Aaron Marcus gives candid advice on breaking into acting and commercial modeling, stressing there are no guarantees on bookings or earnings. He covers effective headshots, self-marketing, finding agents, and the importance of unpaid early experience and hard work.
Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and if you're watching this on my YouTube channel, make sure you click the subscription button and the little bell, the notification button, and that way every time I upload a new video, you'll be notified. So I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have said this. I'm not sure. Actually, I am sure. I take that back. Um, as you know, I do a lot of private online mentoring, and if you don't, uh, you can learn more about it, howtoactamodel.com/mentoringprogram. And this gives me an opportunity to work with people from literally around the world. And somebody contacted me recently about working with them. They're interested in breaking into both the acting and the commercial modeling industry. And one of the questions, uh, that the person asked me was How long will it be before I start booking jobs, and how much money can I make? And as a business person, I probably could have said a lot of different things to help ensure that she would sign up and work with me, but I just can't run my business that way. And so I was just very honest with her and I said, look, there is absolutely no way of knowing if you are ever going to book a job, and there is absolutely no way of knowing how much you, you're going to earn. It's just impossible. I mean, I've been doing this for over 33 years. I don't know that I'm ever going to book a job again. I mean, I assume I am. My family certainly hopes that I, that, that I do. And as far as how much money you can make, there's just no way of knowing. So, you know, I just made it really clear to her that there are no guarantees. The only thing that I can guarantee her is that I will give you the information that you need to have in order to give yourself your best chance for success. You know, I can teach you how to put together an effective headshot, one that will grab the attention of industry professionals. I can teach you how to put together powerful commercial photos that both art and creative directors at ad agencies and photographers are going to want to see. I can teach you how to market yourself, you know, and try to get work on your own. I can help you find local agents who will be a good fit for you. I mean, those are things that I can guarantee. I can teach you How to do that. But as far as knowing how quickly it's going to be before you book a job or how much money can you make, that's just impossible. And there's just no way in the world that I would ever even hint at doing that. And it's the same way I can tell you with my book. My book is How to Become a Successful Actor or Model. It's helped lots of people. Uh, get work in the industry, but I make it really clear, there are no guarantees. You know, there's no way of knowing, and a lot of it has to do with you. You know, how hard are you willing to work at putting together the right materials? How willing are you to study and practice and get out there and get experience, even for projects that are free? They don't pay anything, student films, or working with some photographers and doing some test shots when you're first getting started. I mean, are you willing to do that? Because to think that you're just going to walk out of your house and be discovered and make millions of dollars and star in a feature film, I'm not saying it's impossible, but I bet a tremendous amount of money that it's not going to happen that way. And look. The people who you see, primarily the people who you see who are having tremendous success, are people who have worked incredibly hard and continue to study and continue to work their craft. So anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you. If you've ever had experiences with, you know, people promising you things— you know what, maybe you shouldn't do that one. I take that one back. Don't leave comments about that. But if there is something that you you have learned that has been helpful to you having success, that would be great. Please post it below. And the reason why I just, you know, decided not to do it, I don't want to create a negative site here. I don't want, you know, people to slam other people. It's just not how I like to do things. What I much prefer is, hey, let's share information here that will be really helpful to you, you know. So anyhow, that's what I wanted to do. Really quickly, If you haven't done this, I'd love to have you be a part of this acting and modeling channel. And so I would greatly appreciate if you would support it. There's a PayPal link and you can simply go there and make a donation and help support this channel. That would be wonderful. Whatever amount is good for you would be wonderful. Greatly appreciated. So I'm Aaron Marcus. If you have Any questions that you want me to answer in a future quick tip video, just send it to me, um, either at aaron@howtoactandmodel.com or just leave a comment below, and I'll see if I can do that for you. Anyhow, it was fun talking with you, and I'll talk to you— I'll talk with you again soon. See ya. Bye. Bye.
