The New Year brings thoughts to career goals and resolutions to meet them in the months ahead. As a stand-in, it may be interesting to evaluate what your goals might be in the new year with respect to your job.

Here are a few questions to consider when pondering and setting your new year’s resolutions as a TV/film stand-in.

Doing More Stand-In Work

Maybe you’ve had the taste of standing in in the past but haven’t developed a lot of experience. Or maybe you’re looking forward to a pay bump from background work that stand-in work can provide. Each of these interests translates to a desire to resolve to do more stand-in work in the new year.

With this goal in mind, submit more often to stand-in work that you see posted. Tell casting directors you’re interested in standing in if there are opportunities available in addition to doing background work. Essentially, put out energy that you’re interested in doing more stand-in work in the new year, and you may find that what you wanted may come to you.

Graduating to a Consistent Stand-In Gig

Perhaps you’ve been pulled from background work to stand in on occasion in the past year. If you’re looking to broaden your stand-in horizons, in the coming year you may take more interest in consistent stand-in work.

Consistent stand-in work may come in several forms. You may land, say, a three-day gig on a television show for a guest star. Or you might land a two-week stint on a film for a supporting actor. Or you might land a multi-month gig standing in for a lead on a feature film.

While you probably don’t have total control over the stand-in gigs you will land in the coming year, you do have control over getting your interests out there, expressed, and pursued. You may want to leverage your past stand-in experience to promote your interests to casting directors who hire stand-ins, so that they know of your experience and desire for consistent stand-in work. Setting a new year’s resolution in that direction may keep your eye on the prize.

Getting a Pension Credit and/or Health Insurance

Maybe in the past you haven’t put much thought to the real benefits that can come from working consistently as a stand-in on a union job. As a member of SAG-AFTRA, you may be eligible to earn a pension credit and/or health insurance if you earn enough income as a union stand-in or work a required number of days.

In the year ahead, it may be that you want to take earning a pension and health insurance more seriously. If that is your resolution, it would be in line with your goal to research the requirements to earn a pension credit and health insurance from SAG-AFTRA stand-in jobs. You can start by reading the websites for the Screen Actors Guild Pension and Health Plans and the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds.

Landing a Specific Stand-In Gig

Perhaps you know of a television show that will begin shooting in the summer. Or maybe you know of a film coming to town starring an actor you resemble. It might be time to resolve to land a specific stand-in gig and start asking what you can do now to better your chances of landing the job.

You may have a network of production people you can query to find out who is working on it, in case you may have a lead on the job. You might know the office doing the background and stand-in casting for the film, and you might drop a postcard in the mail. Whatever the case, a new year’s resolution to land a specific stand-in gig may keep you better focused and prepared in landing the gig the moment the opportunity arises.

Graduating from Stand-In Work

Of course, your goals may not be as a stand-in. More than likely, if you’re standing in, you’re an actor, and your aspirations are to do work on-camera rather than off-camera. So your new year’s resolution as a stand-in may actually be to get out of doing stand-in work — and land the kinds of roles actors for whom you stand in land.

Consider the leads you’ve developed over time standing in — not to mention your set experience — when figuring what you want to achieve in the new year. Do you hope to land featured roles? roles with lines? a pilot? a recurring role in a television series? a supporting role in a film? a lead role? Standing in may have brought you closer to that goal, but it shouldn’t be your end goal if you have other aspirations. Get in touch with that goal and by year’s end you may find that your off-camera experience as a stand-in really informed your on-camera experiences as a professional actor!

A Final Note on Stand-In Resolutions

These are but a few new year’s resolutions that come to mind when thinking about standing in. Whatever your goals, aim for them and make sure to check in from time to time to see how you’re progressing. Did you remember them? Are you still on track to achieve them? Have you achieved them already?

It may help to write your resolutions down and post them so that you may see them and be regularly reminded of them. In the meantime, good luck in your pursuits!

Do you have your own new year’s resolutions as a stand-in? Can you think of other stand-in resolutions we missed? If so, share below!