[CONTENT] A10 - Aaron Marcus - Headshot (Success Summit 2013)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] well hi and welcome back to this session of the acting and modeling success Summit with Aaron Marcus in this session Aaron is going to show us how to create a strong head shot Aaron Let's uh let's get started sounds great Joel hey let me start off by letting everybody know why you need a head shot first of all so the reason is it's because every time you go to an audition you're going to bring your head shot now I can also tell you that I've experienced at least in New York sometimes I will go to an audition they already have all my information in the computer and there is no need to hand in a head shot but typically Ty Al uh you do uh bring a head shot and hand it in casting director you also you're going to use a headshot if you're trying to get representation basically it's your business card and in some ways and I know this sounds a little bit odd but in some ways your head shot is even more important to you than your acting skills and the reason why I'm saying that is because if your head shot is really bad poorly con instructed doesn't represent you well really doesn't show people who you are or the types of areas that you should be submitted to you might not get in the door people might not look at you and so with all the skills in the world you might not have an opportunity to be seen so your head shot is really crucial to your acting career and just so that you know a lot of times commercial models will have their head shot on the front cover of their composite sheet so having said that and talking about the importance of head shots let me also tell you I hate doing head shots and I know you know for for somebody uh you know who's been making their living at this for over 27 years uh maybe I shouldn't be admitting that but really I dread doing head shots it's it's the kind of thing where if somebody says to me this is the character this is what we want this is what we're looking for that I can give you but when I am asked to show myself and create uh this image that I want to portray myself as in the world it makes me nervous it really does there's a lot of pressure and you know you're thinking well I'm spending a lot of money here I really want to make sure it works and I hope I look okay and so I I honestly I dread doing head shots so let me also continue here with sharing with you how to go about putting together a great head shot and just on a little bit of a side note let me also just mention when I was just talking about some of my you know nervousness uh with doing a headshot that's why it is crucial that you find a photographer who can relax you somebody that you trust somebody that you can rely on and actually we're gonna be talking with a headshot photographer uh in a little while his name's Joe Hansen and uh you you'll see the why I'm talking about the importance of finding somebody who can relax you so getting back to the structure of the head shot here's the key thing for a successful head shot there there are a number of keys but the first one is you have got to figure out how you want to present yourself to the world but probably guess even more important than that is how do people perceive you look I'd love to try to present myself as the leading man this greatl looking guy well the reality is I'm not and so if I try to create head shots using that kind of fantasy uh it's not going to get any work so what you need to do is figure out how people are seeing you what kinds of roles will you realistically be considered for um what kind of jobs are you going to get cast in and I know that there are a lot of actors who say look I'm very talented I can do anything well maybe you can but the reality is except for some of the Stars uh in the acting world we get pigeonholed and I know actors hate that word you know don't pigeon hold me I can do anything well the fact of the matter is whether you can or can't is kind of irrelevant what is relevant is who is going to cast you and how are they going to cast you you know for somebody like me I'm not going to be the head of a motorcycle gang you know and I get it I'm not the tough-looking guy um now it's not to say that every once in a while something uh might pop up that I will get that surprises me and and actually and I have gotten some of those every once in a while but for the most part I realize that I'm going to get cast as the doctor the lawyer I'm the real estate agent I'm the teacher I'm the scientist I'm the dad I'm the principal um the guy you like the guy you trust the guy you feel comfortable with the therapist the psychologist the psychiatrist the social worker I mean those are the areas and that's because people feel comfortable with me people will share information with me people see me as somebody who truly really loves helping other people and you know the crazy thing is whether that's true about me or not that doesn't matter either that's how I'm perceived those are the kinds of auditions that I go on and those are the PRI primarily those are the jobs I'm going to book and once again it's not to say I haven't done some others that are outside of of those areas that are really very far away from that that does happen sometimes but it's rare so some of the key things that you have to keep in mind is number one so know really what your strengths are use your strengths the other thing too is all the information that you're going to be giving out in your head shot it's all shooting out through your eyes your eyes are telling the story and I've seen tons of head shots of people who have these great smiles and their eyes aren't showing anything and part of the problem is sometimes people are not thinking during their photo session and what they do is the photographer might say okay let me see you know a big smile and they'll give a nice big smile but there was nothing going on in their brain a that was telling them why they should be smiling so when I am doing a headshot session I'm going to be thinking about people who I care about people who are meaningful to me and the reason for that is because like I said before I know what kinds of roles I'm going to be sent out