Other ways to follow me

Hey all

If you are looking for other ways to follow me check out Twitter: @cren82 and there is also IMDB where you can check out my film credits from Acting to Crew. I also have a few videos up on youtube my id there is crentube

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1944699/

Hope you all have a great day.

Finding or getting an Agent

            Well I have been trying to figure out what my next blog should be about and after much thought I have come up with is subject finding an agent. So if you are looking to become an actor or actress depending on your gender you’re going to want an agent, why? Well having an agent is very handy really, you see whenever a film or television series comes to town they often contact agents and tell them what they are looking for. And then your agent contacts you and you go off to auditions. Now I am not saying you can’t get an audition without an agent because you can. And that is called self promotion and I will touch on that later.

            Now how do you go about finding an agent, there are a few ways really.

1. You check out agents in the yellow pages they are listed and you send off a copy of your headshot and resume.
2. You go on the web and find that that way, you will find most agents have a website.
3. newspaper ads (I don’t recommend those)

Now after you have contacted an agent and they have contacted you back and ask you to come in there is one important thing you should know. NEVER NEVER pay them fees!!! You don’t pay an agent until after they find you work this can be anywhere from 10 to 15% of what you made on the film. If they are asking you for fees please stay clear of them. Now after you have signed on with an agent get a set of decent headshots. Headshots are your calling card, it’s one or maybe the only thing the casting agent will see of you so do not have crappy head shoots. Your agent maybe able to suggest a good photographer or you can often find one on the internet.

            Now I was talking about self promotion a moment ago, this is when you represent yourself; it’s doable but can be tricky. You have to do a lot of searching and make sure you find auditions. Now that said even with an agent it is a good idea to do self promotion. Your agent has a ton of clients and can’t always be focused on you. So it’s up to you to promote yourself at all times. Easy ways of doing this are sending copies of your headshot and resume to casting agents. Now you might ask how does one do this? It’s easy and you don’t need to sign up for any acting sites that you pay 50 bucks a month for just to get the names. Use IMDB, then use the net to get the address. IMDB is a great resource to find casting agents.

            Now you might come across this scenario were the agent you are contacted says you need more experience before they take you on. Well one way to get that is to do extra work, and to get cast in independent films you can often find these casting calls on Craigslist, Mandy.com, or Kijij or at your local coffee shops, Acting classes etc. And if your in a small town, make your own indie films. Anything like that will help you gain experience.

            So yeah that’s all the tips I can think about giving you for finding or getting an agent. If you have any question or can think of something I might have missed please feel free to ask or let me know and I will answer you question or add to this blog. As always have a great day and good luck.

Sincerely,

Christopher Renaud 

British Columbia

Mmmm I need a catchy opening to start off all my blogs any ideas??

Well here I am in a motel in the great British Columbia town of Port Alberni, home of some of the best cold water diving in the world. For those of you who don’t know when I am not working on films and such I work in the Communications Field. So for the next 20 days I will be living on Vancouver Island working. Now for those of you who have never been to the island let me start off by saying this….it’s amazing!!!! I feel like I skipped winter all together. It’s so green here and warm it’s more like spring then winter really. I can’t wait until summer I am sure this place will be amazing.

Now let me start by saying I love British Columbia for many reasons really. They film a lot of movies and television shows in the City of Vancouver. Things like Tron Legacy, X Men, Supernatural, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica and this list could go on really. I would love to live here just so I can work on the many movies and shows made here. It’s safe to say I would like to call Vancouver my home, why’d I stop in Calgary I have no clue. The other reason I love this province is …. well I love to camp, hike and go off roading with my truck. And not to mention the roads are amazing and well awesome for riding motorcycles. So it’s safe to say the life style here fits mine, all I need to do is learn to snowboard. So yeah it’s safe to say I love this place.

Another thing about this place I love is that it’s a change of scenery for me right now, which is just what I needed. You see I was having some serious writers block in Calgary. I knew what I wanted to write but just couldn’t write it. Once I was sitting in the airport in Vancouver waiting for my next flight to the island the words just started flowing onto the page. Another thing I don’t have a lot of distractions here so I have a lot more time after work to write and well work out for that matter. And the weather is so warm I think I will start jogging in the mornings.

