September 23, 2025 • 60 mins
How do I make an acting demo reel? Join producer and Reelarc co-founder Guy Chachkes* as he answers this important industry question alongside actor and host Robert Peterpaul. They breakdown 3 golden rules for making an impact with your TV/Film demo reel, from nailing the structure to creating your own dazzling scenes.
This episode covers:
• How to hook casting in the first 8 seconds.
• What to include and not to include in every demo reel.
• How often to update your marketing materials.
• Ways to create a demo reel on any budget and more.
*Guy Chachkes is the CEO and Co-Founder of Reelarc, the leading demo reel production company in the United States. Since launching in 2014, Reelarc has produced more than 14,000 original cinematic scenes, helping thousands of actors clarify their brand, build industry-ready materials, and secure representation. Born in Tel Aviv, Guy began his journey in theatre and cinema as a teenager, directing dozens of short films. His career has since spanned acting, filmmaking, and entrepreneurship.
This is - How We Role. Discover fresh casting calls at castingnetworks.com.
Follow Host, Actor and Producer Robert Peterpaul (Amazon's Sitting in Bars with Cake, The Art of Kindness podcast) on Instagram @robpeterpaul and learn more at robertpeterpaul.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Guy Chachkis.
I am 5'11".
Fun fact about me is that I amaddicted to cooking knives and I
have a whole set of thembecause I love cooking etc.
And they're unfortunatelyexpensive.
And you're listening to how weRoll.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, that was sharp.
Ah, okay, that was stupid.
Thank you so much.
When it comes to working inentertainment, there's a lot of
hows, and they all boil down tohow we navigate this wild
industry.
While how we follow our dreamsis uncertain, how we roll along
the way is in our hands.
(00:43):
Welcome to how we Roll, apodcast for actors by Casting
Networks.
Hi actors, it's your friend,robert Peter Paul, and it's time
to get real.
Warning I'm most certainlygoing to overuse that pun way
(01:04):
too much.
Today, we're tackling one of themost important hows for actors
how to create an acting demoreel specifically for television
and film, though this willlikely apply to other mediums as
well.
Whether you're brand new to theindustry welcome, we're so glad
you're here or looking to levelup your materials, your reel is
(01:25):
often the first impressioncasting directors, agents and
producers will get of you onscreen.
So how can you make it shine?
By the end of this chat,hopefully, you'll know how to
make it stand out, how to builda reel even if you don't have
that much footage, some commonmistakes to avoid and even smart
(01:46):
strategies for creating reelson any budget.
To help us cut through thenoise, I'm joined by someone who
knows this world inside and out.
Today's guest is Guy Chachkis,the CEO and co-founder of of
RealArk Inc.
The leading demo reelproduction company in the United
(02:08):
States.
Since launching in 2014,realark has produced more than
14,000 original cinematic scenes, helping thousands of actors
clarify their brand, buildindustry-ready materials and
secure representation.
Brand build, industry-readymaterials and secure
representation.
Born in Tel Aviv, guy began hisjourney in theater and cinema
(02:29):
as a teenager, directing dozensof short films.
His career has since spannedacting, filmmaking and
entrepreneurship.
Now, alongside running RealArc,guy is expanding into original
content creation, with his firstfeature film slated for release
this year and new in-houseproductions underway.
(02:52):
Guy watches thousands of reelsevery year, works directly with
agents and casting directors andhelps actors showcase their
best selves on screen, so he istruly a treasure trove of real
(03:12):
knowledge.
I told you I was going tooveruse that pun.
Thank you, dear listeners, forsubmitting your questions on
social media.
I included a bunch of hows inthis episode and hope you
continue to do so.
This is how we roll with TVfilm demo reels.
We're rolling.
Hello friends, as you heard,we're going to create a
(03:41):
definitive guide to acting reelsfor you today.
Not social media acting reels,although those are great too,
and maybe it'll pop up.
I'm joined in the studio by ourexpert Guy.
Not just an expert Guy, but Guyis the name of the expert.
I'm sure you've never gottenthat before.
Yeah, always, always, as weanswer this.
(04:03):
How for you?
So welcome Guy.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I'm super excited.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Thanks for having me.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, I wish we were doing this in your beautiful
studio.
Everybody I know.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And I wish I was in my beautiful studio, but we're
currently in the equipment roomnext to the studio.
But this is where all thebeautiful props and everything
you know, they all findthemselves in the studio.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
That's pretty magical and I think it's.
It's great to show that side ofthis all too.
It's not all glamour folks, butI think you look really cool in
there.
I wish.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I had some kind of shelf behind me.
It's not glammy at all, butyeah, it's, it's, it's great.
You know what's glammy iswhat's in front of the camera,
which is fun for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, dare I say, it's real guy it is very real.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It is as real as it gets well as we talk.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
If you want to whip out any props, you know I won't
be opposed to that, you know, ifit's fitting, but we touched on
it, you know.
I just want to say you are thefounder of real arc, which is,
I'll say, the premier demo reeland production company for
actors by Coastal.
You see thousands of reelsevery year, if not more, and
work very closely with agentsand casting directors, etc.
(05:15):
So I just I cannot wait to pickyour brain on this subject.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
First, can you just please share in a nutshell why
you do what you do?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, so I was a child actor myself.
As I grew up, I decided that Iwanted to be more in front of
the camera.
But I found an opportunity.
I was waiting tables likeeverybody else, like about 10,
11 years ago in this restaurantin the Upper East Side of
Manhattan Me and another waiterthere, steven, who's my business
(05:47):
partner.
This was when the DSLRrevolution was kind of happening
a little bit.
You know, outside of it, wherewe're making something look
great kind of like, startedpopping right and you were able
to make something that looksincredibly cinematic with not so
expensive equipment and therewere a lot of actors in the
restaurant.
(06:07):
I was kind of like flailing, notreally knowing what to do with
my life.
You know, like everybody, youknow who waits tables.
Already seven, eight years intothe game I was like, oh my God,
what am I going to do?
And then this came up you knowwhat I mean and my business
partner, stevenven he had theidea for it was like, hey, let's
shoot scenes for actors at therestaurant.
I was like, okay, maybe there'slike something here and I can
(06:31):
marry both worlds.
You know filmmaking and, um,acting.
I didn't know anything aboutholding a camera, neither did
steven.
But we had this, like you know,like that curve that we thought
that we can actually dosomething.
Yeah, but anyways, it startedwith one actor in the restaurant
I remember all of them and thenthe second one.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Was it Meryl Streep?
Was that the name?
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It was an actress named Cara.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So thank you, Cara.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, I remember the scenes as well.
But so we shot Cara and thensubsequently like more actors
and 11 years later we'reapproaching now 14,000 scenes
shot.
But the reason why we didn't?
Initially it was like as anactor, filmmaker, who was
already you know years, feelinglike they can't find their space
(07:21):
.
You know, seeing other actors,other people in my community,
feeling like they werestruggling to get footage and
they didn't know how to do it.
Um, it felt like a sense ofpurpose and the more we shot, it
felt like the sense of purposeof helping actors really grew.
And I'm I'm I'm thrilled to saythat we shot 14 000 scenes not
(07:41):
as like a medal, but just aslike.
These are 14 000 scenes foractors that we've created,000
scenes not as like a medal, butjust as like these are 14,000
scenes for actors that we'vecreated and help them gain work
and money, which is important.
You know what I mean?
It's helping them, like youknow, make, you know make money
through this craft.
So, yeah, yeah, so a deep senseof purpose with real art, 11
years into it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Congratulations.
That is all so incredible andit is a great investment, like
you're saying, because it'sreally tough.
That's one of the questions weactually got.
Probably the number onequestion on creating your own
demo reel is how do I do that ifI don't have the footage?
And so I think, whether or notpeople are fortunate enough to
work with you, what we're goingto talk about here today are
(08:20):
some ways that you can hopefullycraft this incredible demo reel
that showcases you, and, havinggone through your process, I
love how one of the first thingsthat you all define when
creating a new scene for a reelis just a discussion.
It starts with a chat of whoyou are and who you kind of want
to be in this industry, and Ithink that applies to just
(08:42):
putting a demo reel together.
In general, would you saythat's like a good first step
for folks just to find the lensof who you want to be.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
There's a lot of, of course, and I mean there's a lot
of it.
Sorry to cut you off, butthere's a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
We're in a virtual studio, so there's a slight
delay, and it's all fun and fair.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
No worries, there's a lot of talk about brand and
frou-frou brand and there's some, like actors, that don't like
the talk that you know brand andyou know I'm not branded, I'm
not a cow, I'm not a thing.
You know what I mean.
They, they, you know yeah yeahand um, when we look at brand or
that thing, that discussionright, um, the introduction to
(09:22):
yourself, the way that we lookat brand is like okay, who are
you right now, at this moment inyour career, and where you see
yourself fitting, and thenhelping through a set of
exercises to help you kind oflike see maybe where the
industry will meet you right orwhere they would see you.
So brand for us is kind of likethe meeting point of those two
(09:43):
things what you want to do andhow you want to introduce
yourself, and also thecounterpoint, or the, the
complimentary point of where theindustry may see you and we
just that's.
That's kind of like the, the,the tree that we, you know, the,
we spring off from Um, and wego through a set of exercises
you know that are fun and andand all that to really kind of
like hone in.
And so, yeah, I would say it'sthe most important thing to
(10:08):
really do is define your slogan,your marketing.
You know you can't shoot amarketing campaign, you can't
shoot an advertising, unless youknow what it is that you're
shooting Right.
So and that goes before script,before anything so who are you
as a quote, unquote product isvery important to create really
impactful media.
Then there's all the otherformulas that we've created to
(10:31):
create really really.
You know, once we figure outyour brand, how do we create it
so the media is really impactful.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's interesting toobecause, like you said, the word
brand may scare some people, orproduct, but it is a business
at the end of the day andwhether you use those words or
different words, whatever alignswith you, I think it's really
cool, just as a person in thislife, to have these
conversations, think about whoyou are and how you want to show
up, because otherwise you'rejust kind of editing together
(10:58):
clips and it looks cool butpeople may not know where to
place you.
So exactly you know, it's agreat starting point.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You know casting directors and this is something
that I have a little bit of aproblem with the gurus out there
and we don't pretend to begurus and I don't want to start
beef but casting directors arecreatives and they can see and
imagine where to put you.
You're not telling them, no onecan tell them.
(11:26):
Oh, you know what I mean?
This is what I should be in,because if you created a scene
of you as a CEO in succession,but they want to put you as a
janitor, because that's whatthey see for the role, they'll
do it Right.
Yeah, what you're doing isyou're creating for yourself a
calling card.
You're basically, you know,creating your package, but then
(11:46):
there's no way to tell howthey're going to cast you.
So it's not really about that.
It's about you staying true towhat you can do right now and
how you want to present yourself.
The rest is up to the castingdirector, who is an artist or
she's an artist on their ownright, and they can cast you
however they want.
Yeah, I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It does.
It's an artistry, and we talkwith so many casting folks on
here about exactly like that,and someone had said a while
back even with your resume,think about your story, where
you want your story to go,versus just having a bunch of
things on a page.
I think it applies to a reel aswell, absolutely so.
In this same vein, I'mwondering, since you talk with a
(12:31):
lot of agents and castingdirectors and actors.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Obviously, what would you say is the number one thing
people like to see in a demoreel?
I will say there's a lot ofopinions and every casting
director or agent will say whatthey like to see in a demo reel,
and that's great.
There's a lot of opinions likehow you should start it, what
you should start with, blah,blah.
I can tell you, I can tell youwhat works by the numbers on
(12:53):
attracting or creating the mostimpactful demo reel, which we,
um, which we've done a lot ofresearch into, uh, through our,
you know, analytics, ourfacebook analytics, our
instagram analytics, we post alla lot of our scenes not all of
them, but we post a lot of ourscenes daily, um, to see what
(13:13):
kind of like catches the eye.
And about a year ago, wedecided to like go on a journey
and really figuring out, okay,what makes a reel right, pop to
like 500,000 views and what reelkeeps something at 4,000 views
right.
Sometimes it's an algorithmicthing and we can't do anything
about it, but what we found andwe tested it by, actually, after
(13:37):
we've kind of like thoughtabout it, we tested it by
creating reels for this and seeif they pop, and they indeed did
.
So there's three things thatyou need to remember, okay, if
you're going to create animpactful reel.
