To: patrick stack <pjs@outofpocketfilms.com>, Patrick Stack <p_stack@yahoo.com>
Pat-
Here's the full proposal. Wasn't sure if you had a title in mind; let me know if you'd like me to think one up. Just sent e-mails to two agents; will let you know what I hear back.
Thanks,
Barrett Brown Brooklyn, NY 512-560-2302
The Business of Acting (Working Title)
Contents
Summary
Author
Audience
Competition
Special Marketing and Promotional Opportunities
Manuscript Specifications
Outline Summary
Show business has always been something of a mystical profession. This
was especially true in the beginning, when the art of acting first
developed out of Greek choruses assembled to sing the praises of the
god Dionysus. That's about as mystical you can get. When directors hit
upon the idea of having a chorus member actually proclaim to be Dionysus,
the concept was sufficiently novel to capture the imaginations of the
whole of Greece, for whom the theater quickly emerged as the most
important artistic product of a society already steeped in cultural
innovation. At the same time, it was also unprecedented enough to evoke
distrust and even downright scorn towards the actors themselves. Who,
they asked, were these lowly crooners to swipe the identity of a hero,
a king, or even the gods themselves?
Though their status has improved a bit, film industry folks can still
run into contempt in our era, such as when finding themselves cast as
an extra in a poorly-conceived sitcom or being Michael Bay. And though
the profession is still as mysterious as ever, the intrigue is no
theological; the big mystery today is not, "What becomes of the man who
takes on the attributes of the immortal?", but rather, "How do I get
work?" This latter question wasn't as important back in the 4th century
B.C. when actors tended to be actual slaves without a lot of creative
control over their careers, much less a desire to someday direct.
Today, it's the most important question an actor can ask himself - but
a surprising number of actors simply don't bother.
The business end of acting is only mysterious to those who approach
the matter without context. The underlying problem is that actors often
look at acting in a vacuum, as a sort of extra-dimensional profession
unconnected to mundane, lesser pursuits like working at a grocery store
or producing films. Actors who view acting without a reference point
are depriving themselves of the sort of insight into the clearly
crucial pursuit of actually, you know, getting work. What they should
be doing is thinking of acting as a business - more specifically, the
business of sales.
I've spent my professional life riding an unusual career arc, although
things started out normally enough, at least for an actor; I got into
the discipline in college, struggled in the usual manner, and
eventually started landing some roles. The work came in an amusingly
wide variety. On the one hand, I played Lieutenant Morgan in Rambo:
First Blood; on the other hand, I wrote comedy with then-roommate
Nathan Lane. On the third hand (I'm deformed), I appeared on television
shows ranging from Dynasty to Cheers, and had the great pleasure of
working on the stage as well. But after about a decade of financial
uncertainty, it occurred to me that I wanted to raise a family - and it
also occurred to me that I didn't want to do all of this family-raising
out of the backseat of a Volvo. Being broke is a virtue when you're
young and single but it's a crime when kids come into the picture. So I
bit the bullet and got a real job.
My friends steered me towards sales. After all, I'd suffered through
rejection after rejection as an actor, thereby hardening myself in
advance to the rejection after rejection I'd be suffering through as a
salesman. In fact, I was to find that the respective skill sets of
acting and sales tended to overlap not just a little, but a lot.
When I went in for my first interviews with the sales departments of
various magazines, I was always asked why I should be hired on despite
having no experience in salesmanship as such. "But I've always been a
salesman," I explained. "And I've been selling the most difficult
product of all - myself." This usually got a laugh and a nod, and
occasionally got me a job as well. But that was just a cute line
intended to break the ice; I didn't really believe it myself at the
time. An actor is an actor, I thought, and a salesman is a salesman.
Soon after I started selling, though, I began to realize that I had
accidentally told the truth - acting and selling are very much one in
the same, and so understanding either profession can help one to excel
in the other. As I started to apply what I'd learned in acting to
sales, things began to take off. I started off as an account executive
at Advertising Age,
where to my great surprise I managed to "make my numbers" quarter after
quarter - pretty good, I thought, for a guy who had never used a fax
machine before. Later I found myself working as the vice president of
sales at a California firm that specialized in interactive marketing
programs for Fortune 500 companies; again, what I'd learned as an actor
was instrumental to my success. Among our first clients was Yahoo; I
sold the company's first ads in 1995. A few years later, when the
iconic young firm had established its own sales department, I was asked
to come on board and direct its southwest U.S. territory, managing a
20-employee office in Los Angeles and overseeing new business. Between
stock and salary, I had made myself a nice chunk of assets by 2000, at
which point I decided to take some time off. By 2002, I had gone back
into entertainment, this time as a producer - and equipped with a
better understanding of the entertainment industry than I could have
ever hoped to acquire had I never left entertainment in the first place.
