What to Wear for Child Acting Headshots
What to Wear for Child Acting Headshots
When choosing the right outfits for your child’s film acting headshot session, the goal is to choose pieces that have loads of personality, yet are simple enough to help casting directors envision you in any role. Sound tricky? Well, it can be made a bit more simple with these 5 tips.
What Color Shirt is Best for Child Actor Headshots?
Selecting the colors of your headshot outfits is very important. Color influences the mood/feeling within an image, and can also highlight your child’s physical attributes.
Choose solid color outfit pieces
Clothing with solid colors is generally preferred over prints and/or stripes as it keeps the attention on the subject/headshot. This strategy for acting headshots is generally recommended in order to provide a classic look that will work for any audition or role. However, we welcome prints and patterns in small doses! Wearing only prints or patterns might distract the director from your smile and expression, and could place the emphasis onto your clothing. A touch of plaid (under a layered jacket, for instance), can always be a delightful addition to a young actor’s headshot. As long as your pattern is not the main focus, patterns are ok!
Check out our Child Acting Headshot Session Pricing here!
Our Acting Headshot Sessions for teens and youth are priced affordably so your student can more easily get into the acting field.
The best colors for acting headshot outfits that are always winning choices
Go for youthful tones that aren’t too bright for your shirt, paired with jeans. Blue, purple, green, orange, red, deep pink, and sometimes yellow are good color choices. Jewel tones and medium tones tend to work well with all skin types and character types. I recommend having at least one simple t-shirt or youthful top in one of these colors for your main, neutral acting headshot.
Avoid very light and pastel colors
Acting headshot outfit colors like light purple, sky blue, pale yellow, and cream tend to wash out skin tones and rarely look youthful. In addition, pastel colors don’t photograph well, and will not help your child actor stand out and pop off the page. Since casting directors are now scrolling through headshots in thumbnail version digitally (as opposed to the old days of 8x10 paper), your headshot MUST grab attention immediately. Bold colors will help your child stand out quickly.
Avoid “dead” colors like black, white, or gray
These extreme neutrals do not add character, youth, or personality. Exception: If your role is to play a gothic, emo, or bully role. But while these might be good opportunities to wear black and gray, the occasion is so rare, that we still recommend avoiding these colors altogether.
Do not have logos or words on your child’s acting headshot outfit
Be sure to not wearing clothing that has logos or words displayed. I think the reason is pretty obvious, but these words are simply not neutral, seem biased, and may influence how the casting director views your personality. For instance, if you child’s headshot has a Volcom symbol on the shirt, your child will be stereotyped before the audition even takes place. Even when auditioning for a role whose character may wear words, do not add this to your acting headshot wardrobe. Go for the solid colored version of what that character might wear instead.
2. Keep Your Child’s Acting Headshot Outfit Comfortable
When considering what outfit to wear for your acting headshots for kids, parents tend to forget that the outfit needs to be breathable, movable, and comfy! The more comfortable the child is during their session, the easier it will be to capture their dynamic acting expressions. Clothing should be free-moving without causing odd tugs or wrinkles if we position your child for each headshot pose. With younger children especially, we may do dancing movement, sit down, move our arms around, and have other fun moving things we would like to try in order to capture a fun character style.
3. Wear Layers for Your Child Acting Headshots Outfits
We love how layers give some interest and dimension. When searching for Outfit Ideas for Your Child’s Acting Headshots at the store, pick an outfit with 2 or 3 layers. Make sure your layers comliment each other nicely. Jean jackets are usually a great addition and go well with a long list of types.
Layers is a great opportunity to add in a touch of pattern or print. Just make sure the patterned portion of your acting outfit is not the main focus. The only exception to this rule is when the type or role you are auditioning for calls for such a look. Comedic roles sometimes do well with a punchy piece of outfit personality.
4. Do not wear faded or easily-wrinkled clothing
We always recommend going shopping for fresh outfits for your child’s acting headshots, and for your child’s acting auditions. Kids clothing can tend to look worn pretty quickly after a few washes. Cotton is ok for children actors, but make sure it’s new, clean, and free of wrinkles. Make sure that your child has had a chance to try on their outfit before you bring it to the headshot session. If the shirt has been folded or packaged, make sure the wrinkles have carefully been pressed out. Wrinkles and fold lines are not easily fixable in Photoshop. We aim to try and avoid Photoshopping your photos as much as possible, as casting directors can sniff a doctored headshot a mile away and may wonder why your headshot image had to be so edited. We want to get everything correct in the camera, and then simply remove imperfections and slightly exposure-correct if needed.
5. Do the Outfit Ideas for Your Child Actor’s Headshots match their most-likely type?
When auditioning for a certain look, type, role, or character, you will want to choose outfit pieces and accessories that best represent that type, without being too busy. It’s important for your children to look as they usually would when auditioning. For your child’s headshot session, select outfits that they would also wear when auditioning. The outfit should represent the role being auditioned for in a realistic way that you may very well see on the screen! This rule applies mainly to film auditions and doesn’t apply to all theater auditions. For theater auditions, keep your outfits simple and comfortable. Since these headshots often go in theater programs, a simple outfit that makes for an effective black and white print is very important.
If your child’s role is for a theater production, let us know so we can provide you with a powerful black and white with a nice contrast. For theater, avoid reds, and stick with green, blue, purple, and yellow or orange.
Where to shop in Orlando for children’s and teen acting headshot sessions:
The Children’s Place has great coordinating pieces and simple clothing options.
Walmart is actually one of our favorite places for both children’s and teen’s outfits for actor headshots. Walmart is the most affordable option for simple clothing in bold colors that can easily be layered. Since we always recommend that your Orlando headshot outfits should be new or nearly new, Walmart is a great option.