I love Actors Access. I've booked quite a few things off it. I've also used it to cast projects.
I'm helping a friend cast something now, and it boggles my mind how people aren't using AA to their advantage. But, if you don't know what it looks like, how can you use it effectively, right?
First things first: If you're a Struggling Actress (hi!) you NEED this. Go to showfax.com, buy the membership and you get to submit to AA for free for an entire year. You can add a ton of photos, but you always get two free - 2 for you, 2 for each of your agencies. Not bad, right? AND, unlike LA Casting, you can upload all your stuff from your computer, which I absolutely heart.
Second: if you have a reel uploaded to your profile, you get shuffled to the top of the casting director's pile! And guys, if you have ANY skills - like you play the guitar, you sing, you beat box, you can ride horses, PUT VIDEO OF IT UP THERE. If you don't have a reel yet, put up a reel of your skills! That way, you're STILL going to the the top of the list! (and half the time, casting is too busy to actually look at your reel- as far as they know, you're good enough to have booked enough good quality things to get video.) [UPDATE! As Professional Casting Director Marci Liroff points out in the comments section, I am NOT talking from a Professional Casting Director's viewpoint. The project I'm working on is a low-budget amateur feature, where Casting might not have the time to review your reel. I still think, however, that if you have any special skills, you should definitely get a skills clip of it up there.]
Third: Spend money on high quality photographers. Pantheon uses my girl Tanya for almost ALL their commercial talent. And she's FRIGGING CHEAP! Click on the link over there ----->
contact her, and get good photos. What makes a good photo? Pay attention to LIGHTING.
Why is all this important? Because on the film I'm helping cast, you are competing against 1,238 other actresses.
Daunting as all hell, right?
Fourth: Notes. On AA, you get the option of submitting Notes to the casting director. There are a ton of people writing notes like this:
"Dear Miranda, I would like to submit for the role of Justine. Thank you so much for your consideration. Sincerely, Samantha."
IF YOU ARE SUBMITTING YOUR HEADSHOT FOR A ROLE, WE KNOW YOU WANT TO BE CONSIDERED FOR IT. Why are you wasting your time doing that for EVERY role you submit for? I mean, yeesh. I really hope you're cutting and pasting that stuff and changing names around, but you really needn't bother. And it makes you look super green. So stop it.
Your Resume
Take any "featured" roles OFF. If you're going to leave me a note saying you're highly trained and natural, and yet you have "featured," which is just a fancy way of saying "extra," you look silly.
If you are in LA, you MUST put Theater at the bottom of your resume categories. LA is not a theater town. You need to put Film or Television at the top. I have Television leading my resume, because I have way more credits on there than I do film. Also, as soon as I can, I am taking off all my recreated events shows. One day, I will be able to take off "I Didn't Know I Was Going to Give Birth to Sextuplets in a Hurricane the Day After an Earthquake, in a Speeding Bus Driven By Sandra Bullock." I can't wait. Cause obviously, that title takes up way too much space on my resume, but the real point is that there comes a time when your acting career graduates a level. When you have so many network credits that you can take off your student films. Understand what I'm getting at? So yeah, lead with what your market sells (Film/Tv for LA, Theater for NYC) and routinely take off your lesser credits.
So! Do you want to know what AA submissions look like to casting?
Your headshot is about 2 inches by 2 inches, with 4 columns to a row, 25 friggin rows deep or:
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We have to sift through 13 pages of that to find who we want to bring in to audition.
For my next post, I'm going to take actual headshot thumbnails and show you what's effective and what's not. If I happen to post your picture for the Whoo Hoo!s, then Awesome! If I put your photo up as an example of an Oh No! Don't worry. I won't use your name.
But I'll do this to help ALL of you to help you get more auditions and maybe help shed some light on why you're not getting called in as much as you should.
Yay!
And here's Part 2
