Revised Proposal

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 longer 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 and producers had little choice but to produce whatever script Euripides gave them. Today, it's the most important question an actor can ask himself - but a surprising number of actors simply don't bother. Meanwhile, far too many aspiring producers, directors, and technical support people are approaching a competitive industry without any real game plan.

   The business end of show business is only mysterious to those who approach the matter without context. The underlying problem for actors is that they tend to 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; the same is true to some extent or another for a variety of industry folks, from set designers to directors. What they should be doing is thinking of entertainment 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 industry aspirants to re-think the business of entertainment as a business that happens to involve entertainment - without, of course, compromising on creativity.

   Actors and other creative types generally don't want to think of themselves as salespeople. Perhaps they want to direct a production of Glenn Garry-Glen Ross or play Willie Loman on the stage, but portraying a salesman or deciding where he should stand and for how long 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 entertainment folks would be reluctant to associate their own pursuit of the next gig 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 or lunches at The Ivy, but some 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 entertainment professionals and aspirants alike 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 that are taught in Fortune 1000 conference rooms and weekend seminars, reworked to address the unique requirements of the entertainment business. Rather than useless generalities or motivational tips hammered into goofy acronyms, these are applicable techniques that address specific challenges of the sort encountered by actors, directors, producers, and most everyone else in the industry. 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 people pay it no attention whatsoever. That's a shame, as an actor up for a casting call, for instance, has already begun to sabotage himself before he even arrives if he's failed to do his homework. 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 dynamics 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 entertainment 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 Hollywood and other nodes of film and television, 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. After one 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 one 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 or their ideas.

    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 a great number of 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, directing, and other creative pursuits are extraordinarily rewarding, and those who manage to land the perfect role or otherwise contribute to a memorable production 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 entertainment, an industry in which many participants give little or no consideration to the strategies that can mean the difference between achieving one's dreams and working another five years as a bartender. Those 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 somewhat 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.

    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 addressing the anxieties and false premises that prevent actors and other creative professionals from reaching their 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, directors, and others most commonly associated with the more creative aspects of film and theater, the book will be of particular 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.

   Books that concern themselves with directing and other creativity-heavy subsets of the industry, likewise, tend to deal in the technical aspects of those pursuits in much the same manner as most books geared towards actors. Just as likewise, this book differentiates itself by dealing with the more practical aspects of these professions.

    Though there are several lessons to be learned from the better-known books on acting, directing, and the like 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 obtaining head shots, obtaining funding, 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 industry-oriented book that a potential reader might already own. In any case, it would appeal to those more experienced professionals 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 Hollywood 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 the same sort of people who read Variety, 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.