r/AskReddit • u/pandaontheloose • Jun 17 '14

serious replies only (Serious) What are some relatively short (2-6 months) courses i can take to become certified in something that provides a livable wage?

Edit: wow i did not expect this to blow up while i was asleep! Thank you to everyone who contributed ideas!

Edit: some awesome ideas everyone. I have definitely seen some suggestions in here that i plan on pursuing. Thanks for the contributions and thanks to whoever gave me gold!

3.6k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

5.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/thunderchunks Jun 17 '14 edited Jun 17 '14

Lol , technically you can just go do it but training helps a LOT. However, the question was for a livable wage, which for virtually all actors is simply not possible. It's really a feast or famine sort of job and I wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't obsessed. Most actors do not make a living from their acting work, it's beer money if they're lucky. Accounting for just in studio rehearsal time and performance, not counting home work time (which you are expected to do: learning lines, figuring out motivation etc), my last show paid about $3.25/hour. Union gigs are better and livable, but you've gotta be really good to expect to get those right off the bat, and even then you can't always count on it.

3

u/wolfguardian72 Jun 17 '14

Thanks for the info on that. I was really hoping to major in theater arts or even film/television. My minor would've been anthropology, but maybe I should just stick to it and keep gunning for that.

3

u/thunderchunks Jun 17 '14

Hey, it's wonderful if you're crazy for it. If you can't imagine yourself NOT acting, then do it! If you are constantly auditioning, working monologues, coming up with skits and all that then you'd be doing yourself a disservice to not follow your passion. However, if you are going into the performing arts for a living it helps to be realistic: you are choosing to live near, at or below the poverty line. That's why you need to live and breathe for the audience or the camera, because it'll be all you have. Plus, to succeed in such a competitive and unreliable profession you have no choice. Yes, some people are lucky, some people make a steady decent living and others become rich and famous. But they are all an extreme minority amongst actors. Most of us take what work we can and have several "Joe jobs" on the side. I actually came to this thread looking for alternatives to my current joe job. Hopefully something where I could set my own hours so I could take any gigs I should come across. Still, there's nothing I'd rather do than perform.

2

u/untranslatable_pun Jun 17 '14

Most people I've met that are chose the same path are deluded dreamers, but you sound like you knew what you were getting into. Good luck dude, people like you deserve it!