Well, this should open up a (admittedly rather hackneyed) can of worms. But I thought it was interesting coming from the person it came from - you need to read down to the last couple of paragraphs. In an economy where it's all about cuts (yet we all still need to boost our CV's and show we're not pickling ourselves in our own sense of worthlessness and failure) is this something we need to be more flexible about, or is it still a black and white issue?
(And yes, most of you will know I've worked for poached salmon and a decent B&B in the past)
Answers on a postcard ;P xx
By the way - the cheesy commercial thing isn't a dig at anyone other than myself - as anyone can see from my CV I've certainly done my share of those!! x
Thanks Claire for you well informed comments. That is good to know. I used to be in America a lot and had a very positive impression of finge theatre. After 10 years I went back this September and was really astonished. I felt things have changed. I say 3 shows. The award winning Broadway musical felt heartless. The off Broadway show was a good but not thrilling revival of a 15 year old play and the regional theatre experience was horrible and I left after the second interval. I am happy to accept that I just made bad choices but was trying to think through if American Equity's rules were aiding creativity by limiting the projects Equity actors can get involved with. Understanding how their system works may help us work out a British Equity strategy. Thanks for your views.
Vanessa I hear exactly what your saying, and understand where you're coming from. It's tricky isn't it?
I got paid to do a series of virals as a giant mobile phone, but have just auditioned for a profit share production of The Cherry Orchard. Which is more useful for me building a career?
I havent quite finalised my theories on the big dilemma of "To pay or not to pay..." I think my bank balance dictates most of the time, other times a script is so good that I cant ignore it. Equally, working for free only encourages more free work to be born, which is not great.
Yep I'm totally against NFTS students shooting the Kodak award commercials with no budget for actors!! This is an individual thing not NFTS based at all and totally disrespectful imho!! Whilst there I found that some of the students attitude to actors was abhorrent. However the staff and fellow students ( myself included) try to kick this out of them!!
As for viral vs profit share chekhov...
As an anti chekhov philistine I'd say ditch the profit share and screw chekhov ;-) sod that boring russian family ;-)
Best to all as usual!! all is meant in good humour!
I did a feature just before Chirstmas for 3 per cent of the profits - which is what everyone involved in the film is getting. I did it because I really believe in the script and I think it will make money given the genre. I must say I don't normally work for no pay so this was a one off. Having said that, I did do a few student films early on - one of which featured a then very unknown and very young Carey Mulligan who was adorable.
There you go, Guy solves it for us all again - lol :) x Simon - yep, that's exactly the dilemma... it's very frustrating to have to be in the situation in the first place, isn't it?! A unique business we're in, indeedy!! And yes, Guy - all in good humour - nice to be able to keep it that way :)x
I raised an issue with Equity about charities not paying actors National Minimum Wage. Sometimes I see castings for FUNDED projects which have a charitable connection and the actors are NOT paid, and it turns out charities are exempt from NMW legislation! What's more, film schools may regard themselves as charities and use this as an excuse for not paying. This is just abuse of the law. Maybe these are the unpaid jobs we should refuse to do. I've always been paid for charitable projects in the past (corporate jobs). However, more and more charitable stuff is unpaid. I will not work unpaid for a production company being FUNDED by a charity, NGO, or similar. Charity CEOs earn a fortune (the big, national charities anyway -- typically £200k and above). Why shouldn't they pay actors? The legislation is rubbish. Equity can't do anything about that can they, apart from lobby? (Which they are doing, by the way.) It's up to us, with Equity and the other trade unions, to stop this abuse. There used to be a concept 'A fair day's pay for a fair day's work'. Not anymore. By the way, it's not just people in the creative arts who are treated like this, forget all ideas about artistes being different, we're not.
With limited Raindance experience and no experience as a volunteer actor there, I quite enjoyed this article. The sentiment that rings true for me is if you are clever and find a unique way to get into the industry you can prosper. Regardless of whether you like the particular organisation or not, I do think we have to hand it to Elliot - he was both entrepreneurial and resourceful, and this has been advantageous for his resulting career.
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