***
The purpose of this book is to get actors to re-think the business of acting as a business that involves acting.
Actors, like all creative types, don't want to think of themselves as
salespeople. Perhaps they want to appear in a production of Glenn
Garry-Glen Ross or play Willie Loman on the stage, but portraying a
salesman is the closest that most of them generally want to get to
actually selling something. Many of them see salespeople as alien to
art - as shifty, snake oil-selling ne'er-do-wells clad in flashy
clothes and too much cologne. Most actors would be reluctant to
associate their own pursuit of the role with the salesman's pursuit of
the close. And it's the reluctance to make the comparison that prevents
them from gaining crucial insight into how they can make the sort of
moves necessary to land the gigs they want.
It's called show business for
a reason. It's a world rife with politics, personalities, rules,
procedures, and great expectations, which is why this book will provide
the actor with a guide to thriving in such a scene by reworking into a
salesroom. The intention is to give readers a new and better
understanding of how they can succeed in such an ultra-competitive
environment as this by applying the lessons I and others have learned
in another ultra-competitive environment - one in which the product
isn't being offered just a couple of times a week at casting calls, but
a hundred times a day in sales calls. Just as a long-distance runner
will train at high altitudes before running the race in an easier, more
oxygen-rich environment, inculcating himself with the insight gleaned
from high-stress sales work will give the actor a comparable advantage
in his bid for gigs. Just to be clear, my book doesn't require any
actual running.
Many of the strategies detailed here derive in part from the sales
principles are taught in Fortune 1000 conference rooms and weekend
seminars, reworked to address the unique requirements of the acting
trade. Rather than useless generalities or motivational tips hammered
into goofy acronyms, these are applicable techniques that address
specific challenges of the sort encountered by both experienced
thespians and part-type neophytes. But some of the most useful material
will stem from my own experiences as an actor and producer, as well as
the experiences of others in the profession; several chapters will
include conversations with an array of industry veterans with whom I've
worked in the past, including Brian Dennehy, Nathan Lane, Jason Lee,
Kathy Baker, and Gregory Garcia, as well as a couple of producers and
others with special knowledge of the in's and out's of getting in
without being thrown out. I'll also be chatting with my brother Timothy
Stack, who, like myself, has been engaged in acting, producing, and
bartending for most of his life.
Between a dozen actors and producers, we can probably expect one or two
good pieces of advice to come up. Just to be on the safe side, I've
composed a few in advance.
There is, for instance, the classic admonition to know one's customer.
This is something of a trope among even the greenest of salesmen, but a
surprising number of actors pay it no attention whatsoever. That's a
shame, because in neglecting to do their homework prior to a meeting,
an actor has already begun to sabotage himself before he even arrives.
And it costs very little in time and effort to pull off this kind of
research. You can learn a lot simply by asking who will be in a room,
for instance; you can learn even more by looking up those people's
names on IMDB. When you've bothered to determine someone's body of work
and thereby get a sense of what sort of angle will interest that
person, how that person approaches a project, and how that person's
last name is pronounced, you've vastly improved your chances of being
able to deliver what's desired. And when you put all of this
information together and use it to work out the likely dynamic you'll
face in a room - the pre-existing relationships, the differences in
creative direction, the collective intent of the team with regards to
what that finished product is supposed to be - you've gained an
additional edge over a competitor who walks into that same room without
a clue as to how to proceed.
