Tag Archives: professionally resting

Frost’s Editor Catherine Balavage Writes How To Be A Successful Actor Book

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Frost’s Editor, Catherine Balavage, has written a book on How To Be A Successful Actor. It is called How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur. It has gotten as high as number 5 on the Kindle charts under Stage & Theatre. It will also be released on paperback and Smashwords soon. Handpicked Future did a great piece on it and Catherine was on the front page of the Entertainment section in The Huffington Post with her Actors Who Make Their Own Work article. You can also read an article by Catherine written on her own blog.

howtobeasuccessful_actor_book_cover The book is available here for UK readers and here for US readers. It is also available worldwide.

Cover art by Steve McAleavy

 

 

The Unpaid Acting Work Dilemma by Professionally Resting.

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Casting call: ““Unfortunately we’re not able to offer a fee on this occasion.”

Sadly this type of casting call is one that I’m all too used to seeing. At least 75% of castings will
contain the above sentence or a wonderfully inventive version of it (such as the incredible ‘This is
a no-pay experience!’) It’s unfortunately become a fact of acting life and I’ve become as skilled as
sifting through castings as I have at rifling through sandwiches for rogue tomatoes. Directors will try
and soften the blow by telling you that you’ll get a credit to put on your CV (gee, thanks) and that
they’ll be providing you with food on set. On-set catering can be a thing of beauty (pizza) but it can
also be an utter horror made of stale sandwiches. Apparently actors can live on credits and bread
alone. If only landlords, phone companies and councils could be fobbed off in the same way.

Unpaid work has become a rather aggressive disease in the acting world. What was once the domain
of film students and wannabe filmmakers; it has now entered the world of television. And this is
a worrying development. I understand that however much they’d like to, students and smaller
production companies can’t always afford to pay people. The ethics bother me because I believe
that if you can’t afford to pay everyone then you probably shouldn’t be making the piece in the first
place but that’s an argument for another day. Unpaid work happens and sadly, just like the damp in
our flat, I have to deal with it for now and watch it ever so slowly ruin me. I should also admit that
I’ve taken on my fair share of unpaid work in the past. Unfortunately there are times when you have
very little choice and so you can either do nothing or take on some unpaid work in the hope that
it might just get you spotted. It won’t, but you never know when that top agent is going to turn up
at a secondary school in Northampton to watch you prance about telling kids about the dangers of
heroin. But now the bigger companies have jumped on the bandwagon and suddenly everything is
starting to topple over.

There have been a string of very high-profile companies that have recently started advertising
unpaid or expenses only work. And when I say ‘high-profile’ I mean the type of companies
that produce widely watched primetime programmes that air on terrestrial channels. These
are companies that clearly have plenty of money, or at least enough cash to make sure that all
performers are fairly paid. When they start offering unpaid work, what kind of message does that
send out to all the other companies? Apparently it’s now perfectly acceptable for these businesses
(one of whom made a profit of £471m last year) to get performers to work for free. But these
companies forget that actors often have a lot of time on their hands so it doesn’t take too long
before they’re ousted via the beauties of social networking. But what happens when they get found
with their devious trousers around their tight-fisted ankles? Well, what has happened recently
is that they make like George Osborne and u-turn. However, they don’t then promise to do the
honourable thing and actually pay actors. Oh no. Their reaction is to say that they will instead be
casting friends, family or employees. That’s what this profession has been downgraded to. Actors
are now regarded so poorly that we can be instantly replaced with the make-up artist’s cousin and
the focus puller’s university mates the second we start to complain. We find ourselves so low on the
career ladder that we’ve now been downgraded to the lackey that just holds the ladder and watches
everyone else climb up it.

So what this means is that actors will yet again be forced into unpaid work as they desperately try
to keep hold of a career that’s more slippery than a greased-up seal. We continually find ourselves
being held to ransom where we can either ‘shut up and put up’ or keep fighting and risk the chance
of never working again. Just like the next actor, I’d love the exposure that a primetime programme
would offer but never at my own expense and certainly not just so an exec can save a few precious
pennies and ensure that their bonus is intact for another year. Why should they get to go on exotic
holidays when I’m left wondering how to survive for the next week on a tin of chopped tomatoes
and a rapidly ageing nectarine? It’s at its lowest, meanest level and until all actors make a stand against these companies, all we’re doing is encouraging them to turn our already fragile
industry into a laughing stock.

Professionally Resting Interview: Lifting the Lid on Acting.

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The talented actor behind the blog Professionally Resting first caught my eye on Twitter. She is brave, witty and accurate about the downside of the acting industry. As an actor myself I just read her tweets/blog posts and nod. I just had to interview her for Frost, so here it is! I also have a guest post coming from her soon, so look out for that too.

What made you start your blog?

I’d been reading a few other acting blogs online and I soon realised that none really covered what it’s like to be an actual working actor. Many are written by actors who are constantly in work and that was something that I just couldn’t really identify with. Most actors I know spend a great deal of their time resting and I wanted to create something fun and supportive for those of us that regularly find ourselves within the unemployed majority. I also wanted to use it as an excuse to keep busy. There are days when there’s very little work coming in and having a blog to think about really keeps me feeling like I’m at least doing something creative.

Tell us a bit about yourself (without giving too much away)!

It’s always tough answering these questions without sounding like you’re on Blind Date! I’m in my late twenties and have been acting (on and off) since graduating from drama school in 2006. I had a break for a couple of years after getting a bit trapped in a temping job that became permanent. It was a horrible job but it meant I could have a couple of years actually earning money and being able to buy things that had previously been a luxury like food that isn’t on the reduced shelf. However, there’s nothing quite like a miserable job to remind you exactly what it is that you really want to be doing and that was the catalyst to making me find acting work again so that I could finally escape.


