Aaron Marcus shares two wild promotional acting gigs: handing out branded rubber bananas in a monkey costume at a tech event, and playing a patient with fake blood and IV lines at a medical convention for three days. He explains why actors should take these jobs for the pay and experience, but skip ones that conflict with your values.
Hey, you won't believe what I did for this insanely unusual acting job. Hey, and watch this video until the end and you'll get a link to a great bonus video. Took a bad acting class? Next time, ask this question. Okay, let's get started. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Look, I've taken on lots of different kinds of jobs— TV shows, TV commercials, feature films, independent films, student films, training films, commercial modeling work, voiceover jobs. And I've done, I don't know, a couple of promotional jobs in my lifetime. And if you're not really familiar with promotional work It can run the gamut from standing on a corner and handing out candy bars to help promote a new product. I remember one time I was at an event and— oh my gosh, I can't believe I did this— many years ago. It was, it was some kind of tech event at a big convention center, and there was another actor who I was friends with, and I We were dressed up in a monkey outfit. The good news— and actually, this isn't what I'm going to tell you about, but it just popped in my head and I wanted to share it with you. Fortunately, you couldn't see our face, which made me feel much more relaxed about doing this job. And we were handing out kind of rubbery bananas that had the logo and website and phone number For a company. And so they asked us, you know, as people are walking in, please give them, you know, the banana. And at one point we just started— we just decided to start playing around and we were like jumping up and down and pounding on our chests and making noises. But anyhow, that was an interesting kind of promotional work job. But here's the one that I want to tell you about. There was a big event. I assume they have them annually. It's the I don't know if they call it the kidney convention. It's, it's all about kidneys. And so many different types of medical people are, are there and, and tech people as well, people who create products that help people. So, so I got hired and they asked me if I wanted to do it. And the pay actually was pretty good. It was 3 days of work and It also was pretty close to where my daughter was living. So I got a chance to stay with her and then go back after work. So for this job, there are hospitals being represented there. There are companies that manufacture different types of equipment. So for this particular one, I was someone who was supposed to be getting a transfusion, and they had me kind of lying down in a chair that reclines of same type if you're getting a transfusion. So they had IVs going into— they didn't really stick needles in my arms, but it looked like it. And then they had a tube and they had put some kind of red stuff inside it so it looks like blood. And I have a blanket on me. And they said to me ahead of time, they said, look, we want this to be realistic. And basically people were able to see the machinery. There were certain types of devices that were attached to it that I didn't understand it, that made it special. And They said, we want this to be very realistic. And I said, well, so what do patients do? Because I, fortunately, I don't know what takes place there. And they said, it could be anything. If you want to read, you can read. If you want to just sit and talk on your phone, you can do that. I said, hey, sometimes people just fall asleep. And they said, whatever you want to do is fine. So So at the very beginning, and this was— it was like a 3-hour stretch, if I'm not mistaken. And then you would take a— I don't know, like a 30-minute break. Somebody else would come in. And so it was a fairly long day. And so first I just kind of sitting there and I'm just taking in everything. It was pretty noisy, lots of different booths next to me. And then at one point I thought, well, maybe I'll just close my eyes. And it was, it was almost meditative. It was really, it was great. And my eyes were closed and I'm just hearing all these sounds. It was fascinating to me. And then at one point somebody came over and this actually, this happened a couple of times over the 3 days. And the person kind of poked at me, and, and I, you know, opened my eyes. I was kind of startled, and she said, oh my God, you're, you're real! You're real! I said, yeah, yeah, I'm real. She didn't know whether it was a dummy, whether it was a live person. She didn't know what was going on. So anyhow, it was a great experience. Don't plan on doing it anytime soon again, but Look, in this industry, you never know where one job might lead to the next. As it turns out, it didn't happen, but the people who hired me, they liked working with me, and they said, look, I have a feeling we're going to be only hiring local people for our other events, but I definitely want to keep you in mind. And they were doing shows around the country. And I thought, boy, that could be interesting. And I did mention to him, I said, well, hey, if you ever do any training films, you know, to help sell the product, let me know. I said, I'd love to do it. And they said, oh yeah, we'll definitely do that. So like I said, honestly, nothing ever happened with that. But you just never know where you might meet some interesting people and you might get some new experiences. And now if I ever had a role where I was getting a transfusion, I know exactly what I'm doing. And so I'm not saying don't ever turn a job down. Yeah, absolutely. You should definitely, if it's something that you don't want to do, you don't believe in, it goes against your beliefs, or it's not paying enough, whatever it is, for whatever reason. Yeah, sometimes you want to turn something down. But I also like the idea of just opening myself up and experiencing new things. And you just never know. where it might take you. Plus, hey, like I said, it still paid pretty well, so I was very happy about that. So hey, I'm just curious, if you ever did any kind of promotional work or had an unusual acting job, please share it on the channel so we can learn from you. And, and don't forget, share the link, uh, with fellow actors so that, you know, we can continue to build this channel with lots of people sharing information and we can learn from each other. Hey, if you— and I'm actually, I'm about to give you the link for the bonus video, but if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, subscribe, click the notification bell. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up, that's always helpful. I did promise I was going to share the link, it's right up here. If you ever took a bad acting class Hey, next time, uh, ask this question. I think it will be really helpful to you. And if you ever experience bad acting class, please share that information as well on the channel. And look, you don't have to leave the instructor's name or the organization or the name of the company. That's not necessary, but just share the experience with us. Anyhow, I'm Aaron Marcus. This was a really fun video to share with you, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.
