outside of just wanting the success I know for a fact can come from this work? Uh-huh. Right. Get to it.
’til tomorrow… stay ninja!
