Skills on your actor website now carry a level: Native or Expert, Proficient, Working Knowledge, or Basic. Each skill also sits in a category, so accents, instruments, sports and licenses do not all end up in one run-on line.
Why the level matters more than the list
A special skills section is the only part of an actor's material that regularly gets somebody in trouble. Casting reads "horse riding", books you, and on day one there is a horse and a schedule. Nobody involved thinks you lied. It is simply that the word covered everything from "I have a license and compete" to "I sat on one in 2009".
A level removes the ambiguity without removing the skill. "Horse riding, working knowledge" is still a useful thing for casting to know and it does not set anybody up to fail.
The categories
- Accents and dialects. The most scrutinized category. Only claim Expert if you could do it for a whole shoot under pressure.
- Languages. Separate from accents, and the levels mean what they mean. Working Knowledge is not fluent.
- Movement. Dance, stage combat, martial arts, circus. List certifications where you have them, because in combat they are the whole point.
- Music. Instruments and voice, with range if it is relevant.
- Sport. The category where honesty pays most.
- Licenses and practical. Driving, motorcycle, firearms handling, first aid.
A short editing pass
Most special skills lists are too long and slightly out of date. Two questions per item. Could you do this tomorrow, on camera, with a crew waiting? Would you want to be booked for it? If either answer is no, drop the level or drop the skill.
Things that should not be on there at all: skills everybody has, jokes, and anything you have not done since school. A list of nine credible skills beats a list of thirty where the reader is guessing which ones are real.
Related
Skills sit next to your training page, and the two support each other: a combat certification listed under training makes the combat skill believable. If a skill is temporarily not one you want to advertise, you can now hide it without deleting it.
For the wider question of what belongs on an actor's material, our resume page guide is the right companion read.
Create a free actor website and list the skills you would be happy to be booked for.
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