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To break into the acting world may be your biggest dream and your most daunting task. It takes lots of hard work, long hours, minimal pay, and pure luck. In order to succeed in making it onto the big screen you must possess the passion it takes to get there.

One of the most important things to have, besides raw talent, is a professional portfolio. You must go into an audition with a picture to leave behind,along with a resume of your acting accomplishments and training. Casting directors see too many faces to remember you by name at the end of the day. Also, remember to leave a phone number with an appropriate voice mail. The casting director will most likely hang up on you if the other line says something like, “Yo, it’s me, I ain’t here, holla at the beep.”

Next, contact your local area talent agencies. Depending on your geographical area the choices can be slim or abundant. If you live in a small town in the hills, consider moving or visiting a known breakthrough city frequently. Although you can make it from a small, town the odds are typically stacked against you. Once you have found a few trusted agencies, inquire about additional training classes, acting organizations, and photographers they use. This will show them you are truly interested in this line of work and you are willing to give the effort to succeed.

Comic-Con started in 1970 as a small gathering of devoted comic-book fans with a solid group of creators and fan favorites. It was very little different from the scores of other conventions throughout the country other than being in a great climate and having more than their share of talent willing to meet the fans while spending a weekend by the beach. But nobody back then could have seen the juggernaut that Comic-Con is now.

It is tempting to talk about their contribution to super-hero movies and nowhere in film is Comic-Con’s considerable influence felt more. But this powerful influence that started with reactions to direct comic translations like Spider-Man and the X-Men has grown like wildfire. Every movie studio runs huge panels during Comic-Con. And not just for super-hero movies.

At Comic-Con in 2008 among the amazing responses generated by the Watchmen movie preview and sneak peeks at X-Men Origins among others there were huge audiences for Terminator Salvation (pre-Christian Bale’s famous rant) and the Keanu Reeves “Day the Earth Stood Still” re-make. These are cited as traditional sci-fi movies with no comic book link, yet the fandom support was just as strong and the audience just as responsive. The Star Wars movies have been a powerful presence at Comic-Con since 1976 (yes, before the first movie came out) and give credit to these fans for the amazing success of that franchise.

So far this year, two films have given me great pleasure that being Mamma Mia and The Duchess.

Both very different films by contrast, one from a stage play which at first the critics said would not work. but in fact has proven a great success.

I went to see Mamma Mia on my own as my partner said it was a chic flick. He could not have been far from the truth. A lot of guys actually were in the cinema with their girlfriends, and singing along to the songs as well.

There were a couple of scenes in this film which just made me feel that the cast of the film had so much fun making. One was where Meryl Streep was singing a song (Dancing Queen or Mamma Mia) and being followed by a load of Greek women (young and old) to the jetty where they all promptly jump off the jetty into the sea. I know at the end of would have loved to have done the same. They were all giggling and laughing about and I wondered how many takes it took?

Was it worth the wait?

Back in the very early 90′s the supposed final chapter of the Friday the 13th movies opened and audiences saw the final few seconds of the film before the credits rolled, Freddy Krueger’s claw bursts from the ground to drag Jason Vorhees mask down to hell (as this film also parallels Freddy’s Dead The Final Nightmare). The studio and the fans asked the question: will New Line make a Freddy versus Jason movie? This became the genesis of over ten years worth of Fangoria and movie magazine articles, I know because I was one of the fans who followed this journey. Many, many things were wrote with this movie in mind featuring rumors that cast members from both franchises (lead psychos already cast) would return to appear in this well hyped movie. These rumors were not fulfilled and the project went back into the New Line vault for a few more years pending a decent script and the right director.