Hey all! I hope you're well and enjoying the last few weeks of uni before we all break up for Easter. It's weird that it's going to be my last Easter of driving home and working to get some money for the last term of university. I am seriously going to miss it when I leave. Carmarthen has become my new home and I don't know how I feel that these three years are almost over.
So in between Main House and Site Specific we have a module called Professional Practice, this module aims to help prepare us for the professional acting world. I can honestly say that all the activities we've had set for us have been so helpful. I felt a little lost before doing the few weeks of workshops but now I feel like I'm so much more prepared than I did before we did the module.
Ioan asked us to create a professional development plan (PDP) as well as a strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT) which we would present in front of him and Dave at the end of the year after Site Specific is finished. This was something that I found incredibly useful and it made me realise how much I wanted to do stunt horse riding develop my pre-existing riding skills. Since having a tutorial with Ioan about my future and looking over my SWOT and PDP, it's made me so keen to start doing more work on my riding and attempt to get some stunt riding qualifications which I never would have considered doing before.
We had a chat with Simon Curtis, the man in charge of Wales and the South West when it comes to the acting Union, Equity. That was super helpful when it came to knowing our rights and how Equity works. They ensure that all actors get paid a minimum amount of money, it makes it easier for us to make sure we're being paid what we need to be paid and not taken advantage of. If we are a member of Equity and something goes wrong they can sort it out. Being a member also means that you have insurance incase anything goes wrong on set or when delivering a workshop. These are some things I had no real clue about so it was super helpful to learn all about Equity.
We also had a talk with the head of careers who gave us some advice on creating a CV, an actors CV and how to behave in interviews. He gave us a few really good tips and tricks when it came to personalising CVs for different jobs and things like that. We also had a brief meeting with Sally Hewes who gave us an idea about what it would be like to be self employed and how to start up our own business which was very helpful.
Ioan also spoke to us about the new trend of self tapes and brought the creator of Cut Casting a new website like Spotlight which allows you to audition for parts via the use of self tapes. This gave the whole of the third year the opportunity to sign up to this website for free with a lifetime membership which was awesome. If you're interested in this website I'll link it at the end of this blog as the first 1000 get a free lifetime membership. Ioan also gave us a chance to create our own voice reel and as we had practised doing radio plays in second year so we already had some experience with it, which I was so glad about. The voice reels that we created can then go on our Spotlight accounts and casting directors can listen to them. Ioan also spoke to us about being self employed and how we would have to do our own tax returns, something that is vital for us to know about and understand.
We had the opportunity to listen to some awesome people talk about how they got into the acting and singing industry. We had a talk by Mark Evans, a professional opera singing , his mother was Elizabeth Evans who saved The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen town centre. We also had a workshop with Nicola Hemsley who owns and operates the circus company Organised Kaos and who had a very successful career working for S4C.
The best part of doing Professional Practice was having the chance to meet the fantastic theatre company that is Flossy and Boo. I'll link their website at the end of the blog post so you can check out the sort of things that they do but oh my gosh, they are the loveliest girls ever. Flossy and Boo are two characters that they created so the girls real names are Laura and Anja, one amazing thing about these two is that Anja is actually a graduate from UWTSD. It was so awesome to see a really successful person who came from UWTSD. We had a two day workshop with them where we created our own theatre company and pitched it to the rest of the group. They both gave us a real insight into how you could start our own company and what commissions are. They were both so lovely and awesome to work with. I couldn't believe how amazing they were, they were so friendly and super helpful. They had created some awesome pieces of theatre and I felt so lucky to have met them and know that they will be there should I need some help and advice when I'm actually in the industry. Hopefully I'll see the two of them very soon!
I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came and spoke to us over the last few weeks and a huge thank you to Ioan Hefin for organising it all. Special mention to Flossy and Boo aka Laura and Anja as I had the best time ever with them and cannot wait to see them again. Hopefully this gave you a little insight into what Professional Practice is like and you found it an interesting read. Until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment