How To Avoid Being Scammed As An Actor

I was told by a casting director once that being in a play is not as good as a workshop… When I told her I disagreed because you are actually practicing the art of acting continuously and performing in front of people who will give you feedback that is way more important than doing a single workshop that you may get to practice acting a bit. Now I have never done a workshop, but if I do I will not pay for it because I learn more from watching actors on stage or in commercials and being an extra in films/tv than I can even imagine that I would gain as much from a workshop. Not saying I am not willing to take classes and do workshops, but I will always check into them 100% before I commit my money to others. Made some mistakes in the beginning and believe me, you do learn from those mistakes. So I have made a ton of money compared to some that are doing workshops and student films. Thank you for true insights instead of broken promises. 🙂

All these workshops add up. There is no guarantee that you will be contacted by these casting directors. It is bullshit. Because we as actors have to work our asses off and the casting directors don’t have to work as hard and get paid for it. Isn’t it illegal to to pay for potential work? I never paid to go on an interview. Isn’t this the same thing?

Solid information. Thank you

David,

I love this and very much agree. I have a talented friend who has taken LOTS of workshops at a reputable place here in NYC. He has to have spent several thousand dollars. He has ‘won the lottery’ so to speak, a few small times. After his hundreds to thousands of dollars, the company’s website published him in their ‘Success Stories’ section. It read something like “Joe Schmo was called in by Casting Director Jane Schmo after meeting her at a workshop and was called in for Show Schmo for and under five/day player role”. I was like “A success story is being called in for a three-line role on a show that you should have been called in for anyway, that you DIDN’T BOOK?!” The success was that he was simply called in. He should have been called in anyway!

Ryan

Hey Skyler, thanks for your comment. I don’t know where to begin. The simple way to look at it is you can chose to live your life with integrity or not. There is right and wrong and CD workshops are wrong. That’s why they are illegal and considered an inducement.

If your answer to all your choices in life is ‘someone else is doing it’, that shows a real short term outlook to life and it will not lead anywhere very good because every time you are faced with immediate gratification over long term development, you are going to choose the latter. It’s kind of a child’s approach to life until they learn that good things take time, effort and commitment.

I would say the main reason you’re trying to justify something that you even admit is wrong is that you see no other option. You use faulty logic in every argument to support the case that simply boils down to ignorance. It doesn’t matter what I or anyone else is doing with their careers or how much time you have. You simply can’t buy your way into anything at a meaningful level. Eventually, the devil will come for your soul. You will be found out if you don’t have the talent or the relationships or the knowledge of the business. If your philosophy is short term solutions to long term problems, no one is going to align with you because if you see an easier way to get where you want to go, regardless of it’s ethics, you are going to take that route. Life simply doesn’t work that way.

Even if you succeed financially (which seems to be how you measure yourself), there will be little satisfaction. It’s like winning a sport by cheating. You will always know that you weren’t the winner and you are the only person who matters in these instances. It is your life and how you live it is more important than what you can buy or how many tv roles you have had. Most people prefer not to cheat and when they do, they feel badly about it. There’s no satisfaction in a victory that is not earned.

Much of your logic is so flawed that I fear it would be impossible to speak to the part of you where your opinions begin. Almost all of your comparisons are both invalid and illogical.

Let me just start by saying that there is a difference between right and wrong. We all know when weare doing something wrong and paying a casting director to see your work is wrong, regardless of all comparisons because all those comparisons simply equate workshops to something that is also wrong. The rules for paying for workshops cannot be applied universally or our entire society would collapse because everyone would simply try to buy their way into things, rather than take a ‘career’ approach. You can pay to learn something but CD’s don’t teach anything, other than their supercilious opinions on how they would like you to behave in their office, which is a waste of time to learn. Based on that test alone, they should not exist for the benefit of our business.

I would also say most of your assumptions are wrong. Bill Gates would be the last one to say pay to meet someone like him because he did everything himself. He spent all night at the lab working on the computer. I’m sure he also got involved in the business and learned how things worked and forged some relationships with people who could help him with his vision. To suggest paying him reveals that it would largely be a waste of his time because you have a mentality which is not in line with long term success. It’s ironic you would use someone as entrepreneurial as him to describe something anathema to entrepreneurialism. I’m sure he would scoff at the idea of paying anyone to get a job from them. I am sure he would say If you can’t get a job with your own ingenuity and skill, you don’t deserve the job.

