It is no secret that the entertainment industry is fiercely competitive. To succeed in it, you will have to stand out from the crowd and make casting directors’ decisions stick to you.
You know how it happens? With a perfect actor headshot, that portrays your acting skills.
In this article, we’ve discussed what an acting headshot is, its importance, different categories, tips on perfecting your acting headshots, common dos and don’ts, and other valuable insights.
So without further ado, let’s dive into our discussion.
What Are Acting Headshots?
Acting headshots are professional portrait photographs of actors that represent their versatile ability to show expressions. These are close-up shots where the face and shoulder are given the most priority other than the rest of the body parts. However, the main focus of the acting headshot stays on the facial expressions and how your face depicts emotions with the eyes.
These photographs are a valuable resource to enrich the portfolios of the actors. It also serves as a key marketing tool that they use to seek work in the entertainment industry.
Are Acting Headshots Important?
The first and most important step in seeking work is applying for acting or modeling chances. How do people usually apply for these jobs?
Obviously, through submitting their resume. Likewise, actors need to submit their portfolios to producers, agents, casting directors, and other professionals to get cast for a role. And acting headshots are a key element in an actor’s portfolio.
Let’s check out the importance of headshots for acting to understand why they are significant for actors.
Create first impression
From thousands of portfolios, casting directors and other industry professionals have to shortlist actors for a given role. On this note, actors with professional quality headshots in their portfolios get the upper hand in establishing a strong first impression.
Display skill and versatility
Acting headshots serve as a source for displaying an actor’s skills and versatile personality. Actors take shots with different expressions that demonstrate their ability to pull off movie or web series roles or fashion modeling jobs that require such kinds of facial expressions.
This serves as the first step in getting noticed by casting directors, which leads to them being chosen for auditions and further processing.
Great marketing tool
A successful actor needs to create brand value and a strong online presence. Apart from creating a professional quality portfolio, actors also need images for their social media profiles.
Versatile facial expressions Headshots shared on Instagram, Facebook, or other platforms can increase engagement with the audience and grow in popularity.
What Are The Types Of Acting Headshots?
Actors need to perform a variety of roles in the entertainment industry. Depending on the purpose of use, acting headshots are classified into several categories. The most popular types of acting headshots are:
Commercial Headshots
Commercial headshots are photographs of actors shot for use in commercial modeling and advertisements. These types of headshots are usually shot to showcase the commercial appeal of the actors. In commercial headshots, actors are required to be energetic and cheerful. Hence, actors give warm, happy, and lively expressions when shooting these headshots.
Theatrical Headshots
Theatrical headshots are mainly used to cast actors for performances on stage. Performing live in front of audiences and behind the camera has a huge difference. The main features of theatrical headshots are intense and dramatic expressions. Hence, the focus of this type of photography mainly remains on showcasing the range of emotions that create an emotional connection with the audience.
Character Headshots
A character headshot is a type of photography that includes a wide range of roles that an actor may need to portray. In this type of photography, actors need to express unique traits and personalities as per the characteristics of their roles.
Besides, they need to use different types of costumes, props, accessories, and makeup to create looks and personalities that complement their expressions.
Lifestyle Headshots
Lifestyle acting headshots are mainly headshots of actors taken in outdoor locations that show their original personalities and the range of personalities they can be made to fit. Shots taken in a relaxed and casual environment give casting agents a deeper understanding of the actor’s personality and help them visualize the roles they can perform better.
Top 8 Best Practices for Perfecting Acting Headshots
Perfect headshots don’t rely on just how you look or how the photographers click on them. It is much more than that. If I had to coin a term for headshot perfection, it would be how you play with your eyes, smiles, and facial language.
Want to take your acting headshots to the next level?
Here are the 8 best practices that help capture your perfect acting headshots.
1. Choose the Right Facial Expression
Facial expression is the key that sets every character apart. For instance, when two actors play the same role, you can see how their different facial expressions give the same character two different personas. That’s why actors need to master their skills at portraying different facial expressions.
The following is a list of facial expressions that give the casting agents a sense of your skills and personality.
Neutral/pleasant
In this category, actors should just show their normal energy and appearance without displaying much emotion. That is, they have to look straight into the camera, stay neutral, or give a slight smile.
Genuine smile
This expression category is about portraying the happy and relaxed look of an actor. To make the actor look approachable, they must pose with a soft eye look and a natural smile.
Serious/intense
The serious or intense expression of an actor adds gravity and drama to the character. To portray a serious look, actors can pose with furrowed brows, tensed jaws, a focused gaze, and so on.
