From hyping up new truck models at Toyota conventions to filming fry-making safety demonstrations for McDonald’s employees, industrial actors expertly blend education and entertainment. If you’re intrigued by the idea of getting paid to help companies communicate with industry professionals, this guide is for you.
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Industrial acting involves live or filmed presentations primarily designed for corporate purposes, such as training, marketing, or communication.
Live presentations: Live industrial presentations are dynamic events at which actors deliver scripted dialogue, showcase products, demonstrate procedures, or portray characters. Working in live industrials usually means either giving a series of presentations at an all-day trade show or functioning as a kind of training tool in a corporate meeting. In the case of meetings, actors often work as a double agent. They’re given the challenge of blending in convincingly and mingling with the other employees but are later used to introduce some new corporate theme, piece of software, or management technique—often with a bit of comic relief thrown in to break up the monotony.
Filmed presentations: Industrial films are made by businesses for training or promotional purposes. They include e-learning courses, safety and HR trainings, corporate promotions, internal communications, and industrial commercials. To get an idea, watch the actors in this video about good manufacturing processes in the food industry:
The industrial video production process varies, but most films are 10–20 minutes long and require between a day and a week of shooting.
On-camera gigs can be broken down into two categories: those in which actors talk directly to the camera in a kind of narrator or spokesperson role, and those in which you get to play more of a character, like a disgruntled employee or unhappy customer.
“These are often training videos where you demonstrate somebody handling a situation well or not handling a situation well,” said casting director Danny Goldman. “They’re instructive in that sense, so a lot of it is improvising customer relations, to show how important it is for the people dealing with the public to come at the job with some feeling for people. It’s how to deal with, say, an irate customer, how to diffuse them as opposed to making them crazy.”
Why become an industrial actor?
Pay: When it comes to industrial presentations—live or filmed—a lot of working actors have found them lucrative. “It’s not exactly what you might call great high art,” points out business representative Don Hill, “but it sure is nice in the pocketbook.”
“To be able to flex your acting muscles a little bit, and to actually get paid for it, is a great thing,” says actor Jesse Dienstag.
Personal satisfaction: It won’t win you an Oscar, or any other award for that matter, but there’s something to be said for using your craft to teach others something—whether it’s how to operate a fry machine, how to deal with a disgruntled customer, or how to make sense of a new 401(k) plan. “It tends to be informational, so you feel like you’re actually performing a service,” Dienstag says.
Getting audiences chatting away, or rolling with laughter, is often a reward in itself, Dienstag adds. “You get to walk away with that feeling like, ‘Hey, I did my job really well, people are laughing, and then I get to ride out on a white horse to applause and go home,’ ” he says.
Performing in front of an audience: Live industrials provide the opportunity to perform before hundreds—possibly thousands—of captive conventioneers, be they doctors, boat engine manufacturers, hotel personnel, or CEOs. “You also know you have an audience, unlike theater sometimes,” Dienstag says. “It’s like a quick play. You get an immediate response to it. It’s live, it’s sometimes improv, your adrenaline’s going, and then you’re gone.”
Working on camera: Filmed industrials can also provide great opportunities to learn the ins and outs of working on camera. “When you’re starting out, it’s one of your few opportunities to get onto a real live set and do real live acting in front of one-camera, two-camera, three-camera setups,” says Dienstag.
Reel clips: It can also give you some nice work for your commercial reel. “I’ve seen some industrials where the visuals are really quite beautiful,” said Goldman.
Agent Alicia Ruskin of KMR agrees. “Sometimes they spend a lot of money on these,” she says, “so I’d say it’s an excellent job to take for tape, as well.”
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Acting ability: To be an industrial actor, you must be able to convey information in a clear, comprehensible way while still being compelling—you wouldn’t want viewers to lose interest while you’re going over an important safety protocol, after all.
Industry knowledge: Companies look for “spokespersons with a high technical background or a propensity to be able to say technical jargon,” Hill says. Many industrial actors also have experience in industry-specific roles, providing them with the technical know-how to portray situations effectively.
Willingness to learn: You’re often expected to become an expert on something you know little about. You might have to demonstrate a piece of software or equipment you’ve never used before, so spending a bit of time with a corporate consultant to learn the physical aspects of the performance can help you look like a professional.
“They had it down to a science,” recalls Dienstag, who worked on a number of industrials for McDonald’s. “If I was learning how to operate the fry machine, they would have a fry machine consultant expert there to give me an hour’s worth of training so I wouldn’t burn myself. They had [burger] consultants and nugget consultants and fry consultants. You had to do it right or you cost them money…. You spend most of your energy making sure you made something correctly, because if not you’d have to do it over and over again.”
Professionalism: The ability to convincingly present a product, strategy, or corporate theme is paramount. You need to be able to read a script “with some sense of professionalism and knowingness,” Hill says.
Flexibility: Rehearsal time is short. Actors usually have a few days with the script and a rehearsal or two before it’s showtime. You may be asked to change up your performance on the spot, so adaptability is key. According to Dienstag, “We’d always have these funny tasks like, ‘We want to get across the fact that we’re old-school, but we’re cutting-edge. So if you can somehow do that and throw in a couple of our copyrighted phrases, that would be great.’ ” While this can be awkward, he says, “Actors adapt.”
Improv skills: There’s often a healthy blend of improv and scripted performance involved, which can be difficult considering the specialized language actors are expected to make sense of and use in a familiar, folksy way. “They want it to be funny, and I have a lot of improv background, so a lot of the time they would just let me riff and do silly stuff just to try to make it entertaining, because they realize as well that it’s fairly boring stuff,” explains actor James Leary.
Endurance: Trade shows tend to be somewhat more grueling. Ranging up to a week of work, they involve a number of 10- to 15-minute performances a day. “These are very stressful situations,” says Ruskin. “[There] are sometimes 10 to 12 shows a day, all day long in very noisy, very distracting situations for five and six days. It’s intense. And it takes a really special kind of person to pull this off, in my opinion.”
Some shows, actor-teacher Brian Collins explains, can be fairly complex, involving 20 to 30 “tosses,” in which the script is bouncing back and forth between him and a companion or video. Those take a day or two of rehearsing to iron out all the technical details.
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1. Hone your craft. Since industrial acting requires the ability to portray a variety of characters and scenarios, you need strong acting capabilities. Take an online acting class, sharpen your improv skills, and practice every day.
2. Learn about the industry. Immerse yourself in your industry of choice and gain awareness of its technical knowledge, whether that’s car jargon or OSHA compliance standards.
3. Build your reel. Create a commercial demo reel that highlights your acting range and versatility, particularly with industrial presentations.
4. Network. Attend industry events, workshops, and conventions in order to introduce yourself to other industrial actors and business professionals. Building these relationships can lead to more opportunities in the field.
5. Look for gigs. Search for industrial project casting calls on our comprehensive database, keeping an eye out for roles that match your skill level and experience.
6. Remain professional. Put in the work for each project, be receptive to feedback, and strive to deliver your best performance at every opportunity. The nice thing is, because industrial presentations can be arduous, if you do a great job, chances are you’ll be asked back.
