If You Use Social Media As a Business, Don't Fuck Up
I am working on the production of my first screen play. It is a romance about this girl who is training for the police who meets a programmer looking to change careers. It's a bit more complex than that, but I guess you'll just have to wait and see more when I release a teaser!
(I know I already plugged this in another post...so sue me...but first, support me? Bahaha)
Ok, so I have been on the lookout for the perfect actor for the role of Quinn in this short film. He is kind of handsome and funny and caring, and needs to be a good, strong leading man character. I ran a Craigslist ad for a couple weeks, and after having the original guy I chose try to use his newfound position to hit on me, I found another talented actor, who after meeting told me that he could not be in a kissing scene. (Um, wat?) Then I finally found another guy, explained the role, gave him the script and offered him a small stipend.
(First rule of acting...if you are uncomfortable with kissing, you may want to pick a different career. You will be playing more tonsil hockey than Wayne Gretzky. Everyone knows this. Reasonable human beings that take up acting as a legitimate career know this.)
Anyway, I was super excited to start filming. This was back in August of 2017. I had the cameraman set, I was going to play the part of Kay (loosely based on a friend of mine that committed suicide 6 years ago today actually), I had a boom guy, I had the sets mapped out, we were good to go. Well, silly me with 3 freaking kids, of course something would go wrong and things would get delayed. Luckily said actor was really understanding. I told him I would let him know when the new shoot date was going to be. I made the mistake of becoming friends with him on Facebook until I was ready to contact him again.
Ok guys, let me just say this as a rule of thumb. Here's some advice for how to use social media with those who employ you:
1.) Don't.
So for the past few months I have been following this actor's posts on Facebook, and I even donated a small amount to his GoFundMe he was having because he was trying to get into this TaeKwonDo tournament (he does martial arts along with his acting) and I like to support my fellow actor, but that wasn't all he posted about. Oh no.
He started out posting stuff like this:
Then came a more intense flurry of memes:
(Like this one)
(And this one)
Ok, now I am not one to censor anyone's free speech. Quite the contrary, as my entire life I have felt like I have censored myself, but I also understand now, that actions have consequences. You can share whatever you'd like about whatever you want, but it doesn't make you exempt from consequence. Whether or not I am a "truther" is irrelevant. An actor's page on Facebook is not really the appropriate place to be peddling controversial conspiracy theories. Especially a non-established, fledgling actor looking to break into the business.
I liked this guy, and his acting, but I was growing tired of his posts, and it distracted me from what I originally saw in him as the character I wanted him to play. All of a sudden I couldn't even imagine him in that role anymore, and yesterday, sadly, I unfriended him. I am now on the search again for a new Quinn.
(Literally my face yesterday when I saw the meme that made me snap)
So why am I writing about this rather long and seemingly strange thing to be sharing on Steemit?
Well, I guess this is just a friendly neighborhood reminder that:
1.) it's not a good idea to share controversial beliefs on a page completely unrelated to said beliefs (aka conspiracy theory thoughts on your acting profile page.)
2.) you should always keep your audience in mind when talking about anything or sharing your personal beliefs.
This may not be a popular opinion (few of mine are haha which is why I don't share them often) but I felt zero sympathy for the Dixie Chicks when they done fucked up their careers a while back. They knew that their target demographic was conservatives who supported George W Bush and they openly bad-mouthed George W at a concert of theirs. I would never say that wasn't their right. I hate censorship at my very core, but you also have to be good businesspeople if you are running a business and the Dixie Chicks were. They were selling themselves as a product, their brand, their music, and the customers were conservative country types for the most part. They single-handedly offended the majority of their customers, and then were upset when they weren't making money anymore. Their few remaining supporters cried foul, but there was nothing to be said other than the fact that they were lousy businesspeople. The upside is they eventually got a book deal in which they complained about how unfair and mean this all was, but it didn't change the reality: in order to be good at what you do you have to consider your audience, your fanbase, your customers. To not do so is just bad business.
(Yass queens, it's called "business practice".)
I guess that's where I am at with the actor I chose for my film. He tended to let loose and post whatever his heart desired on his acting profile page, and it was just bad business. I rarely post my political beliefs on my own personal FB page anymore, because I am afraid it might upset friends of family, and in the end, would it even be worth it? Has someone's FB rant in complete opposition to your beliefs ever made you change your mind about something?
(This.)
Perhaps you might be thinking "just get over it Beth," and "if he was a good actor, just ignore his stupid posts." And yes, I could do this, but in this situation, I am the employer. I would never dream of posting the type of stuff he shared anywhere near where a prospective employer could see it. I guess I felt as though I needed to send him that message. Call me petty, but it is a lesson learned for him, and hopefully one that he will consider in the future, because there are directors who would be much more harsh than me. Showbiz is a cut-throat industry, and unnecessarily exposing yourself to losing a job just to share a meme is well...bad business.
Hopefully this didn't make me come off as too mean. I am really quite nice with the people I work with, and as a Libertarian I am rarely sharing a room with someone who would agree with me, but it was just conspiracy theory overload that made me snap, and well...here we are haha.
