#4 A.I. GETS IT INSTANTLY, YOU NOT SO MUCH
The fourth reason that you just lost a decade in Hollywood is due to the fact that the marketing concepts I am promoting here are well-understood at all the top business schools in the world, but they are not taught in acting schools due to the fact that acting schools are "art schools" and casting in Hollywood is an "American business competition." Even talent competition shows like America's Got Talent carefully select participants whose life stories provide a dramatic narrative for the audience; effectively, it's not purely a talent competition.
Hollywood is not a talent competition.
The need for a newcomer to adopt a branding strategy that differentiates them from the entrenched incumbents can be demonstrated with one A.I. prompt which returns a lucid and compelling description of what you're doing wrong. The A.I. even draws concepts from other domains, underscoring the universality of marketing principles at play in Western liberal market economies.
This is a "try for yourself" - you can type the prompt into Chat GPT 4 and read the results; if your favorite A.I. does not embed inline graphical diagrams, I'm including the concluding diagram at the bottom along with the verbage from the A.I. describing the distribution of actors under the bell curve.
You hated the bell curve in college and now I'm giving you another reason to hate on it.
A.I. PROMPT BEGINS HERE
DIRECTION: Write 1500 words of compelling advice to new actors arriving in Hollywood with a bell curve diagram showing the incumbents and the market saturation of newcomers under the center of the gaussian and the outlier character types (like Christopher Walken and Steve Buscemi) near the edges.
BACKGROUND: To the college graduate arriving in Hollywood at age 22 with a degree in drama from an accredited school, the challenges of breaking into television as a member of the main cast of a television show are daunting due to the fact that such roles are dominated by incumbents (actors) "who have always been members of the main cast of a television show".
Due to the statistical processes at work in the selection of winners in a survivor-ship bias race, the winners of such statistical lotteries also tend to cluster under the center of the bell curve when it comes to looks and ethnicity. Therefore, we would predict that the vast majority of Series Regular incumbents on American television are actors and actresses with average to good looking facial attributes given the propensity of American audiences to prefer attractive television and movie stars. The challenges are compounded by the fact that this demographic of average good looking actors is also over-represented in newcomers who naively believe that television casting is like an open call or college theatre casting.
THESIS: The most efficient path for a newcomer to break into Series Regular casting is to target looks and archetypes that fall to the tails of a prototypical bell-curve of the actor population: characters who are miscreants, low-status morons, outcasts, criminals, and all manners of characters who occupy the fringes of society. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, an effective method is strategic rebranding where an "average American" voluntarily transforms their look into an outlier character, increasing the odds of securing a role that is not suited to the incumbents who occupy the center of the bell curve.
FOUNDATIONAL ASSERTIONS & FACTS:
- Series Regular roles are the high paying "main cast" roles on television that pay from $10,000 to $100,000 per episode.
- The great majority of Series Regular roles are not cast through auditions but through direct offers to established or recognizable talent who "have previously been a Series Regular" on earlier successful television shows and movies.
- Due to these prerequisites, the careers of most successful television actors can be traced back to an early start as a child actor (Series Regular) on a Disney or Nickelodeon show.
- Due to the fact that there are very few established "child actors" (10-16 years old), both Disney and Nickelodeon hold wide casting calls for their Series Regular characters.
- Assuming a wide casting call for a Disney or Nickelodeon Series Regular auditions 5000 or more young actors from an international talent pool, it is therefore clear that all successful adult series regular actors whose careers trace back to booking a Nickelodeon or Disney series are in face, exemplars of the principle of "Survivor-ship bias". In effect, "lottery winners."
A.I. PROMPT ENDS HERE
The diagram above illustrates the distribution of actors across different character types in Hollywood, represented by a bell curve. The red-shaded area under the center of the curve signifies the "High Competition Zone," where the majority of actors, including both incumbents and newcomers, compete for mainstream roles. These roles typically require actors who fit the conventional mold of attractiveness and the "average American" look, leading to a saturated market with intense competition.
Conversely, the green-shaded areas at the edges of the curve represent the "Opportunity Zone" for outliers—unique character types that are less common and less targeted by the majority of actors. These roles offer a strategic advantage for actors willing to embrace and excel in portraying eccentric, unconventional, or deeply flawed characters, similar to the types often embodied by notable actors like Christopher Walken and Steve Buscemi.
By strategically positioning yourself in these opportunity zones and focusing on developing a niche in outlier character types, you increase your odds of securing roles that are less suited to the incumbents who dominate the center of the bell curve. This approach leverages the principle of differentiation, allowing you to stand out in a crowded field by offering something unique and valuable that casting directors and producers are looking for in specific projects.
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