The Feedback Most Needed
Being brutally honest has its drawbacks at times. I have been known to offer critique upon request that, let’s just say, wasn’t exactly what the recipient wanted to hear; it was always what they needed to hear. It’s not something I intended to work on or change; if there were a lack of tact or constructive elements to it, maybe, but put simply, I just believe in telling the truth. Flaws can be overcome; mistakes can be acknowledged and taken as lessons for improvement. Yet people don’t always take kindly to feedback and more and more I’m finding myself holding my tongue on things, even when my opinion has been asked for.
Why?
Well, it ties in quite nicely with another thing I’ve grown to hate about being brutally honest with my opinions. When I have to, for my sake, keep them to myself; when I have to hold back for fear of offending people.
Now when my opinion has been asked for, I generally deliver it as per described above. I ensure I don’t just give blanket answers like, ‘that was good’ or ‘hated it,’ but ensure that I go into detail on where I thought things were going well or wrong with allusions as to why. I correct grammar and spellings, for example, but always explain what has been changed and according to what rule. When I see a duff line, I offer my observation on it and explain how it could be improved, in my opinion, and why it really needs to be thought about. I’m not overly stifling with my opinion either; I will take critique myself and have grown to accept that sometimes I’m wrong.
So why hold back then? What harm could I possibly do?
It’s like this: sometimes I just know that feedback isn’t going to be taken well, even if it’s asked for. But what’s bugging me right now is that it’s feedback that isn’t being asked for that desperately needs to be given – and I know that the recipient is not going to like it!
I’m no casting agent or director. I hastily agreed that with myself when I became an actor, playwright and stage manager and technician. Too many strings to the bow and all that. But what I would love to do, right now, more than anything else, is give feedback to the castings proffered up to me and the rest of the jobbing world. Sure, as an actor, I can offer a few tips here and there to my fellow thespians; as a writer, I can hold my own in a discussion of characters and plot. But how is it my place to tell these people who are offering me employment, how to do their job?
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
The cusp of it all is that it really is my business how they do their job because it is my business as much as theirs. Look at it like this: I’ve been away for ten days, out the country. I’ve been blissfully unaware of anything going on outside of my personal sphere; I was spending time with my girlfriend, my aunt and my father among other folk, new and old in acquaintance. Before I left, I had a brief oasis at Filmonik; as some recall, it is a Manchester based Kino cell wherein many wonderful folk collaborate to make many wonderful short films. But before that, life was fairly grinding; headshot delays (again) and showreel delays (still) among other moments of sheer frustrations involving casting calls and auditions. Since leaving Dickens behind, the acting world had been unduly harsh on me in a veritable drought of opportunities. But ten whole days away from all of this with my nearest and dearest, I was ready (and better equipped with headshots) to hit the game hard once more.
I was met with a torrent of absolute drivel that would make anyone wish they had become a window cleaner like their ten year old self had wished to be.
I have a few bugbears, I’m going to get them off my chest. I rare; let forth on personal stuff, but now I’m going to do it; I’m going to give very vague, yet very specific feedback to the idiots out there who, somehow, are making a lot more money than me by being exploitive charlatans.
First up, and it’s more common than you would think, do not offer me (or anyone) work on the proviso that, based on the trailer you intend to make, if the film takes off and if you get the funding for the film and if I’m still right for the part, you’ll pay me for my involvement at that stage and not before. I once landed a part on an agreed rate of £100 per diem and expenses only to have the chap turn around and go, ‘yeah, by the way, we lost our funding a week back and we were wondering if you would do it for free and let us submit it to this competition which we might win and then we’ll pay you <insert value here> okay?’ No. No it is not okay. This is the artist’s version of those spam e-mails stating that a distant relative in Nigeria has bequeathed to you millions, you just need to provide your details first and so forth. This is not a case of gambling, this is a case of professional work; you do not perform heart surgery on the chance you may be paid the going rate of a call centre operator. It’s almost as bad as no-pay in the sense that really, really, someone, somewhere is going to look at it and go, ‘cor, I might make some money out of this!’ Essentially, it’s no-pay with a baited hook.
