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When you first decided to go into acting. You will be spending more money than you make, if you make any money at all. This is a breakdown of what it costs to start acting in the film business based on my experience.
CLASSES
The first thing I did when I got to ATL was to sign up for acting classes. Cost 350-450.
HEADSHOTS
I don’t suggest cheaping out on headshots since it’s an actor’s calling card, but price range from 100-800 dollars for a session.
CASTING SITES
Once you’re ready to find casting calls, you’ll need profiles on some of the major casting sites like Backstage, Actor’s Access and Casting Networks. Each comes with a yearly cost that range from 60 dollars to 165 dollars. They can also be paid monthly. In addition to the subscription rate, Actor’s Access also have costs or adding more than two photos and uploading a reel.
SELF TAPES
The cheapest and easiest way to do self tapes in on your smartphone. The only issue with this is that the camera on cell phones distort and the quality is not as good as a DSLR or studio self tape. Even if you use your phone, you’ll still need a stand to hold your phone at the height necessary for taping and you’ll need a background in gray or dark blue, and proper lighting like a ring light.
If you decide to go the DSLR route, you can pick a fairly inexpensively one that is used from an online store. I got mine from B&H Photo. The camera I got was a used Canon EOS Rebel SL3. My cost was 600. With the tripod, background, and lights, the total came to around 1000 dollars. I also use my ipad as a teleprompter so I have an adjustable stand to hold it.
If you decided to tape at a studio, the cost is about a dollar a minute with it going up if you need a reader if you don’t have your own.
OTHER MISC COSTS
Once you start booking, there’s a good chance that you will be getting unpaid work in independent features, student films and short film passion projects. Because you’re new, these are valuable to you for building a resume and an acting reel. These projects also end up costing you money in gas and time. The first two short student films I did were in Philly, and although they covered food and boarding, I still had to get there on my own dime which cost me a couple hundred in gas per project.
I am not a clothes person. I mostly wear jeans and t-shirts, but when I got my headshots, I had to go buy clothes that fit the looks I was going for. I got most from Goodwill. Many times you’ll need to buy clothes for films you do. And even doing background work, which does pay, they expect you to bring clothing options for your roles.
Simon Shih 