Related yet still distinct is the "game plan," which in the context of
acting involves the development of a strategy by which to get yourself
or your project in front of the right person rather than having it
tossed aside by the wrong one. Within the unique bureaucracy of
entertainment, one encounters both gates and gatekeepers. Some of these
lead to the guy in charge; others lead to would-be players without any
real access or capabilities of their own. Being able to identify the
real decision makers is imperative; it can also be unusually tricky in
this industry, in which image and actuality tend to coincide even less
than they do in more traditional business settings. Once an actor has
identified the right people and coupled this knowledge with the right
research, the next step is to adapt the right approach - the process by
which the actor makes contact with whoever has a finger on the green
button. This requires you to know how to deal with the gatekeepers; to
engage with the entry level-types to the extent that such engagement
works to one's advantage, and only to that extent; to determine an
organization's actual hierarchy rather than its official one; and to
otherwise do the sort of research, planning, and execution that is
almost routine among the nation's top salespeople but which is
nonetheless commonly neglected among those who are selling themselves.
Equally important to understand (and more fun to read about) are the
mistakes that actors and other entertainment professionals regularly
make when running amok in the business end of art. The problem that
tends to come to mind for myself and many other producers is that
particular brand of entitlement which seems to be unique to actors
though certainly not universal among them). When approaching someone
who's in a position to hire or otherwise advance a career, the actor's
frame of mind is too often along the lines of, "What can this person do
for me?" This tends to come through without the actor even realizing
it, and it makes a terrible impression. This is not to say that it
hurts the producer's feelings or that he's expecting you to show up for
purely altruistic reasons; rather, it's simply a wasted opportunity
whereby the actor could have raised his value in the eyes of whoever is
doing the hiring. The theme of an actor's discussion with any producer
or casting director should always be, "Here's how I can make your life
easier." And there are a variety of methods by which to make that case,
both explicitly and implicitly. A few anecdotes are probably in order. They always are. My
brother Tim managed to sell a show to FX by way of a rather
unconventional approach, and did this by adhering to several of the
principles that will be detailed in this book. Years back, he bartended
a Christmas party put on by Don Buckwald, a New York-based agent who
himself was on the rise. Tim stayed in touch afterwards, occasionally
reaching out to Don in order to let him know what he was up to. When
Don landed Howard Stern as a client, Tim was ready. Upon learning that
Stern was looking for a television concept to develop and produce, Tim
went to New York and sold the show right there in the room. Tim knew
the right gatekeeper, Buchwald, through which he had access to the real
decision maker, Stern. And he was able to acquire and maintain those
relationships by knowing when to approach, when to pursue, and when to
wait.
Early on in my sales career, we were looking for a keynote speaker for
our conference on interactive marketing, a semi-annual affair catering
to high-end sales and marketing execs with an itch to learn about the
mysterious new world of internet advertising. Time was running out and
we had yet to secure our "big deal" speaker. I had read in the Wall Street Journal that
the number two guy at Procter & Gamble was developing an interest
in the general subject, making him a prime contender to headline our
intent. Rather than waste time trying to get through the chain of
command at P&G, I wrote to him directly and received a note in
reply. He had to decline to a scheduling conflict, but said he would
have been delighted otherwise. I made a mental note to always start
from the top and work down; it's the best way to generate contacts.
***
Acting is one of the most rewarding pursuits imaginable, and actors
have good reason to think highly of the skill sets they develop in the
process. Too often, though, they insulate themselves from the practical
aspects of the trade, which in turn prevents them from maximizing their
opportunities to ply their craft. Contacts matter. Approach matters.
Timing matters most of all. And in these and other aspects of getting
what one wants, the world's businessmen in general and
salespeople in particular have pioneered their own artistic pursuit -
that of the interpersonal wonk. This was very nice of them, as we can
now take the end result of some hundred years of research into the art
of the deal and apply these same principles to the business of acting,
an industry in which many participants give little or no consideration
to the strategies that can mean the difference between landing a
career-defining role and working another five years as a bartender on
the side. Those actors who learn and practice the tactics described in
this book, then, will gain considerable advantage over their
competitors in one of the most competitive fields imaginable.
Author
Patrick Stack has more than three decades of experience in acting,
film and television production, sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
His acting career began when he dropped out of college to play roles in
off-Broadway productions in New York and do a bit of regional equity
theater in Los Angeles. Veering into humor, he served as half of the
comedy duo Stack & Lane with then-roommate Nathan Lane and served a
two-year stint with legendary improvisational troupe The Groundlings,
working alongside many of the most influential humor writers of the
present day. He spent much of the '80s working in film and television
(and, in leaner years, as a
bartender), appearing in such films and television programs as
Rambo: First Blood, FX, Cheers, Dynasty, Hardcastle and McCormick,
Simon & Simon, and The Greatest American Hero.
