Backstage Experts Answer: Tips for Creating Your Demo Reel

By Rebecca Strassberg | Posted March 25, 2015, 2 p.m. This week, our Backstage Expert answers a question many readers wanted addressed: How should I approach the creation of a demo reel (particularly when I’m from a theater background and don’t have as many film credits under my belt)?

Rob Adler, L.A.-based acting teacher Three essentials: A beginning demo reel must show you can act, show what you look like on screen, and look professional. This doesn't mean it needs an NBC watermark in the corner, but it should look like it could. A good demo reel gives the viewer a positive feeling about the actor. In my on-camera class we film every scene professionally so actors have the option to use their footage for a reel that’s been prepared with an on-camera coach. Student films can also be a great way to get good material. These days a good entry-level demo reel can even be made at home, provided the acting is spontaneous, alive, and shows you at your best.

Tips for Starting a Career Later in Life

Backstage: How possible is it for someone in the second half of their life to start/have an acting career (40+)? Rob Adler, L.A.-based acting teacher Is it possible? Absolutely. Anyone can have a career at any stage of their life. The best actors I know don’t measure success by their bank accounts, but by their abilities to move people. I asked my student, Rob Putansu, who began acting at age 55 to respond further. He wrote:

I arrived in L.A. in December 2013 at the age of 59. I wanted, since I was a teenager, to be an actor and I wasn’t getting any younger.

Many things derailed me along the way, but at 55 I started making plans and setting my goals. My No. 1 goal: I will not look back and say, “I wish I had…” With that in mind, I started taking acting classes in Michigan four years ago. To make it a career, though, I knew I needed to move to Hollywood.

Many thought it unwise to leave my job of almost 20 years at a major airline for a career as uncertain as acting. They were measuring dollars and cents. I was measuring sanity, love, and a knowledge of what I truly wanted to do for years.

I hit the L.A. ground running and had my first acting gig within two weeks of being here. The timing was great. A director friend from Michigan was shooting a short film and used me for two days.

I started acting school (AdlerImprov) in January of 2014. I did a lot of research on Los Angeles-based acting classes while I was still back in Michigan and knew in my gut that Rob Adler was the guy to study with. When I first started with the airlines I knew nothing, but became an expert after much training and hands on experience. That’s why I have rarely missed a class, knowing how vital training is.

I booked 15 gigs in my first year in Los Angeles. This, after self-submitting to more than 1,100 casting calls, which got me around 35–40 auditions.

So I’m on my way to being a working actor. To answer the question: Yes, it’s possible to have an acting career if you put in the needed work. Look at TV, film, and plays. Actors are used in all age ranges, looks, body shapes, hair styles, colors, etc. Why not you?

On Living Truthfully in Imaginary Circumstances

By Rob Adler | Posted Feb. 23, 2015, 10 a.m. When my nephew was 5, I caught him running on top of the furniture in my parent’s living room, with my jacket over his shoulders. When he saw me, he suddenly stopped.

Caught in the act, I thought. Then, with arms extended, belly down, he leapt from the sofa in my direction. I caught him. Still in my arms, he was now reaching and twisting. Without saying a word, he showed me he was a superhero and I was to fly him around the room, which I gladly did. When he “landed” (I put him down), he instantly cast his beloved uncle into the role of super-villain. Humoring him, I played my part, donning a deeper voice and a wider stance to support my mischievous cackle. As I began chasing him, the fear in his breath was real. He sought cover from the downpour of sofa cushions as though it were hailing fire. He “killed” me twice before I tucked him in that night.

We were playing, living truthfully in imaginary circumstances, and communicating them. We were acting.

Children play. Adults censor themselves. Our mind very quickly tells us no—we can’t or we shouldn’t. As a result, actors tend to think too much, get in their heads and get in their own way. And heady, analytical approaches to actor training can reinforce the limiting mind. We need a viable way to get out of our heads.

Using games to study acting can liberate us from the “constraints” of adulthood. Just like acting, games have agreed upon (imaginary) rules (circumstances) in which the player (actor) must spontaneously (in the moment) improvise how (actions) to survive the onslaught of sofa cushions, get the basketball in the hoop or Juliet off the balcony (objective). Games are childlike, but can be more than kid’s stuff.

