Casting Calls Show Your Talent

Casting calls as it applies to performing arts is a great opportunity, to show your talents, and as an aspiring performer, you should try to attend as many as you possibly can.

Do you have a talent that you want the world to know about? Then the casting call, can be your shot at fame and stardom. There are different types of calls, Some are open calls, where any one who thinks that he or she can fill the desired roles is allowed to attend and others are closed to the public and attendance is by invitation only.

Although specified physical characteristics such as weight and height, may be desired for certain roles, it should not be allowed to deter you from pursuing any role that interests you, The directors and casting people are often wiling to make concessions and adjust the role to anyone who is suitable. The variety of jobs available or posted for casting calls is far and wide, and not only experienced actors are required, but there are often calls for people with absolutely no acting experience.

You should not have to look too far and long to find a casting call. There may be opportunities to attend a casting audition that suits your fancy and is easily within your reach. Actors and all types of performers are needed continually. The need is so great that many casting calls are being completed on line. The game has changed with available technology, that in many instances, you upload a video or demo of your self along with other information to be personally invited to a casting call.

You can begin your search by region or by type or the type of talent you wish to display. Categories can be as diverse as commercials, to film, theater or modelling and in different media such as Reality TV or comedy. After making your selection, you will then be allowed access to more information about the corresponding role including the location and dates of the audition and what information may be required in the next step of the process.

Casting calls are often used for discovery and the classic casting audition, as is usually perceived may not have changed much. Performances may still be judged with cold readings or sometimes the reciting of a monologue, poem or acapella singing. Casting directors are often experienced enough to evaluate talent within seconds. With the right type and amount of practice before an audition, any aspiring performer can increase the chances of winning in an audition by approaching the situation with confidence.

How To Prevent Injuries in Ballet

What may sdem like a minor ache or pain could turn into a serious career-ending injury if you are not making the proper adjustments to your techniques. Whether it's a major injury like an Achilles tendon rupture or a minor one like a shin split, it is important that you discover the root cause of your nagging injuries.

It is not enough to mask injury pain. If you do not get into the bottom of you injury, you can kiss ballet good-bye. You can find yourself asking, "How to prevent common ballet injuries?"

Today, ballet school and dance instructors take preventive measures to keep their students fine-tuned and injury-free. They are now educated on ballet injury prevention for dancers. This is a great step to help dancers manage their injuries thus prolonging the dancing career.

Most ballet injuries affect the legs, spin, arms, pelvic and hip. Some of the common injuries felt by dancers include Achilles tendonitis, lower back pain, ligament sprains, muscle strains, ankle sprains, patellar tendonitis, broken toes and feet, pelvic mal-alignment, rotate cuff and piriformis syndrome. The causes of ballet injuries are:

Incorrect turnout - rolling of the feet, knee mal-alignment, lack of range of motion of your body

Muscle imbalances - where some muscles are too tight or strong and the others too flexible or weak. Ballet is so focused on gaining certain motion of joints (turn-out) that the other muscles get forgotten.

Preventing Muscle Injuries

There are steps you can take to prevent injuries from cutting your ballet career short.

Consult a physiotherapist for a physical assessment. He or she can tell you what you can do to strengthen your weak muscles and stretch the tight ones. Your physiotherapist can also provide you a therapy specific to your body that you will need to prevent and manage injury and gain optimal performance.

· Make sure you warm up or build up your muscles first and stretch them extensively before and after class. Hold your stretches for 30 seconds.

Rest. Stop dancing if you experience abnormal pain and consult your physician or physiotherapist. Don't be stubborn on this. What if you keep on dancing and tore a ligament or broke a toe? Take a break from ballet and rest instead.

Know your body's structural limits regarding over training and injury management. If you did train for ballet before the age of 11, your hip can be altered as you grow to have a more turned out position.

Check out the external factors affecting your body. Did you wear good fitting ballet shoes? Are you dancing on a "sprung floor" for shock absorption? What is the room temperature at your dance studio?

Cross train two times a week. Take up core conditioning, strength training, pilates, swimming, biking, gymnastics, just to name a few.

Our joints can get stiff or mal - aligned while others become too mobile. Have your physiotherapist assist you to mobilize your stiff and mal - aligned joints. Take up specialized exercises to stabilize your hyper-mobile joints.

Ten Tips for Booking Good Performers

Ten tips for booking good performers in the industry do have a problem faced by many clients: "How do I know if my players to book any good?" This is quite a puzzle - there are many substandard players out there, but certainly no one with sense would sell themselves as anything but a professional standard. Here are my top ten tips to make sure that you are not getting ripped off when booking performers.

1) Make sure they have proper insurance documents

If you are looking to hire an artist then you should check out the show they have the right insurance. In the UK a lot of players who are insured as part of their membership to trade equities. If you order a player fires, they also need to have additional insurance for the use of fire. If an entertainer can not provide proof of insurance then you should avoid immediately.

