We have reached a milestone! I’m 100 days into my efforts to get myself back on Television screens so, like the president does after 100 days in office, I’m going to review my accomplishments and talk about the road moving forward. This has been a very exciting time and keeping the pressure on myself, in the form of these blog posts and the videos on my YouTube channel, have kept me from letting myself get lax or letting my focus drift too far.
Due to the fact that I have been working all day today I’m going to have to let the video speak for me.
We’re at the end of January and this post is for people who may not be subscribed to my YouTube channel. Here is the playlist for all of January. It is a bit light due to time commitments to survival jobs, but also to acting class and auditions, which are definitely on mission!
And here are November and December in case you are just learning about this for the first time.
There is a phrase that is a big part of my personal philosophy:
Get the suck out.
I stand by it, I practice it, and I throw it around freely regardless of situation or the people involved. It’s a relatively simple principal – if you are doing something allow yourself the time and space to get the suck out before you expect to be good at it. There’s an older phrase that essentially means the same thing, practice makes perfect, but get the suck out is more immediate.
I tried to make a video about it:
I’m still actually having trouble articulating exactly why this is so important – so maybe I’ll try to do a follow-up?
Still, my advice remains the same – give yourself permission to get the suck out. It doesn’t hurt to have to try something more than once.
I am writing this in the last hour of January 1st, 2016. These last two months have been a whirlwind mostly focused on my quest to become a working actor again epitomized by the Operation: Television’s Curtis Andersen series of videos on my YouTube Channel. Here’s the latest one from today:
And here are the links to the playlists for November and December, in case you want to catch up:
In addition, my friend Author Jeff Garvin and I are trying an experiment where we go through and read sections of our old high school journals. Yes, it’s exactly what you think:
Rene and I have big plans for this year! Keep your eye here for all the info!
Yesterday I posted this video for Operation: Television’s Curtis Andersen:
Today I would like to present the exercise I mentioned in that video to you as a way to help tackle any hurdles you might be facing in your career. You can use this technique for anything, not just entertainment. Sometimes everyone needs a way to find a solution.
The idea is based on the thought that we are able to find solutions to other people’s problems easier than we can for our own. There are a few different reasons for this, but I find that there’s a lot less at stake for me when I’m giving advice to someone. It’s a simple equation of A+B=Result. We know that for ourselves, but often times allow our insecurities and fear to get in the way of actually implementing the things required to achieve the result. So here’s an exercise designed to help bridge that gap:
Write down your problem, in detail.
Write down the things that you predict will interfere with achieving the desired result.
Hand this to a trusted friend or family member.
Have them read back the problem as if it is their own.
Offer solutions and have them write them down.
Deep down you probably know exactly what you need to do to get what you want, so use this trick to access the part of your brain that has the information.
Tell me in the comments if you give it a try and how it goes.
It’s December and with my editing skills starting to come back I thought it’d be fun to try a new opener for this month’s videos. I’m exploding onto the scene! I’m going to break up my journey by month so I don’t end up with a single crazy-long playlist. Both current playlists are down below as is the video I made yesterday!
One of the hyphenates that I place in my CV is that of consultant. Usually this takes form as an acting coach for my students, but on occasion I also do career and marketing consulting. No matter the topic I like to drive home the principal of the Authenticity Economy. If you are honest about yourself and your intentions people are attracted to that and are more inclined to want to work with you or buy from you. I like to say that people will buy you a lot quicker than they’ll buy what you’re selling.
This is not a new concept, people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Jeffrey Gitomer have been selling books and producing videos and live events based around this idea for years. It’s a simple idea, but one that people don’t necessarily come to on their own. In my experience people try very hard to please others. They look for expectations and then follow them to what they hope will be success. This can work, if it didn’t people wouldn’t do it, but it isn’t what sets people apart. Giving people what they want seems like a good idea, but here’s a fun fact: people (read: your audience) rarely know what they actually want. They have expectations, but rarely know what they truly desire. When you try to deliver “what the people want” you don’t necessarily share you or what you’re good at. There are times that these crossover, but that is rare – otherwise you’d see nothing but superstar office workers in every workplace. Shockingly people tend to be very nervous about sharing themselves, even though that is typically a powerful source of success.
This is where The Monkees come in. Just in case you didn’t know, The Monkees was a very popular television show in the 60’s that was designed to be an American version of the Beatles – something the network figured the audience wanted. They made the show, played it, and it FAILED! According to a documentary about the show, it was one of the lowest testing shows of all time. Normally this would spell the end of a television show, but the producers and network really felt they had something special. They had a great deal of confidence in the talent they had cast and felt that if the audience knew them as well as the production team knew them that they’d warm up to the show. All four Monkees were featured in screen tests that showcased their personalities, you can still see these on YouTube. These were played before the pilot for a new test audience and the change was immediate – the show was a success! People were ready to connect to these guys who they felt they knew as opposed to some mad capped actors that were being put upon them.
Connection is a major goal for actors. We need to connect to our audiences and to our fellow actors. In an esoteric way we need to connect to the the characters that we play. Connection cannot be made by “faking it” it needs to be genuine. It’s the difference between being just an actor and being a good actor.
The posts that I’m making on YouTube, my Operation: Television’s Curtis Andersen vlogs, are part of my effort to make a genuine connection to my audience. It’s the secret to YouTuber success that networks and old model entertainment professionals fail to recognize. Audiences are created and drawn to YouTubers because they connect to their authenticity, and likewise turn on those YouTubers that lie to them, even if it’s just the appearance of a lie.
I’ve watched a lot of people in Hollywood do their best to try and “give them what they want,” I’ve done it myself, and it never gets you where you want to be. I see this way too often with starlets who think their way into the industry is bikini photos and playing “the sexy baby” (30 Rock did a great episode on that). Can it work? Sure, but the shelf life is very short and the chance of you being able to leverage that into a different career is small.
That doesn’t mean authenticity is a golden ticket to success, people might not connect with you at all. Not much you can do about that. But if they do then it is much easier to maintain.
Do you have questions about The Monkees Effect? Ask them in the comments.
My name is Curtis Andersen and I have been an entertainment professional for over 30 years.
I started working professionally when I was 8 years old and haven’t ever stopped, but some years were definitely better than others.
From eight through my mid-twenties I made my primary living as an actor, you can see a list of most of what I did at IMDb. But then in 2005 I thought I’d have more control over my career if I tried producing. It went fine, made some movies; sold some TV shows; and made a lot of music videos, but something was always missing. It was not creatively satisfying, at least not in the way acting is for me, and a majority of the job was hunting for financing. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried independent film financing, but I don’t recommend it. It takes a lot of time to get a “yes” and then there are a thousand ways that are beyond your control where that “yes” can suddenly turn into a “no.” In 2012 I lost the funding for three projects on the same day – it was the next six months worth of work – and I started thinking that being a producer was probably not the path I wanted to follow.
At the end of 2014 I was ready to be done with producing. I was very pleased to be a part of the first year of Fun Size Horror, but found myself having a lot more fun being in the shorts than being behind the scenes. That’s when the final decision was made – I needed to be a working actor again!
That being said, becoming a working actor in Hollywood, even when you were one for over 20 years, is not easy. It takes dedication and persistence and a lot of hard work. I’ve decided to chronicle my path back both here and on my YouTube channel. I’ve created a playlist of the videos I’m shooting, you can see it down below:
I’d love to hear your comments as this keeps going either here on the blog or on the videos.
Let’s see if we can make the nickname “Television’s Curtis Andersen” a reference to me in the present instead of the past.
