The Insiders Guide to the Entertainment Industry

1. The insider’s guide to getting discovered, (finally).
F I N D I N G
F A M E

2. As co-founder and CEO, I
wanted to personally say
Thank You for downloading
this guide.
We consider it a privilege to play a small role today
in helping you learn from real people in the indus-
try, if you are interested in modeling, acting, song-
writing, performing all of it. Please Enjoy!
To your success,
A LY CI A K A B A CK ,
C O - FO U ND ER A ND CEO

3. To make it in show business you need drive
and talent. Few people have the talent, and
even fewer have the drive, that fire-in-the
guts yearning to succeed no matter what it
takes.
Say you have that desire, say you work hard
at your craft, and shape yourself into the
best you can be—what next? For a new
talent striving just to get that first job, it can
feel like the only way into the industry is to
be born into it, or to be discovered in a drug-
store like Lana Turner was rumored to have
done. The thing those two scenarios have in
common, of course, is that they are abso-
lutely out of your control. So the question is:
what can you do? What do you control?
Walk into a bar in Times Square, and you are
likely to find a bartender who studied acting,
or music, or who aspires to be a model.
Some of these people went to the best
schools, places like Julliard and Berkley,
where just getting accepted is hard enough,
let alone following through and taking the
classes, and paying the tuition. Now they’re
bartending. It’s not fair; show business is just
not fair.
Show business is a risk-everything business,
and if you decide to take that risk you are
going to be living a very different life from
your family and friends who might be
accountants, or dental hygienists, or baris-
tas. You have to be so quick, as in “jump off
a bridge and build a plane on the way down.”
Being seen,
being heard, and
being discovered.
“Show business
is not fair.”

4. Nothing in school can ever prepare you for the
entertainment industry; it is unlike any business out
there.
The problem is, people desperately want to make it,
and at the same time have no idea what to do. Fre-
quently hopeful young people are pushed into
buying marketing materials, even though they have
no one to market to. Kids will tell me they have spent
all of their money, and it turns out that money has
gone to glamour photography that agents don’t
want to see, to acting classes or modeling classes
taught by people with no real connections in the
industry, or to websites no one will ever visit. No one
is coming to find you. I think of it as like sharpening
crayons: these kids spend all of their time sharpen-
ing crayons, but they never get the chance to use
them. They are using up all of their own resources,
and they are not marketing themselves to anyone
who can actually help them.
“Building a career in
this industry starts
long before you get
your big break.”

5. When casting directors and people who work
with new talent talk about what they are looking
for, they often speak about an almost indefin-
able quality. It’s been called “star quality,” or
“stage presence,” and it’s even been called the
“it” factor. For someone looking to break into
the industry, it can be hard to know what exactly
the “it” factor is. New talent can often feel lost in
the crowd, and long for a way to set them apart,
and make someone important take notice.
But breaking into the industry is not just about
inborn talent or a special quality—it’s about
having done the work to get to a point where
you walk into an audition, and the casting direc-
tor can tell just by looking that you have what it
takes. It’s about honing and polishing your craft
until a producer can tell from your demo tape
that you’ve got a hit song, or learning to be so
comfortable in front of a camera that a model-
ing agent picks you right out of an open call.
Building a career in the industry starts long
before you get your big break—it starts with
you, working every day to be ready when that
big break comes.

6. Getting Discovered:
Personality really overrides ev-
erything else, and in an audition
you have two or three minutes,
tops.
Your job as an actor is to come in there and
blow us away, not only with your talent, but
with your personality. What I always say is:
we have to love you as soon as you walk in
the room. Before you even open your
mouth we have to love you—that’s big per-
sonality. You can’t come in shy, or fumbling
your words; you really have to have that big
personality. I have met some actors along
the way, in my journey, with astonishing
personalities, and I know actors that have
booked auditions, booked feature films, just based on personality alone. So, that overrides every-
thing, absolutely.
With technology, and how fast the world is moving, everybody wants it yesterday, everybody
wants it today, but guess what? Being discovered is not instant coffee. It’s not something you just
brew up. I am working with a very famous male model right now, and he is wonderful, and he is
talented, and he brings everything he has learned from modeling to the world. But he is in a rush,
he wants everything to happen tomorrow, and while he does have tremendous instincts, he has
101

