Yesterday, I ran into John Park who told me that
Crows of Lullaby, the film he and Jeremy asked me to do a role in, was now up on IMDB and that my name was in the credits as promised. He said that I should check my IMDB page and see it.
So I did and... I couldn’t believe it. There on my IMDBpro page, to my utter delight, the listing for Profession reads: miscellaneous crew (for my script coordinating) and
actress. In the film section, it lists
Crows of Lullaby, and me as Woman at Bus stop. My role is listed like any other talent. That is so wonderful, because I had despaired at how, realistically, I was ever going to get listed as actor.
IMDB has some quirky rules and criteria which independent film must hurtle to get listed. Hence, these end up serving as a wall which generally eliminates most independent movies from qualifying. I didn't really see that as a pitfall in terms of me getting acting work as in my mind, casting directors utilize the online listing services for actors or the old-fashioned, tried and true headshot/resume route.
That is until last year, when I went to a talk by a casting director, and she told us that she goes to IMDB to cast her projects, not the many casting services that actors pay to get their headshots in (see June 28, 2009 entry - http://dannygirlpaceyjack.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-put-milk-in-your-black-coffee.html). Not only was this news to me, but it created a problem for me in that I've got a nicely impressive IMDB page... but for script coordinator. There is nothing at all about acting.
I could envision her opening up my page because I had the right look, seeing no indication that I was or even was interested in being an actor, and passing me by. I had asked her about it then, and she said to put up a bio for myself with the first line explaining that I was now pursuing acting as well.
Which I gratefully did. Still, I despaired of ever getting a legitimate listing for casting directors to note because what I've been in hasn't made the IMDB criteria. And I'm not alone, I know many actors whose IMDB page has one or two projects listed and yet they've worked on a lot of things.
But in the category of you never know where good things are going to come from... the tiny role that I did for one of my coworkers at my old job -- the smallest role of those I've done -- got me what I coveted. Thanks to the brothers Park who got their film listed with me in the credits, I now have a real film entry in addition to the TV work, and I now have 'actress' listed in my profession line next to miscellaneous crew which I have for my script coordinating gigs. Who hoo!
Now all I need to get is writer added.
This can be viewed at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1498217/ although it is more impressive at IMDBpro (http://pro.imdb.com/name/nm1498217/) where it says: Profession: miscellaneous crew, actress.
Isn't that cool? It might not seem like much to outsiders or the pros who have far weightier acting resumes than me, but it's a big deal to me and really brought my spirits up high today.
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