I’m not afraid to admit it: I’m totally addicted to my iPhone. It’s my baby. It goes everywhere with me and if I didn’t have it I know that my life would not be anywhere near as productive as it is right now. And the main thing about my iPhone that I love are all the amazing apps that I have on my phone that make my life so easy.
So I’d like to share with you my top 10 apps that I think all actors should have on their phone!
1. and 2. An amazing calendar and contact app
I’ve talked about maximizing your calendar and contact apps before. I still feel like this is just as important as it was when I wrote that previous article. A good calendar app can help you keep your life balanced. I track all my day jobs (I currently have 5), auditions, classes, and of course fun things. I really can’t agree to do anything or attend something until I consult my calendar. Life is crazy and there’s no good excuse not to be organized when it comes to your schedule. And having your contacts organized is essential when it comes to building relationships. Not everyone will remember meeting you in auditions or events, so if you can look that up and remember something amazing from your past encounter with that person, you appear that much more impressive and put together. I not only have all my contacts in my phone, I have people organized by category. It’s easy to target casting directors and producers for a mailing when you can just look up those categories.
3. Rehearsal 2
I’ve talked about this app in my previous top apps article. This is an incredible app to help you learn your lines quickly and easily. I use this for every single audition that I get. I love that you can highlight your lines and then if you’d like to test yourself you can have all the highlights black out. This is so much easier than making flash cards for your lines (which is how I learned my lines before I got Rehearsal 2). I also love that you can record your lines or the other lines in the scene and play them back. I like to record the other lines and then stay quiet (or speak in a whisper) during my lines. Then I can practice my lines with myself. And in my car, I have a cable that allows me to play anything from my phone through my car’s speakers. So while I’m driving to my audition, I’m rehearsing. It helps to keep me calm and get as prepared as possible before going into the room.
4. Affirmations
This is something that I use every single day. I’m a big believer in having a positive mindset to produce positive results. I haven’t always been this way, but since my family has had some tough stuff to get through, I’ve tried to stay positive when possible and always have an attitude of gratitude. The Affirmations app is a daily affirmations guide. Every day there is a new affirmation on the app for you to look at and focus on. You can favorite affirmations so you see them again, but I like the variety it offers. I look at the app every morning when I wake up to try to start my day on a super positive note and to give myself something to focus on when things seem to not be going my way.
5. Podcasts (or another podcast app)
As I’ve written on here before, I’m a podcast junkie! It’s a great way to spend your time traveling to and from auditions and day jobs. You can listen to fun things or educational things. I love getting my industry news this way! I find that it’s such a better use of my time in my car to listen to podcasts instead of music. This way I feel like I’m getting something done or learning something new while I’m in traffic.
6. Kindle (or another e-reader app)
I have a tendency to get to my auditions super early. I figure it’s always better to be early than late. But when you are 30 minutes early, you can’t really go into the audition room that soon. So I spend some time reading on my Kindle app. I have fun books as well as some acting books that are always loaded on there. Reading tends to calm me down, so that helps quite a bit before going into a stressful audition.
7. Actor Genie
While I’ll admit that I don’t love every feature of this app, the thing I find the most helpful is the Contacts and What’s Casting sections. In Contacts, it has the contact information for casting directors, agents, and managers. This can be super helpful when building a contact list for postcards or other mailings. It’s also good for drop offs if you are on a lot already for an audition or some other reason. The What’s Casting section is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a list of shows and movies that are currently going on along with the network, storyline, producer, casting director, and shooting location. It’s almost like what I do with taking notes on all the new tv shows, just missing some of the information that I note.
8. Sigalert/HopStop
I have mainly used Sigalert in LA and HopStop when I’ve been in New York, but I believe that both apps can be used in either location (and across the country). Sigalert is a way to search freeways and major roadways for any accidents or other reasons why traffic might be bad. It tells you the average speed at each exit on the freeways. When I’m driving around town, I always check Sigalert because you never know when the freeways might be bad during non-rush hour (and when they might be empty during rush hour). HopStop is a guide for public transportation. You put in where you are and where you want to go and HopStop will tell you how to get there and what buses or subways to take.
9. Evernote
I love this app for note taking! You can create notebooks for different types of notes and it keeps it so organized! I have notebooks for various Q&As I’ve attended and have taken notes on the guests on the panels. I also have a notebook for different acting classes. I’ve been in one class where they didn’t have enough copies of the sides for everyone, so I took a photo of the sides with my phone and put them in the notebook for that class. That way I could have a copy of the sides and make my notes right next to it as well! I’m also starting to use Evernote for my new tv series notes.
10. Twitter
If you aren’t on twitter already, sign up now! It’s such an amazing networking and promoting tool. If you need more reasons to sign up for twitter, check out this blog post from casting director Marci Liroff. So many casting directors, writers, and producers are on twitter and many of them love to interact with people who love their work. Lots of times, they will do Q&As through twitter and you can learn lots of great advice and fun facts about projects they have worked on. There are so many twitter apps that you can use. Personally, I use Echofon because it syncs up very nicely with my laptop.
So there you go! My top 10 apps for actors. If you think I’ve missed anything, please let me know in the comments. I’m always looking for ways to improve my digital life!