By Marci Liroff
Photo credit: Kiwanja
Remember when you were a kid and you kept a diary next to your bed and wrote down everything you did and thought about that day? Those childhood habits were actually great training for what you should be doing as an actor. Tracking every meeting and audition is a great practice to get into.
I’ve been preaching this to my classes and my coaching clients for years now. They always come back to thank me and point out that this one thing has changed their perspective on their career. Sometimes what you do as an actor – the prep, the auditions, the sheer tenacity you put into your career to get an acting job – can be an intangible thing when you don’t actually get the job and you effectively have nothing to show. But, like I always say, “this is not a sprint it’s a marathon”. So much effort goes into getting the job and keeping a diary or a journal of all your auditions will help you see your progress in black and white.
I suggest you keep a notebook and write down every meeting and audition you have. List the people you’ve met and their position, the project, the role, what you wore, and what choices you made for your audition. Take short notes on what you discussed if you got into a chat with the director. When it starts getting busy during pilot season and you’re going on several auditions each week, and hopefully getting callbacks, it’ll be great to know exactly what you did on each audition that got you back in the room a second time because you’re chronicling it in your book.
You’re going to have a long and busy career and you will probably have a few different people represent you along the way. When you start a new relationship with an agent or manager, wouldn’t it be great if you could give them some actual tools to help you? You can sit down with them in your initial meeting and give them a list of people who are your fans, casting directors who consistently bring you back, and a list of those that you need an introduction. This way you can plan a strategy on which rooms you need to get into.
Actor friend William Mapother goes a step further using an Excel Spreadsheet.
“I keep an ‘Auditions’ spreadsheet in Excel. It has 6 columns: CD, Date, Project, Role (character name), Type (feature, pilot, recurring, guest), and Studio/Co./Network. I use Excel because it allows me to easily sort the data to see how many times I’ve seen a CD, or to see how many appointments I’ve had over any period of time.”
Here’s the part I love. “When I book a job I change the font in that row to red. Also, once I book via a CD, I make that CD’s name red throughout document.
Mapother continues, “I also keep another Excel spreadsheet in which I note lessons I’ve learned in various areas and make notes to avoid re-committing horrendous blunders. I’ve noted when circumstances before an audition have helped or hurt me – being hungry, working out, interacting with other actors who are waiting. The purpose is to experiment and identify what helps me. “Another lesson came not from my experiences, but from reading. One of Pixar’s rules: Errors are inevitable, so make them ASAP. Experiment early. I noted this in my lessons as “Be wrong as quickly as you can.”
Is this something that you do already? Please share how you’ve been tracking your auditions and meetings in the comments section.
Glad you’re here!
Marci
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