Expert: Kenneth D. Plonkey - 6/21/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi My name is Alexia. I am 20.
I am actually already in college studying medicine but I am really interested in acting, directing and doing voices for animations. My parents are very practical sort of people and would not let me try any of these things when I was younger as they do not think that any of them is a "real" career.
I have practically no experience acting. I am good with props and electronics and I love being on stage, even more I love organizing everything so I would love to try directing. How do I go about starting acting and directing? Am I too old to start trying to act now?
Please help!
Thanks for your time and effort!
You really are doing a great job helping people out like this.
Lexie

ANSWER: Hello Alexia,  Well, no it is not too late to start acting and directing, but it is going to take a long time to get into it. To start acting, start auditioning for all the amateur theatre you can find starting at school.  Now stage directing is a completely different matter.  I believe that stage directors should know how to do every theatre job there is, and the most efficient way of doing that would be to major in theatre at college and study everything and get practical experience in everything. But you could do that in community theatre as well by working on productions and volunteering for every job until you have learn how to do them. This latter does not give you any theory or history or dramatic lit education, however, and I also believe that most theatre directors need to know many things that are no longer taught in most schools nor practiced by most directors. These things involve composition and motivational blocking. There are some old books work studying if you are going to direct. These include Principles of Theatre Art by Albright, Halstead and Mitchell and Rehearsal by Miriam Franklin (try to get the 5th, 6th or 7th edition). These out of print books may be purchased used at Amazon.com or bookfinder.com. Since you are working on a medical degree, it seems more practical for you to use theatre as a hobby. Of course that will be difficult if you become an MD or surgeon.  But a PA would give you the free time in the evening to pursue theatre activity. If you should happen to be extraordinarily talented as an actor, you may be able to move on to semipro and professional theatre. Once established as an actor, then you could branch off into directing. The professional world is very small, however, and there are hardly any jobs in relation to the vast number of actors and directors seeking employment, God bless, Doc

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello again!
I thought about what you advised. I am more than halfway through my second year of my bachelor in Medicine. (It takes five years plus one year residency.) So I began to explore my options. I love theatre but seems to be incompatible with medicine. At the moment I am broke obviously :) but for later on, I was wondering what do producers do? (I have a rough idea but I am not exactly sure how involved your average producer is in the production.) And can I still produce movies without actually having gone to school and studied it? (This is assuming that I can finance this from my medical career.)Ambitious idea isn't it? Also, could you give me an idea what kind of budget most movies have?
Thanks very much!
Lexie

Answer
Hello, Yeah, theatre and medicine are pretty much exclusive. That is why I reecommended a PA.  Producers for theatre are the people who raise the money for the production, make the budget, are responsible for box office and publicity,  higher everyone and see to it that the produciton is as high quality as possible. They do not work on the the production, in most cases. A motion picture producer may be an executive producer (money man) or a supplier of what is needed producer. He is off set making the arrangements for everything needed to do the film. Many independent (non union) films are made by people who have no training. IT is your money, do with it what you like. Indie films can run anywhere from a few thousand to couple of million, depending on the quality of people emplayed and if they are paid or not, most indie film workeres an actors are not paid, and on the quality of equiptment rented, the quality of catereing,etc.  Better to take a class in film that at least introduces you to all that goes into making a film.  Doc