At what point do you stop taking shortcuts with your life and actually do the work you are supposed to do to succeed? If your talent is there, what is the difference between going to see a CD or picking up the phone and asking for an appointment and paying them to meet you in terms of how much work it takes? It’s actuallly easier to call one than sit for three hours at a workshop. You talk about time. What time? It take no time to go ask for an audition if you think you deserve one. If they won’t give you one, what makes you think they are going to give you one from a workshop? They aren’t bringing you in because you paid them. They are only going to bring you in because they think you can do the job so offer to show them you can do the job. You have time to develop yourself into an actor but not to meet people in the business. What would you tell a doctor who didn’t have time to go to medical school? Buy their way in? Some things take time. There is no way around it. You don’t have time are you so busy doing? You only need one afternoon a week to develop a relationship with a CD. You don’t have six months? Why not? What’s going to happen to you in six months? You got somewhere to be? All it takes is getting your priorities in order. Eliminate what is not necessary. Bottom line is if you disagree, there’s not much hope for you long term because no one wants to work with people who aren’t committed and you are basically stating you are not committed, but looking for short term alternatives to doing the work. You need to change your mindset because if you openly stated your disdain for following the rules of life, most people are not going to trust you when the going gets tough. I certainly wouldn’t expect you to stick around if you think there is an easier alternative available to you. Would you want to hire someone who says, hey there’s bribery everywhere. What’s the big deal?

The impression you make on a CD when you pay them for a workshop is that you’re not a serious actor who doesn’t have any imagination on how to get acting work and auditions. That relationship is based on money and money only. You may be able to change it over time but it’s not a real relationship. They have no feeling for you and you can’t pick up the phone and speak to them or visit them in the office whenever you want or call to have lunch, etc.

Your approach is very short term in nature which although immoral, is fine if you are content being in the business for only a short time but it isn’t based on a strong foundation. You approach seems almost pathological with no feeling about how things are accomplished; the ends justifies the means but I’m sure you wouldn’t like to live in a world like that. You only see the benefit to you, but don’t you see how you could easily become a victim of your own preferred system? Someone could just pay more than you and put themselves ahead of you or eventually as you said, since the industry is booming, maybe you won’t be able to get an audition unless you pay. Well the good actors would be out and all we would be left with are the ones with money.

Your comparison of an agent to a workshop is invalid. An agent doesn’t do the same thing or charge the same cost as a workshop. An agent doesn’t even charge you if you don’t make money. The gap is so large between the two, I’m almost in shock you made the comparison. An agent gets a part of what you make. You don’t pay them to represent you first and then you hope you get a job out of it. Their success hinges on your success. That’s a team effort. A workshop is a bribe. There is no long term relationship. Their success doesn’t depend on yours. In fact, the opposite is true. The more you succeed, the less they get paid. They want you to keep failing and coming back for more workshops. An ignorant actor is their best customer.

You say an actor doesn’t have six months to form a relationship? Why not? There is no substitute for relationship building and sorry but going for auditions is not even close to the same as having a relationship with someone. I’ve auditioned for people a hundred times and don’t have a relationship with them. You say hello, you read and you leave.

Your view of everything is so myopic. The studio has power, and can cut your scenes? What? Who cares if they cut your scenes and they wouldn’t cut them if they were good and even if they did, that’s not the point. And what does that have to do with anything? The fact you worked is the point and if you were good they will hire you again and actors have as much power as they want to have. You have the power to work on your craft, practice, go meet people and show them what you can do, be helpful, gain trust, give your opinion, etc. Tons of actors get producer status when they reach a certain level. It just takes a process. You can’t substitute the process. You can buy all the auditions you want but no one will ever think much of you for doing that. You have to show your hustle and work ethic and workshops show the opposite. They show you have no ingenuity, no patience and no understanding of how relationships, business and life work.

Look clearly you would justify anything that you believe works and if that is your Ayn Rand Objectivism philosophy, enjoy it. You don’t seem to believe in an absolute right or wrong but I bet you really do, just not when it’s inconvenient. If someone was going to take a job from you by bribing a producer, you might suddenly find religion but that’s essentially what those workshops do. They cloud the field with a bunch of unqualified and unethical people who are actually going to contaminate the workplace and poison the environment for actors who are doing things the right way.

