#10 NOBODY KNOWS YOU’RE TALENTED BECAUSE THEY CAN’T SEE YOU

TOP 10 REASONS YOU LOST A DECADE IN HOLLYWOOD

#10 NOBODY KNOWS YOU’RE TALENTED BECAUSE THEY CAN’T SEE YOU

The reason nobody knows you’re talented is because when human beings are focused on a specific task with specific criteria they are LITERALLY UNABLE TO SEE unrelated information that is presented to them in their visual field.  This would include agency pitches, reels, headshots, and whatever else you falsely believe might be holding you back from being discovered.

At least 100 times a day somewhere in North America and London, a casting associate sits down at a grid of 3000 tiny photographs and makes critical decisions about who will be considered for a role in a television or film project.  Because you have failed to understand the importance of visual product differentiation with respect to your “acting brand,” these casting personnel are literally unable to see you, given the time constraints and other practical limitations which all human beings are subject to when performing highly repetitive and perceptually-influenced research and selection activities in a talent pool of (reportedly) 150,000 actors.

The general cognitive principle is inattentional blindness and Tony Robbins discusses this phenomenon in the recent 3-day Time to Rise Event live-streamed on YouTube.  The latter of which I highly recommend to all talent seeking growth in their Hollywood acting careers.

When the casting director is seeking something specific, they are literally unable to see the talent who fail to meet the visual criteria established by the specifics of the casting call.  And let’s be clear: THEY ARE ALWAYS SEEKING SOMEONE WITH SPECIFIC QUALITIES.

Nobody can see how talented you are because you don’t have A LOOK.  I discuss this at length with Mrs. Waddlesworth - read about this principle here.  This is the #10 reason you lost a decade in Hollywood after graduating college with your degree and arriving steeped in the common misunderstandings about what the level playing field is and how it works.

Invisible Gorilla Test  (further information: The Invisible Gorilla)

The best-known study demonstrating inattentional blindness is the Invisible Gorilla Test, conducted by Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and Christopher Chabris of Harvard University. This study, a revised version of earlier studies conducted by Ulric Neisser, Neisser and Becklen in 1975, asked subjects to watch a short video of two groups of people (wearing black and white T-shirts) passing a basketball around. The subjects are told either to count the passes made by one of the teams or to keep count of bounce passes vs. aerial passes. In different versions of the video a person walks through the scene carrying an umbrella (as discussed above) or wearing a full gorilla suit. After watching the video, the subjects are asked whether they noticed anything out of the ordinary taking place. In most groups, 50% of the subjects did not report seeing the gorilla (or the person with the umbrella).