Every year SAG AFTRA teams up with AFI to hold classes at their campus in the heart of Los Angeles for all of the amazing SAG AFTRA members who are quick enough to sign up! This year I was very fortunate to have been able to reserve a spot at the 2016/2017 conservatory and I am so lucky because this year looks especially exciting. AFI has been around for such a long time and is one of the best schools in the world to study filmmaking so it is no surprise that SAG has teamed up with them to make a summer conservatory for their members.

      The classes range all over the map. They have improv classes from beginner to advance, workshops for monologues and scenes, commercial intensive work, and they even have a networking night where all of the actors and filmmakers at AFI get together for some food and drinks and get to meet and mingle, and hopefully plan to make some art together! AFI students direct SAG members In their scenes (of course in addition to having industry professionals also working there) so it is a learning process for both you and the AFI student, which is great because they may just end up using you in one of their projects.

      SAG AFTRA has their members sign up for a casting website similar to backstage, but instead of the actors submitting themselves to projects, the people who are doing the projects are looking for actors to star in their work! This is a really exciting opportunity because there have been a lot of great names that have come out of AFI, and you never know what project will be the next one to win at Sundance! Working on student films and grad films can be very beneficial to your career. Look at Lena Dunham, who used friends, family, and smaller name actors in her film Tiny Furniture that garnered her enough attention to get herself into a position to have her own TV show made.

      There are a lot of exciting things happening this year at SAG AFTRA and while not everyone is at the point in their career where they are members, there are tons of ways to hear about all of the exciting things going on and get even more motivated to get into the union as quickly as possible! I will be posting about all of the classes and all of the fun things that I get to learn about, so make sure you continue to check back and get inspired to continue doing great things!

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