Carolyn Jack

Editor and CEO, Geniocity.com
A project of The Genius Group LLC

Creative Nerve: What It’s Really Like to Start a Business

No way to do business.  For several days this week, I’ve worked with Independent Pictures, a nonprofit organization, on its summer film-production internship program, which teaches filmmaking and production-staff skills for free to those who wish to learn them. 

Auditioning actors is one of the many processes required to create the film the interns will eventually help shoot. It’s something I’ve witnessed a number of times before as a playwright and as a theater critic, but I’d never observed it with the eyes of an entrepreneur until yesterday.

Here’s what I saw: Actors not showing up for audition appointments that they themselves scheduled.

That kind of behavior would be highly unprofessional in any industry. In show business, it’s career suicide.

Actors, whether they know it or not, are entrepreneurs running one-person businesses. They provide a service to as many customers as will hire them, a service that’s usually offered by too many suppliers for the number of job assignments available. Competition for paying parts in plays, films, commercials and other types of shows can be especially fierce because so few acting jobs actually pay anything. 

You’d think that if a performer took the time to contact a film’s producers and schedule an audition for a paid role, he or she would make every effort to be there; call to cancel if a conflict arose; or at the very, very least, call the next day, apologize profusely for missing the appointment and make sure to keep the rescheduled date. 

But at auditions on Tuesday and Wednesday, several people just didn’t show up. Almost no one called to explain and one of the people who did call to reschedule didn’t appear the second time, either.

Now, practically any industry is a pretty small world, but film and theater communities have to be the most interwoven little societies on the planet. People tend to know or hear all about each other and word gets around fast when someone turns out to be lazy, difficult or feckless.

These people who skipped their auditions have foolishly blackballed themselves – and not just with the rather well-connected makers of this one small film. What do these actors think other producers and directors will hear if anyone mentions their names in the vicinity of the filmmakers they stood up?

No one is going to hire a person who can’t be counted on to show up. In business, your dependability makes the difference between succeeding and losing everything.

That applies to artists, too. So, actors? Act smart.