Over the past six years, online submissions have grown enormously in the performance industry. Because of this, entire casting companies exist in the virtual world allowing performers to submit their headshots and resumes. A voiceover artist in Chicago can submit for a casting notice in New York or LA. Even more beneficial is the money saved on postage and mailing costs, as well as the time saved sending and opening headshot envelopes.
While there is still a significant amount of industry professionals that outright refuse to accept such electronic submissions, you need only consider the substantial benefits to realize that this practice will not only continue to grow, but eventually become the new standard. Obviously, new systems will continue to develop so that a casting director’s computer doesn’t drown in gigabytes of actor reels and headshots.
Many online companies that post casting notices already provide a system that makes the submission process more uniform and that way the casting director can easily view many of the submission photos at one time online and use that as a first step to screen the performers.
However, many casting opportunities also provide an email address and request that you send them a link to your website so they can view your headshot and resume, or demo reel. For those of you who need an actor website, please visit www.actorartistdesign.com.
Occasionally, casting notices will also just request that you attached your headshot and resume in an email to the casting director. Sometimes, they don’t specify how or what to do with the attachments. Actors that aren’t yet tech-savvy enough to know how email attachments work sometimes submit their photos as attachments that are huge. Photo images that are not modified (also called optimized) can be so large they are rejected by the email account of the intended recipient. Your email to the casting director bounces – or worse, it goes to the junk mail folder of the recipient.
Even more dreadful is if the recipient gets your email, but the file size of your attached image(s) are so large that they fill up the available file space in the casting director’s email account – now you have just exceeded their email account space of the casting director and all of the other performers that want to submit are having their emails bounced because the casting director’s inbox has reached it’s file size limit! Not good! Especially since the casting director will eventually realize what is happening, and figure out that it was because of your email that they have to repost the casting notice for more submissions!
So what do you do? The ideal file format for submitting your headshot and resume is a PDF.
Why? Because 99% of computers have Adobe Acrobat Reader and can open these files. Moreover, PDF files can be optimized to reduce the file size and still look great.
Many actors believe they should submit their resume as a word document. Unfortunately, Microsoft came out with a new version of Microsoft Office in the past few years and if you send a word document saved using the new Microsoft Office program, you have to save it with using an extra step, or the older Microsoft Office programs won’t open your resume. That means the casting director may not be able to open your resume! Ah! Frustrating for everyone.
To avoid this, submit your headshot AND resume in PDF format. Also – be SURE you save the attachments using your name! If you instead save them as “Headshot” and “Resume” – the casting director may save them somewhere else on their computer by accident and your photo may become separated from your resume on their hard drive. Use something like “JasonAlanCaine_Headshot.pdf” and “JasonAlanCaine_Resume.pdf” to make sure that your information stays together.
Finally, find a friend who knows Photoshop or another program where they can ‘optimize’ your photos and reduce the file size. Usually, this just means they need to reduce the “resolution” from 300 dpi (dots per inch) to 72 dpi. The 300 dpi resolution contains much more detail so that the photos print out well. The 72 dpi is the ideal resolution for viewing on the web. Computer screens can’t display any more detail than a 72 dpi image, so anything higher is a waste of space for no reason. The only difference is that the 300 dpi image file is much larger in file size so it takes up more file space, it doesn’t look any better.
While there are also other factors (such as the actual physical size of the image – 4” x 6” vs 12” x 18”, etc) the resolution (dpi) is usually the easiest and most effective thing to change to make your photos easier to mail.
If you don’t have any computer-savvy friends, please send us an email by visiting our contact page and we would be happy to help you. We optimize (1) headshot for free!
Have a great day!
Thanks for stopping by!
Jason C Small
Business Development Manager
http://www.ActorArtistDesign.com
Actor Artist Design, a division of Great Young Minds, LLC
*Jason has worked as an actor in New York City for seven years appearing on All My Children, As The World Turns (3 years as “Lou”), Guiding Light, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Good Morning America, at Radio City Music Hall, in the New York Fringe Festival, and in many more productions. He has more than 15 independent films to his credit, and has managed an acting studio for a celebrity in NYC, and served as Marketing Director for one of the top casting websites in the New York market. Jason owns and operates Great Young Minds, LLC, a graphic and web design company servicing the entertainment industry, with offices in New York City.