Quirky/comedic
Actors who are talented in comedy and have a good sense of humor need to shoot headshots using comedic or quirky expressions. For that, they can try expressions such as one or both raised eyebrows, a smirk, a naughty smile, a playful wink, and so on.
Confident/bold
Confident and bold expressions require the actors to stand or sit with a straight back and shoulders, a lifted chin, no frowning on the forehead, a smile, which may or may not be present, and so on.
Pensive/contemplative
The pensive or contemplative facial expression is about portraying the look of deep thoughtfulness. This expression is ideal for expressing emotions such as confusion, sadness, or tension. For that, actors can pose with a soft gaze, slightly knit brows, stare off into the distance, or be lost in thoughts.
Joyful/carefree
The carefree facial expression is about giving wide smiles with relaxed eyebrows, sparkling eyes raised at the corners, or crinkling in the corners of the eyes. The genuine big smile gives the impression of a cheerful personality.
2. Adjusting Approaches By Gender
The conventional actor headshot poses have some distinctive approaches to allow for photography among the male and female actors. As men are mostly expected to maintain masculine features and females feminine features, the approaches for shooting headshots will vary depending on the gender.
Here are some of the approach suggestions for acting headshots based on gender:
For Men:
Masculine features are more about confident and bold looks. For this reason, the most common facial expressions for male actor headshots include an intense look, smoldering gazes, strong jawlines, and so on. When they do neutral mouth positioning, stoic expressions with calmness in the eyes and relaxed shoulders reflect the men’s emotional side.
For women:
Feminine features are more about portraying soft and calming emotions. So female headshot poses are gentle or broad smiles, wider and brighter eyes, or flirty looks. However, bold and confident appearances such as sharp stares, subtle smirks, narrowed eyes, and raised eyebrows shots are reserved for cunning and antagonistic characters.
3. Give Natural Smiles
The style of a smile can either make or break the aesthetics of acting headshots. A genuine smile makes an actor appear approachable, friendly, and warm-hearted. On the other hand, fake or forced smiles are easily detectable in the headshots. As a result, it raises questions about the authenticity of the actor’s personality.
Here are some tips for headshots with genuine smiles:
- Relax your face, as tensing up face muscles often causes smiles to appear forced or fake.
- A genuine smile has a connection with the eyes. Let your eyes crinkle and sparkle naturally while smiling.
- Think about loved ones or any happy incident that automatically brings a smile to your face.
4. Directing the Eyes
Eyes are considered the windows to the soul when taking acting headshots. Hence, to make the headshots natural, lively, and impactful, it is necessary to direct the eyes properly.
- The following is a guideline for optimizing the effectiveness of your eye gaze.
- Adjust the eye focus as per the need for the look, i.e., a sharp focus for a serious and intense expression and a soft and relaxed focus for a cheerful expression.
- Pose with your gaze directly on the camera, unless the pose or expression requires you to look in another direction.
- Staring blankly into the camera makes eyes look lifeless. So, direct your gaze towards a clear focal point.
- Continue blinking naturally to make your eyes appear sharp.
5. Incorporating Your Hands
The position of the hands can improve the dynamic of the facial language in professional acting headshots. Hands add dimension and draw interest to the images.
Here’s how actors can use their hands strategically when shooting headshots.
- The positioning of one hand closer to the camera and the other further away from the camera adds dimension, depth, and interest to the image.
- The gesture of the hand should sync with the internal emotion; otherwise, it appears disconnected.
- Distracting hand gestures, such as touching the face or flicking fingers, should be avoided.
- Make sure the neck and shoulders are relaxed to make the photo appear more natural.
6. Experiment with Different Looks
Playing around with different looks can be a great way to achieve perfection. It offers actors the opportunity to show their versatile abilities by portraying a range of characters.
Different costumes and makeup can make the characters lively. Suppose you want to create the facial expression of a pirate, such as cynical smirks or furrowed brows. The expression given in a casual outfit won’t look as good and authentic as in pirate costumes.
Moreover, eyeglasses can be used to create distinctive looks. However, as actors remain surrounded by light while shooting, it’s tricky to use glasses. To reduce reflection, the head can be tilted slightly down or given poses using hands.
7. Practice Makes Perfect
Building an emotional bond with the audience is what you need to practice. Actors are expected to be experts at portraying multiple personalities; however, this is a learned skill rather than a God-given talent. Hence, they must put in a lot of practice to learn facial and body language that will make them appear genuine.
- Here are some tips to enhance facial expression through practice:
- Practice in front of mirrors to observe which expression feels natural.