Number one casting directors,agents, managers, are all
scrollers, right, like any otherhuman.
(13:58):
Everybody's susceptible toInstagram, to YouTube Shorts, to
TikTok, to Facebook.
Everybody is in their beds oron their couch flicking through
reels, right, and your reelshould be no different in the
way that it attracts them.
So there is a fundamental ruleof stopping someone in their
(14:19):
tracks, and that is a hook.
Okay, and the way that youshould structure your scene from
the beginning is an explosivestatement said by you, the actor
in the scene, and that can besomething that is like very
hooking, right, and one of thosethings.
So, if you have to think aboutthe hook, it needs to be like
(14:42):
something that can be eithercurrent, something that has to
do with love, something that hasto do with health, something
that has to do with wealth.
So, for example, when we testeda scene, you know, for a lack of
a better thing, we reallywanted to see how much we push
it.
The first line that we gave theactor was like I am getting
this abortion, whether you letme or not.
Right, it is immediately like,like you know what I mean.
(15:06):
And 2 million views later, youknow thousands of comments on
that scene we realized we havesomething here.
So I'm not saying like you know, create some, like you know,
salacious thing.
Whatever you know, you can staytrue to the scene, but always
remember that the firststatement in the scene needs to
be explosive enough to hook theaudience, to be able to keep
(15:28):
them there.
Now, casting directors andagents may not even know that
that's what they want, butthat's what keeps them there,
right?
So your scene, your reel, needsto start.
Every piece of media needs tostart on you and it needs to
start with an impactful firstline, and I would keep it in the
(15:50):
health, wealth, love categories.
You know, don't tell me to getthis abortion.
He killed his.
You know why did you kill yourex-wife?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I know you killed her .
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah yeah, you know, and it doesn't have to be that
cheesy right, there's ways tomake it good, but you know, it's
by the numbers.
You know, and it doesn't haveto be that cheesy, right,
there's ways to make it good,but you know, it's by the
numbers.
You know, and we've seen ittime and time again that's what
really hooks people into a reel.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So that's that's number one, and I'm sorry if I'm
going.
I'm sorry if I'm going to pauseyou just on number one for a
second, because I want to makesure it applies also to people
that have scenes from networkshows or whatever and they're
editing things together.
I guess the same could be saidfor if you have a really nice
moment with I think we'll getinto this a bit later with you
know, a prominent actor on agood show and maybe it's like a
(16:38):
good first line, that could besort of a visual hook, 100%, and
you can also pick things out ofthe footage you have.
If there's provocative lines,like you're saying too, that's a
nice way to lead in there.
But yeah, I just want to throwout there that I think it could
be like a visual hook as well.
I mean, if you're like runningfrom an explosion and then you
say something that's also kindof the ultimate oh.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I will put that in a different category.
If you have network credits on,you know and you have those,
you have that media.
You don't have to worry aboutthat so much because the hook
itself is NBC, hulu, netflix.
That's the hook itself, right,yeah, you know that's what
hooking the casting director?
Because it signals to them oh,this person works right, so you
don't necessarily need to havethat explosive moment.
(17:21):
The hook itself is a networkshow if that makes sense.
But if you don't have thatright, you gotta keep them
watching.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
And then number two I didn'twantating the conflict in the
scene.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And the number three on that is you know, a payoff
(17:58):
that is satisfying for them towatch and that could be a line
that can be how it ends.
It could be a cliffhanger, butthose, if you focus on the, the
hook, the conflict and theeventual payoff in very simple
ways, then you'll have a greatscene that keeps them watching
from beginning to end.
They're not gonna, most of thetime they're going to watch the
(18:19):
hook and know if they want youor not, but make sure that the
hook is there because that isprecious eight seconds that you
can use.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, I love that.
Hook them in like a fish baby,what reel them in Like a fishing
reel.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Exactly Rod reel like a rod reel.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, so how many reels, I guess, before we get
even more into the nitty grittyhere do you think an actor needs
?
You know, I know scenes are bignow.
You can kind of just have ascene, a dramatic scene, a
comedic scene, whatever you wantto call it.
But in regards to reels andwe're talking about TV film here
today how many do you think areimportant?
How?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
many do you think are important?
I mean, the thing is with, thatis like a combination, a
compilation of scenes.
I just think that they need tobe very good, right, how many is
not really important, but it'sjust like putting together the
stuff that is really really good.
You know, you don't have tohave like one master reel with
comedy or drama.
You can have a dramatic and acomedic.
(19:16):
That's not really what'simportant, you know.
It's just showing really reallyreally good work, whether you
create it yourself or you get itfrom a you know network.
You know.
Again, these are all opinions,you know, but in my experience
but in my experience, scenes,right, or clips that are
(19:37):
individually broken with theirgenre and kind of like your
brand statement or your sloganabout yourself, whatever is more
impactful for casting directorsand actors' access to get in
and out and in and out and inand out, and it's all a window.
They want to get a self-tapefrom you anyway.
So you're just showing themstrong, acting maybe in the
(20:03):
realm of what it is that theywant to do.
People rarely look at reels.
They scrub through reels, right.
So if you want to leave it tochance that they may get to that
sixth clip on your reelfantastic, but that's okay, make
them, but I would keep it asindividual clips.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, I love that and that's sort of the beauty of
having these different platforms, like a casting networks or
even just on your YouTube pageif you have it, because you can
upload multiple things and senddifferent links and kind of
customize it.
So I think that's great.
You know a lot of listeners.
Hi friends probably don't havea reel.
Oh hi, oh, a little candyeverybody.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
She's actually one of our cinematographers, so, uh
yeah, I'm doing a podcast forcasting networks, oh fun yeah,
hello bye, great moment for yeah, yeah no worries, yeah, I love
that, I love, I love a cameo.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
We usually get dog cameos, so it was nice to have a
person for once.
Yeah, I think a lot oflisteners I'm guessing they're
tuning in because they don'thave a reel so, hi, hi, friend,
you got this.
I think we've kind of beenlaying down some basics and
we'll get a little bit more intothe nitty gritty here.
But we did poll our lovelylistenership of Casting
Network's users for questions,so I'm going to kind of weave
(21:08):
them in a bit, yeah, to see howwe can really hone in on
tangible advice that will helpthem directly.
And a lot of their questionsare the ones I had anyway, so
it's kind of great.
Michael Adolini was one of thefolks inquiring about the length
.
So what would you say is theideal length for a demo reel?
(21:29):
Because we hear things likedon't have it be longer than two
or three minutes.
What are your thoughts?
Like don't have it be longerthan?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
two or three minutes.
What are your thoughts?
For a demo reel, meaning acompilation of scenes that
you're screening together, Iwould say no more than two
minutes.
And again, people are going toscrub through a reel.
They don't watch a reel, right?
So the longer you have it, themore material you have on there
that can just get lost.
So I would say, keep it at twominutes.
(21:56):
Now, in terms of clips, forindividual clips, I would say no
more than 60 seconds, you know,and it's very important to
focus on those first eightseconds.
So the ideal length for oneclip, I would say no more than
60 seconds, and ideally 30seconds and focus on that eight
seconds.
And then, for a reel, no morethan two minutes, in my opinion,
(22:19):
and I don't think those areimportant at this stage.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Okay, that makes sense.
And when we're looking again ata compilation here, do you have
even more advice on picking thescenes?
I know for me you want highquality scenes, that kind of put
you at the center or to edit itat least so it's showing you
and not your co-star more.
What's your general advicethere?
Like, let's say, cause we'retalking generally today to a lot
of different folks but let'ssay it's someone who does have
(22:44):
things and they're thinking like, oh, I'll just string them all
together.
Like what would you say is therule of thumb?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
No hook look for the hook first and start the edit
from the hook.
Right, yeah, and it shouldstart on you.
You know, if it takes 30seconds to get to your face,
then it's like or 10 seconds orfive seconds to get to your face
.
They're already scrubbing Right.
So the hook needs to start onyou.
So find the best hook indoorway in that is the most like
(23:14):
explosive or whatever it is, orinteresting you know of that
scene, and start there, right,that is the most important thing
to to go for.
Now, if you're looking at a reelas kind of like a piece of art
that you've created, don't justlike, put them like one by one,
by one by one.
Think about what could a greathook Maybe it's from a different
(23:35):
scene, but it's like reallyintrigues them.
And then you escalate you knowthe clips, the various clips
that you're doing and then yougive it a nice resolution and
payoff.
Think about it.
It's like, if you're going toput a reel together as a piece
of, you know, media of its own,that you're trying to, you know,
trying to really hook somebodyin.
(23:56):
It's not just something thatyou're doing like here's the one
, here's the two, here's thethree, here's the four.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
And, like we said too, if youknow the scene starts on Meryl
Streep's face, that's fine, youknow, take it.
Take it by, uh, by scene.
Again, that's a hook.
That's a hook and you can also.
It's a captain hook right thereand you can also kind of run it
by your friends, your lovedones if you have an agent or
manager.
There's people there that canactually get you a different
perspective and say you mightthink that's a hook, but
(24:23):
actually that's making me justwant to like scroll.
So don't just rely on yourself,because sometimes we're not,
yeah, good judges of ourselves.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I would say a lot of the times.
The things that I don't like tosee on a reel, when we're
casting and we're doing thing,is, like you know, prolonged
moments of silence and just likeyou know, there are all these
from short films and things likethat.
It's all the like the looks andit's like you know a look and
they're sitting on the bed andit's black and white and you
(24:51):
know, and we love it as actorsbecause it's like we really felt
it in that moment.
Yeah, but it really doesn'thelp me as a casting director to
know can I trust you on set?
Can you say the lines Right?
So lines are very, veryimportant.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, and I actually that was something I loved from
my process with you all was thatme and the other actor had such
a good time rehearsing andsaying, oh, we're going to walk
in, we're going to have thismoment, do that.
And then we got on set and agreat piece of advice you all
had was just just cut to you'rethere, you're sitting down, just
(25:24):
kind of get into it, because,yes, if we're watching a TV show
it's a little different, likewe're invested, but of course
you want to make sure you getright to the meat and then
showcase yourself in the bestpossible light.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
So exactly, I think but even if TV with TV shows,
but even with TV shows, how manytimes you sit on the couch and
you watch a show and you're likeI'm going to give this exactly
10 more minutes before, I'm likein my phone because it's not
interesting enough and thatdoesn't go right into the crux
of what it is like you're saying.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's very precious, so think about that as well.
Exactly, this leads to anotherlistener question which again we
got quite a bit for you.
I think it's at Annalise Icardnot iPhone, but Icard, her Apple
(26:05):
credit card there?
What's the number?
No, I'm just kidding.
She put it pretty succinctlyand this was actually a question
we got a lot.
So we've talked about thebenefits of using a service like
RealArk.
But she wants to know how do Imake a reel without any footage
in a budget-friendly way, andthat was something we got pretty
often.
So do you have sort of advicethere, since, I mean, that's how
(26:26):
you started your company?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, absolutely and by all means.
For me this is not a salespitch.
You know there's people withall kinds of budgets and you
know we, we like to respectactors wherever they are in
their careers.
And I have the exact I have theexact kind of like answer for
this create material that istrue to where you are right now
in your career.
And if you're a starting actor,maybe there's no reason for you
(26:52):
to go to a company like realart and spend all this money to
create a, you know, creating abeautiful self-tape, right?
Or going to a self-tape studiowhere it's not that expensive I
mean, I guess it would be like$200 or whatever but they can
really record you on a nicecamera with a blue background.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Well, sag has a free, I think workshop in the city,
which there's things like thattoo.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
resources yeah, and, by the way, that's okay and good
, right, the only reason why youwould want to up-level your
materials and this has to dowith you know, businesses,
anything and you're a businessas an actor is only if you want
to show more context into you inspace and just up level the
(27:37):
marketing.
But if you're in a place whereyou can't afford it and you can
only afford a beautifulself-tape in one of those
self-tape places, then do that.
That's it.
Trust me, there are people thatget cast from that all the time
.
Yeah, you know, and you may notbe ready for that full scene in
space on a Game of Thrones youknow what I mean set like we do
sometimes, or a Last of Us typeof situation.
(27:59):
It can be fun and that's great.
But if all you can do is just,you know, do a self-tape, I
would recommend to do that andthen slowly you up-level as you
go along and you feel morecomfortable in you know, with
yourself as an actor.