But wait! – as the old saying goes – there’s more! Not only is this production company legitimate but they had the cheek to offer one paid role alongside all these other, ‘we might pay you, we’ll see how it goes’ roles. Yes, that’s right. One person’s involvement is more valued than the others, a whole £40 more than the others. What separates out this role from the others? What necessary skill and intricate ability is needed to get a guaranteed pay check from this production company (whose name shall be forever unmentioned, but involves biscuits)?
Nudity.
That’s right, ladies, nudity; honest to God, good ole fashioned ‘tits and ass!’ Isn’t it nice to know that I was once offered £50 to get my testicles out for a shoot and here a tenner less is on offer. It’s like they heard about the gender wage gap and misconstrued it as a fair wage principle, not something to be corrected. Political joking aside; where the hell does someone get the idea that allowing our naked forms to be filmed for such a miserly fee is acceptable? It’s outrageous! Not only are they not willing to pay us for our skills, the talents we have honed and fine-tuned over the years, they’re not willing to compensate an individual for the exposure of their body!
It’s nice to know your worth, I guess.
Next up has to be bad grammar and spelling in castings. I get it, pobody’s nerfect; people are going to make typos from time to time, myself included. There’s guaranteed to be at least one unintentional one in here somewhere (I don’t edit good) but I would never expect this to be used in any other form than a personal exercise or mild entertainment. I’m, not hiring anyone with it, nor am I looking to be hired from it. But when you’re advertising a position on your film, you should really want to come across in the best light possible. You’ve got a script you’re pitching to me to act in, don’t make me afraid of your script’s quality before I’ve even read it; take the time to ensure you’re using English as it should be. Someone casting calls nowadays are unintelligible. The worst ones are were the instructions are so unclear due to conflicting statements or even a complete lack of punctuation. I’m not joking on that last one, I actually have seen one where there was nothing but all-caps and no punctuation. Maybe I’m old fashioned, maybe I’m a literate elitist or maybe, just maybe, I want to know that whomever I am working with can actually communicate with me on a level of competence. 'If your wanting to try something different, than this is it’ was today’s gem, though granted, not exactly hard to decipher. I just despise inaccuracies like this, especially in scripts; when I see this from the outset, I grow worried I’m going to spend more time editing my lines than I am learning them.
Details, details, details. Alongside the above, where a decoder is sometimes a prerequisite just got understand it, a lack of details is another hated notion for me. I need to know dates of involvement; I need to know how much I’m going to get paid. It’s really a display of a complete departure from common sense, ‘we would like you to get involved at some point in the future, for some amount of money and we’re not sure who we want.’ If you can’t describe the role past, ‘male, 18-35,’ then why are you posting the casting call? If you know it’s going to be paid, why simply put ‘paid’ in the amount section when every other professional about you at least attempts to do so. If anything, I shouldn’t be too grumpy about this. It highlights the real pros from the students with a budget or the amateurs with no idea; if I see something that says ‘paid’ where a figure should be, I just automatically assume it’s going to be a case of a pint and a pub lunch, if I’m lucky. Maybe a tenner at most; it has happened. Best occasions of this for absurdity is when the dreaded abbreviation ‘TBC’ is used instead of a figure. What the hell does that even mean? I know ‘TBC’ stands for ‘To Be Confirmed’ (or ‘To Be Continued’ which might be an interesting premise for some of these castings, like they’re just waiting to be finished off) but does that mean there is payment, the amount isn’t finalised, they’re looking for an illegal immigrant first to get the cheapest labour? What does it all mean!? All of the above shouldn’t be in the paid section of a casting site, they certainly won’t appear on Spotlight, I guarantee that; they should be cast off to some other domain where frippery for free is the order of the day.
And it’s not just the students and amateurs, I’ll be fair here. You know it’s bad, you know you are undervalued when a major internet company is looking for various, versatile actors based on a contract wherein, ‘potential payment is in talks.’ Alright, fine, granted that’s not them hiring explicitly; some poor sap is doing the gig for them and he probably has no idea what they’re going to pay. But, oh million/billion dollar firm, your name and logo are attached to this little gem and the fact that the concept is launched, the hiring process on its way and still no payment has been confirmed, no amount, nadda, nothing – well. Several rude words crop up in my mind to describe such a shambolic example of, ‘but it’ll look good on your CV/resume,’ but I think all those words will be already known to you since I have used your service before; frankly, why I’m surprised is beyond me.
