Actors Biogs
Thu, 24 July 2003, 01:05 pmGreg Ross36 posts in thread
Actors Biogs
Thu, 24 July 2003, 01:05 pmIn light of boulevards of broken dreams and worthless receipts, is it feasible or warranted for this site to provide an area where actors can post a jpeg photo and a three line biog, with contact details?
Re: Actors Biogs
Sun, 27 July 2003, 01:06 amGreg Ross wrote:
>
> There is obvious enthusiasm and need for an Actors Biog service.
So potentially, this proposed database is likely to be HUGE....which could be problematic. Professional directories like Showcast have hundreds and hundreds of entries, even though they're limited by charging a high fee. You can't include a lot of info, so it's mainly your professional headshot. Who looks at them? Professional casting directors for film and TV, mainly. Theatre companies still tend to prefer auditions to find talent.
A directory for community theatre actors is probably not going to attract those viewers...so who's going to look at it? It's not going to be particularly helpful unless it's organised into separate States/regions, and then into age/sex categories. (There's the problem with asking for State funding...this is a nationally accessed website.) And then it's use will be limited to the quality of photo and information it can provide.
There needs to be a balance between keeping it small (nobody wants to wade through pages of info on every actor) and making it useful (you need to know information about skills, vitalstatistics, experience, etc, otherwise what are you gaining by searching?). If the website were organised into thumbnail pages which then opened into more detailed pages; and you were also able to search by category, then it could be quite useful..if the information was kept up to date. It would also be massive.
Knowing from experience with professional agents, they find it hard enough to keep accurate records of the performers on their books, which may only number a hundred or so. At least they know when to delete someone who may no longer be in town...are we going to trust that sort of updating to the individuals? You don't want to sift through the talent pool not knowing whether the information is still valid and not certain whether the performer still resides in your area.
And you're only going to keep it updated if you believe the service is doing you some good - if you're getting results that you would not be getting from the other avenues you normally pursue to get noticed.
Yes, there is obvious support and enthusiasm from the actors - we all want to advertise ourselves as much as possible.
The telling point will be to hear from community directors, filmmakers, etc... What do THEY want to see and would they find such a service useful?
Cheers,
Craig
[%sig%]
>
> There is obvious enthusiasm and need for an Actors Biog service.
So potentially, this proposed database is likely to be HUGE....which could be problematic. Professional directories like Showcast have hundreds and hundreds of entries, even though they're limited by charging a high fee. You can't include a lot of info, so it's mainly your professional headshot. Who looks at them? Professional casting directors for film and TV, mainly. Theatre companies still tend to prefer auditions to find talent.
A directory for community theatre actors is probably not going to attract those viewers...so who's going to look at it? It's not going to be particularly helpful unless it's organised into separate States/regions, and then into age/sex categories. (There's the problem with asking for State funding...this is a nationally accessed website.) And then it's use will be limited to the quality of photo and information it can provide.
There needs to be a balance between keeping it small (nobody wants to wade through pages of info on every actor) and making it useful (you need to know information about skills, vitalstatistics, experience, etc, otherwise what are you gaining by searching?). If the website were organised into thumbnail pages which then opened into more detailed pages; and you were also able to search by category, then it could be quite useful..if the information was kept up to date. It would also be massive.
Knowing from experience with professional agents, they find it hard enough to keep accurate records of the performers on their books, which may only number a hundred or so. At least they know when to delete someone who may no longer be in town...are we going to trust that sort of updating to the individuals? You don't want to sift through the talent pool not knowing whether the information is still valid and not certain whether the performer still resides in your area.
And you're only going to keep it updated if you believe the service is doing you some good - if you're getting results that you would not be getting from the other avenues you normally pursue to get noticed.
Yes, there is obvious support and enthusiasm from the actors - we all want to advertise ourselves as much as possible.
The telling point will be to hear from community directors, filmmakers, etc... What do THEY want to see and would they find such a service useful?
Cheers,
Craig
[%sig%]
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