for and it's the nice guy it's the you know everybody's nextdoor neighbor The Helpful person so I want to have this image shooting out of my eyes and this feeling of somebody you just really like this warmth this friendliness this approachability that's what I want to see happen and the way that I obtain that is by thinking of meaningful people in my life and that's what you have to do you've got to be thinking during your photo session so the couple other really key elements are you've got to make sure that your wardrobe really enhances your image you do not want people staring at it and if people are staring at your clothes and somebody says hey I love that shirt love that blouse that sweater is incredible those earrings are very interesting that's a problem that means people are not looking at you are distracting them and they're looking at other things so essentially your wardrobe should be like nice wallpaper you want people to um not stare at the Wardrobe but it helps create an image just like when you walk into a room you're not going to look at the wallpaper but it helps create a feel for the room the other thing too is background I mean sometimes people really like the idea of shooting in these gorgeous places outside and the problem is I've looked once again I've looked at lots of head shots and sometimes I'll look at the photo and I'll say wow those trees are gorgeous I love those flowers and the mountains in the background I mean they're they're they're just you know beautiful well see it's a great picture but it's not a good headshot because I'm looking at other things so those are a couple of basic elements that you absolutely need to be thinking about you've got to create this this warmth especially if it's a commercial headshot because in a commercial headshot they want people who are going to be representing a company somebody selling a product so they want that friendliness and that approachability and you've got to make sure that the background is not distracting people you've got to make sure that the Wardrobe is not distracting people in any way and look into the lens of the camera so what I'd like to do here is I want to show you a couple of different head shots I mean I've done tons and tons of head shot and um but and so I'm G to go back to some older ones and just kind of walk you through them and tell you about why I did things a certain way what worked what didn't work and what you might uh want to consider doing to help make sure that your next head shot session is a great one so here here's a head shot and what happened here was I had uh a head shot that was getting me a lot of work a really nice strong commercial head shot and then what I found was I was only being considered for you know the straight regular nextdoor neighbor kind of guy and I wanted to try to get more Comm uh more quirky kinds of head shot so I put together kind of a quirky one and then I was getting a lot of auditions for real charactery kinds of roles which was great it's exactly what I wanted then what I found was I pretty much was only being considered for quirky rolls that was the head shot that I was using that was the head shot that agents were sending out for me so I decided I wanted to make a change my look changed a little bit so uh before it looked you know really much different and and by the way just on a little bit of a side note your photos absolutely have to look like you uh there's really nothing worse for well no I should take that back there are worse things you can do but it is essential that you look like your photo because you will be brought in for an audition quite often based on your head shot and I can tell you I was once in in a a casting director's office an actor walked in he was reading for a film and the casting director picked up this actor's head shot looked at it looked at the actor and said look I don't know who you are and then she held up the head shot and pointed said this is the guy that I brought in for the audition so when you can look like this photo come back otherwise don't ever come back in here again and what happened was the guy didn't update his photo and he looked quite a bit different it was years and years old old uh hair was very different weight was very different he he just looked like a different person so anyhow make sure you look like your headshot so when I was ready to put together another one I was just at the beginning stages of of looking a little bit different I decided I want to get get rid of the quirky stuff I want to go back to a straight looking head shot so what I did was I went to a number of Agents offices and I asked the agents could I take a look at some of the successful actors head shots who are in my category just to try to get a gauge of what these people were doing in their head shots and so today you can do that by going to agents websites you know and look at their photos now what you won't know that way is uh by going that route is who's successful uh and who's not so maybe if you do stop into an agent's office you can ask uh ask that question so saw this guy's head shot and it was great it really had grabbed my attention I looked at it and I thought this is straight you know it's very different from this quirky guy and what I did was I I asked the agent I said could I just borrow this because I I want to really use this idea and uh she said sure So took the head shot and I studied it I looked at the expression looked at the emotions looked at the Wardrobe looked at the lighting and I showed it to a photographer and I said can you do this and he said sure no problem so we went to the studio and shot it and what you're looking at is what I produced so I looked at it and I thought this is phenomenal exactly what I wanted and showed it to some agents and basically they all said the same thing they said you look dead and when I looked in the eyes they were right and the crazy thing is I did exactly what I wanted to do this was a very similar expression to this other guy and for whatever reason I guess it worked for him and the Agents that I showed it to they couldn't stand it they said if you know if you're auditioning for a dead body you'd be perfect uh otherwise uh I wouldn't