But I would say, start with aself-tape.
(28:20):
I would try not to do it athome unless you know how to do
it at home and do it well.
But start with a self-tapewhich is an easy enough entry
with your money and then, onceyou want to up-level your
materials or you feel likeyou're not getting enough,
that's when you can say, okay,maybe I need to up-level the
material here.
You know what I mean and I'llspend a little bit of money.
So if I were to give you adviceall the people that are asking
(28:48):
about this find a self-tapestudio that is really good at
what they do.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
They charge $200 an hour, whatever it is, and it's
just good, really good materialin front of a reader and you're
good, you know, and also if youhave a self-tape that you made
in the past that maybe got you acallback and there was some
good feedback there, that'sprobably a flag that that's a
good one to send in, you know,just for getting an agent or
whatever it is.
If there's a part that it'ssimilar to, I think that's great
advice.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
The most important thing is don't let your media
page go empty.
The important thing is don'tlet your media page go empty,
because if your media page isempty, if you don't have any
videos, you're getting siftedout and filtered out from
submissions, right.
So I would say, because wedon't have time as casting
(29:33):
directors to look at, you knowphotos and decide we need proof,
and the proof is in the video.
So I would say, you know, as animmediate action, go get that
self-tape, upload that self-tape, make sure the sound is great
and the video is sufficient, andthat should be a good way to do
it, but don't leave your mediapage empty.
Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
And actually that leads me to my next question,
which is this is airing duringspooky season and so, Guy, I
want to talk about some horrorstories, any real horror stories
that you can share.
I know I won't reveal too muchinformation, but I know you also
are behind the table castingthings as well, so you have this
eye to bring to these.
You mentioned things likeseeing a lot of silence.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It doesn't have to be anything dramatic, but sort of
what is there not to do inregards to putting out materials
like a real man?
The knots?
That's a great question.
What is the knot?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
The dots like the dots.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Man, I mean just yeah , the silences I don't believe
with.
I don't believe in title cards,so no names with phone numbers
and stuff like that.
They ain't calling you fromyour title card, right, and
they're not even.
They don't care that your agentis at the end of the thing or
whatever it is.
Go directly into the video oryou acting, because time is
(30:49):
precious.
But God, I want to think abouthorror stories.
I could tell you horror storiesat RealArk, you know Well, if
there's, you know.
but Well, if there's anythingyou think that could lead to
(31:10):
some helpful advice for peopleof things.
Maybe sometimes actors, youknow we think we're doing
something in going to producereels for yourself, um, or
something like that, or engagewith a company that does that.
Um, you're an actor and that isyour job and you're there to
show acting skills.
It's not a passion project,right?
So I would say you know youhave to focus on the strategy
(31:34):
behind it all rather than, likeyou know, oh, it's fun, it's
great to be on set and it'sgreat to create a passion
project, but these are marketingmaterials specifically to sell
your business, and you reallyhave to keep it very strict to
those you know, to that, soyou're able to showcase as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, yeah and yeah.
I think if you're doing thatand leading with that
professionalism, it inherentlyis fun too, because then you're
you're sort of taking itseriously and allowing yourself
to do what you love, versus,like you said, maybe just
showing up and kind of treatingit like oh I'm here, let's see
what happens.
So exactly, yeah, that'sexactly.
That's a good point.
I think an even better way toget into this sort of like deep
(32:18):
dive of demo reels and allthings marketing a bit, I
developed a surprise game calledReal Essentials.
So, guy, let's get real, let'sdo it.
Insert cheesy music here.
I'm going to throw out a promptand you simply say yes, or get
real, aka no, and then explain alittle reason why an actor
(32:39):
should or shouldn't include thisin their real.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Okay, so yes, or get real.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yes, yes, or get real , and then you can explain why.
And it will just like make it alittle flash round here.
You answered some of theseactually, so montage at the
start.
I think I know what you'regonna get real get real.
Okay, so nothing, even if, likethere's a yeah, don't do the
thing, where it's like you putthe exciting thing at the
beginning and then expect themto watch that all the way
through to the end to get to ityeah, well, I would say is like
(33:08):
you know, monta, we want to seedialogue and we want to get
hooked by your acting.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So montage and fast cutting at the beginning is just
making us see this likeself-serving situation.
It's like here I'm looking,here I'm looking and here I'm
looking and here I'm looking.
You know what I mean.
So I would say get real.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Okay, I love that.
Get real.
Include a headshot title card.
Get real.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, you did just touch on that as well um, yes,
yes, but it needs to be, uh, itneeds to match the tone and feel
of your reel.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yes, tone and feel of your reel.
That rhymed, I liked it.
So would you say like a fade ina fade in music and maybe a
fade out music.
But yes, over your scenes.
Right, correct?
Yes, just to clarify foreverybody at home.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Oh, I have a big one, okay, but, but nevermind.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, no, no, please this is flexible.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Subtitles, subtitles, yes.
Even if you're in English, evenif you're doing it in English,
subtitles are a must and I tryto get all of our clients to add
subtitles to their scenes, buta lot of them don't want to do
it and I try to fight them on it.
But, same as social media, alot of them are watching it on
(34:24):
the toilet or in their bedroomsor on the stuff, and maybe
they're watching three at a timeand they have it muted and they
have whatever, and they're in ameeting.
If you put subtitles, you canhook them in with actually
watching the subtitles.
So, anyways, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
And it's accessible, which is great too.
Yes, we talked about self-tapeclips, so I was going to say use
of self-tape clips, but I thinkwe covered that a bit.
So we'll move into OK clipsthat have really good acting and
maybe the production is evengreat, but the audio is poor
quality.
No.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Get real.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Get real.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Don't do it.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Or get it fixed.
Get real or get it fixed, Ilike it.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
They will forgive picture, but they will never
forgive sound.
That's one of the rules offilmmaking.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, I love that Well, same with this podcast as
well.
So I appreciate that.
Yes, lead role in a studentfilm Would you include like
student film things?
Again, I guess it goes back toquality.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yes and yes, and it needs to look good, right?
If it doesn't look good orsound good, I would not include
it, but yes, Okay, what aboutjust one line on a network show?
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I think we talked about this a bit too.
Okay, no, not, don't get real,that's a yes.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
We talked about this a little bit too, but again,
it's hard to talk about a visualmedium via audio.
Are you in favor of likeshowing range, would you say
that's that's better than juststicking to one vibe per real
Like show.
Show range in the best possiblelight.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
However, stay true to your brand.
So Tom Hanks, who is theperfect everyman right, that's
his archetype.
You know he can be in a comedyand he can be in a drama, but
he's Tom Hanks, right.
He's still very connected towho he is, as you know, as this
(36:16):
everyman.
Later on in your career you canobviously expand that, but at
the beginning you want to showthem.
You know you can be a cop and Ihate using that, but you can be
a cop.
You can be the bad cop, you canbe the good cop, right.
There's different ways to playdifferent things.
You can be in BrooklynNine-Nine and you can be in
Mayor of Easttown, right.
Different flavors of genres,but it's very, but you have to
(36:43):
stay connected to what it isthat you feel like you want to
put out there.
So I would say you can showrange within your brand.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I love that and that's what makes fresh stories
interesting.
A lot of the times is seeing acop with a different perspective
, because sometimes we think asactors, you know, oh, I got
called in for a cop, I can neverbe a cop.
Yes, you could.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Anybody could really be anything.
Smoke on Apple TV is anincredible show and it's just a
masterclass in charactersMasterclass.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh, I love that.
That's my actor homework.
I'm going to write that down.
Yeah, I think we talked aboutthis too, but labeling every
project with text in the littlecorner, or would you just put
like the network emblems?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
if it's a network, uh , you can do.
Um, if there is no emblem, thendo text.
Um, if there is an emblem, dotext, you can.
You know as much as you know.
You can actually, like you know, put in their face.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
This was on a show, then great okay, I've seen a
bunch of these so I'm gonna askyou having like a fun blooper or
personality moment um, doesn'treally.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
No, it doesn't really get real okay, get real.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
No, oh, here's another one that this kind of
came up with folks footage ofyou as a background artist.
No, you're featured.
Okay, I thought that was theanswer.
Get real, can you tell peoplewhy?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Number one it signals where you are and it signals
that if you're willing to putthat on your, on your, on your
media page, it means that youdon't understand the business
you know page.
It means that you don'tunderstand the business.
You know the you know there isbackground right, and then there
is actually being there anddoing the work right, and that
is just like it's there's.
These are two worlds thatshouldn't actually touch.
(38:33):
Sorry, um so if you put yeah, soif you, yeah, so if you put
that on there, it's, it's notgoing to help you.
If anything is going to, it'sgoing to.
For lack of a better term, givethe casting director the ick.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Hmm, what show did I just watch where they were
talking about the ick?
Oh, nobody wants this.
Yeah, there's something to theprofessional.
Heck is real.
There's something to be saidtoo for your resume, right?
Because I've seen when peopleput that on a resume and they
maybe try and fudge it a littlebit, yeah, and maybe that works
for them sometimes, buteverybody talks in this business
too, so they're gonna know youweren't really on the show
(39:08):
acting in a role so just don't,don't fudge it don't fudge the
resume yeah, focus on a greatself-tape.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Show them your acting ability.
I've cast people that have zerocredits, um, but on this
feature that we're doing, youknow, and but their, their
self-tape is incredible andthat's it.
That's all it took I love that.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Okay, guy, you mentioned this already as well.
We already covered so much butcontact info.
At the end you said that's a,that's kind of a get real.
So what would?
How would you say is the bestway to end a reel?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
the end, just just fade out.
I would say, yeah, fade out.
Yeah, they're never going toget to the end of it anyways.
So they're not going to read it, they're not going to get to
the end of it, they're going toscrub right through it.
It doesn't matter how you endit.
If you want to end it with likeyou'd go and like blah, it
doesn't't matter.
They're never going to get tothe end of it, you know.
So I'm going to get a lot ofcasting directors are probably
(40:04):
going to.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, I think it's.
You're not saying they don'twatch self tapes.
You're saying, in regards tolike a three, two minute, no, no
, yeah, they watch self tapes,they watch self tapes.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
There's something beautiful about watching self
tapes because it's like you'reexcited to see the people that
you invited to send you aself-tape.
You're excited to see whatthey're, what the work they're
putting in, so they are watchingit for sure yeah, um, but reels
, they're literally just goinglike I like, I like, I like, I
like, I like, I like, I don'tlike, I don't like, I don't like
, I don't like.
They know immediately you can'tfool them, you can't do it, but
they're not gonna get to end ofit.
So it doesn't matter how youend it.
End it with a title card, endit with a picture from you on
(40:42):
vacation.
It really doesn't matter, am I?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
in my fun.
Honestly, I might change mineup and end mine now saying you
did it.
Oh, thank you for staying here,Just like yeah, hug the camera
Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, i's funny.
It's like you got to the end.
I can't believe it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Don't take that, everyone.
Don't take that from me.
No, you can, let's all do it.
If we all do it together, Ithink it's kind of fun.
Yeah, thank you for being realand playing.
You win you, just you win, guy,thank you so much.
I have another question, kindof in regards to have adapted to
the way casting views, scenesnow, reels now, what would you
(41:25):
say is the current?
You know the word trend istricky, but in this landscape of
entertainment, how do you thinkyou all have evolved.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
We've fought through in the early stages.
We fought through like this isfake work, right?
And it still exists peoplesaying this is fake work, et
cetera.
Well, it's not fake becauseyou've invested money or
producing it and you got linesand you're saying them and it's,
you know, it's on your reel.
Good acting will trump anythoughts a casting has about
(41:56):
scene creation, right?
So it's really not about scenecreation, it's about what you
bring to the table.
All the job for us is real artis to put you in context, to
shine a light on your brand and,you know, make it fun, right,
and give you a piece of mediathat is impactful enough that
you can put on your media page.
It's if you, if you are anincredible actor.
(42:20):
It doesn't matter if it wasfrom a real quote, unquote
feature film, a real show, it's.
It's really about the work thatis in front of the camera.
So what you know, one castingdirector can say one thing,
another casting director can sayanother thing, or an agent, etc
.
All we've seen is a curve of itjust helping.
(42:40):
Also, in this time of noin-person auditioning, it's been
very helpful for people to gettheir foot through the door and
you know, and be able to, like,showcase multiple sides of
themselves.