Here’s an analogy: I studied acting in Chicago when Michael Jordan was still playing basketball. Imagine if, while dribbling down court, three seconds left on the clock, approaching the foul line, surrounded by all five members of the opposing team, he stopped, analyzed the situation and thought to himself, What should I do now? The clock would’ve run out and the world might never know him as “Air” Jordan. Or, what if he called a time out and consulted with his coach. Do you think Phil Jackson would’ve thought to say, “Why don’t you just fly to the hoop?” Instead of thinking through it, Jordan played the game and, in the safe crisis of the moment, his body did something new. He discovered he was capable of more than anything anyone could dream up and he changed the game forever. You can’t think that kind of creativity. Play can do the same thing for your acting.

When we play, time seems to slow down, concentration sharpens, and an underlying joy carries the action. There’s also a full spectrum of real emotion. When was the last time you experienced that at an audition?

By using play as an acting tool, we can discover ways of expressing things that are not limited by our adult thinking. You may find yourself laughing at an inopportune moment, or glaring at someone with heat, or effortlessly flying around in front of a green screen. Games are the essence of acting. The pioneer of improvisational acting, Viola Spolin, who developed a way of training actors through play and games, said, “When the rational mind is shut off, we have the possibility of intuition.”

Play liberates intuition. It is an altered, maybe even higher state that has some very valuable properties for actors. Great acting, like play, is attractive to watch, reduces self-consciousness and leaves people with the desire for more. Play is filled with primal excitement, anticipation, and passion. These are all qualities of the best acting. The play’s the thing.

Advanced Improvisation

Great class at the Hollywood studio today! We focused on using preoccupation to explore improvised subtext for film & television. Rob Adler Artistic Director, AdlerImprov www.adlerimprov.com

Expert Advice Columnist, Backstage.Magazine www.backstage.com

Rob Adler Interview

Rob Adler on Accessing Emotional Range Through Improv

By Rebecca Strassberg | Posted Feb. 3, 2015, 1 p.m.

From the time he was 5 years old, Rob Adler has wanted to work in the acting industry. “I was sitting on the couch with my brother watching ‘Superman 2’ for the 500th time, and I asked him how they made Superman fly.

“It was the first time that I ever understood that there was more to the picture than what I saw, and I got a sense of the magic of moviemaking for the first time in my life,” he recalls. “It was the first time I realized you could grow up and have a job where they would swing you from a piece of constriction equipment and sew a cape to your back and let you pretend to be Superman and I thought, That’s for me.”

Years later, his desire to pursue acting presented itself again while doing a production of “Peter Pan” in the eighth grade. “I desperately wanted to be one of those characters [who flew], and I got cast in the play but not as one of [them],” he says.

“Initially, I was heartbroken, but then I started to get into the work and the rehearsal process and I discovered there was another kind of flight. And it was just as thrilling—discovering what it meant to tell a story with a group of friends and then share it with a group of strangers and friends. It was life-changing and it really set the course of my entire life. From there I just couldn’t get enough,” he adds.

It was at DePaul University in Chicago where Adler was “exposed to an improvisational approach to acting” through the games of Viola Spolin, and he hasn’t looked back since.

Today, as an on-set coach, teacher, director, and founder of AdlerImprov Studio in Hollywood, the experienced teacher brings his knowledge and advice to students worldwide, ranging from beginners to season professionals.

On creating AdlerImprov Studio. Adler says he originally created the studio because he “wanted to have people to play with,” but noticing the power of improvisation, he quickly realized how useful it could be for actors.

“I noticed that this sort of improvisational approach to scripted acting really helped actors with something that many people were struggling with. Many, many actors seemed to have this problem of getting stuck in their heads,” he explains. “So what I found was that approaching acting problems through games and play allowed actors out of their heads and allowed them to tap into a source of creativity that wasn’t available to them.”

On the power of improvisational games and play. “One of the magical properties of play is that it gives you energy,” Adler says, referencing a time he was asked to coach actors in between takes of a television shoot. After some improv games, “these actors came into the room with this newfound energy. It’s really amazing to watch that happen.

