How to get started in writing your acting resume

As an actor, one asks themselves...."how do I create the perfect resume?" Well, that is pretty subjective actually. There are a few questions I have for you first, like....are you just starting out, or are you a seasoned person who has a few projects under their belt?

Let's tackle the first question...if you are just starting out, you may tell me that you have no experience, so you have nothing to put on a resume. Oh contraire! Yes you do. Just think about this...have you ever been in a school play? Are you a social media influencer that creates content? Well, if so, then you have at least one thing to put on your resume, besides all of the usual subjects. You will need your full name, your age, and or the age range that you can play. You will need contact info, such as a phone number and an email. I will caution you as to the email. Don't use an unprofessional email like, partyanimal69@mail.com. Set yourself up a professional email, such as your full name/actor@mail.com. That way you look more professional, and people will take you a lot more serious. Also, at the bottom of the page, you want to put anything that you're skilled at. When it comes to this part, it can literally be anything. Anything from playing sports, singing, ability to play an instrument, literally...any skills that you have, put it down. As a rule of thumb, if you have been an extra in a film, you usually don't put that on an acting resume. BUT....if that's the only thing that you have done so far, heck, it's something right? As you get more and more roles, you can drop those "extra" roles off your resume, one by one. Before you know it, you will have a complete resume with several different acting roles on it. In the beginning you want to get as many roles as you can, even if it is an unpaid role, or a student project that you can work on. Check out your local colleges that offer a film program. There will ALWAYS be someone within that program who are looking for local talent. It is also a good idea to have a small picture of your headshot on your resume up in the top right corner. Back in the day, people use to staple their resume to the back of their headshot, but with today's technology, the possibilities are pretty cool. If you need any help with preparing your resume, just get ahold of us, and we will guide you every step of the way.

For the seasoned professional, you need to put your best foot forward. If you have done a lot of work, you don't want to have more that one page of a resume. People don't want to sit there and flip through several pages to see what types of roles that you have been in. They want one page that they can quickly look over. If you have a lot of role and productions that you have been a part of, you want to put the most recent one first, then work your way backwards. But, if you have some older impressive productions that you have done, then it is just fine to showcase those. You want to make sure that your resume stands out from the crowd. This involves things like the type of paper stock that you use, the color, not only the size of the font, but the style of the font. This reminds me of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, in that scene where he obsessed over his friends and the type of card that each one of them presented, questioning his own choice. This may seem trivial, but I promise you that it's not. As a casting director, I do pay attention to the little things that people do to make their resume stand out. Now, I am not by any means saying that the resume alone will get you the job, absolutely not, but sure as hell helps to stand out. Again, if you need any pointers, just get ahold of us, and we will set you in the right direction.