Off Script: Resilience and Auditioning

So please excuse any referencing in this recording of it being a separate podcast and I hope you enjoy the Offscript format which will , I believe , enhance and contribute to the monthly primary episodes . Cheers and I'll see you on set . Welcome everybody . Welcome to Episode 3 of the Leigh Plumer Actor Podcast Offscript . We're going completely solo today .

We're going completely solo today and I guess I just wanted to have a quick chat about some stuff that's coming up and give you a bit of a heads up to where we're going to take this podcast going into 2024 . Can you believe that 2024 is approaching fast , guys ?

About a week out before a nice big family holiday heading out to the United States of America , going through New York and Boston and then up through Kentucky , las Vegas , san Francisco and then finally in Los Angeles . So certainly , looking forward to that , it's going to be a very good holiday .

My youngest has just finished year 12 , so we've decided to very good holiday . My youngest has just finished year 12 , so we've decided to Nice big family holiday before they all cut loose , so to speak . But with the way the world is now , I think they'll be living at home for a bit longer , which is fine by my wife . She loves that , so it's all good .

So what I wanted to talk about today is your acting journey and all the difficulties that we can experience from this journey that we're all on , regardless of what stage you're at or what stage you start at .

My son , connor , has just finished auditioning for the Flinders Drama University course , so he's right at the very start of his career and doing it completely different to the late bloomer experience , obviously . So that'll be very interesting to watch how his journey goes .

At this stage we don't know whether he got in , but for all accounts it sounds like he's done really , really well . So we'll find out very soon how he goes there . But that sort of leads into . What I wanted to talk about today is especially in relation to auditions and and the what's the right word for it the .

You know , the fickleness of it is that I don't know if that's the right word , but of how hard it can be to get through the audition and land the role , so to speak , because there is so much riding on it , there's so much involved in choosing the right cast and you have no idea what's going on in the background , no idea whatsoever what they're looking for

and and and what they're um assessing you on now , just because you don't get through , I mean most people um with their auditions , don't land the role . And you know , in america the actors can be doing , you know , 20 auditions a week during the busy season and and maybe um land one role a month out of that .

So here in Australia , or me personally anyway , I'll be lucky if I get a couple of auditions a year . So you have to put that into perspective , of course , of the positive rate of getting through an audition , of the positive rate of getting through an audition .

Some of the simple things that I've seen is one of the biggest ones I saw was a young girl had auditioned for a role and she'd had a couple of callbacks and then it turned out at the end that , as much as she did really really well and as much as they loved her , the actress who was playing her mother had , um , a completely different , um , eye color .

I think it was that to the point that it just made the , the mix of the mother and daughter role , just not suitable for whatever the production was . So , um , they had to go with another actress . So there's nothing you could do about that .

Uh , you know , and I've , I've had things where I've been told because of my height , I'm six foot two and um , and so I've missed out on roles because I'm just too tall . You know , there's nothing I can do , a bit my height . But you know , when I was told , uh , a little bit overweight now I can change that , which I have .

Recently I've lost a heap of weight , so we can do those sort of things , but sometimes there's just nothing you can do . Can't change my height ? Well , certainly no , you can't . And so it's little things like that that can make it daunting and challenging for your audition process and it makes you question your reason for doing acting at all .

And I call it the ups and downs , the ebbs and flows of the acting journey . You have the high moments and the low moments , and sometimes it feels like there's a lot more low moments than the high moments . But if you look at me . Just in the last week I've actually had two auditions , both which I have been successful for , for indie roles .

One I was supposed to be filming right this minute actually , but I don't know if you can hear in the background , but we've had some huge storms here over the last couple of days and where they were supposed to be filming me today has lost power till four o'clock , so that takes care of that .

So I was all dressed up with my suit and ready to go and the lines down , ready to go , and the phone call came in and said sorry , we got no power .

There's nothing I can do about that , because apparently cameras need electricity there you go breaking news story there for you folks , but um , off track there a little bit , oh yeah , so so it's been an up up week for me . Two auditions , two successes , um one being slightly delayed by the weather , um one to be filmed next uh year .

And I was on set yesterday for another , uh , independent production that I landed quite a while back and finally got to do my scene . Nice , quick and easy scene in the city .

But you know , so here I've come off the back of a good week , which made me feel like , hey , this acting stuff is great , I love it , but you can go in the complete opposite and do a bunch of auditions or have some bad experiences that just make you question your ability as an actor .

And this is the thing where you need to pull in and develop your resilience . And this goes for all actors , it actually goes for everybody . In any background , any life choice that you make , you need that resilience to push through the hard times . And life is tough . I don't care what the do-gooders say or whatever .

