An Actress Meets Up with Technology - New Digital World

When I was studying to be an actress years ago - when you talked about things "technical" it had to do with technical aspects of the acting craft - like knowing how to purvey heat/chill in an atmosphere - when to know when you have to imagine and when you can use the reality in front of you, and so on.
Ha! Not in today's world. Now it has a lot to do with the DELIVERY systems of what you have created according to your knowledge of the craft of acting.

That means that you have to be knowledgeable about computers and all sorts of digital media - both video and audio. I have a leg up on a lot of boomer actresses I know, because my years of temp work gave me a thorough knowledge of word processing /programs, etc. I taught myself all that stuff - to make a higher pay rate - so computers are not foreign territory for me - and have kept up all along with the technological changes. But this one is a biggie.

The internet is really cracking the existing power structure of media. Initially I could see it in the way I applied for jobs. Internet casting has made my job search infinitely easier, thereby rejuvenating my career. In the bad old days, one had to schmooze and do heaven knows what to get into casting - or you were relegated to the round file of the casting office when you made all the paper submissions which everyone requested. What a lot of time and money! For a while there was even a guy who made money by re-selling actors BACK their pictures which he had gotten from the casting offices for recycling! Not a bad idea, but he didn't last long. Nowadays sending digital photos has taken the place of that almost entirely. It's so much cheaper and easier to make submissions! Yes, there is the cost of the casting site itself - but it really is much cheaper in the long run than stamps/paper copies/envelopes and so on - although casting still urges that route to actors in an effort to seem reachable.

This revolution is true not only for agents, but for the actor - because with the rise of on-line casting sites, you have access to many more jobs than you could hear about just through the grapevine. And these are people who WANT to hire you. OK, the highest class of jobs is still rarely out there - but you can find the work/activity you need to inject life into your career, as I have done through diligent work trolling the internet. Great for beginners! I wish I had had this back at the start of my career! (It's empowering to be able to google someone you are going to see to try to determine whether he/she and the project are legit and have the chance to slam them on something like craigslist if they are not!) Even SAG (the Screen Actor's Guild) has finally jumped on the bandwagon with iActor - and the Academy Players Directory (formerly a casting bible with everyone in Hollywood in it) has been taken over by an on-line casting site - nowcasting.com.

That was the first step. The next stage has been happening in fandom and among youth for a while - but the whole implication is just now really impacting me. That's digital sharing of media. In the last week alone I have been recording and editing audio files for a voice over website and recording an audition via my web cam for the first time. This is truly the wave of the future, as this technology becomes more and more accessible.

The first thing I think of is - ugh - another expense for the actor! Because the computer, high speed connection, casting websites, web cams, microphones and other software all cost money. Luckily for me, my husband and I share this computer (I use it days, him nights) for work - and as he is also a musician, we already have some bargain sound editing software and I resurrected his old web cam and microphone. There is also some free software out there which I am using to convert both the audio and video formats. One thing I find frustrating is that I don't seem to be able to readily find the exact tech specifications for this uploads! There are all sorts of variables, and I have to admit, I am fiddling with some of them just to make the file smaller, hoping that that will work and it will be accepted! Then there is the same problem we had in the old days of WordPerfect and dBase - when techies explain things, they take SO MUCH for granted that sometimes what comes out is incomprehensible. So there is a learning curve. Mine may not be a steep as others, and steeper than some!

But what does this have to do with acting as I understood it? I am grateful that I have an artistic sense that helps me to edit my video on jumpcut.com for uploading to myspace - and I find myself watching commercials on TV to time the length of the shots! After all these years of hanging around the biz, some stuff has worn off. But what is going to happen to the stupid actor (the classic stereotype)? Are people merely going to play dumb and then go behind the digital screen to pull the puppet strings? Could be. I have heard Paris Hilton praised in Hollywood for her marketing efforts!

I look at the skills I have developed - computing - internet - digital photography - and the ones I am working on - webcam - video - audio -- and realize that there was no way I could have foreseen any of this. Next step my own little movies a la the old silents! Luckily I have a head stuffed with all sorts of things - so making a turnaround isn't impossible. I actually enjoy learning new ways of communicating, and I am at least as good at that as anyone I could afford to do it FOR me! (I am accustomed to saying that about PR - see my other AC article.) They scoff at liberal arts majors, but we did learn how to learn and where to get information - and a well -rounded education is useful in the long run, even for an actress. So to keep up, keep up the lifelong learning, folks.