As a fast-rising actor learning the ropes of the industry, passion, and talent alone won’t always be enough. No matter how much you enjoy the flair and exciting roles, you’d occasionally have those days when it feels almost Herculean to get out of bed.
“Acting can be extremely stressful, especially at the beginning,” says American actor and entrepreneur, Jeremy Rudd. “You never know when you’ll land your next role and actors can only get paid for the roles they’ve booked. It’s an endless cycle of constantly having to stay in shape, sporting clear skin, and brilliant white teeth for the cameras. There are so many routines to stick to if you’re always going to be ready out of the blue.”
Many actors describe their chosen career as a calling rather than a job, but even callings need sustenance. We’ve compiled a list of the top five apps that should be super-useful to actors (and aspirants) for boosting daily productivity.
You want to manage time efficiently: The Calendar App
Easily one of the most underrated applications, the calendar app is a system application that’s designed in unique forms across different operating systems. It’s so much more than just a date-day checker. The Calendar serves as an efficient time manager and an unfailing reminder for all your daily activities. You can leave brief and exciting notes regarding interviews, meetings, daily goals, and scheduled events. The app will nicely organize everything with priority levels and send you pop-up reminders when due.
You keep forgetting stuff: The Note Pad
Note Pad apps are text editors built into every modern smartphone for organizing and archiving everything from to-do lists to your most random thoughts. They are super-helpful for jotting ideas down and keeping your memory sharp. The UI’s range from blank white text screens to sophisticated interfaces with text formatting tables, image, video, and audio provisions, and device syncing functionalities.
Research shows that you’re 50% more likely to remember stuff when you write it down, and while it might not be pen-on-paper style, the Note Pad app comes pretty close!
Dieting and workouts are a headache: MyFitnessPal
Actors have remarkably busy schedules and it’s often tempting to neglect a workout routine and “contaminate” a healthy diet. Rudd depends on MyFitnessPal, an amazing cross-platform free application that uses interactive games to motivate users to exercise and stick to their diet plans. This app uses the input you provide about your general health to analyze what nutrients are in excess or lacking in your diet. It also tracks cumulative calorie intake, weight gain, daily physical activity, and other essential metrics.
This app offers so much useful value completely free of charge, although there’s a premium option for $9.99 per month and $49.99 yearly (equivalent to a much cheaper $4.17 monthly). The premium option eliminates all ads (which aren’t even annoying, by the way), suggests micronutrients for your diet in grams, switches up your goals daily, and offers a home screen dashboard and prioritized customer support.
To stay motivated: IMDb App
To the regular person, this free-of-charge, cross-platform app is just a catalog that provides rating information about millions of movies and shows. To a passionate actor, the app doubles as the “bigger picture”, a repository of the efforts and years of dedicated hard work from other professionals in the field. IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) is the world’s largest online collection of information about movies, TV shows, and celebrities, including actors, directors, producers, and screenwriters.
“IMDb is very useful for staying on top of what is currently going on in Hollywood,” Rudd says. “It helps keep me updated about what new and projects other actors are working on. It motivates me when I see that my colleagues are working hard, doing bigger, getting better, and I’m inspired to do the same.”
For quality connections: IMDbPro App
The IMDbPro app, a paid version of IMDb, is a game-changing upgrade that offers entertainment professionals a platform for better representation and interactive communication. Members have top-notch control <zof their IMDb profiles, as well as access to several add-on services such as file submission and box office data. This application is super-helpful for rising stars as it offers the opportunity to find direct contacts and connect with seasoned professionals in the industry.
TThe membership rates are $19.99 per month and $149.99 yearly, ($12.50 monthly). It may be a pricey buy-in but it’s absolutely useful for actors throughout every stage of their careers.