Introduction

      The thought of third year and the pressures of making my debut into the industry has been at the back of mind throughout the entirety of second year. As a result of this, over the past year  I have been compiling as much research on agents, casting directors, headshots as well as other aspects of the industry. This portfolio is a display of the successes and things I have learned, as well as the battles and struggles I faced. It can be extremely nerve wracking doing so much thorough research and going into depth about the industry I am going to be dedicating my life to, however, I felt the more information I could retain, the better and more confident I would feel going into third year. 

Headshots

      When searching for who I wanted to do my headshots, I knew it was vital I found people who looked similar to me. Being mediterranean, the tone of my skin fluctuates a lot depending on when I am home or back in England. I kept this in mind when choosing which date I would want to book my headshots for as depending on how soon after visiting home I would do them, the darker or lighter my skin tone would be. This also affected which colours the clothes I would wear would be. Ultimately I have decided to have a wide range of colours for my headshots such as light blue and yellow, as well as red and brown. I have not cemented these colours just yet, however they’re definitely strong contenders as I feel they flatter my complexion. A photographer I really liked was ‘Tom Barker’. The reason as to why he stood out to me was the darker, moodier tones to his photos as I felt this fit my vibe and typecast well. As well as this, he is based in Manchester therefore the commute there and back would have been quite simple. However, upon looking at the people he has photographed in the past, I struggled to find people that looked like me. All of his photos felt one dimensional and this didn’t make me confident that I would be able to showcase my full range of typecast. I disregarded Tom Barker as an option however I knew from there, I had a clearer and more specific understanding of what qualities I wanted my headshots to represent. 

      I then discovered ‘Michael Carlo’, as one of the 3rd years used him for their headshots. I was completely drawn to his photos as not only did he have the darker moodier tones I was looking for, but the people he had photographed were much more diverse. I felt his photography was extremely interesting and he would be able to capture myself authentically. A few of the people in my year have expressed they are interested in doing their headshots with ‘Akta’ as they have a plan where you can get your headshots done for £70. Although this felt like a no-brainer considering the price, I didn’t feel their type of photography fit me or would portray me in an accurate way that is true to me and my casting type as their headshots are generally quite bright. Due to this I did further research into Michael Carlo and learned that his student package costs £290 for 5 images. Although this is quite pricey, I was aware this is the average price for headshots however, he is also based in London therefore I had to take into account the added cost of travel. Luckily I had spoken to my parents prior to this and they agreed they would cover the cost. I am extremely grateful and aware of my privilege to be able to have my headshots done with the photographer I wanted without having the added weight of needing to save up for it. 

CV

      I wasn’t too confident on creating my CV as I had never done one before. As well as this,  I have not been in any acting projects outside of what we have done at the conservatoire. This left me feeling quite insecure when tackling creating my CV as I felt I didn’t have much to show and didn’t want my lack of experience to be detrimental to my image. However, upon deeper thought and reflection, I realised instead of focussing on what I lack, I need to focus on what I can contribute, such as what makes me stand out, and what I can offer to the table such as being from Gibraltar and the fact that I am fluent in Spanish. I knew I could also include the fact that I am a classically trained dancer as well as the fact that I play guitar. Shifting my focus from pointing out what I was lacking, to what can I offer gave me the confidence to create my CV.

       I knew I wanted to make my CV as striking as possible upon first glance. In order to stand out, I made sure to highlight my headshot, as well as my unique qualities that set me apart from the majority. 

Industry research 

      I didn’t really know where to begin my research. It all felt extremely overwhelming and every time I would try to sit down at my computer and begin to explore, I would find myself having no idea what I was looking for. This was a sign that before I started to choose which agencies I was interested in, I needed to have a clear idea as to what I wanted from them, as well as who I wanted to be as an artist, and what I wanted to represent. I toyed around with the idea that I may want to be signed to a talent agency instead of an acting agency in order to broaden my opportunities as being a dancer has been a major part of my life. I have a friend that is a few years older than me that used to dance at my former dance school. She has found great success in the dance industry being part of major projects such as ‘Wicked’ and ‘Bridgerton’. I looked into ‘Simon and How’ which is the agency she is signed to, this company has many respectable agents that seem to offer many valuable opportunities to their clients. This was the first agency I jotted down as an option to invite to the third year showcase.  Although this piqued my interest, I didn’t feel capitalising on my dance skills was a necessity, as ultimately I know I want to be an actor, and I want to push myself as much as possible in the acting industry. I don’t want dance to get in the way of my full potential as an actor. That being said, it wasn’t an option I disregarded as if the correct opportunity came along, I would be open to exploring that if it felt right. 