Determined to secure a more reliable income, Stack switched gears and
went into sales in 1990, starting out as an account rep at Advertising Age,
the nation's leading sales and marketing trade publication; his new
career forced a clean break from the entertainment business due to his
contract stipulating that he wouldn't perform in television or film for
the duration of his employment. After surprising himself and his new
colleagues by actually being able to sell things, he was hired as vice
president of sales at Interactive Marketing, itself a pioneer in the
hyper-innovative world of internet advertising, as well as a leading
producer of interactive media collateral for Fortune 500 firms; the
company also organized some of the first conferences on the subject of
e-commerce and marketing, geared
towards senior executives seeking to find their way in a
fast-developing young industry. The firm also broke new ground by
representing web sites with revenue streams from ad sales. Yahoo was
among the clients, with others including Netscape,
Map Quest, and Playboy. Upon its purchase in 1996 by Softbank, Stack
was transferred to Chicago to serve as VP of Midwest sales and
deal with an expanding roster of big-name clients. When Yahoo
took its ad sales in-house, Stack briefly ran his own firm with a few
past
clients, but soon accepted an offer by Yahoo to join the company on a
direct
basis and head up its southwest territory. Having conducted Yahoo's
first ad sales and having otherwise provided the fast-growing firm with
a successful expansion of its ad sales capabilities for several years,
Stack had accumulated enough in stock options and bonuses to retire
from his adopted career in 2000.
Two years later, Stack founded his own production company, Out of
Pocket Films, based at Sony Studios though an entirely independent
venture. In the years since, he's produced and sold two feature films
with another seven currently in production and four television concepts
prepped for circulation as of September 2009. He remains an active
member of the Screen Actors Guild, still working as an actor on
occasion. He currently lives in Manhattan Beach, California.
Audience
Though the book is geared largely towards actors, many of the
strategies and interviews found within will also be of great benefit to
writers, producers, directors, and anyone else who doesn't yet realize
the importance of salesmanship to the entertainment business but who
would like to gain a significant advantage in their field by getting
this all figured out. Between the lessons drawn from my own diverse
professional background, the tactics gleaned from some of the business
world's most highly-regarded executive seminars, and the various
accounts and advice provided by the dozen or so actors, producers, and
other industry professionals whom I'll be interviewing for the book,
the final product will serve as one of the best resources on the market
for anyone seeking to dramatically enhance his or her ability to
navigate this most delightfully mysterious of industries.
In many ways, though, the book caters specifically to the actor, who
often has the most difficulty in accepting himself as a salesman while
at the same time being in the best position of all in which to benefit
from adopting the salesman's modus operandi. All artists find it
difficult to internalize the concept that they're selling a product.
This sort of mental block can hurt actors the most insomuch as that
their profession actually does require the most in terms of selling,
schmoozing, and otherwise engaging in the sort jockeying that's most
usually associated with the "real" business world. Actors struggle to
get meetings, get an agent, impress casting directors, and engage a
strange array of people with the means to launch the actor into sudden
prominence and success - or do nothing whatsoever, slowly.
As such, the purpose of the book is to convince the reader that a
counter-intuitive understanding of the entertainment industry is the
steadiest route to success, and to detail the tools necessary to
achieve it. All of this is best accomplished from my end by talking to
actors as an actor, and in doing so to address the anxieties and false
premises that prevent the actor from reaching his or her full potential
- the need for reassurance, the conviction that fate drives success,
the undue significance that often gets placed on rejection, and a dozen
other psychological blocks that truly successful professionals tend to
have overcome, whether they've found that success in sales or art.