7. to develop further, because he is in a tremen-
dously competitive world, he is working with
people from Stella Adler, and Yale, and from
Julliard, and he has no idea how competitive
the world is out there, and he is going to get
lost if he rushes it, he is really going to get
lost.
If someone come to me and says “I really
want to sing,” I can’t make you an artist: you
have to be an artist and come to me. Nobody
could make me a record executive; if you are
an artist, then you will make yourself, every-
thing you do will contribute that. You have to
come to me fully-formed, you have to come to
me as an artist. I am the facilitator, you are the
artist. I can’t throw pixie dust on you and make
people love you: I need to hear music that is
ready. Even if you’re a DJ, I need to feel your
sweat and your DNA in the work that I am
listening to, the equity. When everybody else
is out and partying and getting high, you are
in the studio. I want somebody who is commit-
ted to being an artist. Come back when that is
the only thing you can do. It is a bumpy road,
and it is not a sprint, it is a marathon.
You have all these YouTube and Vine sensa-
tions, to where these people have millions of
followers. And most of the time it’s because
they’re very talented. Case in point, this kid
King Bach. He is so funny, and he has all these
little compilations, and they’re all like fifteen
second clips, and they’re all funny, and this kid
has millions of followers. He gets paid some-
thing like $10,000 a month, just to feature
products. That’s where marketing is going
these days. These people who have these
huge social media footprints, that’s power.
Having the drive and passion is so very impor-
tant, if you do not have the fire in your heart.
You are just wasting your time and need to
find another field to work in.

8. Before deciding if you want our help,
think about the following
words:
Imagine that tomorrow, you could be
face-to-face with an Academy
Award-winning director, talking about your
ambitions and hearing his advice. Imagine
you could talk directly with a casting
director who works with some of the
biggest names in Hollywood, and get his
tips on auditioning. Imagine you could
play your demo tape to the producer for a
major record label, and get her immediate
feedback. Imagine the casting agent for
major make-up and clothing lines could
look at your face, and tell you in that
moment what kind of modeling you are
best suited for. Would you do it? Would
you be ready?
If you’re serious about this
business, we can help.

9. Build relationships with
people who matter
H O W TO
{Anyone can meet people; the
question is how you meet some-
one who can help you.
When we first started we had to
go out and build relationships.
VIP Talent Connect was started
back in 2006 with just a simple
idea to help talent meet people
in the industry.
We would have never imagined
in six years our events would have such
an amazing lineup of experts such as
“Demi Lovato” or ‘LL Cool J’ or the Vice
President of Universal Records. Major
agents and casting directors choose to
come to VIP because we allow only 125 of
the top talent to meet with them. Each and
every talent goes through an interview
process, to make sure this is something
they are serious about – this is not
“Comic-Con.”
“Players and Haters – How
being the Best can Bring
the Worst out in People”

10. Did we have individuals who didn’t
believe in us, of course, even a star like
Demi Lovato have people online who will
criticize her music or weight almost every
day. Take a look at any celebrities twitter
account or a video they post on “You-
Tube” or “Vine” and you will see what we
mean.
“Some people when they
are insecure about them-
selves need to attack
those people or items they
want or to be like.”
We have had our haters and always will
just like any one who finds success. The
difference is I think is for us we always
looked for the perfect talent in the begin-
ning and when someone was not the right
fit we did not invest the time and
resources to educate those people, to
explain them what they could do to
improve their talents.
Ice T’s favorite line is “Haters are going to
hate on you, no matter what”
When you have an opportunity of a
lifetime it is difficult to lose it and not walk
away feeling depressed or upset and
some people cannot take the blame
themselves so they lash out – “It is them,
not me! I will be famous” – the issue with
that idea is wanting something and doing
something to make your “dream” happen
are two different sides of the solution.
“Never worry about bad
press: All that matters is if
they spell your name right.”
– Kate Hudson
So when you decide to travel down this
road -always understand that is your duty
to be above these comments and to edu-
cate those around you, pass the advice
on, that is why all talent who interview
with us: are given the chance to have
access to our online learning guides
about breaking into the business. We give
everyone a checklist of what to do; we
find out where you are headed and help
provide the “roadmap” to get you there.
“See no two people in this
business are alike. So you
really need to know where
you want to go – before
anyone could help you.”
Our company was created for talent to
connect with some of the most powerful
people in the industry; to meet with
agents, casting directors, producers,
Grammy Award-Winning artists & Acad-
emy Award-Winning directors, literally the
top 35 people who can change your life.

11. Ready to start?
O UR IN T ER V IEW PR O CESS
V IP IN T ER V IEW CHECK LIST
V I N D I ES E L
We will follow-up via email: once we have availability for interviews: we do have a
tremendous amount of applicants – so please allow a few days. If we do not contact you,
you may contact the office to check on when we might have openings.
Once you are scheduled:
We hope this guide provided you with some good information to help you find a starting point
or at least a direction, feel free to start your own roadmap and if there is anyone in your life you
feel could benefit from the information we provided please pass it on.
We will host a Video Interview and chat for 30 to 45 minutes
We’ll uncover your biggest struggles and what exactly is getting you
stuck
We’ll identify your most pressing needs and define some goals
After learning more about you, we will schedule an additional follow-up inter-
view and we will make a final decision on that day if you are accepted or not.
If you are ready… You’re in for the adventure ride of a lifetime!
If you’re the type of person who has to fulfill
your dreams, you’ve gotta be resourceful to
make sure you can do it.
“