So you know, it's always goingto be there, the fact of like
how people perceive scenecreation.
But it's no different thanbeing in a short film.
(43:02):
It's no different than being inanything.
You're producing the work.
You're actually.
You're coming here to, to thestudio, unless unless it's all a
dream, right, but you arecoming here to the studio and
doing the work.
So if you show something really, really great and you prep and
you make it look incredible,then it doesn't matter if it's
in creation or not.
You know it is magic.
(43:23):
You are supposed to fool them,right?
You're never going to fool them, right, because they've seen
enough stuff.
But you are supposed to foolthem.
That's the whole point.
It is magic.
You are supposed to make themlike what is this from?
You know what I mean.
Start the conversationconversation.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, I think that's great and and again, like
whether you're fortunate to doit there or you're shooting a
short with friends.
It's sort of like exactly everythis industry is built on
people wanting to tell storieson one hand, and then the money
aspect on the other.
So this is like real arc iskind of a microcosm of that.
It's all, it's all.
That's what the work is.
(44:00):
I got to tell you guys, it'ssomeone investing in a project
and you show up, so you're kindof treating it the same, no
matter what.
And I think if you do bringyourself to things, your your
authenticity, your drive, if youtreat everything as you would
let's say, someone hands you acontract and says you're about
to star in the next blockbuster,then that's your job.
It's not really your job toworry about anything else.
(44:22):
Unless you're self taping, thenyou do have to worry about the
lighting, all that stuff.
Yeah, these days.
Yeah, but you know what I'msaying, guy?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
I mean there's always going tobe trends coming and going and
AI is coming in and all thatstuff and use it to your
advantage.
You know as much as you can, Ithink, as actors, don't shy away
from doing it because it'scoming and it's here.
But I'm also super optimistic.
You know, like there are moreprojects being shot.
You know there are.
(44:48):
You know I'm looking at us asreal art, like we are now
shooting an indie feature.
That is quite I mean when I sayit has a good budget and some
star talent in it and people.
It's like if we can do it, ifwe actually are doing it,
there's a whole lot more beingdone out there to me.
I see this more of arenaissance of, like the era of
quentin tarantino in the 90s andevery people, new voices are
(45:11):
coming up and I think there'sgoing to be more work all around
.
So I was very doom and gloom atthe end of um.
You know, once chad gpt came inand all those things, I was
like, oh my God, whatever.
But actually as an AI like loveryou know, I don't think it's
going to take away much and aperson that's really in it every
(45:34):
day and thinking about it, it'slike I I'm kind of optimistic
cautiously optimistic about, youknow, about the world of
entertainment in the future.
I don't know how we got to that.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
I don't know.
I don't know but we're here.
We followed the tornado downthe rainbow.
The house fell on us, the AIhouse.
I think you know, I think,really, if we always are all
leading with our humanity asmuch as we can, I think you know
there's a lot of validity towhat you just said, and it makes
me wonder.
You know you touched on yourfilm.
Feel free to share more.
I mean, by the time this is out, it probably will have been
(46:06):
announced.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, so it's.
Actually.
It relates to RealArk.
You know, about a year ago wehad an incredible person Her
name is Dinah.
Reach out to us to RealArk.
She just sold her major companyI don't know, I could probably
say this, but she used to be theCEO of HealthAid Kombucha, very
, very big company that shestarted and founded yes, I love
(46:28):
HealthAid and she sold in andeven with all the money that she
made off of it, you know, hernumber one thing was acting.
You know, for her whole lifeand that's all she wanted to do.
So, hey, if this is like yoursecond time or second chance
coming into this industry andyou're listening to it and you
just like want to get intoacting, then here you go.
What's what's a betterinspiring story than dina?
(46:48):
So, you know, she came in andwe created a whole package and
pitched her to agents andmanagers and she got an agent
and a manager through us, um,and then did the auditioning
thing.
And then then, you know, shecame to us a year later and she
said I want to do kind of like afilm on my life story which is
very, very funny, or kind oflike a moment in her life, and
(47:10):
we just went out and startedkind of like writing in with one
of our writers.
Peter Hoare was a fantasticwriter.
He wrote Standing Up, fallingDown with Billy Crystal and he
wrote projects for Goldie Hawnand now for Kevin Hart and he
loved the synopsis so much thathe actually took this on and
wrote it and from here to thereit just like started kind of
(47:33):
gaining momentum.
And you know, you never know.
Actually, by reaching out to aperson doesn't have to be real,
but anyone that you feel likethat is in your reach, you don't
know where that can lead you.
To Dinah, I don't think, everthought that she will be able to
, like you know, work with Peter, work with Mia Cusimano, who's
our casting director, work withDaniela Eisman, who's our
(47:56):
director, and she was the SexLives of College Girl director
and shameless.
They all jumped in because ofher amazing synopsis and Peter's
script, etc.
So just by doing that smalllittle action of like actually
engaging with us, all thesethings are happening.
But yeah, we're shootingOctober 20th and in LA and we're
very, very excited.
Oh, that's super cool.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
Well, Mazel congratulations.
Thank you, thank you, yeah, Ican't wait to hear more about
that and I wonder you know, justwhile we have you here, as
you're behind the table now,what would you say is your kind
of number one piece of auditionadvice, since you're watching a
lot of self you can do.
One thing is like be the lightin someone's day and make sure
that it's it looks good and itsounds good.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Um, you know I can't touch on talent, because that's
what can you do with that?
You can't really control that,or what they want, or whatever.
So control what you can'tcontrol on talent, because
that's what can you do with that?
You can't really control that,or what they want, or whatever.
So control what you can'tcontrol, and that is the
environment.
And even if it's shot on aniPhone, make sure that you're
shooting it on an app likeFilmic Pro or something that
really is of good quality.
(49:14):
So that's what I would say.
Obviously, the higher you getin the rankings of actors or
whatever it is, you can, you canstart providing some more
creative choices, et cetera.
Um, but yeah, I would say is,if you're starting out, make
sure that you're getting themsome really good audition tapes
(49:43):
other reason to say no, theneliminate distraction.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
That's really what it is.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's excellentand you're right.
Some of us, you know, we canforget to do the most basic
things.
I went on an audition once andI it was in person back in those
days, remember those for a TVshow and I did the scene and the
casting director must've had along day and was literally just
like thank you so much forknowing your lines and preparing
.
Yeah, I was like, oh, did somepeople like not look at the
(50:05):
script?
You know?
Speaker 1 (50:05):
So, yeah, I think just remember the basics, like
you're saying that, yeah, and Iknow it's getting gnarly with
like how many pages are beingasked, and that's real too.
Yeah, yeah and all that stuff,but it's like you got to do it.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, it's a case by case thing too, because once you
develop that relationship,people understand if you're
getting something, sometimeshonestly like not within the SAG
window when you're technicallysupposed to have a lot of time
for People understand that.
So just do the best you can.
Everybody, and by listening tosomething like this, I already
think you're in the rightdirection because you're working
on it, you're dreaming about itand just to hit it home, to get
back to reels, before we depart, how often would you say an
(50:48):
actor has a reel?
Now We've kind of taken themthrough it.
How often would you say theyshould update their reel?
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Yeah, I think it's always a work in progress and I
think that you know if you aretrying to explore a new side
right, something that you'repassionate or want to show of
yourself that is not currentlythere, you should do it.
If the marketing materials arenot impactful or like you're not
(51:17):
getting auditions right, thenyou should probably change it up
.
It's rarely and I'm not sayingit's because I'm a scene
creation company or anythinglike that rarely the scene
creation company's fault, right,it means that it's just like
it's not hitting and that's okay, even if you spend money on it.
It's like you don't have tospend more money again, like you
, like I said, you can do aself-tape etc.
But, um, but if it's notworking or you're not getting
(51:40):
the results that you want, thenjust create more and keep
creating.
You know what I mean.
It's not in an interval of sixmonths or a year, or two days or
five years.
If you're not getting themarketing results guess what?
You have to change the ad.
You know how many ads we put.
You know and how many times.
You know things don't work.
If they don't work, you don'tjust stop.
(52:01):
You just keep creating rightand you can create it yourself.
You can create it withself-tapes, you can create it
with Scene Creation Company.
You can create your own movie,your own vertical series.
There's a lot of budget rangesthat you can do and create, but
the idea is to keep creating ifit's not working and keep
creating and keep driving if apiece of media is working.
(52:23):
So if you are getting cast as aco-star, as a janitor and I
give this always like as a thingand you have that NBC janitor
one line on it, make a scenecreation as a janitor, but with
three pages, and show thecasting director who cast you as
(52:43):
a follow-up.
He, I, I was so inspired bythat one line as a janitor on
the pit that I decided to expandthe world world and I wanted to
show you this scene.
Show them that you're like,driving towards it, because if a
piece of marketing is working,then create more of that, create
more of that and create, keepcreating more of that I love
that.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
You know, I was just envisioning.
I don't know why.
I guess because a lot of usactors have worked for a
catering company before.
Never me I'm too clumsy, but ifyou're going out there with a
tray of mozzarella sticks andnobody at the party wants it,
you got to go back into thekitchen and get another hors
d'oeuvre and then, when peoplewant that, just keep making that
.
And there's something to be saidfor I said this on here before
(53:19):
my agent once told me, get onthe train that's pulling into
the station.
And so you're not pigeonholingyourself.
Just because you're creatingmore, you know, janitor clips or
whatever it is, You're actuallyfreeing yourself in a way,
because the more work you kindof book, the more people that
know you, the more likelysoon-ish down the road you'll
have opportunities to do more ofwhat you, the roles you really
(53:40):
kind of want to do, and like foractors.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
They just need to understand this business, or the
casting business is veryassociative, right, like I don't
know if that's the word, butit's.
It is associative.
It's like they're associates,yeah, they, yeah, they are
associating at any point whenthey're casting.
You know when're casting, youknow when we you know, when we
worked with our casting director, she asked us to put you know a
list of, like, the people thatwe want for each role to like
(54:05):
send offers to.
You know some named talent, andthe only reason why we put that
named talent on there becausethey're associated, they're
unlocking this associative thingfor us for that character.
So it's, it is real when we saythere's brand, because it's
like association, like how do weassociate like these people?
You know there's a great actornamed Steven Root who's on Barry
(54:27):
.
You know who plays Fuchs.
You know what I mean and he islike, he always plays around
that space, but he's mademillions doing that.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah, and that's okay , and that's okay, and that is
totally OK, it's what's ever OKfor you.
And how many times, friends, dowe get an audition and it says
you look at the breakdown andit's like this type Like I've
gotten in so many times forthings where it says you know,
young Ben Stiller type orwhatever it says, I don't know.
So just think about that.
That kind of relates to whatyou were saying and as we wrap
(54:58):
up the that's a wrap on thereels I think we should also say
the most important thing of all, which is that you shouldn't
forget to post it, and we shouldbe posting this baby everywhere
.
Right, it's got to be on yourcasting sites.
Put it on YouTube, send it outin a newsletter.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
You got to put it everywhere.
You know Instagram, youtube,all that stuff.
You know tag.
You know if you're doing withus, tag us.
You know tag people that havethe.
You know work with people thathave a following and then tag
them.
And you know you can get reallynifty about strategy.
(55:35):
You could.
I mean, there's a whole taggingcasting directors and things
like that, which I don't thinkyou should do, but yeah, yeah,
yeah, it's subjective.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
We actually just dropped a whole episode on
networking that touches on thatReally, so tune in.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Oh yeah, I can't wait to listen.
But yeah, put it everywhere,absolutely, and keep creating.
Keep putting it everywhere.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
I'm going to put mine everywhere If you're interested
.
Everybody, like I said, I wasdelighted to do a scene with
RealArk.
I had the best time, thank you,I have now posted it.
This will be in the future, butit is now posted.
If you want to check it out, gocheck out their other scenes.
And before we let you go, guy,we always end each episode with
a gotten or a given, so we wouldlove the best piece of advice.
(56:16):
You've either gotten or givenin this industry.
I used to ask for both, butthen a lot of the time it's the
same thing.
So it could be a gotten or agiven, but basically the best
piece of advice you have.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Hmm, sorry for the silence.
I know that this is like a oh,take your time, but don't do it
for the stardom, don't do it forthe money, because those rarely
happen.
You do it because you love it,and that's it.
And if you do it because youlove it and there's no stakes in
it, you know, then you willenjoy it.
