Hi Bonnie,

“Also, stop the color crap. This color craze thing that is spreading from LA like a virus is horrible. The quality is often poorer than B&W and many look like high school graduation portraits or worse, air brushed, pin-ups from a porn magazine. The burgeoning color headshots for actors has become a talking point nearly every time agents, managers, and casting directors get together. To put it bluntly, we hate the color pictures. Stop feeding into the anxiety that you must have them because a small, limited number of actors have them and photographers are telling you we want them. We don’t want them. They’re ugly. When the photographers pushing color headshots are sitting behind our desks, then they have the right to say, ‘This is what the industry wants.’ Until then, stop sending color pictures.”

Well, that’s one person’s opinion. Until this particular casting director is listing names of other people who hate color headshots, I’d assume he is the only one with the opinion, not “everyone.”

I’ve only met a handful of people in this industry who are anti-color. Very, very few. Most don’t give a poop about color vs. B&W, because most want the headshots to look like you, period. To nearly everyone on the receiving end of headshots, that you look like your headshot matters far more than color, B&W, borders, font used, how attached to resumé, etc.

I don’t know anyone in theatrical casting who pushes color. This trend came from the commercial world, where ad reps began requesting that commercial casting directors provide color photos of auditioning actors. From an archived column on this very topic: “Must I rush out and get color headshots to replace my black and white shots? Not for theatrical headshots. Chemin Bernard shared that the Casting Society of America had recently taken a membership survey on the issue of color headshots vs. black and white headshots. The result: NO ONE CARES. The only thing that matters to any casting director is that the actor’s headshots look like the actor! That said, commercial casting directors tend to prefer color headshots simply because the ad agencies and commercial clients for whom they cast require seeing actors in color.”

So, bottom line, almost no one cares, one way or the other, as long as you look like your headshot. And since it’s now just as cheap to shoot color as B&W (not true ten years ago, but now), if you’re in the market for new shots anyway, might as well go with color. You can always flip the switch to make ’em B&W when you submit to anyone like the casting director you quoted (who clearly hates color). A great reason for keeping a show bible for your career and the players you encounter. Knowing for sure this CD hates color means you don’t burden him with a color headshot. Done.

But I wouldn’t worry about it. Unless you’re hearing such rants from all folks, assume that’s just this particular person’s “thing.” We all have a “thing.” Mine is seeing PRINCIPAL misspelled on actors’ resumés. Will I refuse to cast someone who gets it wrong? Of course not. Will someone who hates color headshots refuse to cast actors who use them? Of course not. Our job is to populate the projects we’re hired to cast with the best possible actors that meet the producers’ requirements. These “little things” are going to make not one bit of difference once it’s down to you and another actor for a role. And any casting director who refuses to call in an actor who uses color headshots (not saying the casting director you quoted is saying that, just taking it to the extreme, so you’ll understand how ridiculous it is to worry about such rants) isn’t really a casting director. We have a job to do. The little annoyances may ruffle us enough to do a rant now and then, but they don’t change the very nature of our job or why we do it.

Don’t stress out over one person’s rant, ever. Life’s too short.

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!

Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001233.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.