You know , this mentality of everyone needs a ribbon in the race for participation I disagree with , because it doesn't allow you to know that sometimes you lose , sometimes you make mistakes , to know that sometimes you lose , sometimes you make mistakes .

And if you don't know how to take that on board , how to learn how to deal with that , then how are you going to get through life ? I mean , you can't model , coddle people through any experience , whether that's our children growing up or going to school or new actors .

If you model coddle people , then they'll find out the hard way they really do , and that's what we're here to talk about today . So how do you overcome all this sort of stuff . So it's what you bring to your auditions . You know you've got to draw on your wealth of life experiences that you have .

It doesn't matter how old you are whether Connor , who's just turned 18 , did have his balloons in the background , but I thought for the YouTube video we'll remove them or myself , who's just turned 50 .

You bring these life experiences to your auditions and also to the roles that you're being cast in , but not just for the roles , but also how you learn and overcome from these experiences , whether they're positive or negative .

You've got to draw on your life and understand that we have these ebbs and flows in life as well , and we have experiences that sometimes are just not so fun , and we learn from them and we grow from them . And that's what you need to do in acting as well .

And that's a big thing that comes out of that is dealing with the rejection , because that's what it feels like .

It feels like you've been rejected , um , it's it's a very emotional aspect of the auditioning process , and how you cope with rejection , um , at any time in your career is is something that you need to learn and need to to overcome , because you're going to get more rejection than you're going to get positive outcomes .

Unfortunately , it's the nature of it , and heaven forbid if you were looking for a job in any other industry .

I mean , some people have been looking for work for a long time and they go from interview to interview , but imagine doing just dozens and dozens of interviews all the time and just being told no , no good , because your hair colour's not right or you're too tall .

So that's one of the things that you really need to do in your acting journey is to learn how to deal with this rejection . It is a terrible word really . I know . I've written it here in my notes to talk about uh , could we come up with a better word for rejection ?

But , uh , I think the biggest thing that we uh that I I get from casting directors , for example , uh , when I talk to them on the podcast , is if you've made it to the audition .

That is big because you've just jumped over so many other people that have been put forward in that first stage , being submitted by their agents or being looked at through their casting network profiles for one role .

Casting directors can look at hundreds , sometimes thousands of people and then they cast it down and then they bring in a certain number of people to the room . So to be in the room or it is now after post-covid it's more in your own rooms , providing a self-tape . But to get to that stage is a big thing .

It is really a big thing and that is how you need to start to develop your resilience , because that is a positive , got to look at it as a positive , not a negative , when you don't get an audition . You made it that far . That's , that's pretty good .

And even here in Australia , where we don't do as many as American actors might do , having a couple of auditions every year is fantastic . That's really really good . And you need to take that approach and go hey , yeah , and learn from that and take that as a positive . That's a great thing and record it .

Make sure you record this stuff and I want to talk about in the new year , when I'm going to do a lot of the business side of acting , which is where I'm leading to in this quick discussion is what you need to be doing all the time from your IMDb profiles , from your casting network profiles , online Showcast or any other casting profile sites your training ,

simple things like having a spreadsheet . I have a spreadsheet that I record all my auditions on and the outcomes who was the casting director and who the director was , et cetera , what the outcome was , whether there was a callback .

And then that leads into another tab on the spreadsheet that says what I've been cast in and you know what was the project , dates and times , casting director for that as well . So you've got all these records and a lot of people don't do this and it's really good to have .

I didn't have it for a while there and I went through and made one up and went back through all my old paperwork and made it work , and now that I've got it going , I can just add to it every time . So these are the little things that you need to be doing on the business side of acting .

So in the new year , 2020 , I'm going to address each of these as separate topics . So feel free to email me or reach out if you want to be involved or have any specific questions in that sort of area . That will help me tone down or direct the topics to make them more specific for everyone .

But , coming back to what we were talking about to wind up this episode , there's a lot of other things that you need to do . Um , going past the rejection of things you know , adapting to , to trends , for example .

Uh , you need to stay current in the industry and adapting to new trends and and one of those biggest ones has been the post-covid era and that being um , self-tapes now , self-tapes Now . Self-tapes were always part of the industry , but they weren't always a requirement and you still had that option to train in the room , but now it's pretty much 100% .

So you need to be on top of that and learn well , okay , what do I need to do ? What equipment do I have to have ? There's lots of discussion of people saying , well , that's just making us do all the work . Well , yes , it is Okay . Unfortunately , that's what it is . There's pros and cons of it .

The casting directors can now reach out and see a lot more people , which means you've got more competition , but it also means that you've got more chance of being seen by the casting director . And even if you don't get to the second stage , the casting director has seen you . And this is the big thing being seen and seeing your acting .

