18July2008

Funny Acting Audition

Posted by admin under: Acting; Punked; bloopers.

This is a really funny acting audition video

18July2008

Tips for aspiring models

Posted by admin under: Models.

Here is an article about a few tips to get you going in the right direction if you want to be a successful model

 7 tips to help break into modeling

14July2008

New Site From Exploretalent.com talent community

Posted by admin under: Uncategorized.

Explore Talent the nets largest talent community just put out a press release stating its 5 year anniversary and a brand new website

Explore Talent Celebrates 5 Years

PRLog (Press Release) – Jul 14, 2008 – ExploreTalent.com is celebrating its 5-year anniversary this month by launching it’s new site. The new and improved ExploreTalent.com went through a slick redesign, revamped navigation, updated their logo and added many new features, services and sections. “We have been working on the new site for almost a year now, every time we thought we had it done, we found something new we wanted to add for our members. We were thrilled to get it completed in time for our 5 year anniversary,” explains Don Hinder, Marketing Manager.

read more about Explore Talent 

29March2008

Anyone have any tips for doing a cold reading?

Posted by admin under: Acting; Acting Questions; Scripts.

It seems that was the question presented by an actor to a site called allexperts… here is the answer, cold reading demystified, well maybe.

The answer is simple.  It comes with practice.
Your job as an actor – as an independent agent representing himself to a potential employer whose theater needs to make money – is to go prepared.  Until you find yourself registered at a university with a fantastic Theatre Arts Department or, if you’ve already done that, are looking for a professional coach who will work with you on an individual basis, here are a few basic tips that will vastly improve your private practice session.

Let’s start with the obvious.  Get your eyes checked!
It sounds like you might very well need to get a prescription (for contact lenses) that’s intended for reading (or work station) purposes and not necessarily for the drive back home.  As a vocal coach who accompanies his clients on the piano, I promise you the optometrist understands my need to read lyrics and hundreds of tiny little notes on two or more staves of sheet music all day long – and not some freeway sign a half-mile away.  If it turns out that this is part of the problem, then you’ll be amazed at the differences the next time you pick up a compactly-printed or poorly-typed script, i.e., being able to read ahead and to quickly absorb larger chunks of text.

Next – get into the habit of reading aloud every day.
Pick up anything and read it aloud – loud enough to be heard from one end of the house to the other and over into the neighbors’ yards.  Then you’ll start learning about what and where you need to channel more physical energy and emotional revelation come the next audition.  And for everybody, it’s a different balance of elements.
You don’t have to confine yourself to reading from scripts.  Read from the newspaper.  Understand the differences between reading something objective from the Associated Press, i.e., the voting conditions in Florida, to something subjective, i.e., a “letter to the Editor” from a disgruntled subscriber.  Clearly, you cannot sound the same even though it takes as much energy to reach all of us in the back row.

How many plays did you read this week?
How many within the last month?
The more plays you read – after all, this is where it starts – the more you will understand there are only so many stories to tell and a given round-up of characters to flesh them out.  The rest is only about who, what, where and why and – sometimes – if you fit the costume.  Again, this requires that you set aside a given number of hours everyday for both reading and practicing your vocal skills.

Most auditions require one or two monologues for the first go-by.  Most actors are in a call-back situation when they are reading from the script.  Unless it is a premiere of a new work and nobody but the producers have the script, more than likely you are auditioning for works that are currently in print or can be obtained at the library.  If nothing else, search the Internet for reviews and commentaries of previous productions and the actors’ performances.  What else has the author written?  How does the melody of his speech carry over into this other work?  How is it different from or similar to that of another author?
Don’t arrive uninformed.  Your more-studied competition will smell you out and dominate your space.

