In this solo video, veteran actor Aaron Marcus (40+ years of full‑time experience) explains two practical business strategies that acting schools typically omit. He recounts being asked by the top casting director in his state to audition for an ultra‑low‑budget feature paying only $300 for an eight‑hour day, a project far from his home. Despite the low pay, he accepted for two reasons: (1) to re‑introduce himself to the influential casting director and remind her of his look and skills, and (2) to capture fresh, compelling material for his film/TV reel, expanding the range of characters he can showcase. Marcus emphasizes that such smart, sometimes counter‑intuitive decisions—prioritising long‑term career benefits over immediate financial gain—are essential for actors but are rarely taught in acting classes. He invites viewers to share their own business‑savvy choices, subscribe, and visit his website for further resources.
Chapters
Great acting schools will teach you how to be a great actor, but they're not designed to teach you how to get acting work. But these 2 strategies will. A casting director asked me to audition for an ultra-low-budget feature that only pays $300 for an 8-hour day. Now, normally, if it's a regular feature, it's $1,246. Now, normally, at this point in my career, I would not be Auditioning for a $300 project, plus they're shooting— it's about 2 and a half hours away from where I live. But there are 2 reasons why I decided to do the audition. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I've been a full-time actor for over 40 years, and these 2 strategies have been really helpful to me, and I want to share them with you. This casting director is the biggest casting director in her state. She pretty much casts every feature film and television show that comes through. So the first reason for auditioning for it is because I haven't worked with her for a while, and I can tell you there is no better way to introduce yourself to a casting director or remind the casting director that you're still around, what you look like, what your skills are than to actually audition and have it submitted to the, to the CD. So I thought this would be a really great way for me to reintroduce myself and to have her see my audition. Now, the second reason for accepting the audition is because I always am looking for great material to update my film and TV reel. And this happened to be a role that I'd never done before, and I was thinking, you know what, if— well, one, if I book and the scene looks good and it's an interesting scene, then this would give me an opportunity to add it to my reel and make my film and TV reel more interesting, showing a wider range of Of different kinds of characters that I can play. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, uh, subscribe, click the notification bell so you always know when I upload my weekly video. Uh, if you find it helpful, give it a thumbs up and please share the link with fellow actors. Sometimes in the acting world, it's just crucial that you make smart business decisions, even if at that moment it doesn't seem like it might be the greatest idea, especially financially. And I can tell you, I didn't come by this easily. It took me a long, long time, and I'm still learning new things that have helped me run my acting career. And I can also tell you, these are the kinds of things that I've never learned in all the acting classes that I've taken. These aren't the things that are discussed because I'm in an acting class to learn how to act. Hey, if you've ever made any smart business decisions that really helped your acting career, please share it here on the channel so that way we can learn from you as well. I did say I was going to share a link with you so you can see all the different reels that I have, and you can see it right here. If you ever have any follow-up questions, just go to howtoactandmodel.com. You can sign up to be on my email list and get a great free video there, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