Because you never know , you might not get seen for this role you've just submitted before , but the casting director might say , hey , david , john Clark that submitted last month for that role . He'd be perfect for this one , and they call you back in . So that is why you need to be on top of all the trend changes , so to speak .

Networking and relationships Always a tough one . Networking . I've never been a real big fan of it in my actual career because there's pros and cons of it . The old boys club sort of thing is the way I alluded to it , but in the creative field for acting , it's a little bit different .

It's about knowing who's who in the zoo and participating in their journeys as well , so that when they need someone that you can fit the bill for , they call on you and vice versa .

So that's why we'd like to emphasize the importance of these networking and building relationships with the industry , as they're connections that can play a crucial role in getting auditions and roles for you in the future . And one of the biggest things here , while we're talking about auditions , is your preparation techniques .

It's been said that auditioning and acting are completely different skill sets , and that's why you'll see a lot of training that's available now in audition technique or audition preparation techniques , including things such as script analysis or character research and other strategies that can set actors apart from everyone else that's in the room , because it's such a

different process than acting . I mean , you need to be a good actor , of course , but developing a technique for delivering you your audition straight down the camera they're looking straight down the line and just subtle little things that you can learn to make you stand out a little bit more amongst the the hundreds of other submissions are there .

So those are things that you can learn to make you stand out a little bit more amongst the hundreds of other submissions are there . So these are things that you need to look at .

And just to finish up , as I said , the business side of acting is certainly something that a lot of people aren't aware of , and that's why we're going to talk about it a lot more in the new year . So there we go , to talk about it a lot more in the new year . So there we go . Just a nice quick chat about things that affect us all really .

So , as we approach the end of 2023 , I'd just like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and wish you all the best for the new year as it comes .

Thank you very much for listening in on my flagship show , the Late Bloomer Actor , which will be back in January 2024 with a wonderful episode with John Orsic , who's the head of TAFTA training in Melbourne , and an industry stalwart going all the way back to the days of the likes of Cop Shop .

So that's going to show us late bloomers our ages , that's for sure . It's a very insightful episode . So please look out for that in the new year and I'm going to continue with this show , obviously every week .

Now , next Monday might be a very quick episode because I'll be jumping on a plane for New York with the family , as I said at the start of the show , and hopefully , I think the following Monday is Christmas Day and the Monday after that is New Year's Day , of which I'm still in the States .

So we might have something special , albeit short , but special for you , and then in the new year we'll come back and get some of the business side of things done for you . So thank you very much for listening . As I said , I wish you all the best and please reach out to me .

I'd love to hear any questions that you have or anything that you'd like to talk about on the show , and if you'd like to come on and ask the question directly on camera , that's even better . So it's not just me on the camera here If you're watching on youtube , or not just my voice rambling away if you're listening to your podcast .

So please make sure that you like and subscribe , uh , on your platforms . Uh , it helps the analytics . Analytics also helps me speak english correctly um , and share on your social media networks , because there are so many podcasts out there that sometimes people just aren't aware of good ones like this one , and they may want to listen to it as well .

So that would be appreciated . If you share and do that sort of stuff , it really really helps . It's a lot of work and hard work sometimes , too , and sometimes here I am starting a second one and going what have I done ? But I do it for good reasons and I enjoy it , so it's good fun doing it . So thank you very much for all the listeners .

This offshoot series has done really , really well at the moment . It was showcased in my podcast player platform that I use , which is Fountain FM , and has taken up a lot of new listeners there as well . And , that being said , folks , if you're looking for a good podcast player , I thoroughly recommend Fountain FM .

It is a podcast 2.0 platform which , if you don't understand the podcasting platform , there is a new regime coming in where they're trying to bring in a lot of new tools and everything . It's called Podcast 2.0 .

And one of those is Value for Value , which works with in the Bitcoin area , what's called Satoshis , which are a small portion of Bitcoin , called satoshis , which are a small portion of a bitcoin , and you can um , when you listen to podcasts , you can get paid for listening in satoshis , which is a small amount of uh cash that builds up , as well as you can

support your favorite shows , which is what I do .

I listen to a bunch of shows that are also subscribed to the v4v system and I can pay them for for all the work that they do , because I get something out of their show . So it's a good way of returning something back to them and and one of the biggest things that's come out of that now is they're now doing music uh through it .

So a lot of artists are now sharing their shows in these platforms that are v4v and they're actually getting a bigger return in a week than Spotify is giving them in a year . So it's great to see the artists being rewarded for their work , not the big conglomerates , so to speak . So thank you very much , guys .

Pleasure talking to you and we'll see you quickly next week for a quick chat before I jump on the plane , and then a Christmas special and a New Year's special as well , all the way from the United States of America . So throw me a line if you have anything you want to talk about . It's been a pleasure and I'll see you on set .