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the first institution in the industry to require that students majoring in film and television performance must have academic scores that meet the undergraduate standards for ordinary academic majors is the shanghai theatre academy. it is said that this move can increase the chances of admission for students majoring in performance with better academic scores.

the number of candidates who take the entrance exams for schools such as shanghai theatre academy, central academy of drama, beijing film academy, and communication university of china varies each year. as top institutions in the industry, the number of students admitted remains at around 200 all year round. however, there are 80,000 to 100,000 candidates who apply for film and television performance majors across the country every year.

the direct reason for the low admission rate is that the employment situation is not optimistic enough. the industry does not need to reserve tens of thousands of professional performing talents all year round, resulting in very few public undergraduate colleges offering film and television performance majors, with only 50 in the country. this is also one of the reasons why most colleges and universities offering film and television performance majors are private.

according to official statistics in 2024, starting from 2020, the number of candidates applying for performance majors nationwide has increased by about 13.7% each year, and the admission ratio is 194:1, which is lower than the admission rate of 985 universities.

however, even if they are admitted to the above-mentioned institutions, according to industry standards, it only means that they are students of the school, not actors.

it takes a process to go from a student to an "actor". even if the "2024 graduate employment quality report" of a certain professional college points out that the overall employment rate of graduates from the college is 91.29%, for industry insiders who are already familiar with the statistical logic, this statistical standard of "employment" is difficult to describe in one sentence.

because the profession of actor is very special.

usually, an actor is considered "employed" after signing with an agency, but signing with an agency does not mean that the actor can "start working". according to industry practice, a professional actor is considered to be normally employed only if he or she works on screen for at least half a year on average. but for the film and television industry, the "winter" of actors started before 2020, or even earlier.

a cctv survey a few years ago showed that the probability of graduates majoring in acting changing careers within three years of graduation was 70%. many actors changed careers. filming is difficult, and ordinary students from professional schools have to compete with their predecessors, peers, juniors, and colleagues active in first-tier cities when they are in school. some of them are "wild people". they are not from professional schools, but they have excellent "popularity", debuted early, and have a wide range of channels, which gives them more competitive advantages than students and newcomers.

this makes an actor's road to success even more bumpy and tortuous.

author | bu he

editor | xiaobai

typesetting | die

01

platform display, vertical social

beijing piao home hotel was once a well-known "running crew hotel" in the industry. almost every day, agents brought actors into the crew room to submit their materials. of course, "individual" actors would also come with their resumes to try their luck.

after 2016, piao home gradually became deserted. that was the year when online movies and online dramas were booming. on the one hand, actors who went to work for big crews were unwilling to talk about art with small crews and directors here. on the other hand, agencies began to develop in-depth cooperation with the industry's leading film and television platforms, directly providing them with high-quality actor resources. this also caused many crews to move away from piao home.

after 2020, this traditional model of "recruiting in-store" was completely replaced by "vertical recruitment", and the actors who were still running around with their profiles at that time either had no one to connect them with, or were just "experiencing life". most of the actors who were still "employed" either waited for the agency to arrange them, or simply showed their talents through social platforms.

"the company encourages actors to interact with netizens on social media themselves, which is a new form of product promotion."

an industry insider said:

"the most direct reason for doing this is to save money - in principle, the company is only responsible for the actors' publicity in the play, but it cannot guarantee that every actor can be taken care of. starting from 2021, due to limited conditions, many professional actors have no plays to shoot, but they have to maintain their presence. interactive displays on social platforms and some commercial activities unrelated to acting can not only ensure the actors' 'actual existence', but also guarantee the actors' basic life to a certain extent."

the author noticed that actors also make choices on social platforms based on their own circumstances. for example, douyin and wechat are the first choice for most young actors, especially young actresses. usually in their profiles, they will indicate their graduation school and representative works. if there are no representative works, only the graduation school will be left. the content they publish is mainly makeup, shooting highlights and daily life sharing.

most young male actors choose to stay on baidu and baidu hu to express their opinions on performances and roles, as well as popular tv series and movies. they have learned from the successful methods of some of their predecessors and achieved "vertical social networking". while showing their talents to netizens, they are also actively promoting themselves to people in the industry.

compared with traditional artist promotion, young actors prefer personalized, “de-agentized” image promotion, which is flexible in method and most importantly helps them find more development and survival channels during the window period.

such as product promotion and advertising.

professionally trained, well-dressed, and an actor, these halos have given them frequent online interactions, high fan attention, and business opportunities. the business opportunities gained through social media have a reverse impact on the agency's planning for actors. at the same time, the support of a large number of self-media and transparent information exchange have allowed these young people who still regard "being an actor and filming" as an ideal to see more possibilities for future development.

although in 2024, the profession of actor still cannot be equated with "filming".

02

status gap, fierce competition

in march 2024, the "college student extras" in hengdian film and television city became a hot topic.

through mobile phone videos, college students can share their interesting filming experiences online.

these students, who have nothing to do with being "actors" and who went there for "fun", did not realize that they had become "competitors" of another group of their peers.

large quantity, cheap, topical, and has its own dissemination properties.

many crews even signed up a number of college students to become "special actors" -

the head of the local actors' union said, "the daily salary for extras is 100 yuan, but it can be increased by 3-10 times after becoming a special actor." as of the first half of this year, the cumulative number of registered "hengpiao actors" reached 130,000, with nearly 2,000 new actors registered, a year-on-year increase of 65%. interestingly, the main purpose of the newly registered actors this year, whether they are professionally trained or not, is to "gain performance experience."

in hengdian, a resident actor (regardless of rank) has at least four performance groups. if he thinks a role is suitable, he can directly contact the person in charge of the group. most of the people in the group are college students, so it doesn't matter what role he plays. it doesn't matter if it's a tv series or a short play. it's best to have lines, but it's also ok if there are no lines and the face is shown. compared with actors, college students are more obedient and will not "negotiate conditions" with the crew. this makes many young actors who rush to hengdian with their resumes feel a sense of crisis.

