On Working for Free

It has been an exciting first week of the year. I have gotten five job offers, three of them paid. I was asked to audition for two theatre companies, two plays, three student films, and one talk show to discuss "Atlas Shrugged." I am also scheduled to meet next Monday with the talent coordinator of the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" late-night talk show to discuss being a guest on the show, I assume to talk about my fledgling acting career.

When I arrived in LA on Wednesday, I went to a fitting for my first job, a commercial for Chevy Denmark which will be my first featured role in a "name" commercial. This company hired me without an audition, based on a funny clip I referred them to from the web series parody I did in late 2008, called "Whorified! The Search for America's Next Top Whore." After a morning audition for a character similar to Judi Dench's "M" in the James Bond movies (for another commercial), I spent Thursday afternoon shooting a long scene to be used to train psychologists. I played a woman who feels betrayed by her therapist because she has fallen in love with, and been rejected by, him. It was very intense and emotional, and for the first time, I was able to cry on camera. I got the tears by telling the director about my father, who used to recite long passages of poetry from memory, and how when he lost the ability to speak after he had his stroke, I read him poetry as he lay dying. And as I started to cry, we went straight into filming the scene.

I was really drained emotionally after that shoot, plus Alabama had to win the national championship Thursday night (Roll Tide!), so I had an early bedtime. Friday I had an 8 a.m. call time for the Chevy commercial shoot, which consisted mostly of me getting dressed, having my hair and make-up done, and watching the shoots with the other three girls who were also playing the male lead's "speed dates." He was playing an obnoxious drunk, and it was amusing to watch him disgust each of them in rapid succession. My actual "work" time spent filming the scene was about five minutes. And because by this time I had worked three days in a row,I was crashing physically with joint pain all over. So I decided not to go to my next audition, which was for a play, because it involved dancing, and it was for no pay.

Which brings me to the main topic of this post: actors working for free. You may have noticed that I mentioned that I got five job offers this week, and two of them did not pay. Both were for background roles in feature films, and both were offering screen credit, which means that you get your name at the end of the movie when the credits roll. More importantly, you get a credit in the bible of the film industry, the Internet Movie Database, or IMDb. When I was first working, and even now, IMDb credit is often enough to get me to a set. Many agents won't even consider taking an actor on unless they have significant IMDb credits. The more you have, the better you look to casting directors too, even if it is as background. This week, I turned the jobs down, because I would have had to come back to LA early and end my Christmas break prior to January 4, and I just decided not to do it.

Most people would be amazed at how many projects in the entertainment industry pay no more than "CCM" (credit, copy, & meals). This is true of almost every student film, although many have started adding gas money as well. But it's also true for many independent short and even feature films, and a surprisingly high number of well-known artists' music videos. Why do they do it? In short, because they can get away with it. Most of these projects do not have any sort of union agreement that covers the performers, so they don't even have to pay minimum wage. And nearly everyone wants the chance to be on TV, or in a movie, or even in a short film. So there are always plenty of actors to work for free, even if you decide you aren't.

For a long time, I did work for free, and even now, on some projects, I will still work for food and gas money (yes, I said it: WILL WORK FOR FOOD). Why? Well, everyone has to start somewhere, and I needed experience. I started with community theatre, which almost never pays, and because it was so much fun I really didn't mind it. I also started doing short films, made by students or independent directors, for free. I did this because every actor, in order to be taken at all seriously by an agent, must have a "reel." A reel is a collection of your best work, usually five minutes of film or less. Ideally, it showcases your range of emotions, and it should be of excellent quality and as current as possible.

I finally got enough footage to put my first reel together in 2006, after I had been acting for nearly five years. Reels are excellent marketing tools, because they can be mailed to prospective agents or posted to the numerous casting databases that are available to actors. Mine is available on Now Casting, Actor's Access, LA Casting, and SF Casting, and the 2006 one is still my main reel because it's really good. I used a great company, Reels for Actors, to put it together, for about $300; there are many good companies in LA who do this for as little as $99. And I started getting more roles almost immediately after I put it online. But every job on that reel was one I did for free.

But now that I have a good reel and quite a few more clips for a new one, plus several clips available on You Tube, I am taking a much harder line on working for free. In actors workshops, teachers will tell you straight up: "Professionals don't work for free." And now that I am trying to do all the things professional actors do (like, be on time, have your lines learned, show up for auditions; you know, the little things), I have decided that I am not going to work for free UNLESS: it is a new type of character for me that might lead to different types of work (like when Charlize Theron played a serial killer; they call that "casting against type"); it is a work that I write or co-write; I'm doing it on spec (that means we might sell it later) or for a friend (Jon Heder did "Napoleon Dynamite" for free for a friend; that worked out pretty well for him); or, it's a nice day, they need background for a park scene, there's free food, and I want to spend the day outside. You know, sometimes you just gotta do this because it's fun.

Til next time-
Jennie