Screencast on ACTRA website

Introduction

Hi! Welcome to this Screencast about the actor union ACTRA. I'm Collin Lacroix, a student in Arts, Literature, and Communication in the Theater Option at Cégep de St-Hyacinthe. Our program teaches us different acting techniques, stagecraft basis, writing basis, and staging basis, so we can become a stagecraft, a playwright, an actor, or even a director. It's very large, and it covers all theater career. It's a pre-university program in two years. We also see things about the other Arts, Literature, and communication, like the history of art, literature, and cinema.

I admit it, it is sometimes very difficult to integrate the world of the theater, and of the cinema. Like you probably had to, I needed to face many fails, and deception. I had been refuse for four school in six since the beginning of the year, but I don't give up. I will find another way to reach my goal if I have too. But whatever I will tell you, I know that it might stay difficult, and that is why I'm here for you.

Even if I want to become an actor, and a kind of leader in a career that needs' guts and self-confidence, I don't have that much confidence in my capacities. I sometimes denigrate myself. However, I'm a lot better than when I started, and I sometimes try to take the lead, and to share my ideas, when I wasn't even trying at the beginning because I was afraid of the other's judgment. Now I can talk without hesitations, and even when I think I will fail, I'm convincing myself that I'm a hard worker, which is true, and that I will come back, and get it another time. And, most importantly, I tell myself that I did all the things I could, so that even if I fail, it is not my fault. But sometimes, even with that, I'm afraid to never reach my goals.

I have been at the Cégep de St-Hyacinthe for two years, and I have been taken for two stage at professionals theater school, one at the Cégep de St-Hyacinthe, and I am now on the waiting list, and one at the Cégep de Lionel-Groulx, after which I get refused, but still! I also made with some cinema students a short film that won the second place for the first year students movies. It was played at Beloeil movie theatre, and I had the first role! Finally, I get 90% in almost all of my exams in my program.

My goal is to help you to know how to be well-prepared, well-defended, and how to get the best advice if you have a problem in your workplace for a career in theatre.

Stay right here, and listen carefully for all the duration of the video. Get ready to follow my tutorial, or register my video somewhere, so you could use it when you need to. Finally, don't forget to click on the like button, and to subscribe, so you would also help me to start my acting career, and you won't miss my future movies, sketches, or announces.

You will be surprised about the importance of what is coming next, so stay until the end.

The Problem

Our program in Arts, Literature, and Communication tells us the importance of being well-prepared for the future because the world of the theater is difficult, and so we need to know our rights, and to integrate agencies or unions, especially if we are actors. It will help us find job, and will defend us if there is anything because finding jobs in this field of study is very not easy, and they are not all the time worth it, so you need to know where to put your limits, and what is acceptable or not in this type of workplace. ACTRA is one of the possible unions for anglophones. If you search for a website in French, then I must advise you the website of the Artists Union or Union des Artistes in French. The operation is very similar, and I will give both URL in description.

If you don't put your limits, and you don't defend yourself, or if you are not helped by an agency to find job, you will probably lose interest in the job because of the moral difficulties that it occurs. In fact, if you were truly desperate to find a job, you would probably accept almost anything that a producer would offer you. That's not all the producers that are kind, and he could give you bad conditions, like working 12 hours or more a day, underpay you, or even make discrimination and denigrate you, or talk bad about you, so you will lose all your credibility, and it will be even more difficult to find job after this.

Imagine that you want to be the new « Robert Lepage », and to live of your career, you will surely need to do many projects, to start somewhere, and finally to have a safe workplace.

That can be difficult. But don't worry, I promise that being in an actor union will help you a lot.

The Quest

First, open your browser. Type the URL actra.ca into the address bar and hit enter. If you typed the URL correctly, you will see this page.

That guide us to the home page, where they summarize who they are, and what they do. In the top left corner we have their logo, and at the top center we have the navigation menu. You can click on our union, so you will see a lot of information about them. You can also go to membership to know what being a member includes. You can click on producers, to help you find a performer or to some database about the other members. For example, if you click on the button find a performer, and you choose a category, you will see all the possibilities. If you come back to the navigation menu, there is the button news, to know all ACTRA actualities. There is also the button haven, which is a support service if you have been a victim of violence or discrimination, and this is the solution I was talking about. But to do this and get help, they will probably ask you to join the union. So, you come back to the home page, and if you scroll down you will see three buttons, the first one is if you want to join the union, the second to pay dues to the union, and the third to discover their updates. We will just see the first one because it is probably the most important. So, you just click on the button like this, and they will take you to a page where they say that you have three ways to join ACTRA, that gives you different privileges and possibilities. The first one is to join as a full member, the second to join as an apprentice member, or finally as a background performer. They describe each of the privileges it gives you in details, and you choose the one that suit for you. After this, you just click on one of the links they give. For example, if I want to become a full member, it will take me to this form to join the union. You need to be careful, and to read all their description because some types of memberships need prerequisite, or have some fees. But it is normal, it's a union. If you come back to home page, and that you scroll, you will see some cause that they are fighting for, links and the place where they are.

The Solution

Already said in the last paragraph.

The Conclusion

So if you are in theatre, or cinema, or any related field, that's how you solve your problem of finding a job, and of toxic workplace. That is also a way to find an actor for your movies or your productions. I promised I would show you how to join an union to defend you, and I did using the ACTRA website.

I hope that was useful, and now that I said you my secret I need you to do something for me. Can you please click on like and subscribe, and share the video on the social media if it helped you? It would help me a bit to start my new project, and some new fun content is coming soon. Thanks for watching!