(56:50):
But if there's too many stakesin it, then you will find
yourself bitter and resentful.
So don't do it for the money,don't do it for the stardom.
Do it because you love it andthat's.
I think that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
I love that guy.
That has me emotional.
That's beautiful.
Thank you so much for that.
Thank you so much for beinghere and we just appreciate you
coming on here to help us actorsout today.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
So thank you.
Thank you so much.
This was such a pleasure, andit was great meeting you on set
too.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Oh yeah, thank you.
That was such a fun day, thatwas a fun scene, yeah, yeah it
was awesome, thank you.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Thank you so much.
My name is Guy Chachkis.
I am 5'11".
Fun fact about me is that I amaddicted to cooking knives and I
have a whole set of thembecause I love cooking etc.
And they're unfortunatelyexpensive.
And you're listening to how weRoll.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, that was sharp.
Ah, okay, that was stupid.
Thank you so much.
When it comes to working inentertainment, there's a lot of
hows, and they all boil down tohow we navigate this wild
industry.
While how we follow our dreamsis uncertain, how we roll along
the way is in our hands.
(00:43):
Welcome to how we Roll, apodcast for actors by Casting
Networks.
Hi actors, it's your friend,robert Peter Paul, and it's time
to get real.
Warning I'm most certainlygoing to overuse that pun way
(01:04):
too much.
Today, we're tackling one of themost important hows for actors
how to create an acting demoreel specifically for television
and film, though this willlikely apply to other mediums as
well.
Whether you're brand new to theindustry welcome, we're so glad
you're here or looking to levelup your materials, your reel is
(01:25):
often the first impressioncasting directors, agents and
producers will get of you onscreen.
So how can you make it shine?
By the end of this chat,hopefully, you'll know how to
make it stand out, how to builda reel even if you don't have
that much footage, some commonmistakes to avoid and even smart
(01:46):
strategies for creating reelson any budget.
To help us cut through thenoise, I'm joined by someone who
knows this world inside and out.
Today's guest is Guy Chachkis,the CEO and co-founder of of
RealArk Inc.
The leading demo reelproduction company in the United
(02:08):
States.
Since launching in 2014,realark has produced more than
14,000 original cinematic scenes, helping thousands of actors
clarify their brand, buildindustry-ready materials and
secure representation.
Brand build, industry-readymaterials and secure
representation.
Born in Tel Aviv, guy began hisjourney in theater and cinema
(02:29):
as a teenager, directing dozensof short films.
His career has since spannedacting, filmmaking and
entrepreneurship.
Now, alongside running RealArc,guy is expanding into original
content creation, with his firstfeature film slated for release
this year and new in-houseproductions underway.
(02:52):
Guy watches thousands of reelsevery year, works directly with
agents and casting directors andhelps actors showcase their
best selves on screen, so he istruly a treasure trove of real
(03:12):
knowledge.
I told you I was going tooveruse that pun.
Thank you, dear listeners, forsubmitting your questions on
social media.
I included a bunch of hows inthis episode and hope you
continue to do so.
This is how we roll with TVfilm demo reels.
We're rolling.
Hello friends, as you heard,we're going to create a
(03:41):
definitive guide to acting reelsfor you today.
Not social media acting reels,although those are great too,
and maybe it'll pop up.
I'm joined in the studio by ourexpert Guy.
Not just an expert Guy, but Guyis the name of the expert.
I'm sure you've never gottenthat before.
Yeah, always, always, as weanswer this.
(04:03):
How for you?
So welcome Guy.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I'm super excited.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Thanks for having me.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, I wish we were doing this in your beautiful
studio.
Everybody I know.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And I wish I was in my beautiful studio, but we're
currently in the equipment roomnext to the studio.
But this is where all thebeautiful props and everything
you know, they all findthemselves in the studio.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
That's pretty magical and I think it's.
It's great to show that side ofthis all too.
It's not all glamour folks, butI think you look really cool in
there.
I wish.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I had some kind of shelf behind me.
It's not glammy at all, butyeah, it's, it's, it's great.
You know what's glammy iswhat's in front of the camera,
which is fun for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, dare I say, it's real guy it is very real.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It is as real as it gets well as we talk.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
If you want to whip out any props, you know I won't
be opposed to that, you know, ifit's fitting, but we touched on
it, you know.
I just want to say you are thefounder of real arc, which is,
I'll say, the premier demo reeland production company for
actors by Coastal.
You see thousands of reelsevery year, if not more, and
work very closely with agentsand casting directors, etc.
(05:15):
So I just I cannot wait to pickyour brain on this subject.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
First, can you just please share in a nutshell why
you do what you do?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, so I was a child actor myself.
As I grew up, I decided that Iwanted to be more in front of
the camera.
But I found an opportunity.
I was waiting tables likeeverybody else, like about 10,
11 years ago in this restaurantin the Upper East Side of
Manhattan Me and another waiterthere, steven, who's my business
(05:47):
partner.
This was when the DSLRrevolution was kind of happening
a little bit.
You know, outside of it, wherewe're making something look
great kind of like, startedpopping right and you were able
to make something that looksincredibly cinematic with not so
expensive equipment and therewere a lot of actors in the
restaurant.
(06:07):
I was kind of like flailing, notreally knowing what to do with
my life.
You know, like everybody, youknow who waits tables.
Already seven, eight years intothe game I was like, oh my God,
what am I going to do?
And then this came up you knowwhat I mean and my business
partner, stevenven he had theidea for it was like, hey, let's
shoot scenes for actors at therestaurant.
I was like, okay, maybe there'slike something here and I can
(06:31):
marry both worlds.
You know filmmaking and, um,acting.
I didn't know anything aboutholding a camera, neither did
steven.
But we had this, like you know,like that curve that we thought
that we can actually dosomething.
Yeah, but anyways, it startedwith one actor in the restaurant
I remember all of them and thenthe second one.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Was it Meryl Streep?
Was that the name?
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It was an actress named Cara.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So thank you, Cara.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, I remember the scenes as well.
But so we shot Cara and thensubsequently like more actors
and 11 years later we'reapproaching now 14,000 scenes
shot.
But the reason why we didn't?
Initially it was like as anactor, filmmaker, who was
already you know years, feelinglike they can't find their space
(07:21):
.
You know, seeing other actors,other people in my community,
feeling like they werestruggling to get footage and
they didn't know how to do it.
Um, it felt like a sense ofpurpose and the more we shot, it
felt like the sense of purposeof helping actors really grew.
And I'm I'm I'm thrilled to saythat we shot 14 000 scenes not
(07:41):
as like a medal, but just aslike.
These are 14 000 scenes foractors that we've created,000
scenes not as like a medal, butjust as like these are 14,000
scenes for actors that we'vecreated and help them gain work
and money, which is important.
You know what I mean?
It's helping them, like youknow, make, you know make money
through this craft.
So, yeah, yeah, so a deep senseof purpose with real art, 11
years into it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Congratulations.
That is all so incredible andit is a great investment, like
you're saying, because it'sreally tough.
That's one of the questions weactually got.
Probably the number onequestion on creating your own
demo reel is how do I do that ifI don't have the footage?
And so I think, whether or notpeople are fortunate enough to
work with you, what we're goingto talk about here today are
(08:20):
some ways that you can hopefullycraft this incredible demo reel
that showcases you, and, havinggone through your process, I
love how one of the first thingsthat you all define when
creating a new scene for a reelis just a discussion.
It starts with a chat of whoyou are and who you kind of want
to be in this industry, and Ithink that applies to just
(08:42):
putting a demo reel together.
In general, would you saythat's like a good first step
for folks just to find the lensof who you want to be.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
There's a lot of, of course, and I mean there's a lot
of it.
Sorry to cut you off, butthere's a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
We're in a virtual studio, so there's a slight
delay, and it's all fun and fair.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
No worries, there's a lot of talk about brand and
frou-frou brand and there's some, like actors, that don't like
the talk that you know brand andyou know I'm not branded, I'm
not a cow, I'm not a thing.
You know what I mean.
They, they, you know yeah yeahand um, when we look at brand or
that thing, that discussionright, um, the introduction to
(09:22):
yourself, the way that we lookat brand is like okay, who are
you right now, at this moment inyour career, and where you see
yourself fitting, and thenhelping through a set of
exercises to help you kind oflike see maybe where the
industry will meet you right orwhere they would see you.
So brand for us is kind of likethe meeting point of those two
(09:43):
things what you want to do andhow you want to introduce
yourself, and also thecounterpoint, or the, the
complimentary point of where theindustry may see you and we
just that's.
That's kind of like the, the,the tree that we, you know, the,
we spring off from Um, and wego through a set of exercises
you know that are fun and andand all that to really kind of
like hone in.
And so, yeah, I would say it'sthe most important thing to
(10:08):
really do is define your slogan,your marketing.
You know you can't shoot amarketing campaign, you can't
shoot an advertising, unless youknow what it is that you're
shooting Right.
So and that goes before script,before anything so who are you
as a quote, unquote product isvery important to create really
impactful media.
Then there's all the otherformulas that we've created to
(10:31):
create really really.
You know, once we figure outyour brand, how do we create it
so the media is really impactful.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's interesting toobecause, like you said, the word
brand may scare some people, orproduct, but it is a business
at the end of the day andwhether you use those words or
different words, whatever alignswith you, I think it's really
cool, just as a person in thislife, to have these
conversations, think about whoyou are and how you want to show
up, because otherwise you'rejust kind of editing together
(10:58):
clips and it looks cool butpeople may not know where to
place you.
So exactly you know, it's agreat starting point.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You know casting directors and this is something
that I have a little bit of aproblem with the gurus out there
and we don't pretend to begurus and I don't want to start
beef but casting directors arecreatives and they can see and
imagine where to put you.
You're not telling them, no onecan tell them.
(11:26):
Oh, you know what I mean?
This is what I should be in,because if you created a scene
of you as a CEO in succession,but they want to put you as a
janitor, because that's whatthey see for the role, they'll
do it Right.
Yeah, what you're doing isyou're creating for yourself a
calling card.
You're basically, you know,creating your package, but then
(11:46):
there's no way to tell howthey're going to cast you.
So it's not really about that.
It's about you staying true towhat you can do right now and
how you want to present yourself.
The rest is up to the castingdirector, who is an artist or
she's an artist on their ownright, and they can cast you
however they want.
Yeah, I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It does.
It's an artistry, and we talkwith so many casting folks on
here about exactly like that,and someone had said a while
back even with your resume,think about your story, where
you want your story to go,versus just having a bunch of
things on a page.
I think it applies to a reel aswell, absolutely so.
In this same vein, I'mwondering, since you talk with a
(12:31):
lot of agents and castingdirectors and actors.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Obviously, what would you say is the number one thing
people like to see in a demoreel?
I will say there's a lot ofopinions and every casting
director or agent will say whatthey like to see in a demo reel,
and that's great.
There's a lot of opinions likehow you should start it, what
you should start with, blah,blah.
I can tell you, I can tell youwhat works by the numbers on
(12:53):
attracting or creating the mostimpactful demo reel, which we,
um, which we've done a lot ofresearch into, uh, through our,
you know, analytics, ourfacebook analytics, our
instagram analytics, we post alla lot of our scenes not all of
them, but we post a lot of ourscenes daily, um, to see what
(13:13):
kind of like catches the eye.
And about a year ago, wedecided to like go on a journey
and really figuring out, okay,what makes a reel right, pop to
like 500,000 views and what reelkeeps something at 4,000 views
right.
Sometimes it's an algorithmicthing and we can't do anything
about it, but what we found andwe tested it by, actually, after
(13:37):
we've kind of like thoughtabout it, we tested it by
creating reels for this and seeif they pop, and they indeed did
.
So there's three things thatyou need to remember, okay, if
you're going to create animpactful reel.
Number one casting directors,agents, managers, are all
scrollers, right, like any otherhuman.
(13:58):
Everybody's susceptible toInstagram, to YouTube Shorts, to
TikTok, to Facebook.
Everybody is in their beds oron their couch flicking through
reels, right, and your reelshould be no different in the
way that it attracts them.
So there is a fundamental ruleof stopping someone in their
(14:19):
tracks, and that is a hook.
Okay, and the way that youshould structure your scene from
the beginning is an explosivestatement said by you, the actor
in the scene, and that can besomething that is like very
hooking, right, and one of thosethings.