Then, of course, there is the almost innocence idiocy that comes with not knowing how filters on the casting sites work. I am male; shocking, I know. So when I look through the soul destroying calls for the day, I expect to see the ones for male roles because I have applied the filters to see just that. Sure, unisex roles can crop up; that’s fine. But when I’m going through and suddenly, ‘we need strong character actresses’ crops up in the description, I can’t help but think a few things.
1: I thought we were all actors nowadays; I know Spotlight still does it separately, but I remember having a sit-down chat early on in my training about breaking down the divide. Maybe I dreamt it; I’ve had worse dreams.
2: Aren’t you going to be a little embarrassed and disappointed when only men apply for your obviously female role. I mean, I’ll take it (it was paid well) and put on any and all accoutrements desired to fit the part but I’m fairly certain it would be better for you, me and the general public if no-one saw that. Again.
3: If you can’t be trusted to operate a simple listing system on your computer, how can anyone trust you to organise your event, pay your employees or even get up in the morning without putting cornflakes in your coffee.
It really isn’t that difficult but it gets even worse when other categories are taking into account. Ethnicity, acting ability, age ranges; why I get listings for fifteen-year old, Middle Eastern actresses with an IMDB page, I’ll never know.
Lastly, I have a real issue with being inundated with requests for ‘real people’ on a casting site. Oddly, I am a real person; surprise! Yet, I am not allowed to apply to these roles or at least am strongly discouraged from doing so; I have, as a laugh, done so before and been told I was not ‘a real person.’ If my feelings could be so easily hurt, I’d have found some way to kick off and sell my story to the media, but I don’t frankly take much stock in oxymoronic idioms or trust the partisan papers who would buy into such garbage. My point here, however, is that I am a real person (‘I’m a real boy, well, adult!’) and, more to the point, fail to see why, on a site designed for casting professionals, you are asking for things other than such. Honestly, it’s like going to an Indian takeaway and asking for PVC u-bend for the second bathroom. If you’re not an actor, model, singer or other entertainment professional, why are you on a casting site? Why would you see these calls? I am, of course, referring to the turgid world of reality television.
When it comes to things like ‘X-Factor’ and ‘The Voice’ I will allow an exception; where else are you going to find talented but desperate singers/musicians to exploit? But why look for a ‘real family’ or a ‘real couple’ when most people around are going to be going, ‘what’s the character?’ I’m an actor and a real person, but I really do not want to see calls for reality television in my casting feed especially since I have requested my filtering system to bar them. I’m not interested in being paid to be me and humiliated/exploited/subjected to pranks for the car-crash entertainment principle; I’m interested in playing characters for stage and screen, in doing my job. Stick an advert in the tabloids and get any old sod desperate for fame to do it, I have a level of self-esteem and professionalism to think about; that could, therefore, make me not a real person come to think about it. When you are asking for ‘real people’ and explicitly telling me you don’t want actors, all I can’t help but think is, ‘well, haven’t you wasted my time and yours.’
The sad thing is, I can’t tell anyone responsible any of this. I can’t reply to the casting with, ‘you know, it’s people like this who make this industry as much a quagmire as it is,’ before laying down the law on whatever infringement they have caused. Because I have a career to think about; because I was told, once upon a time, never to unnecessarily upset, insult or in any way cause offense to anyone in the industry. Why? Because people have memories, long memories at that, and my name isn’t exactly forgettable. I’m not at the stage where I can start saying things to people and get away with it; I have yet to establish myself as an entity. So until that day, until that day when I can safely call people idiots, morons, irreparable and irredeemable charlatans, I have to hold my tongue and withhold the much needed feedback that these people, these scourges masquerading as professionals sorely need to hear. Until then, I will just have to accept that paid has differing meanings. That my testicles are only worth £50, but still more than a ladies parts. That I am not a ‘real person’ and that my casting feed is not going to get any better.
There’s still time to learn the window cleaning trade yet, so not all is lost.
