Commercial Acting 101

THE NUMBER ONE OF THE 101: WHY I BOOKED 50 COMMERCIALS

Commercial Acting 101 is literally 101 things you need to know before your next audition. No lie, it is a shotgun of information. But there is a main philosophy that ties it all together, and once I started applying this philosophy to my auditions, I started having more fun, and my booking rate went through the roof.

First, an observation. The On-Camera commercial world, the advertising world is a world that’s rooted and driven by fear. Why is that? They have no idea if the commercial is going to work, if the demographic they are trying to reach is going to spend as much money as they want them to. Imagine that anxiety. This fear rolls from the advertisers, through the production company, through the casting agent, into our rooms! And I recognized this fear because I was walking out of these rooms in fear, doing something that I absolutely loved to do. And I thought, this is crazy, I am going crazy. How can I combat this? Or always better, how can I use this to my advantage.

So I started to apply this philosophy: walking into these fear based rooms, and asking the question, both in action and in thought: HOW CAN I HELP? And asking with a true intention, really listening and looking for an answer. If you ask this question you will see the fear just fall off their shoulders and they will gravitate toward you, and return this service with the only currency they have which is the job.

Now keep in mind when I talk about service, I’m not talking about servitude. Genuflecting to the great advertising God. I’m talking about being present to the moment to RECOGNIZE what is needed now. But there’s no way we can be present to the moment, if we as actors are in fear based thinking.

“Nobody here looks like me.”

“Everyone here looks like me.”

“This is my tenth audition and no callback.”

“This is my tenth callback and no job.”

“Is this shirt right?!” (My personal demon).

The camera picks up on this thinking and we now look and smell like everyone on the other side of the camera, and they don’t want anything to do with what looks and smells like them. They’re scared enough, no reason to bring another person on who can’t help them.

So we ask that question a lot in class. How can I help? How can I help in slate? How can I help outside the room, inside the room? How can I help in my copy breakdown?

How can I help in the callback, on set?

How can I help?

Because I’m sorry, I don’t care what kind of career coach you have, we have NO control over whether we book. We have all control over whether we serve. And I found, the more I serve, the more I book. Over and over again.