No pay but...

It’s been a bleak few months for actors and their earnings. Casting website, CastingCallPro, recently surveyed its members and of the 1,700 that responded, a whopping 46% said they earned less than £1,000 a year from acting work. Equity ran a similar survey and found that around half of their members were earning less than £5,000 a year from professional work. As an actor who very much falls within that category and is extremely reliant on ‘resting’ work, it makes for grim reading.

I could write a whole blog on the problem but sometimes that’s not what we need. So, in an attempt to help cheer us penniless thesps up a bit, here’s a look at some of the ridiculous payment terms I’ve seen in genuine casting calls, most of which come from sites that require you to be a paying member to apply…

Salary: A lovely time.

I can’t afford to pay anyone. I will, however, buy you a Subway sandwich.

Since it’s low budget, I can’t pay you. I can however bribe you with Instagram worthy food.

Payment: petrol voucher.

We can’t provide any expenses or refreshments but the venue has an awesome menu.

No pay but I will write a blog post about you.

No pay but I’ll put the completed film on VHS cassette for you.

No pay but, for this project, name your sandwich because it’s on me.

No pay but you will receive compliments.

Unpaid but you’ll get to take home a small bag of coffee.

Unpaid but you will get a raffle ticket.

You will be paid in love, glory and possibly a pizza of your choice.

Payment: kiss on the cheek.

And a genuinely wonderful one…

Payment: bottle of gin, travel card, £20.  

All taken from my Tumblr, castingcallwoe.tumblr.com

National Minimum Rage

As sure as night follows day, unpaid work will always hang around actors. It's part of the job. At drama school you're always taught to have a monologue ready and have a headshot that supposedly resembles you at any given moment despite the fact that you spent 3 weeks barely eating and 8 hours on hair and make up. However, what they don't teach you is how to not tear your soul on the walls after seeing yet another casting call that offers sandwiches, tea but no money.

So, seeing the news this week that five actors had won an employment tribunal to be paid national minimum wage should've had me dancing around in my practice skirt. But it didn't. I mean, for maybe one minute, I cheered quietly. Hearing that actors are being paid is always good news. The world likes to think that we live off thin air and slices of pizza so cheap and doughy, you could use them to plug the gaping holes in your tragic CV but we need money too. It may seem a tad unfair but the world works the same for actors as it does for everyone else and we have bills to pay and food to eat.

I want actors to be paid properly. I want to think that I can do a job I can actually make a living from rather than feeling that I'm trying to make a career out of a hobby. Saying you're an actor should make you feel as awesome as the kid who says they want to be a dinosaur when they grow up. But, most of the time, it makes you feel as ridiculous as the kid who says they're going to be a dinosaur when they grow up. But, because there's actually very little legislation in the world of acting (yes, there's some but it's sadly not as a far-reaching as I'd like it to be) anyone with a camera phone and a vague idea can cast a film and, because there are more actors than there are half used jars of oregano in my cupboard, there will always be actors happy to work for free.

I could waffle on for hours about whether actors should work for nothing but hey, we've all got damp-ridden homes to go to. But, what is important is to look at the implications of this ruling. Yes, it means that more actors might get paid in the future and that's a great thing but it could also mean that theatre companies will have to charge insane amounts for tickets to make sure they can pay everyone. Maybe productions shouldn't be put on if there isn't money to pay people but, if actors have a problem with working for free then they shouldn't apply for profit-share work. I've done profit-share before in the past and there's always the chance that you'll come away with nothing. Or, you put your heart and soul into a show for three months and come away with £30. It hurts but if you've agreed to it already then it's really up to you to deal with it.

If companies decide not to put on productions because they don't have the money then there will be even less work for actors than there is now. So, if they do put on shows they'll have to charge so much for tickets that audience figures will drop and actors, although finally able to pay their rent, will be playing to half-filled rooms that only contain the cast's parents. Every theatre company will then be forced to seek assistance from bigger companies a la Spacey and American Airlines and you won't be able to see anything without a corporate logo beaming down at you and you're director appearing in yet another TV advert.

