Today we’d like to introduce you to Brett Newton.
BRETT NEWTON started his musical theatre acting journey when he was eight years old in NJ after his older sister’s performance on stage inspired him to turn to his parents and say, “Mom, Dad, I want to do that.” Brett has played roles like Baby John, Harpo Marx, Tom Sawyer & has tap-danced his heart away. At 11, the young thespian was able to work on stage with Paul Newman to help raise over $1 million for children with cancer. Brett performed on stage with Chita Rivera, Nathan Lane, Julia Roberts & even whispered a forgetful Newman his line in front of a live audience. Brett moved to Los Angeles & immediately started a professional TV & Film career. His natural comedic timing & charm landed him quickly on set as a principal Actor in a junkyard for a Wannadoo cell phone commercial. His portfolio grew to include principal roles including Jack in the Box, Toyota, Esurance, Texas Pete Hot Sauce, Monster, PriceChopper, & Nokia Lumia to name a few. Brett’s TV career has included roles on ABC’s “General Hospital” as Rex the computer techie, Netflix’s “Glow” as the a-hole Paramedic who tells one of the ladies of Glow to “give weight watchers a try” & even Carlos Mencia’s Comedy Centrals “Mind of Mencia” where he heals his father’s cancer by praying to the almighty.
Brett knew he fully wanted to immerse himself in the TV and Film world while he was in Los Angeles, so he became a Telecommunications and Film Major at California State University Los Angeles. Following his degree, he joined up and was one of the co-founders of the production company LA REELS with business partner and good friend Noah Edward Scott. (They were actually roommates in college). Starting from the ground up and word of mouth, LA REELS has recently had it’s nine-year anniversary and has produced over 4000 original scenes with over 8000 actors, a feature film “Scramble,” and numerous award-winning shorts & commercials. Scramble has since been distributed by Gravitas Ventures & distributed on 26 platforms in N. America. Brett’s Directing career started before the birth of LA REELS under the guidance of famed TV Director Howard Ritter when he directed his first televised multi-cam political drama in 2007, “The Members.” Because Brett is an Actor, her understands how an Actor’s mind works to express their true essence on-screen.
LA REELS is now under the guess of Newton Entertainment Inc producing original short-form narrative scenes for Actors in both Los Angeles, CA and Atlanta, GA. Although we’re always up to travel around the country and world!
When covid hit everyone around the world so hard, Brett’s onset shooting was halted. He heavily advertised online for his editing services as well as sold digital copies of the short form narrative scripts and monologues from the 4000 scenes Brett and his team had written and produced over the years. This quickly turned into Brett’s newest Entrepreneurial venture. As an Actor, Brett knows he needs to keep his acting muscle sharp, and one of the most important jobs we have is to be a great auditioner! So Brett used his IP and created a digital mock audition delivery service called Weekly Audition. During covid, Brett hired a virtual assistant and put meta-data on 1200 original LA REELS scripts. Including: Genre, Age Range, Gender, Character Traits, Character Type and more. He used this data and hired a coder to create a strategic application where actors and create their own original profile and put in their script preferences. Every week each Actor receives an original mock audition that replicates the real thing. This way when they do get a professional audition, they’re ready to nail it! Not only that with every subscriber, we license the scripts to them to produce for their own reels and put on tape and share on their own social media platforms. Our goal is inspire others to do what they love and help them be accountable to working their Acting muscle.
Brett’s Career also includes working with: Netflix, Comedy Central, FUEL TV, History, Discovery, Court TV, EA Games, HBO, MTV, Asylum, Direct TV, Saatchi Saatchi, Comcast, Monster VR, 22 Squared, Buffalo Wild Wings, The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Key Art Awards, Playboy, Jack Daniels, Scion, The Magic Castle, National Jewish Health, eforb & more.
