Extra Work or Background Acting Work - PAY!

Pay varies from job to job for extra or background acting jobs. But below is a general breakdown of what you should expect from TV, Film and Commercial background acting work.

Daily rates for extra work in the UK range from about £60 - £100 a day for TV and Film, but if overtime is required then you could get more. Do what the director says and you could be invited back for more scenes and even lines.

For Commercial background acting you may recieve slightly more pay due to the nature of work, look more in the region of £75 - £110 due to the nature of their budgets.

These numbers are based on an average 8 hours of paid work, so adjust accordingly if you are expected to be working longer.

Stand in Work

A stand-in actor in Film or Television is a person who takes the place of an actor before filming, often for technical reasons such as lighting. Stand in actors get more pay and more responsibility than extras. These jobs are either booked through referral or through casting agents and agencies. You can often get listed with casting companies if you fit a similar description of the character. Similar hair, stature, build, and previous experience factor in whether or not you can be booked for this. Stand-In work requires you to step in for the principal talent for the purpose of setting up the cameras, lighting and other equipment. You may or may not be required to read lines. Stand-In’s do not appear on camera, but sometimes as a good will gesture gain small parts and often small speaking parts with a couple of lines for when filming starts properly. An IMDB credit, some easy money, and some great exposure and experience is a huge benefit of taking part in Stand-In work.

Bill Cosby once needed a Stand-In for The Cosby Show. A certain unknown individual called Samuel L. Jackson was hired to stand in his place. I think this shows there is nothing wrong with being a stand in actor, and its a great way to gain some good experience and exposure in acting.

First Acting Job - Tips for Extras

It is likely that your first paid acting job will be as an extra or a 'Background Artist'.

Extras work is advertised quite widely and can be found reasonably easy, as long as you know where to look - I will be writing an article shortly on where to best find work.

First however, you should prepare for what you will need on your first big day in the world of acting, here's a handy checklist of the things to think about taking when working as an extra:

Here is a list of things to bring with you to set:
1. A Pen or Pencil - you will have to fill out some forms.
2. Garment Bag - Bring your wardbrobe in this, It keeps your clothes wrinkle-free.
3. A Book - You may have plenty of time to kill.
4. Chair - Many extras bring their own little chairs. Some sets are not set up properly and you will need to sit.
5. Mobile Phone - Always a neccessity, just make sure to keep it on silent!
6. Sunscreen - If its a sunny day you will need to protect your skin, and also not look like a beetroot on the next day of filming!
7. Light Jacket - Many studio sets are set at cold temperatures. Even if it is 90 degrees outside, inside it can and will be 50. Especially on the days you don’t bring this item.
8. Make-up/Hair Products - For the ladies, mostly. Hair and Makeup crew may touch you up, but you are responsible for looking the way you were casted.

Hope this helps :)

Start Acting

Acting is not one of those fields that require a degree. Your PhD in Acting (I know someone who has one) isn't going to make a stick of difference in a film/TV casting session EXCEPT for the level of confidence it can give you (more about that later). I know one or two very successful actors who've never taken an acting class in their lives. HOWEVER, this is rare and NOT recommended. In my opinion, finding a good coach and taking some part-time classes is essential; and a degree isn't necessary because you never graduate!

Think of it this way: professional athletes; do they graduate "athlete school" and then never practice again? No. That's because they need to keep their skills sharp and their body fit for every single game they play until they retire. Acting is surprisingly similar to professional sports, and an acting class is like practice or training.

How do you weed out the good classes from the scams?

I offer information on this topic because I feel acting classes are the "front lines" of actor support and development. It's also where actors get ripped off the most.

Every reputable class should let you audit (sit in the room and watch) for free or a nominal fee. Workshops, or "Weekend Intensives", are more expensive to audit, but my advice is to leave the workshops alone until you've taken regular classes for at least a year. A one-month class consisting of two classes a week (a standard, for whatever reason) should cost around $400/month. Workshops shouldn't be too much more, either. If a class costs a LOT more, ask them why - and it better be a good reason. If a class doesn't let you audit, WALK AWAY.

Experience is also very important, gaining some experience will help to shatter nerves later on in your career, and will also do a lot of good for your CV. Look for extras work to get used to life on set in films and on TV. This experience is invaluable in giving an insight into what being a real actor is like.

Doing this also gives good opportunities to meet more experienced actors and gain advice and contacts. Casting agencies are useful in gaining extra work and small acting roles. My personal favourite and one where I have gained acting and extra jobs before is at http://www.fame4anyone.com/. They have a good selection of jobs and little competition for them. They also promote you as an actor quite well I have found.

First things first: Do you want to become an Actor?

My school drama teacher told me, "If you can think of anything else besides acting that you can do for a living and be happy, do that." Now I'm not going to whine and tell you how tough it is to be an actor so I can feel like some creative martyr. Acting's a great job. The best, in fact. But I am glad my teacher told me what he did, because what acting isn't, is stable.

The major trials I find with being an actor, especially in the beginning, is the feeling, and the financial consequences, of rejection. If there was anything else I could have done for a living and been happy, I would've jumped ship long ago for something that paid more (at least more regularly). The money's good when you work, but you can go for months without getting anything. If you have regular bills to pay, this is a major problem. Your life turns into an exercise in debt management. If there were anything else I could have done, I would have given up after 20 unsuccessful auditions thinking, "I'm not good enough for this sh*t."

There are lots of other reasons to not choose acting as your career, and only one good reason to do it: you can't think of anything else you can do for a living and be happy. Well there's one other reason: your career was handed to you on a silver platter when you got picked out in a mall for a lead role in a huge feature film and you won an Oscar for it. We do hear of stories like that but the chances are akin to winning the lottery. Just like global economic demography, 1% of the actors make 95% of the money.

So the first thing I say when people ask me how to "get into acting" is: Find out how into it you really are. It's hard work. It takes a lot of dedication, perseverance, patience and luck.
Go take an acting class and see if you're craving more every time you leave. Imagine if you'd never ever get paid to act, would you still want to do it?

Hello

Hi, my name is Richard, welcome to my blog.

With this blog I hope to help actors and aspiring actors of all kinds to further their careers and improve their acting abilities with sound advice gathered from my experiance and a range of other information sources.

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More to come...