Monday, August 02, 2010

AFTRA Has a Prescription Discount Card Program

If you are a member of AFTRA, there now seems to be an AFTRA Prescription Discount Card Program open to all AFTRA members, independent from the AFTRA health insurance. It gives a discount of 13% to 65% on drug prices through the nationwide network of over 50,000 pharmacies. It seems many pharmacies in the LA area may accept it (e.g., Walgreens, Costco). I haven't used it myself, so caveat actor.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

AFTRA Ratifies Network TV Code 'Front of the Book'

AFTRA members have overwhelmingly voted to ratify a one-year extension...by a margin of 98% in favor to 2% against

(from AFTRA.com).

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Your Nudity Policy

Think through in advance what you want to respond if/when you are asked to take off some or all of your clothes for a role.

...acting is about living within the circumstances and people get naked from time to time, so in some cases, where it enhances the movie, it's definitely warranted

(from Zurit Zuriel Horowitz's Fairy Tales). King Lear comes to mind as a piece that may validly call for male nudity. Warranted or not, each actor needs to decide for themselves what they are comfortable doing, how naked they are willing to be in public. Once it's captured on camera, it is forever. What are you thoughts on nudity? Please leave a comment.

Good idea: have a nudity clause (rider) in your contracts that specifies what the production can and can not request you reveal on camera or on stage. Otherwise you may be asked to reveal more than you expected.

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Retouching Photos

Actors may photoshop their pictures sometimes, but casting expects actors to arrive looking like their pictures. While some retouching may cover things that only happened on the day of the photo-shoot, actors who cannot reproduce what the computer makes them look like will disappoint casting, who expects what the picture shows them. I've never retouched my pictures. Have you, will you? Please comment with your thoughts.

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Slow and Steady Wins

Leaps look good in the movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time

(from Hope and the Magic Lottery).

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Being Indispensable

If another actor can replace you, you are a commodity, like lumber or steel. In the marketplace your only competitive edge will be the rate you charge. Charge less than other actors, you'll book, charge more, you won't.

Some actors do this, offering low price point acting and must do a lot of it to pay their own bills (often non-union work falls into this category). Some offer higher price point acting and can live a little more comfortably. Other actors offer high price point acting and get paid far more (sometimes millions).

The difference can seem subtle. Sometimes it's having a built in audience you bring with you to every project, sometimes it's being the only person with a given skill/attribute/etc. Being a commodity is not a path to financial security, but is not "wrong" in any absolute sense; I know actors who like having day jobs and don't want acting to take over their lives and time. The difference between highly paid and not-so-highly paid can be summed up as a difference in how much value an actor brings (or is perceived to bring).

I had a college professor who did engineering consulting. A brand new office tower in Boston had a serious problem-there was a brown stain coming through the drywall, (all of the drywall) no matter how much stain killer they used. In a forty story building, if you have to rip out all the drywall, this is a multi-million dollar disaster. They had exhausted all possibilities and were a day away from tearing out everything and taking a loss. They hired Henry in a last-ditch effort to solve the problem. He looked at the walls and said, "I think I can work out a solution, but it will cost you $45,000 if I succeed." They instantly signed on, because if he succeeded, the project would be saved.
Henry asked for a pencil and paper and wrote the name of a common hardware store chemical and handed it to them. "Here, this will work." And then he billed them $45,000. That's quite an hourly wage. It's also quite a bargain

(quote from Seth Godin).

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Wednesday, June 02, 2010

SAG and AFTRA Meet Together to Plan TV/Theatrical Contract

Joint Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists Wages & Working Conditions meetings have been scheduled in preparation for negotiation of the SAG TV/Theatrical and AFTRA Exhibit A Contract that expires June 30, 2011. All members who work this contract are invited to attend and participate

(from sag.org).

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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Casting Director Workshops and Fairness

...if anyone in a field is allowed to PAY for a job interview, the playing field suddenly becomes very lopsided, and unfairly so. Should Rich Kid Sally have a better shot at that coveted office job with flexible hours, high pay, and an understanding that you’re going to need to leave for auditions over Poor Kid Joe merely because she could pay for a job interview? At that point, we are no longer looking at merit (or even connections, social intelligence, whatever) as a reason for hire. Suddenly the well-to-do are able to (ostensibly) move to the front of the line simply because of money. Restricting this practice does not come from a motivation of restricting choice, but rather to protect large portions of the population as well as attempting to have as level a playing field as possible

(Ben Whitehair's post about Casting Director Workshops).

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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Commitment and Courage

Commitment is healthiest when it's not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

-Dr. Rollo May

And I paraphrase David Mamet in saying that acting is in part facing the unknown with courage.

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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Actors as Animals

An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal - falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox.

- Francois Truffaut

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Thursday, May 13, 2010

This Industry is Random

Rob Long's most recent Martini Shot podcast episode The List is more than entertaining, it elucidates how progress and opportunities are often random in this business (listen to the mp3).

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Saturday, May 08, 2010

How to Self-Tape Your Audition

Marci Liroff wrote a note about How to Self-Tape Your Audition from that I found a video about 3 point lighting.

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Friday, May 07, 2010

Sartre on Acting

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.

- Jean-Paul Sartre

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Tuesday, May 04, 2010

MBAs Running Show Business

I blog for Vicious Concepts and wrote a post about our industry:

MBAs running showbiz is like having a doctor hang ceiling tiles: they might get it right, but why would you ask them to try in the first place? To have MBAs, general business people, in charge of entertainment companies makes little sense in the final analysis. Sure they might know about allocating money and saying what stockholders, the board and colleagues want to hear, but they aren't showman (and show-women; show people) [read more]

(from Details - Video, Social Media and the Internet).

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