You are free to do as you wish. My only hope is that people reading this see the difference between living your life with integrity and simply trying to buy a handout. Heck you would be a better proponent for them if you could show me they actually worked. Once in a while they work for a few people but 99% of the time they don’t so morals and ethics aside, they are a terrible investment. The organizers promote these things based on one person getting called in or booking out of thousands of participants. They aren’t any better odds than sending in random headshots. They show a lack of integrity on all the players parts, meaning those who charge and those who pay. Doing workshops is like telling a lie. Once you start with one, it inevitably leads to another and another and before long, you have no credibility and look really silly.

David, its very funny some of the things you find wrong with the acting world do in fact take place exactly in the real world. People pay staffing agencies and colleges with connections to large companies to interview for jobs just the same way some actors pay casting directors to get them seen in front of bigger casting directors and producers. Same exact thing! And you mentioned bribes, which I would have to say happen in all business industries also! In one of your videos you asked if a tech student would pay to meet Bill Gates for an interview and said it would be crazy, but I bet techies would line up for a chance to chat with him for twenty or thirty bucks! It would sound crazy not to if you wanted to be the next big software engineer.

I never said I completely agreed with workshops or thought I would learn from going to them but was playing devils advocate because your harsh opinion against them isn’t completely logical. I have only been to three but out of those I made a relationship with one casting director that has paid off and will continue to down the line. All for just twenty bucks to make an impression and be in their minds the next time they are casting a big pilot. Most of the big casting directors are on studio lots and you can’t just go strolling in to meet them. Now that I have a really good agent that sends me out all the time on top of my commercial agents I don’t have the time to go meet these casting directors on my own or volunteer to intern for them. I don’t need to because I am meeting them over and over when they call me in but an actor without a fantastic agent or the time to dedicate six months of building one relationship absolutely can consider a workshop as an option.

You said workshops are a way for actors who don’t deserve to get auditions get an audition. So then are you saying every amazingly talented actor in Hollywood gets the same opportunities and is noted for their talents equally? That is definitely not the case and I find it very sad seeing talented actors not get a chance or ever make any ground just because they don’t know how to navigate the business side of the industry.

David it is a fact, in general, that a studio has the most creative power, followed by the producers, followed by the directors, then the actors. You can be as creative as you like as an actor but if the network, producer, or director doesn’t like what you did they can just cut your scenes, re cast you, kill you off, etc etc. That is just basic knowledge and until we can produce as actors or make it as super stars that is the way the industry works. Follow the money, entertainment is a business and talented actors are not in short supply.

David, if you don’t need an agent to get acting jobs why do you have one? Or many? Because it is the best way to get acting jobs. Not the only way but the best way. If you don’t have a good agent and you don’t know any casting directors its going to take a very long time before you start getting as many auditions as you said you were. You got very lucky that your situation worked out and you played your cards well and it worked for you by interning at the casting offices. Most people I know don’t have the luxury to live off their past savings though and are coming into the industry young and broke. You have been running this site for quite some time but it does not seem like many of the actors your are teaching are getting the same results you did from volunteering at a casting office which again shows you got very lucky with your situation and made the best opportunity out of it. Also there are way more actors than their are casting companies in this town.

I think a lot of what you have to say in general works and is a wake up call to a lot of bone headed actors that don’t realize how important it is to work hard at this business and study their craft just as hard. But I have been pursuing this career for a fraction of the amount of time you have and already have a handful of professional tv and film credits and support myself in between only by booking national commercials. In just over two years I already feel like I am way ahead of people who have been doing this for 2 to 3 times longer than I but don’t understand how to work hard and smart enough to succeed. It seems that you have been doing this well over a decade and are in the best possible demographic to book roles (the majority of all acting roles available are white males in their 30’s to 40’s) but haven’t booked that career changing job yet.

If your main gripe about casting director workshops is the legality of them, than I can be okay with that. I am well aware that they are not technically allowed by the union. But lets be honest, casting director workshops are big right now. New companies are sprouting up like crazy and I am told they are more frequent than they have ever been. So right or wrong that is the current state of the industry and you can’t get much more legitimate than that. If they work for some people or you can find a way to make them effective for you are you going to tell an actor thats wrong and they shouldn’t? This business is too competitive to limit yourself like that and you should encourage actors to do all that they morally can to succeed. Yes it all starts with your training and work ethic but that still isn’t enough sometimes. Fact is there are more people that want to act than there are jobs now or in the future. David, if you don’t book another job higher than a guest star or small recurring in the next 5 to 10 years are you really not gonna reanalyze your strategy? I’m not saying workshops are gonna be the solution but some of your extreme view points might be holding you back.