Don’t be overly-impressed by the actor who flails around during a scene or seems to have a finished product in the character and could open next week.  For every director who relies upon such commodities to take over their show, there is another director who is either not impressed by such display or is viewing a typical pain-in-the-neck who begins arguing the moment the contract is dry.  Unless advised to incorporate as much animation as possible, your primary goals are: to be heard, to be understood, and to demonstrate an unmistakable sense of Self through the words at hand.  We need YOU to play this role, not some contrived version of You that even your best friend wouldn’t recognize.

Bottom line, the dilemmas you are experiencing are easily solved.  If you’re around, make an appointment and I’ll prove it to you.  In the meantime, get yourself into centerfold condition, read aloud and do a variety of vocal warm-ups no less than an hour every day, and read at least two or three plays every week – choosing from those authors whose plays have been produced both On and Off-Broadway for at least the past ten years.

Best regards,
Sean Martinfield
http://www.geocities.com/broadwaybelters

More on cold reading and doing it well 

and, here are some more acting resources that deal with handling a cold reading 

21March2008

Getting the most from your acting books

Posted by admin under: Acting.

Here is an article I found about getting the most from your actors and acting books

In a nutshell the article discusses what is good about these types of books and what you can live without.

Check it out Here 

On the same site, there may be another article worth reading. Its an article discussing acting technique and gives some history behind it.

Here is part of that acting article.

Theatergoers in England by the beginning of the 17th century learned how to distinguish Hamlet by actor-manager, Thomas Betterton. This was accomplished by other productions of Shakespeare’s plays. Using different staging of familiar and classical plays sharpened spectator’s senses. Good acoustics were designed into theater halls to help performers to be heard differently and to have more subtle and natural reflections. Visual details of a performance were easily perceived and critiqued with the introduction of indoor stage lighting. Individual actor’s faces and hands were then displayed by the indoor stage lighting.

20March2008

Matt Damon gets punked

Posted by admin under: Punked; bloopers.

Apologies Matt Damon, we apparently ran out of time for you, better luck next time… Matt Damon was punked by Jimmi Kimmel

19March2008

Paul Hartnett - Photography

Posted by admin under: Art and Style; Photography.

Photographer Paul Hartnett has been documenting the club scene since before many of our readers were even old enough to sneak out at night. In advance of his upcoming show in February, he kindly granted BigShinyThing an exclusive interviewFrom the early London punk scene, through Leigh Bowery and the clubs kids, to street culture in Japan and the Asian mainland, Hartnett has been there to capture the look while it’s still fresh and raw. We were keen to ask a few questions of the man who’s seen it all.

BST: You’ve been documenting youth and street culture for over 30 years now. What is it about those worlds that keeps you excited?

PAUL HARTNETT: I started documenting street and club culture at the age of eighteen as a means of social lubrication. I wanted to get close to the key punk players such as Soo Catwoman and Sid Vicious, who lived in the next road to me in West London back then. I wanted to go beyond the visual. A camera seemed a perfect excuse to talk, exchange ideas, develop a rapport. Sometimes there’d be very little beyond the hair spray and eye-liner, sometimes there were all kinds of viewpoints, the most brilliant perspectives.

Read the rest of this entry »

19March2008

Male Model falls into hole

Posted by admin under: Fashion shows; Models; Runway; bloopers.

Yep, this male model falls into a hole but gets out of it like a champ.

19March2008

When in New York

Posted by admin under: Cities; Uncategorized.

A friend of mine recently called. She went to New York for an audition for an off Broadway play on very short notice and had little time to plan on what to do and where to go in her spare time while there. She knows I am from New York and called me to get the “scoop” on hot spots.

Well, since I have not been there in many years I had no clue, so I took to the Internet to send her some pics of cool places to visit.

check out the Ney York sites.

OK, so its pretty standard sights for New York… Oh well

19March2008

Model Follies

Posted by admin under: Fashion shows; Models; Runway.

What not to do on a runway when trying to model some high fashion clothes. Here is a compilation of some modeling spills and thrills as high fashion models try to fall gracefully during the fierce walk.