Hey, Bonnie!
Thanks for pointing out to me on my Facebook post that your email was at the bottom of your articles. For some reason, I never thought that went directly to you. I’m a dum-dum.
SO… I’m writing to you for two points:
1) I’ve been in the business for a few years. I’ve accrued a resumé of mostly co-stars but on great shows. Now that I’m seeking an agent that will use the relationships I’ve built to get me in the room for guest stars and higher, the feedback I’m getting is: “Your resumé has too many co-stars for us.” It feels like a catch-22: You can’t go out for the big stuff without making a resumé; now that I’ve made the resumé, it’s keeping me from the big stuff.
The advice I’ve gotten so far has been to either (a) make some credits read “large co-star” if the part warranted it; (b) take credits off the resumé; and (c) create my own content that shows more of what I can do.
All good advice, I feel, but I really want to know what YOU think is the way to go.
And this leads into my second point, which is:
2) I’ve gone ahead and created my own short. I wrote it with a friend and we made it very industry-based in the hopes that it would gain traction there. It’s called How to Get Featured on “Deadline Hollywood” — that’s fairly industry-specific. 😉 How do you recommend actors best promote their own content and use it to up their status? Would you submit the credit to IMDb?
For your viewing pleasure (hopefully) and insights, here’s the short: https://youtu.be/i32TqyoXDZs — I didn’t post this on your Facebook wall for fear you would frown upon that.
Thanks so much for your constant enlightenment and advice!
Hello Artie and thanks for the email! 🙂 First, on the self-produced short. Cute, fun, and *very* inside. That’s one of the downsides to industry content: It only appeals to a very narrow niche and if the goal is to get traction and show what you could book “in real life,” it needs to be NOT about the industry. Even “industry” hits are not about the industry (meaning, Entourage was about brotherhood and fantasy life, and very few ABOUT-the-biz shows ever stick).
But it’s cute and not too long (of course, I always say shorts can be shorter) and I hope it’s given good leverage to you in your quest to land rep. Which brings me to the catch-22 you mentioned. Yeah, if your resumé is a showcase for co-stars, you’ve not shown the buyers that you’re primed for your first guest star. You’ve actually branded yourself as a co-star actor (and there are plenty of folks who are satisfied with that tier).
So, featuring enough co-stars to show you’ve been on sets (and good ones) without making it look as though the only trick you’ve got is a one-liner here and there is the balance. The best part about a resumé is that it’s always a work in progress and you can easily mark the TV header with “selected” parenthetically to let the buyers know you’re only showing ’em some of the goods, and then you can elaborate in the meeting.
Back to the footage you’ve created, if you want to create content that shows the buyers, “Here’s what it looks like when I book higher-tier stuff,” it needs to look like content that currently makes their clients money. So, really look at your target agents’ rosters, see what their clients are booking, create content showcasing your ability to do guest star level roles in work of similar tone, and stay away from inside/industry funnies to really display your bullseye in a world we KNOW exists in TV breakdowns every day.
Good luck to you and keep me posted on the next tier for you!
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/001916.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.