“You can watch somebody who’s dead tired get involved with something as simple as a schoolyard game of tag or whatever, and all of a sudden they have energy where there was none,” he adds.

Additionally, as an instructor at the University of Southern California, Adler notes he often starts his classes with a game of tag, which allows them to access emotions including anger, frustration, happiness, and joy.

“It exposes this really amazing dynamic of being an actor,” he says, “which is that we’re the puppet and the puppeteer. It exposes them to the possibility that they can authentically have emotion without having to drag skeletons out of their closet.

“They can play their way to authenticity,” he explains.

On one major improv myth. “Because casting directors and agents understand the value of improv training, actors might think they’re going to be asked to make up lines on set… and that is very rarely true,” Adler says. “Writing is a whole art form, and if you change the words on an Aaron Sorkin TV show, you’re probably not going to last very long.

“It’s about bringing spontaneity and presence to the lines as scripted, so one of the things I help actors to do is find a way to bring spontaneity, bring freshness to every take without changing the script and without disrespecting the writers. [What they’re doing], really, is honoring them by speaking their words as written and adding the actor’s art form, which is about bringing life to the work.”

For information regarding Adler’s ongoing classes, visit adlerimprov.com, and read his Backstage Expert articles here!

5 Tips for a First-Class Pilot Season

By Rob Adler | Posted Jan. 16, 2015, 10 a.m.

The holiday season is behind us, which means Hollywood is moving on to the next magical season: Pilot Season. And a new year means new opportunities for actors as new television shows are created and cast. Here are some tips to help your pilot season take flight.

1. Take it easy, but take it. An audition is a strange job interview because you’re asked to do a lot of the work before you get hired. I recommend learning a play-based problem solving technique so your response to the creative problems of auditions is joy rather than fear. Do your homework: Learn what you can about the show’s tone and style and make choices that belong in that world. If preparation is particularly challenging, or it’s your first time in a new category—first guest star role, for example—work with a coach who can help you make sure your audition is both well prepared and alive in the moment. Prepare fully and have fun with it.

2. Stay present. Great acting requires living in the moment, and how we talk to ourselves affects how we perform. If you get three scripts on Friday to prepare for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, it’s only natural to feel underprepared on the day. When sitting in the lobby for your audition, don’t obsess about your preparation; it’s in the past. And don’t waste your time worrying about what may or may not happen in the future. You’re either prepared or you aren’t. But you can still have presence, which makes you memorable even if you don’t book the show. Here’s a tool to stay in the present while waiting: Pick a color. Look around the room and find all of that color there is to see. Really look. Did you miss any? After you finish, pick another color, and so on. This will help keep you out of your head and focused in the present moment, because you can’t find colors in the past or in the future. It requires being in the here and now.

3. Fake it till you make it. A recent Harvard Business School study on job interviews and body language revealed how we hold our body prior to the interview affects cortisol levels (the hormone associated with stress). I encourage my clients to hold their bodies in powerful positions prior to auditions, expanding the limbs, with the chin up, smiling, and taking up space. (Think of the position a runner takes when they’ve won a race.) Just like when creating a character, your body language prior to your audition will affect how you feel in the room.

4. Reward yourself. My grandmother used to say, “It’s important to give yourself a pat on the back.” She was way ahead of her time. Being an actor is the most rewarding thing I have ever known, but it can be hard. I coach my clients to plan something fun after each audition. Schedule it. Obviously a trip to Cabo isn’t always possible, but an ice cream cone, a hike in Griffith Park, or a romantic rendezvous with your significant other will often suffice to keep you from living in the past by mentally replaying the audition or obsessing over the future result.

5. Give your gift. Casting a television show isn’t easy. First, imagine having to watch the same scene over and over and over again, all day, sometimes longer. And then watch it again with directors and/or producers. Casting directors, producers, and network executives are dealing with a combination of tedium and time pressure that could make anyone crazy. If you’re asked to audition, you’ve been asked to help. Everyone involved is hoping you have a solution to their particular casting equation. You aren’t privy to all the components of that equation, so don’t be discouraged if your E doesn’t equal their MC squared.