So, if you have to think aboutthe hook, it needs to be like
(14:42):
something that can be eithercurrent, something that has to
do with love, something that hasto do with health, something
that has to do with wealth.
So, for example, when we testeda scene, you know, for a lack of
a better thing, we reallywanted to see how much we push
it.
The first line that we gave theactor was like I am getting
this abortion, whether you letme or not.
Right, it is immediately like,like you know what I mean.
(15:06):
And 2 million views later, youknow thousands of comments on
that scene we realized we havesomething here.
So I'm not saying like you know, create some, like you know,
salacious thing.
Whatever you know, you can staytrue to the scene, but always
remember that the firststatement in the scene needs to
be explosive enough to hook theaudience, to be able to keep
(15:28):
them there.
Now, casting directors andagents may not even know that
that's what they want, butthat's what keeps them there,
right?
So your scene, your reel, needsto start.
Every piece of media needs tostart on you and it needs to
start with an impactful firstline, and I would keep it in the
(15:50):
health, wealth, love categories.
You know, don't tell me to getthis abortion.
He killed his.
You know why did you kill yourex-wife?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I know you killed her .
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah yeah, you know, and it doesn't have to be that
cheesy right, there's ways tomake it good, but you know, it's
by the numbers.
You know, and it doesn't haveto be that cheesy, right,
there's ways to make it good,but you know, it's by the
numbers.
You know, and we've seen ittime and time again that's what
really hooks people into a reel.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So that's that's number one, and I'm sorry if I'm
going.
I'm sorry if I'm going to pauseyou just on number one for a
second, because I want to makesure it applies also to people
that have scenes from networkshows or whatever and they're
editing things together.
I guess the same could be saidfor if you have a really nice
moment with I think we'll getinto this a bit later with you
know, a prominent actor on agood show and maybe it's like a
(16:38):
good first line, that could besort of a visual hook, 100%, and
you can also pick things out ofthe footage you have.
If there's provocative lines,like you're saying too, that's a
nice way to lead in there.
But yeah, I just want to throwout there that I think it could
be like a visual hook as well.
I mean, if you're like runningfrom an explosion and then you
say something that's also kindof the ultimate oh.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I will put that in a different category.
If you have network credits on,you know and you have those,
you have that media.
You don't have to worry aboutthat so much because the hook
itself is NBC, hulu, netflix.
That's the hook itself, right,yeah, you know that's what
hooking the casting director?
Because it signals to them oh,this person works right, so you
don't necessarily need to havethat explosive moment.
(17:21):
The hook itself is a networkshow if that makes sense.
But if you don't have thatright, you gotta keep them
watching.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
And then number two I didn'twantating the conflict in the
scene.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And the number three on that is you know, a payoff
(17:58):
that is satisfying for them towatch and that could be a line
that can be how it ends.
It could be a cliffhanger, butthose, if you focus on the, the
hook, the conflict and theeventual payoff in very simple
ways, then you'll have a greatscene that keeps them watching
from beginning to end.
They're not gonna, most of thetime they're going to watch the
(18:19):
hook and know if they want youor not, but make sure that the
hook is there because that isprecious eight seconds that you
can use.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, I love that.
Hook them in like a fish baby,what reel them in Like a fishing
reel.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Exactly Rod reel like a rod reel.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, so how many reels, I guess, before we get
even more into the nitty grittyhere do you think an actor needs
?
You know, I know scenes are bignow.
You can kind of just have ascene, a dramatic scene, a
comedic scene, whatever you wantto call it.
But in regards to reels andwe're talking about TV film here
today how many do you think areimportant?
How?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
many do you think are important?
I mean, the thing is with, thatis like a combination, a
compilation of scenes.
I just think that they need tobe very good, right, how many is
not really important, but it'sjust like putting together the
stuff that is really really good.
You know, you don't have tohave like one master reel with
comedy or drama.
You can have a dramatic and acomedic.
(19:16):
That's not really what'simportant, you know.
It's just showing really reallyreally good work, whether you
create it yourself or you get itfrom a you know network.
You know.
Again, these are all opinions,you know, but in my experience
but in my experience, scenes,right, or clips that are
(19:37):
individually broken with theirgenre and kind of like your
brand statement or your sloganabout yourself, whatever is more
impactful for casting directorsand actors' access to get in
and out and in and out and inand out, and it's all a window.
They want to get a self-tapefrom you anyway.
So you're just showing themstrong, acting maybe in the
(20:03):
realm of what it is that theywant to do.
People rarely look at reels.
They scrub through reels, right.
So if you want to leave it tochance that they may get to that
sixth clip on your reelfantastic, but that's okay, make
them, but I would keep it asindividual clips.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, I love that and that's sort of the beauty of
having these different platforms, like a casting networks or
even just on your YouTube pageif you have it, because you can
upload multiple things and senddifferent links and kind of
customize it.
So I think that's great.
You know a lot of listeners.
Hi friends probably don't havea reel.
Oh hi, oh, a little candyeverybody.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
She's actually one of our cinematographers, so, uh
yeah, I'm doing a podcast forcasting networks, oh fun yeah,
hello bye, great moment for yeah, yeah no worries, yeah, I love
that, I love, I love a cameo.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
We usually get dog cameos, so it was nice to have a
person for once.
Yeah, I think a lot oflisteners I'm guessing they're
tuning in because they don'thave a reel so, hi, hi, friend,
you got this.
I think we've kind of beenlaying down some basics and
we'll get a little bit more intothe nitty gritty here.
But we did poll our lovelylistenership of Casting
Network's users for questions,so I'm going to kind of weave
(21:08):
them in a bit, yeah, to see howwe can really hone in on
tangible advice that will helpthem directly.
And a lot of their questionsare the ones I had anyway, so
it's kind of great.
Michael Adolini was one of thefolks inquiring about the length
.
So what would you say is theideal length for a demo reel?
(21:29):
Because we hear things likedon't have it be longer than two
or three minutes.
What are your thoughts?
Like don't have it be longerthan?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
two or three minutes.
What are your thoughts?
For a demo reel, meaning acompilation of scenes that
you're screening together, Iwould say no more than two
minutes.
And again, people are going toscrub through a reel.
They don't watch a reel, right?
So the longer you have it, themore material you have on there
that can just get lost.
So I would say, keep it at twominutes.
(21:56):
Now, in terms of clips, forindividual clips, I would say no
more than 60 seconds, you know,and it's very important to
focus on those first eightseconds.
So the ideal length for oneclip, I would say no more than
60 seconds, and ideally 30seconds and focus on that eight
seconds.
And then, for a reel, no morethan two minutes, in my opinion,
(22:19):
and I don't think those areimportant at this stage.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Okay, that makes sense.
And when we're looking again ata compilation here, do you have
even more advice on picking thescenes?
I know for me you want highquality scenes, that kind of put
you at the center or to edit itat least so it's showing you
and not your co-star more.
What's your general advicethere?
Like, let's say, cause we'retalking generally today to a lot
of different folks but let'ssay it's someone who does have
(22:44):
things and they're thinking like, oh, I'll just string them all
together.
Like what would you say is therule of thumb?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
No hook look for the hook first and start the edit
from the hook.
Right, yeah, and it shouldstart on you.
You know, if it takes 30seconds to get to your face,
then it's like or 10 seconds orfive seconds to get to your face
.
They're already scrubbing Right.
So the hook needs to start onyou.
So find the best hook indoorway in that is the most like
(23:14):
explosive or whatever it is, orinteresting you know of that
scene, and start there, right,that is the most important thing
to to go for.
Now, if you're looking at a reelas kind of like a piece of art
that you've created, don't justlike, put them like one by one,
by one by one.
Think about what could a greathook Maybe it's from a different
(23:35):
scene, but it's like reallyintrigues them.
And then you escalate you knowthe clips, the various clips
that you're doing and then yougive it a nice resolution and
payoff.
Think about it.
It's like, if you're going toput a reel together as a piece
of, you know, media of its own,that you're trying to, you know,
trying to really hook somebodyin.
(23:56):
It's not just something thatyou're doing like here's the one
, here's the two, here's thethree, here's the four.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
And, like we said too, if youknow the scene starts on Meryl
Streep's face, that's fine, youknow, take it.
Take it by, uh, by scene.
Again, that's a hook.
That's a hook and you can also.
It's a captain hook right thereand you can also kind of run it
by your friends, your lovedones if you have an agent or
manager.
There's people there that canactually get you a different
perspective and say you mightthink that's a hook, but
(24:23):
actually that's making me justwant to like scroll.
So don't just rely on yourself,because sometimes we're not,
yeah, good judges of ourselves.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I would say a lot of the times.
The things that I don't like tosee on a reel, when we're
casting and we're doing thing,is, like you know, prolonged
moments of silence and just likeyou know, there are all these
from short films and things likethat.
It's all the like the looks andit's like you know a look and
they're sitting on the bed andit's black and white and you
(24:51):
know, and we love it as actorsbecause it's like we really felt
it in that moment.
Yeah, but it really doesn'thelp me as a casting director to
know can I trust you on set?
Can you say the lines Right?
So lines are very, veryimportant.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, and I actually that was something I loved from
my process with you all was thatme and the other actor had such
a good time rehearsing andsaying, oh, we're going to walk
in, we're going to have thismoment, do that.
And then we got on set and agreat piece of advice you all
had was just just cut to you'rethere, you're sitting down, just
(25:24):
kind of get into it, because,yes, if we're watching a TV show
it's a little different, likewe're invested, but of course
you want to make sure you getright to the meat and then
showcase yourself in the bestpossible light.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
So exactly, I think but even if TV with TV shows,
but even with TV shows, how manytimes you sit on the couch and
you watch a show and you're likeI'm going to give this exactly
10 more minutes before, I'm likein my phone because it's not
interesting enough and thatdoesn't go right into the crux
of what it is like you're saying.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's very precious, so think about that as well.
Exactly, this leads to anotherlistener question which again we
got quite a bit for you.
I think it's at Annalise Icardnot iPhone, but Icard, her Apple
(26:05):
credit card there?
What's the number?
No, I'm just kidding.
She put it pretty succinctlyand this was actually a question
we got a lot.
So we've talked about thebenefits of using a service like
RealArk.
But she wants to know how do Imake a reel without any footage
in a budget-friendly way, andthat was something we got pretty
often.
So do you have sort of advicethere, since, I mean, that's how
(26:26):
you started your company?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, absolutely and by all means.
For me this is not a salespitch.
You know there's people withall kinds of budgets and you
know we, we like to respectactors wherever they are in
their careers.
And I have the exact I have theexact kind of like answer for
this create material that istrue to where you are right now
in your career.
And if you're a starting actor,maybe there's no reason for you
(26:52):
to go to a company like realart and spend all this money to
create a, you know, creating abeautiful self-tape, right?
Or going to a self-tape studiowhere it's not that expensive I
mean, I guess it would be like$200 or whatever but they can
really record you on a nicecamera with a blue background.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Well, sag has a free, I think workshop in the city,
which there's things like thattoo.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
resources yeah, and, by the way, that's okay and good
, right, the only reason why youwould want to up-level your
materials and this has to dowith you know, businesses,
anything and you're a businessas an actor is only if you want
to show more context into you inspace and just up level the
(27:37):
marketing.
But if you're in a place whereyou can't afford it and you can
only afford a beautifulself-tape in one of those
self-tape places, then do that.
That's it.
Trust me, there are people thatget cast from that all the time
.
Yeah, you know, and you may notbe ready for that full scene in
space on a Game of Thrones youknow what I mean set like we do
sometimes, or a Last of Us typeof situation.
(27:59):
It can be fun and that's great.
But if all you can do is just,you know, do a self-tape, I
would recommend to do that andthen slowly you up-level as you
go along and you feel morecomfortable in you know, with
yourself as an actor.
But I would say, start with aself-tape.
(28:20):
I would try not to do it athome unless you know how to do
it at home and do it well.
But start with a self-tapewhich is an easy enough entry
with your money and then, onceyou want to up-level your
materials or you feel likeyou're not getting enough,
that's when you can say, okay,maybe I need to up-level the
material here.
You know what I mean and I'llspend a little bit of money.
So if I were to give you adviceall the people that are asking
(28:48):
about this find a self-tapestudio that is really good at
what they do.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
They charge $200 an hour, whatever it is, and it's
just good, really good materialin front of a reader and you're
good, you know, and also if youhave a self-tape that you made
in the past that maybe got you acallback and there was some
good feedback there, that'sprobably a flag that that's a
good one to send in, you know,just for getting an agent or
whatever it is.
