Caught In The Website

When you’re paying to work, that’s when alarm bells should start ringing. That’s why, despite what your thoughts are on unpaid work. I’d urge everyone to avoid jobs that don’t even offer to pay your expenses. At the very worst, you don’t make any money out of a job. You should never find yourself paying out your own money to get experience.

So, why do casting websites charge actors to access paid work that they post on their site? Why are actors finding themselves paying up when productions don’t have to pay to post their casting calls? Surely this is madness? If this was happening in any other industry then people would’ve had something to say about it. Now, I realise casting websites have overheads. Despite how it may seem, I’m not that naïve. I realise that you can’t run a business on fresh air alone. But why is it falling to the actor to cover these costs?

Of course, the websites are there to serve actors and help us find work but surely these websites are also there for production companies too to help them find performers? Spotlight aside, I currently pay to use one casting site. I pay £20 a month to be able to access the paid work that they advertise and I used to justify this to myself because one paid job a year would usually pay this money back. I used to be confident of the fact that I’d at least get my £240 back if not more. And I did. This particular website used to earn me at least triple that every year so I felt that paying was OK. But now I don’t earn anything from it. In the last year, this website has earned me £120. That’s it. And it’s now that I’m starting to realise what little value for money that really is.

Obviously this is just me. I know other actors who’ve done far better from this site. But I also know a lot of actors who’ve got next to nothing from it. However, the fact remains that these websites make a heck of a lot of money out of actors with no promise of us getting a return from it. Now I realise this website isn’t in charge of the industry nor is it responsible for my career. However, this site today advertised 16 paying jobs and a whopping 76 unpaid jobs. If actors are paying to use a site then surely we should be able to expect some form of control over the work that is advertised? The more I think of it, the more unfair these websites seem. Not only do actors have to pay to use the site but they also have to prove themselves before they’re allowed to join. Often actors need to have a minimum amount of professional credits to their name before they’re allowed the privilege of paying to find work. But, again, the production companies have nothing asked from them. Those who follow me on Twitter and Tumblr will know that when it comes to castings, very little quality control is put in place. 

But of course, as usual, it’s actors who put up with this sort of treatment so it’s actors who continue to pay.

1551

You know I don’t actually enjoy blogging about unpaid work, right? Despite my countless entries on it, I don’t actually get a kick from it. Well, I do. My love for this job gets a kicking as does my poor and feeble bank account. But I don’t get a thrill from it, I promise. All I get from it is a desire to climb up on the roof and scream for the rest of the week. But, yet again, I find myself blogging about it. I’m sorry but it’s happening. So you can either look away now or you can come with me on a little brief journey… You still with me? Excellent, now follow me…

I had no intentions of writing about unpaid work because I was pretty sure I’d said all I wanted to on the matter. But yesterday, eager to get started on 2013 and hoping that the castings would start appearing as everyone gets back to work proper, I practically leapt on the casting websites. I checked the paid jobs on one particular site and found one measly, grossly underpaid role to apply for on the woefully meagre list. Cover letter and CV fired off, I checked the unpaid jobs to see if there were any gems I could share on Twitter. Despite it being mid-morning, there was already a full page of unpaid jobs. As the day went on, the unpaid list increased quicker than my Christmas waistline and I had trouble keeping up with them. At the end of play (about 5.30pm when casting calls ground to a halt and hopes of a productive and fruitful day die yet again) there were 15 paid jobs and 51 unpaid jobs. That, maths fans, means that for every paid job, there are 3.4 unpaid jobs scavenging around, making everyone feel a bit uneasy. I'm not saying that it's this bad every day but I can say that every single day, the amount of unpaid work will always outnumber paid work. Always.

This is worrying. And it’s no wonder that Spotlight are now planning a consultation on the matter (if you’re a Spotlight member and are yet to complete the survey they’re emailing out, please do so. It only takes a minute or so and is super important.) But the sheer amount of unpaid work out there is continuing to be a problem. I’m not sure I can say anything new that I haven’t said before. I personally don’t take on unpaid work anymore but I used to so I don’t feel like I can be in a position to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do. I’d like to ask people to stop doing it because while people happily do it, it will continue. And it’s not just the small independent filmmakers and students that are the problem (and I’m not saying that none of them pay, some of them do which is wonderful) but it’s the big, major channels that are to blame too. Most weeks I’ll see castings posted by terrestrial channels asking for performers to work for expenses only. This sets a terrible example and show just how big this problem is. If the major companies aren’t prepared to pay everyone then you can hardly blame the smaller companies for following suit. 

And it’s not just expenses only work. Yesterday, on the particular website that gave up the depressing 15/51 statistic, around half of those jobs weren’t even offering expenses. These were jobs that expected actors to essentially pay to work just so they could receive a DVD maybe a year later and perhaps an IMDb credit on a page that no one will ever look at. I’ve even seen jobs that don’t even offer food for their crew and performers. However desperate you might be for work, please don’t take on these jobs. If they can’t even be bothered to make a few sandwiches and buy a few bags of crisps then I can almost guarantee that the on-set experience won’t be a fun one. But of course people are still applying for these jobs. The amount of work out there has decreased to such a depressing level that people just want to be doing something, anything to confirm to themselves that they are in fact an actor and not a temp or a call centre worker or whatever other job you find yourself doing to keep the money-hungry wolves from the door. I desperately need to update my showreel but I didn’t get any work last year that I’d be able to put on it. I’m still waiting for a copy of some work I did back in 2011 (chasing this up has become an almost full-time job) but while I have an out of date showreel, the jobs are that bit harder to get. So it’s no surprise that people take on unpaid work just so they can get a bit of material and maybe edge their way out of this ridiculous catch-22.

Hopefully Spotlight’s findings will bring about change. Or maybe 2013 will just be another year of me constantly whinging about a problem that won’t go away. If it’s the latter, I’m sorry. I really am.