      Unfortunately being born and raised from such a small place, I don’t really have many industry connections, and yet the few I do have are part of the dance world rather than the acting one. Not having a large solar system in terms of connections to the acting industry made me feel as if I am behind all of my peers. It is easy to get caught up in the obstacles I have to overcome considering my lack of experience in acting, however, if there is something I have learned at my time so far studying at Leeds Conservatoire, is to find what works for me individually, and not compare my journey to others. Although I may not have many personal connections to the acting industry, one thing that is for certain is my knowledge on actors that are in work that inspire me. This led me to do thorough research on the acting agencies of some actors that have similar careers to where I want to begin my career post graduation. I knew from the get go that looking into the agencies of extremely renowned actors would not be beneficial as realistically, I would not be signed to any of them (for now at least). The first actor I looked into was Tanya Reynolds who has been in projects such as ‘Sex Education’ on Netflix, as well as Miriam Battye’s ‘Scenes with Girls’ which was performed at the Royal Court. These are two projects that wholly fit the type of work I aspire to be in in the future. I discovered she is signed to ‘A & J Artists’ and her agents are ‘Honor Colt’, ‘Jo McLintock’ and ‘Hannah Barker’. I found that ‘A & J Artists’ are one of the UK’s leading boutique agencies, however, they aren’t the biggest agency agency. That being said, it was definitely an agency that peaked my interest as the jobs their actors are getting interested me. Therefore, I jotted this agency down as an option to invite to the third year showcase. 

        I discovered a few more agencies through this method of researching who represented different actors and decided on the ones I would be keen on inviting to the showcase next year. These agencies are ‘The Curtis Brown Group’, ‘Michelle Blair Management’, ‘The Artists Partnership’, ‘United Agents’, ‘Artists Rights Group’, ‘42 Management and Production’, ‘Conway van Gelder Grant Ltd’, ‘Hmailton Hodell’, ‘Markham and ‘Froggatt & Irwin’.

       My sister introduced me to Amy Sudden who she studied at university with. Notably, she has been in projects such as ‘The Cruciable’ at the National Theatre, ‘Casualty’ on BBC, as well as is currently in ‘Single White Female’ directed by Gordon Greenberg. I looked into ‘Esta Charkham Associates’; which is the agency she is signed to, and came to discover it is yet another boutique agency. I think it is easy to get caught up in the glamour of what the acting industry appears to be. It is easy to be tempted to only look into the major successful acting agencies that extremely successful actors are represented by. Although I believe it is vital to be able to back yourself and have big goals, it is also important to be realistic. Because of this I decided to jot this agency down as another option as although they are a boutique agency, many of their clients have found great success.  

      A tip given to us in one of our Artistic development lessons was to look into the casting directors of different projects that are similar to the work we hope to be cast in. The first Casting director I discovered through doing this was Jessica Ronane as she was the casting director for ‘Stranger Things; The last shadow’ which I saw last year at the Phoenix Theatre. The next casting director I discovered through this method was Kharmel Cochrane, who was the casting director for the Netflix series ‘The End of the Fucking World’. Another way which I found was extremely useful for finding different casting directors was through social media. I found that it is very easy to go down a rabbit hole of finding different casting directors after finding one that has cast projects I am interested in. Through this I came across and was introduced to casting directors such as ‘Jim Arnold Casting’, ‘Alessi Hartigan Casting’, ‘Stuart B Casting’, ‘Nanw Rowlands Casting’, ‘Jina Jay Casting’, ‘Jill Green Casting’, ‘Kate Ringsell Casting’, ‘KVH Casting’, as well as many more. Seeing how efficient it is to make new discoveries about agents, casting directors, open casting calls etc through social media, I knew I was going to need to use it as a tool when it came to my career. I therefore have created an Instagram account using my professional name. I thought about dedicating this account solely to acting purposes, and then keeping my personal account private however, I then came to the conclusion that being an actor can be quite a personal and subjective job, although I respect actors who prefer to separate their work from their private lives, I personally believe that if a casting director were to come across my social media, I would want them to know me as a person, as well as an actor, as I have learned that being my truest self and staying authentic is what will get me to where I want to be in my career. 

Biography

I am quite a confident person. I wanted this to show in my Biography however, I struggled with the limited word count as I felt I wasn’t given enough space to sell myself without coming across as arrogant or cocky. I think it can be difficult to display confidence as the idea of being humble can be seen as more appealing however, in an industry that is so competitive, I have found it is vital to be able to back yourself, whilst also staying true to yourself. As well as this, I made sure to capitalise on the fact that I am Gibraltarian as that is one of the main qualities that sets me apart. 