use it so scrap that idea then I decided Well let go from Death uh and not quirky but somewhere in between and so I did this head shot which I really liked I liked the feel of it um and it it was really wonderful uh it really portrayed the image that I'm going after how I'm going to get booked you know the smart guy that you know and all this stuff and I showed it to some agents and they really liked it the problem was the stone work in the background was was just too noticeable for them and so I wound up making the decision even though everybody loved the shot technically it looked great they were concerned about the stone Archway in the background competing with my face and what I've always uh used as a guidelines for myself in the industry is I'm never going to send something out that I'm not really excited about you know now if you're anything like me you will see things in your photos that nobody else sees and you just zero in on them but anyhow I'd like to shot very much that was a concern and I decided you know what I'm gonna do this again so tried it again and basically that's what I came up with and I mean there are changes uh that I wish I had made during the session like I wish the background was a little bit different so I jumped off the page more and like I was saying I notice things that other people really don't look at and like for instance um if you look at my stomach area uh I kind of look like I thought I was in my first trimester um nobody else seemed to notice that but that's where my eyes went so those were the two changes uh that I wish I had made but uh I thought that was a very strong head shot I thought it put me in in the exact kind of category that people are going to cast me in and even though it wasn't 100% perfect uh I thought it was really good I was proud of it I was happy with it and I decided to use it so then once again when I started getting to a point where there was time to change this was another head shot that I decided to do and uh I thought it was okay um it I mean technically it was good just as far as my expression goes H I thought it was okay I thought the makeup artist in this particular one kind of sprayed my head a little bit too much and uh I liked it but I wasn't crazy about it so then the crazy thing was I wound up doing an ad and uh even though it breaks some of the rules for a head shot it's still it worked and I thought this was stronger than the one that I paid for now normally you don't want your ear holding up a brick wall uh I I don't recommend doing that but you'll notice that there's a lot there's life in the eyes there's the friendliness and I I I thought that I thought it was a really really nice shot and I decided to use it and I used it for a while and as you can see that as opposed to that this one really seems to say it more for me so then I decided I want to try one other kind of head shot for that time and I like this one I used it a little bit and then I thought it was time for another change and now personally I like shooting indoors only because I have more control my hair is not flying around my eyes don't close up uh you know they they don't squint as much and actually this was uh shot um outside as you can see here and um what what I did was I decided uh that I would shoot indoors first and then uh we went outside once I got something inside that I really liked and so when you look at this headshot it really it says everything that I want it to say the guy you like the professional the successful guy somebody you trust and you'll also you will notice uh there's nothing in the wardrobe that grabs your attention um nobody's going to you know look at my shirt and go wow look at that blue Oxford shirt that's really gorgeous um you know it's just it really does uh enhance my image without people staring at it and I like that uh I like that head shot very very much so anyhow I just wanted to uh to show these to you and by the way this was shot by Joe Hansen um who um I'm going to be interviewing uh a little bit later today and we shot this in New York so anyhow um the key things to remember for a headshot figure out the type um that you want to portray the kinds of images the kind of feelings and the emotions make sure you can do those in a believable way make sure that your wardrobe really doesn't stand out and it just really helps enhance your image and find a headshot photographer that you trust that you like who has good ideas and who can accomplish what you need to have done so anyhow that's what I wanted to share with you today about how to create a great head shot so Joel let me just ask are there any questions that people have yeah we have a few that I want to get to uh before we have to run to our next session um Heidi in Michigan asks uh really great question if this is my first head shot how many head shot would you recommend I get printed oh okay well uh Heidi you know when I first got I shouldn't say when I first got started but maybe I should say maybe about 10 years ago 15 years ago I would print probably about uh 2,000 uh head shot at a time somewhere between ,500 sometimes even 2,000 just because I have lots of agents and they all wanted tons of head shots to be able to send out technology technology has changed and now so much is being done online um I might print up 200 250 um max that's all I really need so in your situation you said you're just getting started I probably print up 50 you know I think that's really all that need and the you know the thing too is that it it's they're not that expensive anymore and so I I I would say if you're working with one agent well the best thing to do really is ask your agent you know if you're working with one agent just ask your agent how many do you need and the agent will let you know if you are uh just getting started you don't have representation you're going to be doing a mailing if you know how many people you're going to be mailing things out to then that will help you decide but you know if you're just getting started you have an agent you know I I would think that 50 head shot would be more than enough for you to you know be able to uh bring to auditions to if you want to do mailings and try to do some marketing on your