Easily create a Demo Scene for your Child Actor
It is imperative to have video footage of your child actor to showcase their skill on their casting profiles. And it should be a very good representation of what they can do. Often people feel pressured to only include work that they booked. In the beginning that could be commerical work with no dialogue or a poorly produced student film. Examples like that do not do the actor any justice or the ability to win fans in the casting community. That is where creating your own demo clips is beyond a wise decision.
Creating a scene for your actor is a way to control the output. To create a character going through a dramatic moment with very high stakes. To make an example of just how hilarious they can be. It only takes an edit of less than a minute to showcase that. And it can be written for your actor and coached and created with you in the drivers seat. No more waiting for footage that may or may not show how great of an actor they are.
One of my coaching clients named Chloe recently commissioned me to write her a demo scene. So knowing the strengths of Chloe’s skill and her unique traits and interests, I wrote a fantasy scene called TINSLEY MAE. This scene featured Chloe as an offbeat girl who had gotten herself into some trouble with a troll. To make things right she needed to bring a human sacrifice to the Troll and clear her name. The scene was primarily weighted to give all the great moments to Chloe. There was a nother character, the victim, who was written genderless, and had significantly less dialogue.
The Scenetist creates demo scenes for Actors
With the ability to coach, help you prep a shoot, and edits final footage.
Go to thescenetist.com
We coached the material over three sessions. And got the character and the tone down and made sure Chloe felt confident and comfortable in the shoes of Tinsley Mae. She recruited a drama student from school to play the scene with her. We met and ran the scene a couple times and everyone felt good about putting it on tape.
Before their intended shoot date, a couple days later, I created and sent Chloe’s mom a quick visual guide of how to shoot the scene. With examples of location and types of shots needed. With some general rules about framing. Recommendations on video settings and rudimentary equipment that could be useful. In a few pages of PDF I was able to give a parent, with no previous filmmaking experience, the tools to shoot the footage needed to create this scene.
The evening of the shoot I received an email with access to all the footage they created. I had promised to edit the full scene together. And create a under one minute clip of the scene as well. This includes color grading the footage, adding special effects, music, sound adjustment.
A day later I delivered the following to them. And I am very pleased with the outcome. And while it is not perfect or even near high quality. It does go very far in showing what this young actor can do. It sets a tone and feeling that a self taped monologue or scene cannot. It is an example of Chloe’s ability to perform for the camera in a professional like setting. And is enjoyable to watch. The full scene is obviously too long to post on a casting profile, but is very useful to post on social media or in networking materials. Some students even enter their scenes in the various film festivals that exist online.
I also created the uploadable, less than a minute, clip that can be posted to her Casting Profiles.
You can do this for your kiddo!
My parent course outlines the easy way to create demo clips that look good but are made by you and your basic supplies.