Aside from actors, the book will be of most benefit to independent film
producers of both the established and aspiring varieties. Even with
increased public interest in independent films, big studio dominance
can still be a barrier for smaller production companies; meanwhile, the
last decade's influx of new talent - itself prompted by the reduced
cost entry thresholds that come with digital technology and internet
distribution - has resulted in a more competitive environment for those
seeking to grow from the bottom up. A firm understanding of what
sometimes works, what always fails, and what tends to get things moving
is as crucial for a small film producer as it for anyone else in any
business one can name; the information provided in this book by some
half-dozen producers hailing from a wide range of creative backgrounds
should leave any independent film producer at least a little bit wiser
and better prepared for his next investment bid. Competition
Naturally, there are already several popular books on the market
covering the practical mechanics of making
contacts, acquiring roles, and gaining publicity without resort to
punching a photographer or going to rehab or punching a photographer in
a rehab center; there are quite a few more dealing with the actual
techniques of acting. And though this latter genre is in far less
direct competition with my own book than are those of the
business-oriented sort, one example can provide us with some insight
into what makes for something that an actor might actually like to read.
Among the more successful of the books that cover purely thespian concerns is Ric Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons,
which is still selling reasonably well over two decades after
publication. Aside from being grounded in acute observations from a
veteran actor and director who's also spent a great deal of time
instructing students in the art of both disciplines, the book was also
notable for its humor and readability. Approaching the subject with
insight gleaned not only from acting but also adjacent disciplines, as
would be the case with my own book, would seem to be an effective
approach, then. Adding a bit of humor or at least making a flailing
attempt at this would also provide for increased readability and pity
for the author, respectively.
There are far fewer books which focus on the strategies an actor can
undertake to help ensure that he or she gets the chance to act in the
first place, with one of the more popular of these being Acting as a Business by Brian O'Neill. Acting as a Business serves
as a general guide to, uh, the business of acting, and O'Neill himself
has gone on to parlay the success of his book (which has gone into 25
printings so far) into an equally successful series of seminars and
one-on-one consultations geared towards actors based in New York - and,
of course, selling more books in the process. Clearly, a useful,
well-conceived book on navigating the acting business has the potential
to prompt enough interest among satisfied readers that a seminar series
would be a viable follow-up while also serving to further publicize the
book itself. I'd like to take my project in that direction, and I'm
fortunate to have the resources and professional connections to pursue
that particular avenue if the book is published.
Though there are several lessons to be learned from the better-known
books on acting currently in print, it's worth keeping in mind that my
own book is distinct from all of them. As opposed to a general guide
filled with tips on head shots, resumes, and sizing up agents, my
approach to the subject is a bit more focused and quite a bit more
radical. Approaching the topic from the specific perspective of
salesmanship, the book would be positioned to act as a supplement to
any acting book that a potential reader might already own. In any case,
it would appeal to those more experienced actors who are already
familiar with the basic mechanics of landing gigs but who are also
seeking new and more effective strategies to advance their careers
further, as well as amateurs who'd like to familiarize themselves with
the psychology that defines the industry and thus spare themselves the
poverty that comes with the actor's learning curve. Regardless of the
reader's status in the industry, the lessons and anecdotes put forth by
myself as well as my colleagues should be of interest to anyone with an
interest in how this business works - and why it sometimes doesn't.
Special Marketing and Promotional Opportunities
My longtime involvement with several Hollywood institutions provides
for a range of methods by which to promote the book to its intended
audience. As a member of the Screen Actors Guild, I'm involved in
various workshops and panels for the benefit of actors and other
industry professionals, and my other ongoing film and television
projects naturally provide for an array of cross-promotional
opportunities to boot.
Additionally, I would also write a few short articles reflecting the
themes put forth in the book; I can arrange to have these published in
several venues of interest to actors, including The Huffington Post
and other blogs as well as several of the more prominent magazines
geared towards industry professionals in the U.S. and elsewhere. Outline
I Hate Gatekeepers
The
people who stand between you and success - the administrative
assistants, the readers, the all-around middlemen - are a fact of life
that simply cannot be ignored. This is not to say that they must always
be won over. Still, it's crucial to determine ahead of time who among
them can be bypassed, who must be appeased, and who really holds the
keys to the kingdom. Titles never tell the whole story.
Walking Through the Door
Even
industry veterans sometimes forget that when you come through the door,
it's your job to lose. Successful actors approach each audition while
keeping in mind that the hirer is seeking someone to fill a particular
need and wants you to be that person - which is to say that every hirer
is hoping for you to succeed. Taking full advantage of this seemingly
axiomatic dynamic is crucial. Just as important is knowing that the job
interview starts before you walk through that doorway - in the hallway
or the waiting room.