So that’s my blog for the day, stay tuned in the next couple of days for a new blog and pictures from the island. And like always feel free to follow me on twitter @cren82

Sincerely,

Christopher Renaud  

Photo Shoot and picking out my wardrobe

Well greetings again all and happy Sunday. Well today is a big day I have a photo shoot, but this time I am not behind the camera I’m in front of it. The reason for this my new agent wants me to have a headshots. So I’ve grown a beard and have my wardrobe all picked out which is the subject of this blog.

So as I am not a student of fashion and my biggest fashion sense in jeans and a t-shirt, I recruited the help of KD or as some of you may know her here as www.thegirlwiththemessyhair.blogspot.com/ . So we went through my wardrobe and found one outfit to wear, and we had to go to the Mall to find another. So a big thank you goes out to KD for all her help. Funny story to this I kept leaving the room to change my shirt. Out of respect to KD, she thought this was funny as it’s what she would have seen at the beach. Not sure why but I was a little bashful, and she said most guys would have just ripped there shirts off. Maybe I am a gentleman and I just didn’t know it. Now that being said apparently all my hard work working out is paying off, cause I was told by my new stylist to wear more clothing that shows off my body.  So I guess I am looking good!

            Now I have to say I was really impressed that we found the one outfit in my wardrobe. I figured we would have to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe but luckily I spent a total of 50 bucks at the mall. Got to love sales 2 ribbed shirts for 20 and an awesome casual shirt for 30 which KD and the girl at the store said I looked great in so thank you ladies. 

            So now it’s time to workout and get a good swell on before the shoot. ( I’m pretty sure I just ripped my buddy Wolfgang off with that line (www.imdb.com/name/nm2776361/) who will be the star in my new script.) Got to keep this body in shape, and the comment from KD is encouragement as well.

 So yeah that was my day yesterday before I went to the lacrosse game. Which was amazing by the way, box seats are awesome! To bad we lost though but still a great evening with a great friend thanks Joe. So I’ll write more later when I’m done the shoot and let you know how it goes.

Oh and if you are reading this and are entertained you can follow me on twitter @cren82

Sincerely,

Christopher Renaud

Second Draft

Well here we go it’s been awhile since my first blog. Not because I don’t have anything to write about cause I do. But because I have been lazy and not sure which subject to write about really. But last night while I was texting a friend of mine it came to me. I’m going to talk about writing second draft of a screen play and why it’s taken me so long to do mine.

For those of you who don’t know which I will assume is a lot of you, I have been writing a spec script that I’ve had on my mind for some years. And in October I started to write it since I was finally in the write head space to do it. So I sat down at my computer and the script I first saw as dick and fart joke movie turned into a Drama/Romance movie, funny how growing up changes the way you write. I wrote everyday for a little over a month and at the end of November I was done the first draft. At this time I sent the script off to a good friend of mine Christine Conradt (http://www.christineconradt.com) to read and let me know where I needed to improve. A few weeks later I got the phone call and we went through the script page by page, and luckily I didn’t need to do a page one rewrite just some minor changes needed to be made. So I sat down notes in hand and started my second draft.

Well it is now the middle of January and I am only twenty pages into my second draft and why is that? Well as I am rewriting I’m discovering some things about my characters that I didn’t originally intend for them to have as character traits. And just maybe the main character and I have a little bit more in common then I thought, and I’m putting a lot more of me into him. So maybe it’s true you do write what you know. But why is it taking so long? Well in my first draft my B story line needed some work and I am adding to that and it’s relationship to my main story line. And last night I said something to a friend of mine and now that one comment will be going into my script because A it was great advice, and B never knew I could be that deep. But that is what is taken me so long, and I think it will be a better script for it, because I don’t want to rush this idea, I think it’s going to be my calling card. Why well it’s a great idea and it’s not horror which is something I normal wrote as shorts but never really could write. So wish me luck on the second draft and the third if it comes to that. And I’ll keep you posted.

Christopher Renaud