Hi David!

I could not agree more with your take on the vampires of Hollywood. They are everywhere, and some of them are incredibly good at the con game. The analogies you draw with gambling, playing the lottery, investing in the stocks, etc., and drawing the line between them and the programs designed to relieve the actors new to the business of Hollywood of their hard-earned money, is exceedingly accurate.

I had been fortunate to avoid these pitfalls when I first started out because the right people cared enough to educate me when I was no more than a little lost sheep loose on the boulevard of (broken) dreams. Prior to seeking representation, I had already a great deal of professional training and experience. Just as with you David, my coach of many years, the great character actor Michael Pataki, taught me far more than the creative side of Hollywood. Learning about the dark underside and the associated characters, the games they play and how they prey upon the starstruck and unsuspecting, is tragic. Working with experienced actors and legitimate coaches such as yourself provides newcomers the opportunities to avoid the heartache, pain, disillusionment, depression, and, of course, loss of funds and potential ultimate, failure. This also allows for proper networking, the building of contacts, opportunities to attend intimate dinner parties and functions with important people (and you never know who you might be chatting it up with ’till later, so first impressions, etiquette, a positive nature, and proper attitude at all times is paramount!)—all of these things and learning much, much more, will prepare the newcomers to Hollywood for a real and lasting opportunity to succeed.

The encouragement and awareness you provide is priceless and an absolute necessity to not only survive, but to thrive. The odds for success are unbelievably astronomical, but not impossible to overcome. Serious commitment, dedication to the craft, the art, the finances, the business, the ups and downs to expect (and the unexpected), surrounding yourself with a great support team of like-minded and dedicated individuals, and most of all, belief in oneself and your abilities to nurture and grow with the punches rather than withering away on the vine are very important concepts to understand. Avoiding the psychosis of self-delusion; brutal honesty with oneself and your talent; giving yourself the time for a proper Hollywood education like college is for the good jobs in life. These, and of course, with a little luck, or as we both like to say: “when preparation meets opportunity” success can be yours!

David, I have to say your logic doesn’t add up. Yes these workshops exist to make money for the cd’s and workshop company’s but its the same in tv and film in which they are made to make producers and networks the majority of the money. Actors are on the bottom of the totem pole in money and creativity in the working industry as well. I am just playing devil’s advocate and kind of have a neutral opinion about the ethics of workshops but I have seen some in LA for as cheap as 10 to 20 dollars for a very quality workshop. For some one who has been studying long term and is ready to work but does not have a good agent yet I have to say they can seem like a good idea.

Sounds just so logical… I can’t wait to get in!

Ah Grasshopper, you are not ready to leave the monastery yet. Simply because something can work or even if it does work does not mean that you should do it. The point is that these workshops exist not to help actors with their careers, but to make money for the workshops. That fact alone should be reason enough not to do them, but also they encourage casting directors to engage in unethical behavior. Part of their job is supposed to be finding new actors. I’ve never heard a casting director describing their job as charging actors to see me so I don’t have to call them into my office because I don’t have the time. Maybe more actors would get seen legitimately if we weren’t paying CD’s to see us. We are discouraging them from doing their real job and encouraging them to moonlight off of actors backs. Not a pretty picture, regardless of the results of a few actors.

I do know one actor who did start his career with these types of meet and greets. The thing is — he was good when he started, but had no professional credits, yet he was good enough to book something very small. The started the ball rolling, but he’s the one who took that ball and started it rolling. Once he booked his under-5, he got SUPER pro-active, doing a lot of what Hack Hollywood advises (as far as I can tell). He continued to use these workshops to network, but he was a standout because of his growing credits, pro-business savey/knowledge, and he auditioned well. These meet & greets became just one part of his overall plan.

If you’re a nobody, the absolute bear minimum is that you MUST audition well. If you can do that, then these things are worth it IF you’re also doing more than just that, way more. If you’re just taking 1 or 2 per month and notthing else, you’re throwing your money away. Training and getting better is the number goal and getting smart about the business and what works is equally important if you want to have a career.

Very good information & I can only presume quite true. I’m in the Chicago area, so not as many “opportunities” for CD workshops, and when one comes to town, you have to wonder why they are traveling around the country rather than staying at home working….. Thanks for sharing! …& now I don’t’ feel so bad for usually forgetting to stick that pesky postcard in the mail! 😉