What do you think of the acting industry?

It’s very much a love/hate relationship. I regularly complain about it on Twitter and on my blog because it honestly drives me insane. It can feel that it often has more to do with luck than talent and you are completely at the mercy of those in control of the work that is out there. It often feels like many companies and channels operate a closed shop policy and I think many of them are guilty of working with the same very tiny gang of actors time and time again. I read an article recently that said there was a very small pool of talent out there which simply isn’t true. There’s an absolute ocean of clever and gifted people out there but they often get ignored as there are other names and faces that are deemed more popular. Unfortunately viewing figures and ticket sales are placed about creating quality work and while I accept that many of those performers that are used time and time again are very good at what they do, a bit of variety really wouldn’t go amiss!
However, having said that, there are very industries that would pay you a month’s rent to mess around as a time-travelling police officer for the day and that’s why I’m still slogging away at it!

What is the worst casting you have ever seen?

There are so many to choose from! The reason I started tweeting about castings was because people were so shocked at just how insulting and offensive and downright baffling they often were. Ones such as ‘No pay unfortunately but you will get to ride in a white stretch limo with a midget and the band’ and ‘She looks a bit like a trollop but tries to dress a bit classy’ have been incredible finds. However, I think the worst has to be one that I saw recently asking for actors to play characters in a sweatshop and the company (a very well-known TV channel) were only offering expenses. I thought I was past being shocked by castings but this one was offensive on so many levels that I genuinely had to keep re-reading it just to make sure that I was seeing it properly. Sadly I was.

What was the catalyst behind you starting your blog?

As I said, it was because I felt like I couldn’t relate to the other acting blogs out there and I felt that there needed to be a voice that represented normal working actors who often find themselves out of work. However, although I knew that it was something I wanted to do, it took me a while to actually get it started. It only happened when I was coming back on the train after a month performing at the Edinburgh Festival. I’d stupidly forgotten to bring a book and my boyfriend and I were unable to sit together so to keep myself occupied, I just started writing. After nearly 4 hours of solid writing, I realised I had a lot to say on the subject of acting and after a bit of encouragement from my boyfriend who’s also a blogger, the blog was born.

What can be done to improve the kind of roles women get?

It has to start with the writing. There is not a day goes by that I don’t see at least one casting where a woman isn’t required to either be a stripper or a prostitute and although I often make a joke of it on Twitter, it is very worrying too. There is such great writing out there for men but female roles are so often overlooked. So many times I read castings where all the male characters are given weird and wonderful characteristics while the women are just written to look nice. There are some incredible writers out there who are really trying to make sure that there are strong, interesting roles for women but they need support from the major producers for their work to get made and seen. I do think that it’s changing and television and film is starting to listen but it feels like a very slow process that needs to speed up a little!

What is your favourite, and least favourite, thing about the industry?

Let’s start with my least favourite and get the negative stuff out the way. It has to be the lack of good, paid work out there for actors. So many companies expect actors to work for free and although I completely understand how difficult it must be working on a tight budget, it’s tough when you’re faced with it day after day. Acting is something that I stupidly want to do for the rest of my life but it’s hard when people seem to think that by offering you a limp cheese sandwich and £5 to cover your travel expenses, they’re doing you a favour. I’ve done jobs in the past where I’ve essentially been paying to be part of them and that’s when you know that something has gone wrong.

And my favourite thing about the industry? It’s that you just don’t know what’s coming up next. A few months ago I was whinging on Twitter about how there didn’t seem to be any work out there and literally minutes later, my agent was on the phone with an audition for an incredible part in a feature film. I didn’t get the role but I do love how your luck changes from one minute to the next. Although it can be pretty unnerving at times, especially when you’re going through a particularly quiet spell, it’s incredibly exhilarating too. I think it’s a little bit addictive which is why actors put themselves through such torment.

You blog and tweet under a pseudonym, do you believe it would harm your acting career if you didn’t? Can you be critical?

The decision to write under a pseudonym was made so that I could be openly critical about the industry. As an actor you have to be so careful because you never know who you’re going to be working with next and I think that means a lot of actors are worried about speaking out about how infuriating this industry can be. Writing anonymously gives me the freedom to be brutally honest about the problems I face without jeopardising my acting career. Although there are days when I wish I could just tweet under my real name, I’m sure I’d have been in a fair bit of trouble for some of my comments, especially about casting calls and auditions.

What was your favourite ever job?

Despite going on about getting paid, my favourite job was one when I didn’t receive a penny. It was one of the first jobs I did after graduating from drama school and was a devised piece. It was pretty shambolic most of the time and we didn’t even get expenses but it was incredible experience seeing a project from the first meeting where we had some terrible ideas to the final night of performance. We barely sold any tickets (mainly because it was listed incorrectly meaning that most audience members turned up about 5 minutes before it was about to end) but it was great fun and real learning curve for me as a new actor.

and your least?

A summer-long Shakespeare festival. It was fun for about a fortnight but after three months away from home on only £25 a week, I was a state. The plays were performed outdoors and it was a particularly bad summer which meant that we spent a lot of time performing in soaking wet velvet dresses. British audiences are incredibly resilient and would determinedly sit there huddled up in anoraks and shelter under umbrellas while we battled with wind, rain, thunder and lightning. Because I was earning so little money, I was mainly living off value bran flakes and tomato soup so I ended the three months malnourished, exhausted, utterly sick of the sight and sound of Shakespeare and with about £4 in my bank account. That was something they really didn’t warn me about in drama school!

You can read the Professionally Resting Blog here and follow her on Twitter.