At the age of 11 years old Brett was diagnosed with A.L.L. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Was in and out of hospitals until the age of 15, went through chemo-therapy and had ten rounds of radiation to the brain. He lost a lot of brain cells, so now he’s only a genius Brett was so lucky to have his family and team of doctors that saved his life and kept a positive attitude through the whole journey. “I always said, If I knew I was going to live I would have chose to go through it.” So many great opportunities and experiences happened because of it. Including being a camper and then a volunteer @ Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, going on a ranch with Don Imus in New Mexico for a week, getting a make a wish to Australia, and being able to use my entertainment skills to help raise money for huge causes. My eyes are open and I’m super grateful to be able to do what I do and make a living at it!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Building a business is one of the hardest things you can ever do. It takes time, dedication, and a lot of tedious work, especially when you very little or no capital to get you off the ground. I was super lucky when building my first company, LA REELS, as my business partner Noah Edward Scott inspired me and I inspired him. Noah actually came up with the idea to shoot demo reel scenes for Actors. Now because we had been roommates for a year in college, he knew I was an actor and into filmmaking. So he had actually booked his very first client and called me up and said, “Brett, do you want to act in a scene?” and of course, I said sure. I drove up to his office, which was actually Randall Kleiser’s In house Studio Office (Director: Grease, Blue Lagoon, Flight of the Navigator), and I acting my heart out in a barn where I got the $hi! beaten out of me. When the shoot was finished, Noah asked me what I thought, and I thought it was an incredible idea. From that day on, Noah and I were together every single day for the next three years building LA REELS. I was an Actor that makes living producing acting content! We started by putting together a list of about 10,000 actor emails, making calls and getting clients. Each client brought more clients and word of mouth spread very quickly. We were one of the first mainstream demo reel companies in Los Angeles, CA.
Honestly, one of the hardest things for us was the price point of shooting original scenes. As we know, our clientele doesn’t have uber $$$ to burn so there was a balance b/t charging for our services and paying ourselves what we were worth. In hind site, we burned out numerous times, as we were working 80 hour weeks together, to keep the lights on. Creating high production value at super low cost. We did have interns and teaching seminars, but in the end Noah and myself did the majority of the work from booking, shooting, editing, and delivery. Eventually, Noah sold out of the company and I became the sole owner of LA REELS. I simplified it very much, down to a two man crew for Demo reel Scenes, and got rid of our large offices since we shoot everything on location. This definitely helped with the price point, but I’ve always been looking for and experimenting with other services and production types in the field that I’m in. Including digital and different types of productions for actors. I have come up with many solutions and most recently, after creating WeeklyAudition, I feel like I have something very special!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I grew up in musical theatre. The energy performing on a live stage that you shared with the audience is truly the reason I became and stayed an actor. It’s the whole reason why I do everything that I do now. When I think about it my stomach gets butterflies. There’s nothing like it. That lead me to love tap dancing and acting. For some reason, I never wanted to be on Broadway, but I always wanted to be in TV and Film. So I went to Los Angeles. I have literally been on thousands of sets in front and behind the camera, from huge studio films to small low budget guerrilla movies (all of my films). I’m best known as an Actor and Filmmaker. I have an extensive acting resume and extensive production resume as well. I’m a great Director because I know the mindset of an actor, producer, editor and everyone involved from start to finish. So I know what we need to get and how to work within my resources available. It’s honestly hard to say what I’m most proud of because I’m almost working to better myself and reach further. I know it keeps me motivated to keep going, but I also think it’s a curse because I always need to take a step back to look at my achievements. I will say producing the feature film “Scramble” was a huge undertaking and I’m proud of what we made, what we learned during the process and the willpower we kept to finish that film. I have massive respect for anyone that can finish a feature film, it takes guts, heart and a lot of mental and physical energy. As an Actor, I’m definitely set apart because I’m also a true entrepreneur. I own multiple business’s and I only have to work in the entrainment industry to survive.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Atlanta, GA. I love that it’s a big city with a small-town vibe. There is a lot to do and explore and the southern food will make you larger because it’s so delicious! I know from experience.
I think because this is a smaller city, with some of the business owners, especially the ones that started here in the entertainment industry may feel threatened by newcomers in the industry. I am a firm believer that this Is a collaborative art form and we need to work together and collaborate and that will only lead to larger and more success. Not everyone has the same mindset in this town.
Pricing:
- Weekly Audition Month to Month $15
- Weekly Audition 6 Month $75
- Weekly Audition 1 Year $120
- LA REELS scene production $475- $2000
Contact Info:
- Email: Brett@lareels.com | brett@weeklyaudition.com
- Website: www.LAREELS.com | www.WeeklyAudition.com | www.Brettbook.com
- Instagram: @lareels @weeklyaudition @thebrettnewton
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5nHRRWCCJeAlSxVFON2EvA
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6045535/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1











Image Credits
Darrell Snedeger (Collective Energy Photography)