Aaron Marcus explains how feature film auditions differ from TV auditions: you get only short script excerpts called sides, so research the director's previous work to understand their style. He auditioned for M. Night Shyamalan by studying his films first.
Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I've been a full-time actor and a commercial model for nearly 3 decades. And so far I've been booked over 1,200 times. Uh, here is another quick tip for actors and models. It's part of the quick tip series. And today I want to talk with you about preparation for auditioning for a feature film. And it's going to be a little bit different than when you're auditioning for a TV show. One of the things that you have to keep in mind is Unless you are pretty well known, people aren't going to send you the entire script to read over. So what will happen is you will be receiving the sides, and the sides is the short portion of the script that you're going to be auditioning with. Sometimes you don't get it until you show up at the audition. Sometimes it is placed online. Sometimes you can get the sides emailed to you ahead of time. It can work a variety of ways, but the key thing to keep in mind is that You really aren't going to be given a tremendous amount of information about what is taking place in this film. Now, there's a lot that you can get from the sides, but there's also a tremendous amount that's unknown to you. So here's one of the things that I would highly recommend that you do. If you are going through an agent, you need to ask the agent who is directing this film. And if you aren't going through an agent and you find out about the audition some other way, that's still a key component for your preparation. The reason for that is because all directors have different styles, and what you want to do is be very familiar with the director's style. A perfect example is when I auditioned for M. Night Shyamalan for one of his films. The director, writer, producer— I did Sixth Sense, Lady in the Water, Village. He's a very, very talented guy. So I was, I was very familiar with his work when I went in to audition. I knew how I needed to portray this character. And so what you can do is, if you are not familiar with the director, go to IMDb.com. It's Internet Movie Database. And do a search for the director, find out some of the movies the director has done, and then you can just go to YouTube and get clips. So that way you can get a much better sense of the style of the director. That's my quick tip for auditioning for feature films. Please, if you are on YouTube and you're seeing this, give it a thumbs up. If you're watching this on my facebook.com/howtomodel page, like it. Feel free to share it with other people. And also, if you would like, I have great free information on my website, howtomodel.com. You will get 3 free videos just by visiting the site and putting in your information. You'll learn how to put together a great headshot, how to market yourself, how to find an agent. It's great. And, you know, spend some time on the website as well. It's howtomodel.com. You can read about my online private mentoring programs as well as upcoming workshops. I'm Aaron Marcus. Hope you enjoyed it. Looking forward to talking with you soon. And if you have any tips or any topics that you would like me to discuss, just post it on my facebook.com/howtomodelpage. I'm Aaron Marcus. See you later.