If there's a part that it'ssimilar to, I think that's great
advice.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
The most important thing is don't let your media
page go empty.
The important thing is don'tlet your media page go empty,
because if your media page isempty, if you don't have any
videos, you're getting siftedout and filtered out from
submissions, right.
So I would say, because wedon't have time as casting
(29:33):
directors to look at, you knowphotos and decide we need proof,
and the proof is in the video.
So I would say, you know, as animmediate action, go get that
self-tape, upload that self-tape, make sure the sound is great
and the video is sufficient, andthat should be a good way to do
it, but don't leave your mediapage empty.
Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
And actually that leads me to my next question,
which is this is airing duringspooky season and so, Guy, I
want to talk about some horrorstories, any real horror stories
that you can share.
I know I won't reveal too muchinformation, but I know you also
are behind the table castingthings as well, so you have this
eye to bring to these.
You mentioned things likeseeing a lot of silence.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It doesn't have to be anything dramatic, but sort of
what is there not to do inregards to putting out materials
like a real man?
The knots?
That's a great question.
What is the knot?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
The dots like the dots.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Man, I mean just yeah , the silences I don't believe
with.
I don't believe in title cards,so no names with phone numbers
and stuff like that.
They ain't calling you fromyour title card, right, and
they're not even.
They don't care that your agentis at the end of the thing or
whatever it is.
Go directly into the video oryou acting, because time is
(30:49):
precious.
But God, I want to think abouthorror stories.
I could tell you horror storiesat RealArk, you know Well, if
there's, you know.
but Well, if there's anythingyou think that could lead to
(31:10):
some helpful advice for peopleof things.
Maybe sometimes actors, youknow we think we're doing
something in going to producereels for yourself, um, or
something like that, or engagewith a company that does that.
Um, you're an actor and that isyour job and you're there to
show acting skills.
It's not a passion project,right?
So I would say you know youhave to focus on the strategy
(31:34):
behind it all rather than, likeyou know, oh, it's fun, it's
great to be on set and it'sgreat to create a passion
project, but these are marketingmaterials specifically to sell
your business, and you reallyhave to keep it very strict to
those you know, to that, soyou're able to showcase as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, yeah and yeah.
I think if you're doing thatand leading with that
professionalism, it inherentlyis fun too, because then you're
you're sort of taking itseriously and allowing yourself
to do what you love, versus,like you said, maybe just
showing up and kind of treatingit like oh I'm here, let's see
what happens.
So exactly, yeah, that'sexactly.
That's a good point.
I think an even better way toget into this sort of like deep
(32:18):
dive of demo reels and allthings marketing a bit, I
developed a surprise game calledReal Essentials.
So, guy, let's get real, let'sdo it.
Insert cheesy music here.
I'm going to throw out a promptand you simply say yes, or get
real, aka no, and then explain alittle reason why an actor
(32:39):
should or shouldn't include thisin their real.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Okay, so yes, or get real.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yes, yes, or get real , and then you can explain why.
And it will just like make it alittle flash round here.
You answered some of theseactually, so montage at the
start.
I think I know what you'regonna get real get real.
Okay, so nothing, even if, likethere's a yeah, don't do the
thing, where it's like you putthe exciting thing at the
beginning and then expect themto watch that all the way
through to the end to get to ityeah, well, I would say is like
(33:08):
you know, monta, we want to seedialogue and we want to get
hooked by your acting.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So montage and fast cutting at the beginning is just
making us see this likeself-serving situation.
It's like here I'm looking,here I'm looking and here I'm
looking and here I'm looking.
You know what I mean.
So I would say get real.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Okay, I love that.
Get real.
Include a headshot title card.
Get real.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, you did just touch on that as well um, yes,
yes, but it needs to be, uh, itneeds to match the tone and feel
of your reel.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yes, tone and feel of your reel.
That rhymed, I liked it.
So would you say like a fade ina fade in music and maybe a
fade out music.
But yes, over your scenes.
Right, correct?
Yes, just to clarify foreverybody at home.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Oh, I have a big one, okay, but, but nevermind.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, no, no, please this is flexible.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Subtitles, subtitles, yes.
Even if you're in English, evenif you're doing it in English,
subtitles are a must and I tryto get all of our clients to add
subtitles to their scenes, buta lot of them don't want to do
it and I try to fight them on it.
But, same as social media, alot of them are watching it on
(34:24):
the toilet or in their bedroomsor on the stuff, and maybe
they're watching three at a timeand they have it muted and they
have whatever, and they're in ameeting.
If you put subtitles, you canhook them in with actually
watching the subtitles.
So, anyways, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
And it's accessible, which is great too.
Yes, we talked about self-tapeclips, so I was going to say use
of self-tape clips, but I thinkwe covered that a bit.
So we'll move into OK clipsthat have really good acting and
maybe the production is evengreat, but the audio is poor
quality.
No.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Get real.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Get real.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Don't do it.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Or get it fixed.
Get real or get it fixed, Ilike it.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
They will forgive picture, but they will never
forgive sound.
That's one of the rules offilmmaking.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, I love that Well, same with this podcast as
well.
So I appreciate that.
Yes, lead role in a studentfilm Would you include like
student film things?
Again, I guess it goes back toquality.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yes and yes, and it needs to look good, right?
If it doesn't look good orsound good, I would not include
it, but yes, Okay, what aboutjust one line on a network show?
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I think we talked about this a bit too.
Okay, no, not, don't get real,that's a yes.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
We talked about this a little bit too, but again,
it's hard to talk about a visualmedium via audio.
Are you in favor of likeshowing range, would you say
that's that's better than juststicking to one vibe per real
Like show.
Show range in the best possiblelight.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
However, stay true to your brand.
So Tom Hanks, who is theperfect everyman right, that's
his archetype.
You know he can be in a comedyand he can be in a drama, but
he's Tom Hanks, right.
He's still very connected towho he is, as you know, as this
(36:16):
everyman.
Later on in your career you canobviously expand that, but at
the beginning you want to showthem.
You know you can be a cop and Ihate using that, but you can be
a cop.
You can be the bad cop, you canbe the good cop, right.
There's different ways to playdifferent things.
You can be in BrooklynNine-Nine and you can be in
Mayor of Easttown, right.
Different flavors of genres,but it's very, but you have to
(36:43):
stay connected to what it isthat you feel like you want to
put out there.
So I would say you can showrange within your brand.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I love that and that's what makes fresh stories
interesting.
A lot of the times is seeing acop with a different perspective
, because sometimes we think asactors, you know, oh, I got
called in for a cop, I can neverbe a cop.
Yes, you could.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Anybody could really be anything.
Smoke on Apple TV is anincredible show and it's just a
masterclass in charactersMasterclass.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh, I love that.
That's my actor homework.
I'm going to write that down.
Yeah, I think we talked aboutthis too, but labeling every
project with text in the littlecorner, or would you just put
like the network emblems?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
if it's a network, uh , you can do.
Um, if there is no emblem, thendo text.
Um, if there is an emblem, dotext, you can.
You know as much as you know.
You can actually, like you know, put in their face.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
This was on a show, then great okay, I've seen a
bunch of these so I'm gonna askyou having like a fun blooper or
personality moment um, doesn'treally.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
No, it doesn't really get real okay, get real.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
No, oh, here's another one that this kind of
came up with folks footage ofyou as a background artist.
No, you're featured.
Okay, I thought that was theanswer.
Get real, can you tell peoplewhy?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Number one it signals where you are and it signals
that if you're willing to putthat on your, on your, on your
media page, it means that youdon't understand the business
you know page.
It means that you don'tunderstand the business.
You know the you know there isbackground right, and then there
is actually being there anddoing the work right, and that
is just like it's there's.
These are two worlds thatshouldn't actually touch.
(38:33):
Sorry, um so if you put yeah, soif you, yeah, so if you put
that on there, it's, it's notgoing to help you.
If anything is going to, it'sgoing to.
For lack of a better term, givethe casting director the ick.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Hmm, what show did I just watch where they were
talking about the ick?
Oh, nobody wants this.
Yeah, there's something to theprofessional.
Heck is real.
There's something to be saidtoo for your resume, right?
Because I've seen when peopleput that on a resume and they
maybe try and fudge it a littlebit, yeah, and maybe that works
for them sometimes, buteverybody talks in this business
too, so they're gonna know youweren't really on the show
(39:08):
acting in a role so just don't,don't fudge it don't fudge the
resume yeah, focus on a greatself-tape.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Show them your acting ability.
I've cast people that have zerocredits, um, but on this
feature that we're doing, youknow, and but their, their
self-tape is incredible andthat's it.
That's all it took I love that.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Okay, guy, you mentioned this already as well.
We already covered so much butcontact info.
At the end you said that's a,that's kind of a get real.
So what would?
How would you say is the bestway to end a reel?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
the end, just just fade out.
I would say, yeah, fade out.
Yeah, they're never going toget to the end of it anyways.
So they're not going to read it, they're not going to get to
the end of it, they're going toscrub right through it.
It doesn't matter how you endit.
If you want to end it with likeyou'd go and like blah, it
doesn't't matter.
They're never going to get tothe end of it, you know.
So I'm going to get a lot ofcasting directors are probably
(40:04):
going to.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, I think it's.
You're not saying they don'twatch self tapes.
You're saying, in regards tolike a three, two minute, no, no
, yeah, they watch self tapes,they watch self tapes.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
There's something beautiful about watching self
tapes because it's like you'reexcited to see the people that
you invited to send you aself-tape.
You're excited to see whatthey're, what the work they're
putting in, so they are watchingit for sure yeah, um, but reels
, they're literally just goinglike I like, I like, I like, I
like, I like, I like, I don'tlike, I don't like, I don't like
, I don't like.
They know immediately you can'tfool them, you can't do it, but
they're not gonna get to end ofit.
So it doesn't matter how youend it.
End it with a title card, endit with a picture from you on
(40:42):
vacation.
It really doesn't matter, am I?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
in my fun.
Honestly, I might change mineup and end mine now saying you
did it.
Oh, thank you for staying here,Just like yeah, hug the camera
Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, i's funny.
It's like you got to the end.
I can't believe it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Don't take that, everyone.
Don't take that from me.
No, you can, let's all do it.
If we all do it together, Ithink it's kind of fun.
Yeah, thank you for being realand playing.
You win you, just you win, guy,thank you so much.
I have another question, kindof in regards to have adapted to
the way casting views, scenesnow, reels now, what would you
(41:25):
say is the current?
You know the word trend istricky, but in this landscape of
entertainment, how do you thinkyou all have evolved.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
We've fought through in the early stages.
We fought through like this isfake work, right?
And it still exists peoplesaying this is fake work, et
cetera.
Well, it's not fake becauseyou've invested money or
producing it and you got linesand you're saying them and it's,
you know, it's on your reel.
Good acting will trump anythoughts a casting has about
(41:56):
scene creation, right?
So it's really not about scenecreation, it's about what you
bring to the table.
All the job for us is real artis to put you in context, to
shine a light on your brand and,you know, make it fun, right,
and give you a piece of mediathat is impactful enough that
you can put on your media page.
It's if you, if you are anincredible actor.
(42:20):
It doesn't matter if it wasfrom a real quote, unquote
feature film, a real show, it's.
It's really about the work thatis in front of the camera.
So what you know, one castingdirector can say one thing,
another casting director can sayanother thing, or an agent, etc
.
All we've seen is a curve of itjust helping.
(42:40):
Also, in this time of noin-person auditioning, it's been
very helpful for people to gettheir foot through the door and
you know, and be able to, like,showcase multiple sides of
themselves.
So you know, it's always goingto be there, the fact of like
how people perceive scenecreation.
But it's no different thanbeing in a short film.
(43:02):
It's no different than being inanything.
You're producing the work.
You're actually.
You're coming here to, to thestudio, unless unless it's all a
dream, right, but you arecoming here to the studio and
doing the work.
So if you show something really, really great and you prep and
you make it look incredible,then it doesn't matter if it's
in creation or not.
You know it is magic.
(43:23):
You are supposed to fool them,right?
You're never going to fool them, right, because they've seen
enough stuff.
But you are supposed to foolthem.
That's the whole point.
It is magic.