When I first moved to Hollywood, Emmy Award Winning Casting Director Deborah Barylski gave me some great advice. She said, “Do the things that make you feel like an actor.” 

Do what you do and do it well. Even if you’re as good as Meryl Streep, you may not book the job. There might be some variable preventing you that you just don’t know about. Your job as an actor, in part, is to move people. Strive in your audition, to make your audience laugh, cry, or remind them of what it is to be alive. Then, you will not only feel like an actor, but will have shared your gift with an audience who is often surrounded by very needy people and under an extreme amount of pressure. Give your gift. And then reward yourself.

Lights, Camera, Relationship!

3 Tips for Developing Character Relationships

By Rob Adler | Posted Dec. 3, 2014, 10 a.m.

Sometimes actors show up to set, are introduced to their co-star and have to hop into bed together like they have been lovers for years. In the fast-paced world of film and television, especially during auditions, chemistry reads and network tests, there often isn’t time for actors to create detailed relationships the way they’ve been trained. Many actors wind up substituting pre-planned emotions/feelings for relationship or otherwise try and cram a backstory into their head, which, in the allotted time, only keeps them in their head.

In my last article I suggested playing a game to help actors get out of their head in scripted scenes for the camera. Several people emailed asking me to elaborate.

Instead of spending your time stuck in your head with relationship backstory or focusing on feelings (which change, e.g., sometimes I love my brother, sometimes I hate him, but he’s always my brother), consider the ways people demonstrate relationship more consistently. Try these tips to stay in the present and truthfully communicate detailed relationships regardless of how you feel in the moment.

1. Name the relationship. To avoid the trap of pre-planning feelings, label the relationship so you can be free to explore the way the characters relate to one another in a truthful context. If you’re playing Hamlet and Gertrude, the given relationship is mother and son. As artists, we can also choose to paint with different colors. As actors in relationships, we may want to use a metaphor. Laurence Olivier explored and heightened Shakespeare’s text without changing a word by famously communicating that Gertrude and Hamlet were lovers. Or in “American Hustle,” Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence are husband and wife, but there are scenes where he treats her like his child.

2. Physicalize it. If the scene were dubbed into a foreign language, how would the audience see the relationship? This is important for getting your choices out of your head and into the frame. What can you do to truthfully reveal the relationship? How can you show the relationship so that it’s unmistakable, even if it were dubbed in Mandarin? Even a detailed backstory is useless if it remains in your head. One way to explore this is to make physical contact with your scene partner. So much is revealed through touch. You can increase the challenge by finding ways of making contact without your hands; even if it’s out of frame, it will inform the relationship. Touching toes under the table, for example, can spark a sparkle in the eyes. Watch Richard Button and Elizabeth Taylor in Mike Nichols film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” on mute. You’ll see every nuance of their relationship.

3. Seek tension. In a recent class, two actors were playing sisters in a power struggle. Tension built as they got closer to each other. They were nose-to-nose at the climax. Although the older sister won the beat verbally, the actor stepped back, so it appeared visually like she lost. In truth, the actor felt the physical discomfort of tension and released the tension by stepping away.

Another common relationship trap is when actors view their scene partner as an opponent on the other side of a boxing ring or chessboard. While this might encourage the fighting spirit, it also may overlook the very important collaborative role of relating with your partner while in conflict.

To explore working together to create tension, play Viola Spolin’s Tug-of-War game. Put an invisible “space” rope between you and your partner. The rope illustrates the high level of connection it takes to relate in conflict. Use as much energy as you would to pull a real rope to your side. If both players pull, but don’t collaborate, the space rope will stretch or slacken and there is no conflict, just sound and fury signifying nothing. If instead, both players are unified and seek to pull the rope (physicalize) while simultaneously maintaining tension in the rope together, a magical thing happens: A previously invisible relationship fills the space between them.

Today’s TV and film auditions are moving at hyper-speed and require quick, clear action to land the job. And when you’re on set, you’re often working with strangers. The next time you need to show the camera complex, detailed, truthful relationships fast, keep these tips in mind. Together, with a partner, you can make something greater than just a winner and a loser. Remember, it takes two to tango.