WE CANNOT REMEMBER CLEARLY WITHOUT A PHOTOGRAPH
WE CANNOT REMEMBER CLEARLY WITHOUT A PHOTOGRAPH
Your memory is only as good as your best photograph of the event in question. And if it's true for you, it's true for casting professionals.
2020 was the year that casting changed forever. In-person auditions disappeared, replaced for the most part with Eco-Cast self-tapes and the occasional zoom live session. The industry was already headed in that direction with an estimated 20% of all auditions in 2019 coming in the form of an Eco-Cast self-tape requested by casting.
Generally speaking, the arrival of the pandemic accelerated the trend toward self-tape all-digital casting, a trend that began in around 2008 when Actor’s Access introduced the Eco-Cast system which was, for the most part, largely unused until around 2013-2015 when it began to get regular use.
MEMORY
We tend to think of our brains as miraculous recording devices which capture images, sound, language in incredible and precise detail. However, in reality, the truth is very different. Our memories are actually vague and imprecise. We tend to get factual details mixed up with emotional ideas and ultimately cannot precisely recall important details about actual events that have happened in the past.
You can get a first hand experience of the imperfect nature of human memory by agreeing (or being subpoenaed) to be a witness in a criminal or civil trial (I have done both). As you can see from watching crime procedurals, the opposing counsel usually does an effective job at reducing your memories to vague representations of the facts. Instead, in legal actions, words and recordings, including photographs serve as a much more accurate proxy for past experiences.
CASTING
Because we tend to romanticize our lives we like to think that casting directors somehow have an amazing and precise knowledge of us (actors) based on our past auditions, callbacks and bookings that have occurred in the past. However, the axiom “they’re only human” holds true here as well: the casting director’s memory, even if sharped from the job requirements, is not capable of the kind of accuracy and reliability that we would want. We might believe that a casting director is a “big fan” only to later realize they don’t really quite remember the event that, in the mind of the talent, turned them into “a big fan”.
RISE OF UBIQUITOUS PHOTOGRAPHY
I watched the camera revolution happen from a first hand perspective. When I moved to the United States to pursue my dreams of rock superstardom most indie bands were shooting their music videos on Super 8mm film and then using a telecine process to transfer the results to videotape for editing on a non-linear system (at the time, probably involving a NewTek Video Toaster). In the mid-1990s, having never used the Super 8mm camera I bought for the purpose I ended up buying two of the first revolutionary digital video cameras because I still thought I might want to make music videos. I used a Sony VX1000 which was one of the first “3-chip” DV prosumer camcorders on the market. I believe they cost around $3500 at the time which doesn’t sound that cheap until you take into account the VX1000 was, in effect, replacing Panasonic and other high end video cameras that cost $90,000. Around the same time Apple Computer (as then was called) introduced a digital pocket camera called the QuickTake 100. I have used one and they are quaintly weird and old-fashioned unlike the VX1000 which still probably looks and feels like a modern camcorder.
Also around this time the world wide web became available and people started sharing digital photographs via email and AOL Instant Messenger. I thought AOL IM was silly and refused to sign up which maybe indicates that my ability to predict the future is not that great.
Then came myspace, Facebook, Hipstamatic and ultimately Instagram which is the final confluence of all these (re)volutionary developments in technology.
Since the rise of the iPhone 4 we find ourselves carrying a supremely accurate photography / video device in our pockets, always connected to the internet and capable of sharing EXTREMELY HIGH FIDELITY images and videos with friends, family and strangers. Are these photos accurate? Or do they convey an intended meaning chosen by the broadcaster?
The independent artists of the world now have direct access to an audience without any middlemen and if nothing else, the world is drowning in photography and videography.
Which brings us to casting: photography and video in the modern era.
EVOLUTION
As with aspiring actors, each year a new crop of young casting interns join casting offices and learn how to use the digital casting systems from the casting side. Over the subsequent 6 years some of them will get promoted: first to assistants then to associates before eventually leaving their casting home to strike out on their own as an independent casting director.