- Research a character to identify and analyze its unique traits to get a deeper understanding of its emotional range.
- Record your practice session to see how well you are performing.
8. Snap Some Practice Shots
The perfect acting headshot is the result of hundreds of imperfect shots and the effective collaboration of the photographer. Taking practice shots helps both the photographer and actor identify the lighting position, angles, posture, and other factors. Because when you take shots, you can identify the poses that will make the photography session more fruitful.
Working With a Headshot Photographer to Get Great Shots
Photographing acting headshots requires a unique set of skills that are distinctive from other photography genres. That’s why, to get top-notch results, it is extremely important for an actor to collaborate with the best headshot photographer.
A specialized actor headshot photographer is an expert in this field because they spend the majority of their time photographing actor headshots. As a result, they have immense knowledge of the studio setup, lighting setup, angles, and expressions.
They can provide proper guidance to the actors and bring out their outstanding facial expressions. Another benefit of working with a headshot photographer is reviewing images together. This helps in analyzing the images and making them better. It’s also important to have a good photography studio, this way the session will have a spectacular result.
Wondering how to choose a professional actor headshot photographer?
The process is quite simple. Search for photographers on search engines or social media platforms. Conduct extensive research by checking out their portfolio, company reputation, reviews, and budget, and then shortlist them.
The cost of actor headshot photography depends on various factors, including the experience of the photographer, location, criteria of payment (per image, per hour, per project, etc.), and so on. As these headshots are an asset for actors, it’s best to find the best photographer. Usually, the standard cost for a studio actor headshot session is around $800 for a two-hour session.
Working With Photoshop Post-Production
Perfection in images won’t come without photo editing. So, post-production fixes technical issues such as exposure, contrast, saturation, color balance, and others from the raw images. However, there are other issues that need to be fixed in headshots, including-
- Smoothening skin: To remove textures like pores, wrinkles, etc.
- Brightening eyes: To make the eyes look more alive
- Removing blemishes: To eliminate acne spots, freckles, moles, etc.
- Whitening teeth: To remove yellow stains or enhance the brightness
- Darkening eyelashes: To make eyes more attractive
- Eye correction: To reduce redness, remove dark circles or eyebags
- Reshaping: To make the nose defined, jawline sharp, or reduce the double chin
All the above-mentioned issues need to be edited in a balanced way, or else the images may appear artificial.
If you need to edit or change your photo backgrounds, you can check out Colorcinch, it’s fast and precise.
Avoid Common Mistakes
For an effective actor headshot photography session, it’s important to be aware of mistakes that can compromise perfect actor headshots. These are a few of the typical mistakes that we should try to avoid.
- Use fake or forced expressions rather than feel the character while posing.
- When expressing emotions, use your entire face—your forehead, eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, teeth, etc.—instead of focusing on only one.
- Excessive relaxing or clenching of the jaws, even if not necessary, makes sure to be careful with the position of the jaws. Don’t look artificial.
- Improper head and chin alignment; remember to fix it for an effortless look.
- Avoid wearing distracting clothing or accessories, even excessive makeup that hides laugh lines.
FAQs
What is a good headshot for acting?
A good acting headshot is an image that captures an actor’s true self. The image should have sufficient lighting on the face so that the facial features stay in focus. Besides, the image should not have any dramatic shadows on the face unless it is the requirement of the character.
What should actors wear for headshot?
Actors should wear casual outfits that complement their body structure and skin tone. It’s advised to wear solid colors instead of shiny or bright colors that may create distraction. However, prints and stripes can be worn layered with jackets, blazers, or scarves.
What is an ideal size and format for actor headshots?
The ideal size for an actor headshot is 8×10 inches in the vertical orientation. However, larger sizes such as 16 x 20 inches or 20 x 30 inches can also be used, as they provide more room for cropping in case closeup visuals are required.
Conclusion
The acting portfolio is incomplete without perfect headshots. When you recognize the power of facial language and evoke emotions within audiences, your acting or modeling chances come up too frequently.
Follow the proper guidance, passion, and practice, you as an actor can create amazing acting headshots that add value to your portfolio. Apply the insights you got from this article to your upcoming acting headshot session to grab the better career opportunities that you deserve.
Wishing you all the best!
About Guest Author: David Genik
Based in New York City, David is the premier headshot photographer in the area. He specializes in portraits for actors, fashion industry clients, LinkedIn profiles, corporations, executives, and other professionals. David’s photography style is heavily influenced by fashion-based editorials with dramatic lighting choices mixed with classic design.