Patrick Stack, Holly-wood producer and actor, wrote his seminar, “All the Right Moves: The Art of Sales in a Showbiz Life,” based on the difficulty of breaking into the show business industry.
Stack presented the seminar to California Baptist University students March 23. This marked the first time he presented it to a college audience and he said he hopes to continue giving the seminar to university students.
“All the Right Moves” focuses on teaching aspiring actors, or anyone interested in working in the entertainment industry, how to market themselves in a way that will lead to employment. Stack’s points ranged from being confident and making connections to working hard and being just plain lucky.
“A light bulb went off, and I said, ‘Holy mackerel! Everybody’s in sales — everybody,’” Stack said about the origin of his seminar. “I was really in sales as an actor, and I didn’t realize that.” Stack designed his seminar to help other aspiring actors realize the entertainment service needs to be marketed just like anything else.
To illustrate his points, Stack used various movie clips to demonstrate good and bad ways to implement his ideas.
He also got the audience participating through a series of improvisation skits in hopes of solidifying his tips in their minds, he said.
“I’m an aspiring actor…,” Nathan Hexem, sophomore marketing major, said. “I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn about the business.”
Dr. Jim Buchholz, professor of math and physics, gave students in his Physics of Hollywood class extra credit for attending.
“I’m not the only one that thinks that science and Hollywood go together,” Buchholz said.
He encouraged his science students to come to the seminar because many Hollywood directors, such as Stephen Spielberg and James Cameron, employ scientists and engineers as consultants to help with the ideas in their films.
Lexi Victoria, junior biology major, said she found the seminar useful.
“It’s something that can apply to everybody,” Victoria said.
Though the seminar was angled toward aspiring employees of show business, the idea that everyone is a salesperson selling their own personal brand can be applied to any profession.