Have I Done My Homework?
When
you go in for an interview, you're there to fill someone else's need,
not your own. Getting hired for the gig is simply a byproduct of that
process. This is almost an axiom, but like most axioms, it's frequently
disregarded by virtue of its alleged obviousness. For the half-hour or
so that you're in that room, your needs take a backseat to those of the
hirer. Successful preparation is always undertaken with that fact in
mind.
Finding Me in the Yellow Pages
Self-promotion
is a virtue, and anyone who says otherwise is simply trying to promote
his own virtues by implication. Of course, if you can get away with
doing that, then you're already on the right track. The key to
successful self-promotion is to make one's self available without being
obnoxious about it; self-deprecation is a nifty trick by which to do
just that. Aside from walking the fine line between being noticed and
being irritating, the mechanics of public relations come into play
here; by establishing a specific strategy and sticking to it, I managed
to pick up 90% of my acting gigs on my own.
A Career or a Job?
A
job is something you'd prefer not to be remembered by; a career is
exactly the opposite. A job is just a blip on the employment timeline;
a career is built and nurtured over time. This principle goes beyond
the age-old dynamic of working as a waiter and living to be an actor,
extending into acting as a whole. When you meet a person of relative
influence, take pains to convey that you're looking to build a
long-term relationship as opposed to just picking up a one-shot
paycheck.
Who Are the Real Decision Makers?
In
the acting world, casting directors are the most powerful of all the
gatekeepers. They also tend to hold themselves in the highest regard -
this, in a town where self-regard is hardly in short supply. Examine
any studio closely, though, and you'll most likely find that someone
else is in control of the project, and perhaps even the casting itself.
Knowing the score on this front takes finesse, but it pays off in the
end.
When to Cut Bait
Everyone
has a dream. If yours involves working as a full-time writer, actor,
cinematographer or whatever, congratulations - to have an aspiration is
the only way to achieve it. To the extent that one's dreams require the
cooperation of others, though, reality comes into play. Waiting for
that phone to ring may not be the smartest way to spend your time, and
taking a day job in the meanwhile need not necessarily translate into
ultimate defeat.
Why Acting?
Your
motivations need not be pure, but they should at least be realistic. If
you're looking to get rich, rob a bank. If it's fame that you're after,
get caught. If you feel the need to be loved, give the money back. But
if the joy of performing or seeing your work on the printed page is
enough to make you happy, then you're off to a good start.
The Follow-Up
The
art of following up on a meeting is one of those things that everyone
would benefit from understanding but which is nonetheless largely
unknown to people outside of the sales world. Entertainment being a
particularly meetings-dependent industry, every aspiring actor should
familiarize himself with proven methods by which to effectively
re-approach a producer or casting director.
Really Understanding How Movies and Shows Are Made
An
actor who knows the nuts and bolts of TV, film, and theater production
has a distinct advantage over those that don't. Knowing how it all
comes together, as well as understanding the role one plays in the
larger process, provides insight into the "needs" of the people at the
top and thus a better perspective on how to best prepare and market
one's self.
Who's Your Rabbi?
Everybody
needs somebody - in this case, a mentor who's also willing to serve as
an all-around sounding board. Choose your instructor wisely - treachery
is not quite unheard of in the entertainment industry.
Sales 101, 102, 103
It
doesn't matter what you're selling; sales is sales, regardless of
whether one is selling ashtrays, art, or acting. Although a large part
of sales consists of filling a need, sometimes you can sell 'em
something they didn't even know they wanted.
My Territory
Salesmen
tend to have particular territories of their own. For this and other
reasons, they also try to keep tab on their colleagues as well as
anyone else with the potential to impact their business. The actor who
knows everyone doesn't know everything, but he knows enough.
My Competition
There's
no good reason to obsess over who got what part you were after, but
trying to figure out what the other fellow got right is almost as
helpful as figuring out what he got wrong. Meanwhile, the wise actor
will keep control over his relationships.
Shining Examples
Yes, success is possible within the entertainment world, and this chapter will serve as a reminder of this.
Doing it All vs Hitting the Same Spot on the Brick Wall
One
cannot be all things to all people, and thus specialization is often a
winning strategy. The fellow who discovers what is it that he does best
is in a good position to do just that.