own uh you'll have plenty of them and you can always reorder if you need to Great uh this one's actually a location based question Jan lives in Florida and she wants to know is it okay to get head shot taken in Florida if I'm thinking about moving to New York oh well you know it's it's always really helpful to have a head shot done in the style of the city where you're going to be working now there probably isn't a huge difference between let's say Atlanta and Nashville or Miami uh New York and La even though they have you know in in some ways they still do have separate looks but they're not as distinctive as they used to you know in LA on the west coast you will find more natural lighting you'll find more outdoor types of shots more relaxed uh more casual kinds of head shots and in New York certainly like you can see here this was shot outside but you know you don't we're not you know shooting in fields or anything like that um it is more Studio work done so if you are planning on moving to New York what I would recommend is maybe just wait until you get to New York and find a good New York headshot photographer and the other thing too is when you do that that will also help you network in that particular City and then maybe you can ask in case you don't have an agent you can ask the headshot photographer you know any suggestions on agents in my particular category and so I think it would be a good idea to wait until you get to New York before you do a head shot great um Julie from uh Atlanta says since everyone is using jpegs today why do I even have to get my head shots printed yeah the the only reason why you do need some head shots is because quite often at auditions they will ask you to bring in a hard copy of your head shot and the other thing too is and I mentioned this a little bit earlier um if you want to Market yourself you know you want to send a letter to a producer to a d director to somebody at an advertising agency then I I think it's more effective to actually send a head shot in the mail as opposed to just emailing a JPEG uh you know people will open it people will look at it they'll you know they still might throw it away but you know they will look at it and I think you have a much better chance of having people look at it than by you know just saying an email with an attachment which in which case a lot of people would never even think of opening if they don't know who you are so anyhow that that's why you definitely want to have some hard copies great Tom from uh St George Utah says is it better to get a glossy or matte finish print of my head shot you know it's funny that those things have flip-flopped over the years there was a time period everybody only did Matt and Matt is the um it's it's the dollar kind of look lossi is shinier uh it looks more like photographic paper and then everybody went to glossy for a period of time everybody had glossy 8 by10 and then people started going away from glossies and they went back to Matt so for right this moment it's it's Matt that's what most people use I mean honestly I I I don't think it's it's that big of a deal the only thing that I have heard is that sometimes with glossy uh fingerprints can be left on the head shot and I don't I'm not 100 perc sure if that's still true with today's technology I mean I guess you can always ask the printer but um if you know if you have an option honestly I would just go with Matt at this point great I'm guessing you go with Matt Erin personally is that what you choose I would go with Matt yes yeah I would just use Matt Let's uh let's try to squeeze in one more question here we've got only a few minutes left but let's uh try to get from from Charlie he's in Calgary Canada great country of Canada I have a headshot photographer that I want to shoot with but he's pushing for a makeup artist is having a makeup artist necessary if I know how to do my own makeup yeah I I always highly recommend that you use a makeup artist and I would recommend the makeup artist that the photographer suggests because you want a makeup artist that knows the photographer knows the photographer style the kind of lighting they do they work together it's it's it's almost like you know you're going to have air conditioning uh placed in your house and you want to save some money by hiring your own electrician as opposed to the air conditionings electrician and if something goes wrong then you you know if you brought in your own specialist then you've got no recourse um so number one I makeup artists are going to make you look better even if you know how to put on your own makeup you can't watch yourself during the photo session and it's always better to have a second set of eyes watch watching you sometimes the photographers might be looking at other things and if all of a sudden your hair is sticking up on the side a little bit the makeup artist can uh do you know help you out that way also and yeah I would I would go with the photographers recommendation as well and I know it it is an additional expense but you know your head shot is worth so much to you it's just invaluable so I it's really it's not that wouldn't be a good place in cutting costs maybe if you are thinking about cutting costs maybe not spending as much on printing maybe print fewer copies maybe you don't need as high quality uh of a reproduction for your head shot uh but yeah I I I would have a makeup artist whether you're you know for for men and women good makeup artists will make you look better great well we're just about out of time here and we're going to be jumping right into our next session Aon thank you so much this has been very helpful appreciate it uh and I just want to let every I was just going to say um you know I'm sorry I couldn't get to all all the questions right now but um I will stick around at the end of the session today and I am more than happy to uh answer any questions that you have and and Joel you you're gonna have a a place where people can absolutely we're GNA give some instruction on that all right well we're going to jump to the next session uh everybody join us on the next session for the acting and modeling success Summit with Aaron Marcus we'll see you there in just a minute