But, on the other hand, maybe we'll live in a world where actors are guaranteed national minimum wage and we can have a shred of dignity back. It might make the few unscrupulous companies out there who think actors and crew don't need paying that maybe some of the money should be shared around a bit. And that'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Persona Non Grata

First read this: http://whatsyourpersona.co.uk/soapStar.php

Oh, hang on, make sure you click on those boxes down the side that say ‘Bafta Experience’ and ‘Hollywood Experience.’ All done? OK. Close that website, let me waffle on about it for a few paragraphs and then we’re going to try and pretend that it never happened.

I was unfortunate enough to see that website yesterday. I lazily clicked on a link that someone tweeted after they were offering people their ’15 minutes of fame’ by being put into a real show. Now, I realised that what I read probably wasn’t going to fill my heart with a pleasing glow but I certainly didn’t expect to find something that would fill me with enough rage to blast Rock Of Ages far, far away into another galaxy where it belongs. It was with shock that I first read it. Surely someone wasn’t actually offering this? This had to be a horrible joke. But no, I very quickly discovered that it’s deadly serious. 

This is a worrying development. Now, I’ve been informed that this is being aimed towards audience members rather than actors which is supposed to make me feel better about the whole thing. And even if that is the case, why have they mentioned that you can put the credit on your CV? There is no way that is being aimed at anyone apart from those with an acting CV. 

“So you’re interested in the role of Account Executive with us here at Barclays. Now, let’s just have a quick look down the ol’ CV here. You’ve held similar roles at Natwest, HSBC and, now hang on, what’s this? You also played the role of Passerby Number 2 in an app-based soap? Now that’s very interesting…”

Not going to happen, is it? No one, apart from an actor desperate for credits on their CV, would mention a part they played during an ‘experience day’ that they paid well over the odds for.

Then of course we have the problem that if they’re getting people to pay to be part of their shows, that’s taking the place of actors they could be hiring. It’s one thing missing out on a role because someone is a better actor than you or is prettier than you or happens to be sleeping with the director but being overlooked because you haven’t paid £1995 for the role? Therein lies unfairness, madness and a whole lot of angry expletives that would make a whole whorehouse blush. Even if the roles are being written especially for those that have paid for it, surely that's still very unfair to actors who should never have to pay for a part in something, whether they can afford it or not. Can the organisers of this not see how unbelievably insulting this is? Instead of hiring talented actors who could probably help further their company and give them a better reputation, they’d rather take thousands of pounds off people and put those who’ve never acted before into their shows. Not only does it demean the acting profession but surely it demeans their work too as they clearly prize money over talent. They say that they want their offer to be featured on experience ‘Red Letter Day’ type websites as if that makes things better. I’m all for these things as I’m sure that it’s much fun pretending to be a racing driver for a day. However, when you buy your Dad the chance to zip around a race track for a few hours, it doesn’t mean that Jensen Button is bumped off the Silverstone Grand Prix starting list. If that was the case then I think we’d all be in uproar. But because it’s actors and because replacing us with friends, family or anyone else that want their ’15 minutes of fame’ is becoming more fashionable than ridiculous jeans that make you look like you’ve had a terrible accident, no one seems to think it’s a problem.

And that there’s the money that’s involved in all of this. The basic package costs £295, the ‘Bafta’ (wonder if they’ve even got permission to use the BAFTA name) package is £995 and then the deluxe ‘Hollywood’ experience is wallet-withering £1995. For that money you can play the role of an extra or a featured part, spend some time filming and then get to go to the wrap party afterwards. I hate to break it to these fools who fall for this offer but there’s a way of getting the exact same experience for free. All you need to do is visit Gumtree, apply for one of their dodgy acting jobs and you can get the true acting experience for no money at all! Why spend your hard-earned cash when you can be treated like a second class citizen for absolutely nothing? But of course, I’m forgetting that the ‘Hollywood Experience’ also offers the chance to work alongside a TV celebrity. That’s right, folks. For just shy of £2000, you too can spend the day wondering what on earth has gone wrong with your life while you watch an ex-Big Brother contestant desperately struggling with their lines and prancing around a set less glamorous than my damp-ridden, worm-attracting bathroom.