And let’s be clear that for the past 12 years the young casting professionals who started as interns in Hollywood casting offices have come of age in the myspace/Facebook/smartphone/IG era. The proliferation of photography and videography is normal to them. They are conversant. They are savvy. And increasingly they are in charge of casting major projects.
CONFLUENCE
As I have said to many current and prospective clients over the past few years, the entertainment business loves a good illusion. Nobody expects what we are doing to be real. Is Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings considered lacking because the dragons were created in a 3D modeling system on a computer? Obviously this is a rhetorical question and the answer is no.
So we can state that one of the values in Hollywood is the love of a good illusion. Which is just another way of saying “I’m committed to the role” or “committed to bringing the character to life.” There is no rule that says your headshots / photographs need to bear any resemblance to your survival job, the way you dress at religious services or what not. That’s just a “bottom of the barrel” or “resigned to accepting” attitude. If potential actors are given this advice it is merely because the casting professionals have MYRIAD CHOICES. They have a palette of faces to work with, they are drowning in alternatives. As such they needed be that concerned with the career trajectory of any one actor.
The actor, on the other hand, must consider carefully how they are perceived because in a crowded marketplace the failures end up in bankruptcy. How many businesses did you personally witness going bankrupt in the past 18 months? Did you or anyone else shed a tear for these capitalist enterprises? Did you have a funeral? Did you call mom and dad to bemoan the death of your local quickie mart? No. Nobody cried. Everybody shrugged and went on about their business. A new 7-11 will replace the one that died during the pandemic. It’s a non-event. Unfortunately, when I said “nobody cried” I was also referring to the thousands of failed actors who quit Hollywood because it was too hard or because “nobody wanted them.”
This is a capitalist enterprise: you need to establish a value for the product you have on offer (your acting skills) and pursue the marketing of this enterprise with great vigor and enthusiasm EVEN WHEN NOBODY ELSE AGREES WITH YOU THAT IT IS GOING TO LEAD ANYWHERE.
I heard that the guy who “invented Fedex” was told it was a terrible idea. Because in the beginning, it is not obvious which new business (acting career) is going to succeed. HINDSIGHT is 20/20. Except for the fact that hindsight is also imbued with survivorship bias which means it is nowhere close to 20/20.
PHOTOS & VIDEOS IN 2024
So I’m going to update my thesis and make the statement: that your photos and videos in the breakdowns are not just important, they are THE ONLY VERSION YOU THAT INITIALLY MATTERS. Because if those materials do not attract casting interest, you are not going to be invited to audition. And if you’re not auditioning, you’re not participating - you’re going bankrupt.
So we’re going to combine the idea that memory is vague and imprecise with the idea that casting directors are imagery-savvy and computer-savvy and “love a great illusion”. In 2024 and beyond you are going to create highly detailed and effective photographs that uniquely qualify yourselves for SPECIFIC ROLES that are casting and upload a good selection (9-15) of these images into the breakdowns so that casting might be able to “imagine you more clearly” in a specific kind of role rather that relying on their vague memory of you from a past audition or perhaps hoping that they will “extrapolate” from a photo that isn’t really right for the role and “give you an audition anyway.”
THE ROBOT SPEAKS
I am not ashamed to admit I have more in common with a robot than I do with most people. And this robot tends to notice patterns emerging from the breakdowns. Submit like a robot, send auditions like a robot, notice peculiar and specific details like a robot.
And if there is one thing that this robot has noticed in the past 3 years of audition insanity it is this: “the talent with the best photo (and ideally, video) for the role is most likely to get the audition.” Unless of course it’s the other circumstance: “the talent with the best credits or the best name recgonition is the most likely to get the role without auditioning.”
So get with the program! If you don’t have credits you can always get the best headshot because frankly, most actor photographs (my own clients notwithstanding) are not that great. Most of them are generic and boring (see PEDANTIC HEADSHOTS). We work in the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY.
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