You are supposed to make themlike what is this from?
You know what I mean.
Start the conversationconversation.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, I think that's great and and again, like
whether you're fortunate to doit there or you're shooting a
short with friends.
It's sort of like exactly everythis industry is built on
people wanting to tell storieson one hand, and then the money
aspect on the other.
So this is like real arc iskind of a microcosm of that.
It's all, it's all.
That's what the work is.
(44:00):
I got to tell you guys, it'ssomeone investing in a project
and you show up, so you're kindof treating it the same, no
matter what.
And I think if you do bringyourself to things, your your
authenticity, your drive, if youtreat everything as you would
let's say, someone hands you acontract and says you're about
to star in the next blockbuster,then that's your job.
It's not really your job toworry about anything else.
(44:22):
Unless you're self taping, thenyou do have to worry about the
lighting, all that stuff.
Yeah, these days.
Yeah, but you know what I'msaying, guy?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
I mean there's always going tobe trends coming and going and
AI is coming in and all thatstuff and use it to your
advantage.
You know as much as you can, Ithink, as actors, don't shy away
from doing it because it'scoming and it's here.
But I'm also super optimistic.
You know, like there are moreprojects being shot.
You know there are.
(44:48):
You know I'm looking at us asreal art, like we are now
shooting an indie feature.
That is quite I mean when I sayit has a good budget and some
star talent in it and people.
It's like if we can do it, ifwe actually are doing it,
there's a whole lot more beingdone out there to me.
I see this more of arenaissance of, like the era of
quentin tarantino in the 90s andevery people, new voices are
(45:11):
coming up and I think there'sgoing to be more work all around
.
So I was very doom and gloom atthe end of um.
You know, once chad gpt came inand all those things, I was
like, oh my God, whatever.
But actually as an AI like loveryou know, I don't think it's
going to take away much and aperson that's really in it every
(45:34):
day and thinking about it, it'slike I I'm kind of optimistic
cautiously optimistic about, youknow, about the world of
entertainment in the future.
I don't know how we got to that.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
I don't know.
I don't know but we're here.
We followed the tornado downthe rainbow.
The house fell on us, the AIhouse.
I think you know, I think,really, if we always are all
leading with our humanity asmuch as we can, I think you know
there's a lot of validity towhat you just said, and it makes
me wonder.
You know you touched on yourfilm.
Feel free to share more.
I mean, by the time this is out, it probably will have been
(46:06):
announced.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, so it's.
Actually.
It relates to RealArk.
You know, about a year ago wehad an incredible person Her
name is Dinah.
Reach out to us to RealArk.
She just sold her major companyI don't know, I could probably
say this, but she used to be theCEO of HealthAid Kombucha, very
, very big company that shestarted and founded yes, I love
(46:28):
HealthAid and she sold in andeven with all the money that she
made off of it, you know, hernumber one thing was acting.
You know, for her whole lifeand that's all she wanted to do.
So, hey, if this is like yoursecond time or second chance
coming into this industry andyou're listening to it and you
just like want to get intoacting, then here you go.
What's what's a betterinspiring story than dina?
(46:48):
So, you know, she came in andwe created a whole package and
pitched her to agents andmanagers and she got an agent
and a manager through us, um,and then did the auditioning
thing.
And then then, you know, shecame to us a year later and she
said I want to do kind of like afilm on my life story which is
very, very funny, or kind oflike a moment in her life, and
(47:10):
we just went out and startedkind of like writing in with one
of our writers.
Peter Hoare was a fantasticwriter.
He wrote Standing Up, fallingDown with Billy Crystal and he
wrote projects for Goldie Hawnand now for Kevin Hart and he
loved the synopsis so much thathe actually took this on and
wrote it and from here to thereit just like started kind of
(47:33):
gaining momentum.
And you know, you never know.
Actually, by reaching out to aperson doesn't have to be real,
but anyone that you feel likethat is in your reach, you don't
know where that can lead you.
To Dinah, I don't think, everthought that she will be able to
, like you know, work with Peter, work with Mia Cusimano, who's
our casting director, work withDaniela Eisman, who's our
(47:56):
director, and she was the SexLives of College Girl director
and shameless.
They all jumped in because ofher amazing synopsis and Peter's
script, etc.
So just by doing that smalllittle action of like actually
engaging with us, all thesethings are happening.
But yeah, we're shootingOctober 20th and in LA and we're
very, very excited.
Oh, that's super cool.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
Well, Mazel congratulations.
Thank you, thank you, yeah, Ican't wait to hear more about
that and I wonder you know, justwhile we have you here, as
you're behind the table now,what would you say is your kind
of number one piece of auditionadvice, since you're watching a
lot of self you can do.
One thing is like be the lightin someone's day and make sure
that it's it looks good and itsounds good.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Um, you know I can't touch on talent, because that's
what can you do with that?
You can't really control that,or what they want, or whatever.
So control what you can'tcontrol on talent, because
that's what can you do with that?
You can't really control that,or what they want, or whatever.
So control what you can'tcontrol, and that is the
environment.
And even if it's shot on aniPhone, make sure that you're
shooting it on an app likeFilmic Pro or something that
really is of good quality.
(49:14):
So that's what I would say.
Obviously, the higher you getin the rankings of actors or
whatever it is, you can, you canstart providing some more
creative choices, et cetera.
Um, but yeah, I would say is,if you're starting out, make
sure that you're getting themsome really good audition tapes
(49:43):
other reason to say no, theneliminate distraction.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
That's really what it is.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's excellentand you're right.
Some of us, you know, we canforget to do the most basic
things.
I went on an audition once andI it was in person back in those
days, remember those for a TVshow and I did the scene and the
casting director must've had along day and was literally just
like thank you so much forknowing your lines and preparing
.
Yeah, I was like, oh, did somepeople like not look at the
(50:05):
script?
You know?
Speaker 1 (50:05):
So, yeah, I think just remember the basics, like
you're saying that, yeah, and Iknow it's getting gnarly with
like how many pages are beingasked, and that's real too.
Yeah, yeah and all that stuff,but it's like you got to do it.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, it's a case by case thing too, because once you
develop that relationship,people understand if you're
getting something, sometimeshonestly like not within the SAG
window when you're technicallysupposed to have a lot of time
for People understand that.
So just do the best you can.
Everybody, and by listening tosomething like this, I already
think you're in the rightdirection because you're working
on it, you're dreaming about itand just to hit it home, to get
back to reels, before we depart, how often would you say an
(50:48):
actor has a reel?
Now We've kind of taken themthrough it.
How often would you say theyshould update their reel?
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Yeah, I think it's always a work in progress and I
think that you know if you aretrying to explore a new side
right, something that you'repassionate or want to show of
yourself that is not currentlythere, you should do it.
If the marketing materials arenot impactful or like you're not
(51:17):
getting auditions right, thenyou should probably change it up
.
It's rarely and I'm not sayingit's because I'm a scene
creation company or anythinglike that rarely the scene
creation company's fault, right,it means that it's just like
it's not hitting and that's okay, even if you spend money on it.
It's like you don't have tospend more money again, like you
, like I said, you can do aself-tape etc.
But, um, but if it's notworking or you're not getting
(51:40):
the results that you want, thenjust create more and keep
creating.
You know what I mean.
It's not in an interval of sixmonths or a year, or two days or
five years.
If you're not getting themarketing results guess what?
You have to change the ad.
You know how many ads we put.
You know and how many times.
You know things don't work.
If they don't work, you don'tjust stop.
(52:01):
You just keep creating rightand you can create it yourself.
You can create it withself-tapes, you can create it
with Scene Creation Company.
You can create your own movie,your own vertical series.
There's a lot of budget rangesthat you can do and create, but
the idea is to keep creating ifit's not working and keep
creating and keep driving if apiece of media is working.
(52:23):
So if you are getting cast as aco-star, as a janitor and I
give this always like as a thingand you have that NBC janitor
one line on it, make a scenecreation as a janitor, but with
three pages, and show thecasting director who cast you as
(52:43):
a follow-up.
He, I, I was so inspired bythat one line as a janitor on
the pit that I decided to expandthe world world and I wanted to
show you this scene.
Show them that you're like,driving towards it, because if a
piece of marketing is working,then create more of that, create
more of that and create, keepcreating more of that I love
that.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
You know, I was just envisioning.
I don't know why.
I guess because a lot of usactors have worked for a
catering company before.
Never me I'm too clumsy, but ifyou're going out there with a
tray of mozzarella sticks andnobody at the party wants it,
you got to go back into thekitchen and get another hors
d'oeuvre and then, when peoplewant that, just keep making that
.
And there's something to be saidfor I said this on here before
(53:19):
my agent once told me, get onthe train that's pulling into
the station.
And so you're not pigeonholingyourself.
Just because you're creatingmore, you know, janitor clips or
whatever it is, You're actuallyfreeing yourself in a way,
because the more work you kindof book, the more people that
know you, the more likelysoon-ish down the road you'll
have opportunities to do more ofwhat you, the roles you really
(53:40):
kind of want to do, and like foractors.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
They just need to understand this business, or the
casting business is veryassociative, right, like I don't
know if that's the word, butit's.
It is associative.
It's like they're associates,yeah, they, yeah, they are
associating at any point whenthey're casting.
You know when're casting, youknow when we you know, when we
worked with our casting director, she asked us to put you know a
list of, like, the people thatwe want for each role to like
(54:05):
send offers to.
You know some named talent, andthe only reason why we put that
named talent on there becausethey're associated, they're
unlocking this associative thingfor us for that character.
So it's, it is real when we saythere's brand, because it's
like association, like how do weassociate like these people?
You know there's a great actornamed Steven Root who's on Barry
(54:27):
.
You know who plays Fuchs.
You know what I mean and he islike, he always plays around
that space, but he's mademillions doing that.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah, and that's okay , and that's okay, and that is
totally OK, it's what's ever OKfor you.
And how many times, friends, dowe get an audition and it says
you look at the breakdown andit's like this type Like I've
gotten in so many times forthings where it says you know,
young Ben Stiller type orwhatever it says, I don't know.
So just think about that.
That kind of relates to whatyou were saying and as we wrap
(54:58):
up the that's a wrap on thereels I think we should also say
the most important thing of all, which is that you shouldn't
forget to post it, and we shouldbe posting this baby everywhere
.
Right, it's got to be on yourcasting sites.
Put it on YouTube, send it outin a newsletter.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
You got to put it everywhere.
You know Instagram, youtube,all that stuff.
You know tag.
You know if you're doing withus, tag us.
You know tag people that havethe.
You know work with people thathave a following and then tag
them.
And you know you can get reallynifty about strategy.
(55:35):
You could.
I mean, there's a whole taggingcasting directors and things
like that, which I don't thinkyou should do, but yeah, yeah,
yeah, it's subjective.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
We actually just dropped a whole episode on
networking that touches on thatReally, so tune in.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Oh yeah, I can't wait to listen.
But yeah, put it everywhere,absolutely, and keep creating.
Keep putting it everywhere.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
I'm going to put mine everywhere If you're interested
.
Everybody, like I said, I wasdelighted to do a scene with
RealArk.
I had the best time, thank you,I have now posted it.
This will be in the future, butit is now posted.
If you want to check it out, gocheck out their other scenes.
And before we let you go, guy,we always end each episode with
a gotten or a given, so we wouldlove the best piece of advice.
(56:16):
You've either gotten or givenin this industry.
I used to ask for both, butthen a lot of the time it's the
same thing.
So it could be a gotten or agiven, but basically the best
piece of advice you have.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Hmm, sorry for the silence.
I know that this is like a oh,take your time, but don't do it
for the stardom, don't do it forthe money, because those rarely
happen.
You do it because you love it,and that's it.
And if you do it because youlove it and there's no stakes in
it, you know, then you willenjoy it.
(56:50):
But if there's too many stakesin it, then you will find
yourself bitter and resentful.
So don't do it for the money,don't do it for the stardom.
Do it because you love it andthat's.
I think that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
I love that guy.
That has me emotional.
That's beautiful.
Thank you so much for that.
Thank you so much for beinghere and we just appreciate you
coming on here to help us actorsout today.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
So thank you.
Thank you so much.
This was such a pleasure, andit was great meeting you on set
too.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Oh yeah, thank you.
That was such a fun day, thatwas a fun scene, yeah, yeah it
was awesome, thank you.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Thank you so much.
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