Tag Archives: casting sites

The Cost of a Career

3 Mar

I like to remain positive about my career and all that comes with it.

But, let’s be realistic… sometimes you just gotta vent!

So we all know we have to be on those casting sites, mainly LA Casting and Actors Access and perhaps Backstage and Now Casting. This costs money.  We all know we have to have a headshot and this, also, costs money. How about putting these wonderful expensive headshots onto your monthly/ annually paid for sites in order to get more work? Well, you guessed it, that costs money too.

Where does this money come from? I don’t know.

So I finally got my brand spanking new headshots, which I love and am going to ignore the pretty penny I had to pay for them with, and decided to give myself a clean slate on all the casting sites by taking down all my old non-professional pics to upload all my new awesome ones. However, having to enter in my credit card information a gazillion times totally zapped all the fun out of putting up my new pictures!

For LA Casting it costs $25 to upload any initial picture and then $15 for each additional picture (only if you do it all in the same session). So, I decided to narrow down my 5 new pics to 3 and yet that cost me a lovely $55. Moving on…

For Actors Access it costs $10 per picture, not as bad, but still adds up. So for the 4 pics I uploaded, that cost me $40.

That’s $95 just to put a couple pictures up!!! Not to mention the $10/mo for LA Casting and the $65 (?) a year for AA. I don’t even remember anymore. Plus the cost of those headshots in the first place, and the makeup artists, and the retouching, and the formatting and the printing. I’m scared of the grand total.

BUT, it’s okay. This is my investment in my career. These are the steps we need to take, just like for any career. If I wanted to be a doctor I’d be thousands and thousands of dollars in debt just for med school. These are the dues we pay, but to have the career we want to have (not should have) is priceless. =)

Casting Site Tips to Remember

12 Jan

The convenience of online casting websites is amazing, but that also means anyone can sign up. Here are a few important reminders to make the most of your use on these Casting Sites:

Headshots

  • make sure your uploaded headshot looks as good thumbnail size and will stand out in a crowd
  • have more than one “look” so you can choose accordingly, based on the role you are submitting for

Submissions

  • even if you have an agent (commercial, theatrical or both), continue to submit yourself
  • submit daily and as early as possible (casting directors can get thousands of submissions for one role in one day so make sure you are one of the first to be seen)
  • even if you don’t match the character description perfectly, submit anyway! (who knows, you may be just the actor they were looking for but just didn’t know it)
  • however, if you’re totally wrong for the part do not waste your or the casting director’s time in submitting

Resume

  • remember to keep your online resume updated (I tend to forget! maybe you want to set yourself reminders once a month on your calendar or phone)

Clips

  • upload clips from your reel (even better if you can have different clips to showcase different skills, like comedy, drama, improv, etc so you have choices when CD’s ask for a clip)