2) Ask to see some videos

This is especially important if you are ordering a very visual action such as fire circus performer or artist. Any company worth their salt should have some good footage available - watch carefully. If it's a promo video and often will not be a good indication of talent - do not be afraid to ask to see another clip of raw footage. If they are reluctant to send it to you then alarm bells should be ringing.

3) Check the photos carefully

In the era of photo editing software has made it very easy for companies to make themselves look bigger and better than they actually are - in fact most companies will at least touch up their photos. If this happens try to break away from whatever background they have enough to put themselves in - instead of looking at the quality of costumes and whether or not this is a shot or a photo studio to live performances. In photographs the work will give a better idea of ​​who or what will emerge in the evening.

4) Look for a good testimonial

This is often a tricky one - it is, after all, fairly easy for someone to type fast some of your own testimonial and give them a random name. Far more valuable is a testimonial from company - look to the company and do not be afraid to ask for details of the players on the work they do for them. If you make a big order could even be worth the time to check with the company itself. Testimonials can also be a great way to measure how long the company has gone.

5) Consider the pre-show their professionalism

Many talented players can be completely disappointed by the lack of professionalism. Do they use the proper spelling in grammar or how quickly they respond to e-mail may seem like irrelevant details when dealing with a player but this is not the case. Professionalism beyond the show itself is generally a good indication that the offender will act professionally at the show itself.

6) Do not pay too much or too little

Most professionals in the arts industry performance will cost between £ 250 - £ 450 per day. This may make you act a stage, or a few hours of entertainment walkabout, or someone on the stage for the evening - this figure is very likely remain the same regardless of the activity. This is because a player can really only do one show a day at most and they have to meet the needs of more than a month - you pay more for their practice of the time on the show itself. Between £ 250 and £ 450 is about right - anyone charging less than you want to seriously question whether they are appropriate professional, again and you might get ripped off. There are some exceptional players who can simply charge more than this - one would be able to provide more than enough evidence to convince you that they are worth the investment.

7) Check the online reviews of independent

This is a tricky one - the group will not have a lot of the performance of independent reviews that you can easily find. This is due to the simple fact that many people can not be bothered to write a review. More than it could be the case that the company has reviewed its own independently in an effort to improve the ranking in the directory. It is worth checking for the review is really just to see if there is a very bad one kicking about - if the client is completely happy with the players to work then it may be safer to avoid using them.

8) Make sure you fully understand the content that you buy.

When booking entertainment, it is important that you get a good understanding of what it would appear at night. If you are unsure of anything then ask for clarification.

9) Consider the source of some of the places

If you run a big event can actually be worth using some of the entertainment company. While it may mean a little more work to organize it reduces the chances that you'll end up with a whole team of substandard performance.

10) Believe in your intuition!

If it looks dodgy - maybe this! Trust your gut.

Tip on the Drying Time of Oil Paints

When ever anybody talks about the drying time for oil paints they always put it into the same context as we talk about the drying time of watercolours or acrylic paints, which is wrong really as the process is completely different. With watercolour and acrylics the paint dries through evaporation, which basically means the water in the paint is drawn out by spontaneously turning from a liquid into a gas, this process allows the paint to harden. The hotter it is, the faster this process happens, which is why it's a bad idea to paint outdoors with acrylic in the summer, as your paint dries almost immediately.

How many times have you heard someone say, "It takes nine months for an oil painting to dry" no wonder a lot of people won't touch oil's, especially beginner painters, I'm not surprised really, can you imagine having a wet canvas sat in your studio for nine months, well the good news is that this myth is actually untrue, well it's more of a misconception than an untruth, It's quite hard to say when a painting will be dry because there are various factors to consider, like the colour of the paint, as brighter colours don't dry as fast as the earthy colours, also how thick it has been applied, but as a general rule an oil painting will be tack dry the next day, for it to be completely dry it will take a few days, possibly up to a week. The nine months is true, but it's not for the paint to dry, it's what I like to call "Cure" it takes approximately nine months for an oil painting to cure, to properly harden, and this is where the confusion lies, it isn't nine months for the paint to dry, its nine months before you should varnish your painting. You shouldn't varnish until it is properly dry because oil paint dries through oxidisation.

With traditional oil paint, there isn't any water in the paint to evaporate away; the water element of the manufacture is replaced with an oil based substance, usually Linseed Oil which also doesn't evaporate away. What actually happens is when your painting is exposed to the elements, the oil reacts with oxygen in the air which causes the paint to harden through oxidisation? So as long as the oil paint is exposed to oxygen it will carry on with the curing process until it is completely dry. The problem with varnishing your oil painting before it has sufficiently cured, is you are cutting off the supply of oxygen to your painting so it can't carry on with the oxidising process. What would happen is your oil paint will eventually dry but it would take a very long time to finally harden and there's a very good chance the coat of varnish you have applied will crack, this is because the top layer of varnish will dry first, and the under layers of oil paint which will dry at a much slower rate, will move and contract so it breaks the hardened varnish as it dries, this is a possible reason why sometimes an oil painting has the look of snake skin, where there is cracks all over the painting.