Aaron Marcus walks through a casting where the director gave almost no direction. He had to guess the tone from the client's brand, an investment company, and chose to play warm and successful. He argues actors should make a choice rather than stand there blank, even if it might be wrong.
Hi, this is Aaron Marcus, and I wanted to share with you an interesting experience I had at a go-see in New York a couple days ago. We have to make some quick decisions sometimes, and for this one, what was difficult about the go-see was that we were given very little information. I walked in there and, as I always do, I asked, so what are you looking for? You know, so I'm trying to figure out what kind of emotions I need to bring up, what kind of looks and expressions I want to give to the camera. And And what the casting director said was, nothing, just look at the mark on the wall. And that was it. And she's taking pictures from many different angles, close-ups, full body shots, half body, three-quarter body shots. And there were absolutely— there was absolutely no emotion that was being asked for. So what I decided to do was instead of just giving a blank stare, I was thinking this is for an investment company and I'm just Guessing they probably want somebody who is a happy client, somebody who's doing well with the investment company. So I created this nice, warm, friendly, fuzzy kind of feel, and that's what I decided to show. So even though I really wasn't given very much, I made a decision as to what to show. And so— And, you know, that's something that I think is really important to do. Make a decision. And it might not be right, it might be right, who knows? But at least you're trying something and you're giving them some kind of interesting look. So certainly at all go-sees, you want to try to get the right information, show them the expression they're asking for, and if you can't get that, then you make the decision on your own. So, Eddie, I look forward to talking with you again next week. If you have any questions at all, Always feel free to get in touch with me at facebook.com/howtomodel, and also you can email me at aaron@howtomodel.com.