"i'm too young and inexperienced, i don't know many people, i can't get into big crews, and in small crews i'm no different from other college students or even ordinary extras. i'm fighting for roles with one or two lines. this feeling is too tiring, but if i sign with an agency, i'll have to endure the frustration of being a 'resource list'. i feel like i've learned so much acting knowledge in the past, but in the end i can't even compare to amateurs. the worst thing is that i haven't found a new track now, and every known 'track' is crowded with people..."

an individual actor said that he went directly to hengdian to be a "hengdian drifter" after graduation and has been there for two years. there is still one year left before the "three-year agreement" investigated by cctv:

"before, actors could use the information gap to package themselves as high-end, but now mobile phones record and expose them at any time. everyone knows what filming is like, and actors have lost their previous sense of mystery. this status gap is in stark contrast to the high spirits when i was admitted to the acting department. i need to constantly build up my mentality, cheer myself up, and convince myself that i can always be the protagonist."

in this situation, many young actors, like their predecessors, form "small circles" to share resources, introduce each other, and accept all opportunities, whether it is advertising, film and television dramas, or other opportunities.

in addition, some actors who realized the importance of "circles" when they were students began to make friends in their sophomore and junior years, and looked for opportunities to join the crew through teachers, classmates and relationships outside the school. until this year's graduation season, many students have completed their identity transformation:

some students with "foresight" signed contracts with reliable companies and became artists under them, gaining attention through their previous performances. some students were determined to work on their own for two years to see if they could meet noble people in the circle and find good dramas and good roles.

there are also some people who have unknowingly let go of the obsession of "i am an actor".

03

it is difficult to maintain a heart of taoism, self-reflection throughout life

what is the most likely thing to break an actor's moral integrity?

no one knows me outside the play, and no one takes me seriously inside the play.

"if an actor has not made any progress five years after graduation, or to put it bluntly, is 'not popular', then i really suggest that he seriously consider changing his career. after all, not everyone can be like papi jiang, who became famous overnight by relying on short videos, and not everyone can achieve success late in life. more often than not, they have to bear the pressure from the outside world, especially the family, and the comparison with classmates and colleagues." said a "former actor" who has transformed behind the scenes to work in actor recruitment.

there are many students who made the same choice as him. those from relatively well-off families can still hold on for one or two years, relying on their family's support while waiting for the filming. those who can't stand it simply go home and start a business.

"if you don't become an actor after studying acting for a few years, the biggest benefit is that your appearance, body shape and acting skills can really add points to your performance," he said. "some classmates with good looks have become anchors, and some classmates i know work in advertising companies and insurance companies, or go to public relations companies to be responsible for external communication activities. in short, i can put my knowledge into practice."

according to him, the dream of becoming an actor has never been easy to achieve.

the problem of "actor saturation" in the industry has already appeared in the early years. nowadays, it is not a new thing for various amateur internet celebrities, pop singers, and folk artists to "cross over" to act. what's more, high-quality film and television resources have always been "more wolves and less meat". there are too many right and wrongs caused by fighting for roles, and there is also a lot of external controversy. the profession itself is disenchanted... it is really better for college students who go into battle lightly in the summer without any mental burden.

although the short dramas that have emerged in recent years can temporarily relieve some of the pressure on young actors, as newcomers in the performing arts industry, the one-time pay may be considerable for ordinary people, but at the same time they also have to face the confusion of "where is the next play?"

resources, connections, planning, and positioning are the workplace confusions that ordinary people face, and young actors also have to face them. however, many people disappear while walking:

"director, i feel that the posture i fell down just now was not tangled enough. please allow me to do it again. i will give it 100% and try to be profound without being deep, plain without being mediocre, and play this corpse well."

in the movie "the king of comedy", stephen chow used the role of a "dead extra" to vividly show the joys and sorrows of "actually, i am an actor"——

eating boxed lunches next to trash cans, shooting for more than ten hours in a row, wearing leather jackets in summer and vests in winter, getting scolded on the set... when the outside world is still lamenting that "being an actor is not easy" and even calling them "film and television migrant workers", they don't know that most of the newly graduated "actors" don't even have such opportunities.

"those popular or famous actors are called 'big names' or 'famous names', and those of us who have no hope of making movies can be called 'obscure names' - we are all obscure names." a business planner who once aspired to become a movie emperor said with a smile.

looking back at the moment when he left school, he realized that the path of being an "actor" was too difficult to walk, and being able to become a 108th-tier actor was enough to show that his "tao heart" was always there.

this year he occasionally shared his life experiences with some of his younger classmates. no one knew how he positioned the young people who were still "children" in his eyes.

these actors who still insist on showing themselves on various social platforms may really realize their dreams one day, or may one day be forgotten by everyone.

as for the requirement of "cultural performance of students in the performing arts department", it may be a plus point for an "actor" to adapt to the industry and gain a foothold in society in the future, but no one can judge how much it can increase the probability of "opportunity".