Any males in Phoenix that wanna give this character a go? 🙈
Geez, I bet you're gonna have fun with those auditions ;-)
If we learned anything towards the end of 2017, it's the deal makers can also be the deal breakers, but that doesn't mean you should let someone take advantage of you.
The Dixie Chicks, said what they believed and sure it was to the wrong audience, but they may have also won a few extra fans that day.
It's 2018 and nobody is stopping them from having a music career, it's just not going to be the one they became accustomed to.
Now Jewel is someone the Dixie Chicks could really look up to.
She has a really interesting backstory. Check out the video if you have time.
Yeah my hubs and I go round and round about the Dixie Chicks because he thinks they were given a raw deal and such, but I still maintain that they knew what they were doing, and suffered the consequences, but not undue ones. Hubs is pretty liberal and I lean a little more right, but I'm also a libertarian, so we already don't really see eye to eye, but I tried explaining to him that it probably wouldn't have gone over very well if Beyonce started bashing Barack Obama at one of her concerts, kind of knowing the main demographic of her audience. It may not have been enough to end her career, but it would have certainly put a bad taste in the mouths of her listeners. He said that wasn't the same, and I stopped arguing at that point, haha.
I will give that video a watch tonight when I have a minute!
Funny, stuff. Gotta love the "truthers" on your fb feed. I will say I hold some pretty fringe views and don't hold back.
However, if I had a business page, that probably wouldn't be the place to post my philosophical views or theology and you would think sort of thing is common sense. But I've heard it said that common sense isn't so common these days.
Heads up, I think there may be an issue with your image displaying.
I don't know why some of my posts don't display the image!! Grrr. Yeah I try not to mix business and pleasure, especially since the views that I hold are received as generally hostile among the population of people I know. I have also been among the showbiz types since I was little. Everyone is very liberal and if you aren't then you just shut your damn mouth haha. Which is what I have always done! It's not worth it to share a viewpoint and be ostracized!
Yeah, the link had some parameters of something in there. Easy way to fix is copy the image to your clipboard and ctrl-v in a new post draft. It will upload and provide a clean link such as below.
It does suck when you support someone and they post some far out stuff. Im pretty new to social media so I will try to not make that mistake.
Haha good thinking!
Try backstage.com It's cheap and simple to set up a search and filled with legitimate people.
But it costs dat money doe.
Yeah true that, in my perdpective and actor by profession should be a chameloen. Ever changing and ultrarealistic integration into that of every detail involved with a unique equation representing the intended message through possesion of character. Be likeable, have great morals you operate under at all time while completely removing ones own personality from present moment to moment and having enought foresight to generate genuine feature of the portrayed character. Its not just memorizing lines and repeating them, you have to be there, with direction, int the mind of the creator, character and yourself with enough knowledge to operate the appropriate dictation. I havent, but i could
Yeah that's true, especially the part about removing one's own personality. There is a reason why most actors are not terribly outspoken about their political beliefs, especially the conservative ones. If you are conservative in Hollywood, you basically get blacklisted unless you have enough money and power to produce and sponsor your own content. That's why I said, it is more than just free speech when you are considering your career and livelihood.
A lot of them probably know it doesnt really matter anyway, in the grand scheme of things, they just like to have fun amd playing pretend for millions is every kids dream come true.
Too bad for non-kissing actors. Love romance. Love what you're working on. Well, I've been trying to be like an actor since I was almost eleven, since 1996. Made home videos since then. But never did any kissing scenes. Would I be willing to? Good question. Love smaller government. I'm in Oregon at the moment.
Liked Bush but not any longer. Also kind of liked Obama for a second. Dixie Chicks is kind of fun to listen to. Building 7 did fall. Three building in NYC fell in 2001 in NYC. There were 2 planes in NYC but there were 3 buildings that went down that day in 911 in 2001 in NYC and there was the pentagon and the field.
Yeah I didn't have much of an opinion of Bush. I was sort of tepid about him. As far as 9/11, I just remember what I saw happening live that day. I was in high school and we were just watching news reports pour in. Haven't really thought much about digging deeper into it. Smaller government is a win for me!
You are so right with your post.
I think that is a big drawback of the social media as we have them now. A lot of people are not able to seperate private things from they professional life.
Everyone is free to think and believe what he want, but it should not affect the work.
For example Tom Cruise. Many of my collegues at work don't like him and reject to watch his films because of his offense membership at the Scientology Church. For me, even I am not a big fan of his belive, seperate it from his quality as an actor. There are a lot of movies he act in I really like. And as far as I know he preparing his jobs very accuraty. And... damn, I have lost the thread ... anyway.
I am totaly off from what I wanted to say when I started to write.
Haha that happens to me more often than I would like to admit! No worries, I think I got the train of thought!!
Nice article :) Guys who publish conspiracies bs on their feeds always annoy me too, especially since they mainly relay them, and are not at all interested in checking them out first. I simply ignore or mute. Good luck with the screenplay!
Thanks! Yeah, just thought they were about out of place! I have my own conspiracy theories about things, but I rarely share them and certainly wouldn't with a director I was working with! People are crazy!