And what’s even worse is that when this company do hire actors, they don’t even get paid. I should know because I’ve auditioned for them before. The whole auditioning experience was an utter shambles, the director was rude to the point of refusing to even shake my hand and while performing the script with the producer, she spent the whole time checking her emails. And all this to just be paid expenses? Maybe this is just the kind of treatment they reserve for their non-paying actors. If you’ve forked out the same sort of money that you’d reserve for a luxury holiday then I’m sure the service you receive is impeccable. But still, I suppose it’s nice to know that whether you’ve paid for the privilege of being there or not, everyone’s in the same boat and comes away equally empty pocketed. It’d be nice to think that this money they’re making from these gullible fools might possibly go towards paying their actors but I realise this is very similar to the impossible dream I genuinely once had where I was drafted in to cover for Sid James in a new Carry On film.

I wish there was more I could do about this. Aside from tweeting about it constantly and getting others to complain, I’m not sure this insulting and depressing scheme can be stopped. Equity know about it but because they’re not breaking any kind of law, little can be done to stop them. I worry that other unscrupulous companies will see this idea and start to copy and we'll be in an even worse position than we are now where not only are we not paid but we also have to pay for the privilege of doing our jobs. For now, we just have to hope that no one falls for this rather evil money-making ways and the acting industry and try and keep an anxious grip on the last scrap of dignity that we’ve been left with.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the title of this blog, it translates as 'an unwelcome person' in Latin which, I think you'll agree, is pretty bloody apt...

Since posting this blog, the company have changed the wording slightly on their site to highlight that applicants will be working alongside professional actors. Also, the name of 'Bafta Experience' has now been changed. While I still don't agree with what they're doing and would urge people to steer clear of such an experience, I thank them for listening to my concerns.

Inequality Control

So Equity has finally spoken out and they’ve started handing out some knuckle-raps to some very naughty theatres. And rightly so. Because these theatres are guilty of trying to pretend us ladies don’t exist and have been putting as few of them as possible on stage.  I’m pleased they’ve decided to do this because it is a genuine problem. Despite not being a minority, women are wildly unrepresented. But the problem is by no means exclusive to the theatre world. It’s a problem that is present in all forms of media.

I feel sorry for the Hampstead Theatre who appear to have been singled out in this story. I understand that the figures don’t look great with productions such as Chariots of Fire which in a cast of 21 only featured 3 women but other theatres are equally guilty. Shakespeare’s Globe announced a few months ago that they would be putting on plays as part of their ‘Original Practices’ season. This means that they will be putting on all-male productions so that audiences can see how plays would’ve been performed in Shakespeare’s time. I apppreciate the gesture guys, but we all saw Gwyneth Paltrow bandaging down her lady lumps in Shakespeare In Love and that was more than enough, thanks. We all know how they did things before women were invented and isn’t that enough? Do theatres really have to do this antiquated method of casting just so they can justify having the wonderful Mark Rylance playing Viola? Shakespeare wrote precious few roles for women as it is so to have them then taken away and given to the boys is a kick in the teeth that I can't afford dentistry for.

But as I said earlier, this problem is certainly not just a theatre issue. Women are terribly misrepresented by television and cinema too. Look at the BAFTA Rising Star award that went out a few months ago. Yes, ladies made into the longlist but when it was released to the public to allow them to vote, the three women were left out and the five men made it into the shortlist. What a horrible result. But we can’t blame the viewing public. They’re the ones that are constantly fed so many leading men that it would make a cannibal blush and while I don’t want the industry to pander to women and give them leading roles as some sort of charity scheme, a bit of equality wouldn’t go amiss. Two of the highest grossing films this year have been The Avengers and Men In Black 3, both very male-heavy films which mainly seem to say that women really have very little place in blockbuster-type films. I realise every time someone makes this argument, someone will rather ironically say the word ‘Bridesmaids.’ Because yes, women have become the bridesmaids while men, yet again, get to play the bride.

And sadly it feels like a sensible solution is very far off. While everyone worries about ticket sales and viewing figures, they continue to make things that they think the public want to see and that will usually inevitably mean a lot of leading men and a few scantily clad women in the background. I don’t want the answer to be theatres putting on all-female seasons because that would feel horribly like knee-jerk charity.  I think we’d all just appreciate it if theatres and television programmes and films would finally admit that women exist and they deserve to be equally represented. Too much to ask? Apparently so.