Summary 

Prior to 2nd year, I had my mind set on after graduation, primarily working on screen. I think the reason for this was due to not having much prior acting experience before coming to drama school, therefore most of my acting knowledge, as well as why I fell in love with the art of acting was through watching film and TV. Whether it’s due to watching more theatre, or simply working on my stage acting technique, I have reached the conclusion that I am quite fond of the idea of working in theatre, just as much as screen. I think one of the most pivotal moments in 2nd year that made me reach this conclusion was during our Shakespear block. I did not expect to enjoy Shakespeare as much as I did. I felt I learned and improved so much during our acting lessons with Esther, whether it was working on embodiment of our characters, to character relationships, to unpicking the language of Shakespeare’s writing. Prior to this block, I didn’t feel that Shakespeare was the most authentic form of acting. Shakespeare is such a renowned playwright and is known and performed exceedingly often, and because of this, there are many portrayals of Shakespeare’s work that do not do the writing justice. Being in control of portraying a Shakespearian character made me realise how authentic Shakespearian plays can be.

Moreover, I feel that I have tremendously improved on my voice technique. Working on voice technique is quite a tedious and somewhat frustrating thing to do as I believe it is something that simply improves over time. The more you work on your voice, the more it will improve in the long run. However, It can take a while to see or notice any major improvements. I think I had the tendency to feel a bit disheartened when it came to voice as I wasn’t improving as quickly as I wanted to. Nonetheless, looking back as to where I was at the start of the year, compared to where I am now, I can see how much I have improved. Working on actioning with Chris in our voice lessons was really beneficial for me and is something I will surely adopt into my acting process.

Being bilingual is a major part of my identity. Being in work where I am able to speak in Spanish and not only utilise this skill, but also represent who I am and where I come from, is something that really interests me. Unfortunately, I accepted the fact that studying at a drama school in England would not allow me to fulfil this desire, or so I thought. During our scene study lessons, I suggested the idea of working on a scene in Spanish to Claire. Luckily, she was thrilled by this idea and encouraged me heavily to do it. Although no one else spoke Spanish, Miles offered to do a scene with me. This meant a lot to me, as I genuinely thought I was never going to be able to work on my acting in Spanish. We went on to perform a scene from Lorca’s ‘Yerma’, and I truly had such a great time doing it. This reassured my desire of working on Spanish projects in the future. 

I also feel that I have improved on my movement technique this year. I have had quite a complicated relationship with movement since the start of my actor training as being a trained dancer, I have always had the tendency to approach movement from a dancer’s perspective. I feel as of this year I have consciously tried to tackle this predicament and have come to the realisation that in order to overcome this, I need to consciously make the decision to approach movement from an actors perspective as being so used to dancing, if I don’t consciously make this decision, my body automatically starts to move like a classically trained dancer, which in turn restricts my freedom of movement. 

Conclusion 

        I struggled for a while to think about what I want to accomplish in third year as it’s easy to put a lot of pressure on it. In terms of our third year shows, I know I ultimately don’t have a lot of control as to what the season is going to look like or what I will be cast as. It’s easy to get excited and caught up in the idea of getting a lead role, and this is something that I am definitely guilty of. I have often found myself getting worked up about how I may not receive a lead role, and how that would make me feel unaccomplished or not good enough. Although this is something that I am still struggling to come to terms with, I have also tried to adopt the mindset that I will give my all to whatever plays and roles that are given to me. I think one of the reasons I can find myself getting a little stressed over casting for next year is due to my casting in our American projects. We did ‘Our Town’ by Thornton Wilder and I was cast as one of the Stage Managers. I felt with this role I wasn’t able to display my skills to their full extent. In all honesty, I am quite fearful this may happen next year. However, I have learned to not stress over what I do not have control over, instead focus on what I do have control over, such as which scene I want to do for the showcase, and how I want to portray myself in front of agents and casting directors. All in all, although I am a little nervous for third year, I trust that all will work out the way it is supposed to as long as I stay true to myself.

Bibliography:

Tom Barker

Akta

Michael Carlo

Wicked 

Bridgerton 

Simon and How agency 

Tanya Reynolds 

Netflix Sex Education

Scenes with Girls 

A and J artists agency

‘Honor Colt’, honor@ajartists.com

‘Jo McLintock’ jo@ajartists.com

‘Hannah Barker’ hannah@ajartists.com

The Crucible national theatre

Casualty BBC

Single white female JAS Theatricals/ATG Productions/Gavin Kalin Productions

Esta Charkham Associates 

The Curtis Brown Group

Michelle Blair Management

‘The Artists Partnership’

‘United Agents’

‘Artists Rights Group’

‘42 Management and Production’

‘Conway van Gelder Grant Ltd’

‘Hmailton Hodell’

‘Markham’

‘Froggatt & Irwin’

Jessica Roanne 

The last shadow 

Kharmel Cochrane 

End of the fucking world 

‘Jim Arnold Casting’

 ‘Alessi Hartigan Casting’

 ‘Stuart B Casting’

‘Nanw Rowlands Casting’ 

‘Jina Jay Casting’

 ‘Jill Green Casting’

 ‘Kate Ringsell Casting’

 ‘KVH Casting’

‘Yerma’ Lorca

‘Our Town’ Thornton Wilder