And that’s the crux of the matter: it’s always about selling a product and in the entertainment business, this product is YOU. If people have to pause and squint their eyes to understand what your product is, you’re much less likely to be offered an audition, let alone a job. 

Having a distinct casting type will help you get through the door, but for many of us, that type isn’t always obvious. Here are some ideas to help you define your product more clearly.

It talks about the use of kitemarks to demonstrate which qualifications in this space meet employer-led standards - in the long term only ‘kitemarked’ qualifications will be able to charge up to the proposed £7,500 fee cap. These changes could be positive for the HNs, which are already designed and built on strong employer and professional body engagement.

If speaking to an audience is like eating your veggies when you were 6 (you don’t like it but you’ll do it if you’re made to) you can probably simply rationalise it. ‘It’s only talking which I know I can do. With a bit of preparation I’ll know what I’m saying. It’ll be over in a few minutes and it won’t kill me’. But for many, it’s more like jumping off a bridge with just a piece of elastic between you and the ground. All the attention on you can cause real fear and anxiety, so you might need some more support to get over it.

It’s all about mental toughness

Mental toughness is considered one of the key attributes required in athletes as physical ability and talent alone are not enough to be successful in this field. This is a relatively new area of research to sport and, although the concept of mental toughness was first explored in 1957 (Raymond Cattel), it is only since 2000 that significant research has been undertaken.

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In the early days of personal computing (sometimes referred to as the dark ages) we had to load our games from a cassette tape. A large game could take over an hour to load!

After unsatisfactory AS Levels, I had a second chance to make things right with a BTEC Level 3. Flicking through the pages of a college prospectus over and over again, I chose Health & Social Care as it incorporated working with both children and adults. 

What are you watching?

Within a relatively short period of time, services like Netflix have become giants within the film and television sector. Their role in providing access to 'back catalogue' as well as producing original content has made them a new kind of media company.

As with music, the shift to a streaming model of distribution and consumption is relatively recent. Netflix, currently the largest streaming video content supplier, began their shift from DVD rentals to streaming video in 2007.

The new law of productivity is:

High-quality work produced = (time spent) x (intensity of focus)

Increased productivity can all be achieved through ‘Deep Work’, which is becoming an increasingly rare skill. Deep work has been defined as:

“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skills and are hard to replicate” (Newport, 2016)

Cast your net broadly...

As I got older, I began to enjoy when WJR (one of the local radio stations in Detroit) began to play old radio shows and to produce new radio shows. The weekly airing of CBS Mystery Theatre or the occasional re-broadcast of Fibber McGee and Molly allowed me to begin to understand the power of audio and the way that it fired the imagination.

My employer has fully funded the course for me and pays me one day a week to go to college in Bedford.  In return, my position in the company is, as far as can be predicted, guaranteed for the duration of the course, and a further year after that. Along with doing other professional courses along the way, I can look forward to more responsibility, pay rises and the ability to do my job well.