DID YOU KNOW THAT CAST- ing for TV, film and theater is the last business where you can legally discriminate in employment practices? We may think of it as acting and art, but in reality, it’s employment. You are hiring a person to appear in a television commercial. With session fees and residuals, a principal role in even a regional spot is worth big bucks. Casting is the only American industry where the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) doesn’t rule with an iron fist. Thank God!
It was a beautiful fall afternoon in New York, and the last thing I wanted was to sit in a hot, stuffy casting studio on Park Avenue. Thermostats never work in casting studios. As a director, I usually love callbacks. You often hear new, quirky, crazy ways to interpret a script. You can direct professional actors to experiment with interaction and delivery. On rare occasions, an actor brings a whole different twist to the commercial’s concept. (Of course, as a director, I steal the idea and take the credit.)
I had already made up my mind on who I wanted for the principal roles. The agency writer and producer agreed, but we had to go through the usual dog and pony show. Their client was visiting New York and decided to attend the session. (My partner made me promise not to mention the name of the client or agency.)
I found myself daydreaming between actors. I chuckled as I thought about the conversation that was happening in the room. All of us were polite and professional during the session, but as soon as an actor left the studio, you’d hear comments like:
I like his delivery, but he’s a little too old for the part…
She’s a talented actress, but way too heavy. If only she were 20 pounds lighter…
Dick’s an Asian and we specifically requested a black doctor…
Hal’s wrong because he wears glasses and walks with a limp…
Earle has a good look, but aren’t you all afraid he’s a little too black for TV…
Sheila may be African-American, but she’s too light for our target audience…
She has the right attitude, but she sounds too Jewish for the Midwest…
Try to imagine any other employment situation where you could make these remarks and comments without losing your job or having to attend some goofy, mandatory, diversity sensitivity training sessions.
You laugh, but maybe our industry is on to something… Maybe we are employment pioneers and don’t even know it!
What if people were simply cast for their jobs rather than being hired through traditional employment agencies and human resources departments? After all, people can and do lie on job applications. Sometimes we don’t take the time to read an applicant’s resume. Besides, who cares what Ms. Judith Smith did as a high school senior! Even her college GPA bears no relevance on how well she can art direct or write.
Senior agency management likes to tell everyone to think outside the box. It’s an expression they learned during one of those $50,000 retreats. Maybe it’s time to heed management’s request! Let’s say you’re a creative director at a major agency and you need to hire a writer. Instead of calling your HR director, then interviewing an endless parade of losers, you think outside the box! You pick up the phone and call your favorite New York casting director. You tell him or her that you need an attractive blonde writer in the 24-30 age range.
Two days later, you anxiously walk across town to the session. As you open the door, you’re greeted by a room full of great-looking young women, all eager to land the role of writer at your agency.
There are no boring resumes; instead, each applicant enters the studio with an 8X10 head shot. You know that this is the very best your potential employee will ever look. On the back of the photo is a listing of every job the woman feels qualified to do. This includes important skills like riding a motorcycle, snorkeling, or even working with animals. Sometimes, instead of one photo, there’s a composite of several shots showing what the applicant would look like if she wore various types of clothing to work. You might see her in anything from an elegant evening gown to a skimpy swimsuit!
Enough of the head shots—it’s back to the casting session. You need a new writer and you need one right away. As each woman enters the studio, you listen to her voice. As a creative director, you quickly screen out applicants who sound pushy or abrasive. You also eliminate potential whiners and women with too much spunk or attitude.
After a quick lunch it’s callback time. Now it’s your turn to run these eight women through the paces. First you have them present an imaginary concept. You check to see if they’ve used all the right buzzwords. You make sure they can feign a high level of excitement about some dumb, smoke and mirrors dot-com account that your agency just landed.
With a prop keyboard supplied by the casting agent, you check to see how the applicants look when writing. Would a client passing through the office interpret this as creative writing or just clerical typing? You must be sure.
After the session’s over, the head sheets of your potential writers are neatly arranged on the studio floor. You remember their performances and quickly eliminate the first five. You review the qualifications and experiences of the remaining three candidates. You ponder for a few moments, then finally decide to go with applicant number three. She has the right look, the right hair, plus she can ride a horse and once appeared onstage in "Oh, Calcutta!"
Your choice is made. The agent does a final check for availability and potential conflicts. Two minutes later, you’ve booked a new agency writer.
As silly as it sounds, this just might work. Imagine, an entire agency where everyone "looks" the part. If nothing gets done during the day, so what! Management just hires a few freelancers to do the work from home. And since they’re not actually in the office, no one cares what these freelancers look like. As long as they have computers with modems, they can be bald and naked.
Tim Frank, a senior art director in Pittsburgh, once told me that his former employer, HBM/Creamer, would always march prospective clients by his office and introduce him to them. Account executives told him that the "suits" on the client side expected agency art directors to have crazy hair and wear wild clothes.
Tim still looks the part.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More