From Actor To Creator

empower yourself as an actor, revolutionize your creative life, and radically uplevel your career

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If you've landed here, it means you're an actor who is ready to step into full creative empowerment.

Who's ready to take back control of your artistic life, transform the way you walk into the room as an actor, and stop waiting for permission to work to your full creative capacity.

This course will give you everything you need to make that leap.

From Actor to Creator is a three-module course that gives you all the tools you need to take the leap into creating your own work.

First, we take a deep dive into story structure--and I'll teach you how to take everything you already know about story as an actor and, with a simple shift in perspective, use it to start working as a storyteller. Next, I give you the full download of all the practical information you need to work in the forms you have available to you as a first-time creator: short film, independent feature film, webseries, and theater (both ensemble and solo plays). We'll cover how to find collaborators, how to raise money, how to put together your production infrastructure--from crewing up to running a set--and much more, ensuring that you have all the practical knowledge you need to make your project a reality. And then we'll design a regular creative practice that works for you--one that's not determined by auditions or call times or rehearsal schedules. One that you control. So that your artistic output is never again dependent on external circumstances.

Here's what you'll get:

  • A comprehensive breakdown of my groundbreaking Character Based Story Structure methodology--one that I've used to coach TV showrunners, Sundance-supported filmmakers, and award-winning Off-Broadway playwrights--tailored to what you already understand about story as an actor;
  • A massive download of all the nuts and bolts you need to know to create, fund and produce a short film, webseries, independent feature, solo show or play, presented step-by-step, in detail, so you know exactly what to do, in what order, to make work in all those mediums;
  • A deep dive into creative practice to help you design a reliable, consistent creative habit that nobody controls but you--so you can set goals, keep your channel open, and have a creative structure you can count on as you make your work;
  • Worksheets and homework to radically activate your creative process and enable you to apply all the principles in the videos;
  • PDFs summarizing the information and takeaways contained in the videos, so you can refer to them as you create your work.

By signing up to create your own work, you are signing on to revolutionize your creative life. You are signing on to radically shift the way you see yourself as an artist, the way you navigate the business of acting, and to massively expand your understanding of character and story. The understandings you gain through this process will deepen your work, hand you back the reins of your own creative life, and make you a freer, more joyful--and more hireable--actor.


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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

I just want to work more as an actor; I'm not looking for a "second career" as a writer, director, or producer. Is this course right for me?

I believe that every single actor should create their own work--regardless of whether you’re interested in building a second career as a writer, director, producer or not.

We should create our own work because it changes us as artists. Because it puts the reins back in our hands. Because making something from scratch, starting from zero, moving through all the steps, and seeing your finished work on screen or on stage--is an experience that is irreplaceable. Because stepping into that level of creative empowerment will forever change the way you walk into the room as an actor. Because once you’ve done it, you’ll know that you have the power to make your work from scratch.

And you will never feel like you need someone else’s permission to do your work, to be an artist--ever again.

That changes how you walk into the room to meet with reps, audition for a project, or test for a series or film. It transforms your energy completely. It enables you to come into the room as a collaborator--which transforms your energy and makes you exponentially more hireable.

In addition to everything it does to showcase your work, build your reel, or show people you can play beyond the ways you're ordinarily cast--making your own work makes you a better actor, and a better auditioner. And it transforms your approach to the process in ways that make you wildly more attractive to creators, producers and directors.

I'm a hyphenate! I really do want to branch out and build a career as a writer, director, or producer beyond what I'm doing as an actor. Will this course be rigorous enough for me?

Absolutely. The principles I teach in this course are deep, and ones that I continue to internalize at deeper and deeper levels every day in my own work as a professional writer, actor and director. I believe that every artist has the capacity to make excellent, professional-caliber work, and that learning to do so is a matter of practice, craft, and skill. This course is specifically designed to help you make the pivot from an actor's mindset to a creator's mindset, and to show you how to apply the skills you already have as an actor to the creation of story. If you want a deeper dive into the nuts and bolts of storytelling, you can check out my fourteen-module Character Based Story Structure course for a totally comprehensive program that walks you through story construction in intricate detail. But if you're an actor first, this course is the place to start--because it's what will help you make the pivot and start living and working as a creator.

What do I need to start this course? An outline? A script? An idea?

You need the desire to take the reins of your own creative life. The feeling that you've got more to give as an artist. An impatience with waiting for permission to do your work. That's it. If you already have an idea--that's great. This course will radically accelerate your ability to develop your idea and turn it into great work. If you've got a script--that's great too. This course will help you refine your script, get it ready for production, and know what the heck to do when it's time to get it made. But if you don't have any of that stuff yet--that's fine too. The work in this course will get it all moving.

I'm a working actor. I can't always predict when I'm going to get a job that takes up all my energy for two months, or even a whole season. What if I fall off the program?

Life happens! (Especially for actors). And most creators have put down and picked up their projects many, many times. (Sometimes that downtime actually winds up marinating things and sparking incredible new discoveries). Once you buy the program, you have lifetime access, so if you fall off, just pick it back up again when you’re ready. The work will be there for you.

I want to create a project, but I’m so busy. Will I really have time to do this course? How much time will it take?

In my private coaching practice, I work with people whose lives look totally different from each other. I have clients who are full-time professional writers with the freedom to chart their own course; I have clients who are series regulars; I have clients who are working actors who are constantly hustling auditions; I have clients who are executive producers on TV shows (that’s a 60-hour a week gig) and writing their own scripts on the side. My creative productivity methodologies are designed to create a consistent, reliable, productive creative habit for everyone who uses them--no matter what the structure of your life looks like. When I help you design your creative practice, we will walk through the realities of your own life and schedule to design a practice that works for you. Reliably and consistently. Whether you have three hours a week to spend on your project, or thirty.

I want to create a project, but I’m totally blocked (or I'm totally terrified). Since I’m so stuck, will signing up for this just be a waste?

No way. That is exactly what I’m here for. This course contains tools to unblock you right away--and concrete homework and assignments to keep you putting one foot in front of the other. You will never be left wondering what to do next again. And you’ll have concrete, incredibly effective tools to move through resistance and “writer’s block”--so that your channel stays open, you stay in charge, and your new normal becomes radical creative productivity.

Your Instructor


Jessica Blank
Jessica Blank

I’m Jessica Blank, and I’m a writer, director, actor, speaker, and coach on a mission to impact our world through the transformative power of story.

My work as a playwright, screenwriter, director, filmmaker, actor, author, documentarian, and TV writer has taken me from studio lots in Los Angeles to military hospitals in San Antonio; the mountains of Appalachia to refugee neighborhoods in Amman; Off-Broadway rehearsal rooms to policymakers’ marble offices. I’ve worked with TV producers, NGO founders, movie stars, thought leaders and filmmakers; in the New York theater, in Hollywood, and in universities across the country. My work as a storyteller has impacted policy, moved high-level decision makers, even saved lives—and I figured out how to do it from scratch, through trial and error (which means I can teach it to you!)
Every day, I see in my own work and that of my clients story’s power to transform—to move us, change us, and make us see our world in new ways. My life is devoted to understanding and working with this power, across mediums, to expand our capacity for empathy, to move people, and to evolve our understanding of each other and our world.

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