I Saw Your Brassiere on Facebook

Jimmy Ludwig and I and an occasional column in Equity News called Ask The Geeks. 

Here's one from April of 2009.  We are all wending our way through the morass that is or digital world.  Theatre people have special considerations not only due to the public nature of our work, but our untraditional work places.

Equity’s Committee on New Media and New Technology (lovingly named The Geek Committee) cares about issues concerning our Members and New Media.  (And there are tons of issues) So to help clear up some confusion, welcome to another edition of: Ask The Geeks

Ask The Geeks

Q.   Last week, on my birthday, a bunch of people burst in to the dressing room and videoed me in my bra.  I posted it on my Facebook page.  I think it’s hysterical, but my dressing roommate went postal because part of her arm and the back of her head are in it.  You can’t even tell it’s her but now she’s really cold toward me.  Am I right or is she having a cow for no good reason?

A.    No, the cow is well deserved.  If this were at your house, your only crime would be insensitivity.  The problem here is that you were at work.  Delete the video.

Q.   I’m building a website.  I found a pirated clip from my show on YouTube.  I want to lift a clip (just me singing and nobody else in frame) and put it up on my site.  Problem?  After all – it’s my image and I didn’t pirate it.

A.    But you don’t own the show in which your image appears – the producer does.  If you use ANY of that footage, you are as legally vulnerable as whoever pirated it in the first place.

Q.   I’m really pissed-off!  One night we had to stop the show and improv some dialogue until our set started working again.  Somebody in the audience recorded the whole thing and now it’s all over the internet!  A friend told me there was nothing I could do because it was news and therefore “fair use.”  (The incident made all the newspapers the next day) Is that right?

A.    The Doctrine of Fair Use is an exception to copyright laws.  This is major lawyer territory but basically, the copyright law says that fair use of a copyrighted work without permission can occur if it is used as (1) criticism and comment, (2) parody and satire, (3) scholarship and research, (4) news reporting and (5) teaching.

That said, what the audience member did was to steal your image.  Period.  If it was during a performance, he not only stole your image, but the property of your show’s producer too.  Catching the thief is the hard part, but if you can, you may be due damages.  Equity has been successful at having such footage removed.

Q.   In trying to promote myself, some friends and me have made an online webisode.  We’ve had a lot of hits.  We’re not making any money and I’m giving every cast member a copy.  No harm – right?

A.    Depends.  Do you or any of the other cast members belong to either AFTRA or SAG [SAG-AFTRA]?  If you are, did you get the proper paper work?  You could be in violation if you didn’t.  So much trouble can often be avoided with a single phone call.

That’s all for this month’s edition of ASK THE GEEKS!

Remember: Your image has value.

Your image (this includes your voice, photo and any other reproducible part of you) is yours to sell or give away as you please.  But it gets complicated anytime other people are involved.

The media landscape changes literally every day.  Wrapping ones mind around the concepts of New Media can cause crossed eyes.  Equity is there to help.  That’s one of the things you pay dues for.  Producers have deeper pockets and better access to lawyers than most actors do.  If you’re not sure about an issues dealing with New Media, call Equity or email taping@actorsequity.org.*  Your union wants to protect you – not punish you.

Under Equity’s collective bargaining agreements, the ways in which a producer may exploit your image are laid out very clearly. † There are penalties for the use of your image outside of the parameters of your contract.

Under federal law 18 U.S.C. 2319A, it’s a felony to “transmit, distribute or offer to distribute” sound or video to anybody anywhere (including posting them on social networking sites) without the consent of the performer(s) involved.

Here are some rules of thumb:

·      Yours is the only image you have the right to promote, but…

·      Just because it’s your image doesn’t guarantee that you have that right.

·      If you tape (film/photograph) it – make sure you have the right to do so.

·      If you don’t have the right to film it – don’t.

·      If you didn’t film it yourself – you probably don’t own it.

Tune in down the road for more pertinent info.  Until then, stay in touch at taping@actorsequity.com.*

* updated email: capture@actorsequity.org

† this was written before many of the Media packages which are now standards in many of our contracts.

Brave New World - On-Line EPA Sign-ups

Another no-brainer.

Actors waiting at an extremely early hour in an office building lobby for said building to open up, so that they might sign-up for Equity Principal Auditions (EPAs) are mystified as to why Equity seems to be dragging its blue and white derriere when it comes to providing on-line sign ups.

 If ever there were an obvious need which could be easily met, it would seem, this is it.  Please pardon the New York City-centeredness of this post, but this is where the big problem is. EPAs generally last 7 ½ hours and have audition slots for 6 actors every twenty minutes, or 18 per hour to fill the contract requirement of 115-135 actors in a day.  

All things being equal, this provides each actor with 3.33 minutes to show him or herself in a good light.  In addition, if there is time and monitors are pro-active, they will fit alternates in when enough people have not used all of their 3.33 minutes.  With a typical monologue or 32-bar cut song taking between 1-2 minutes this usually happens.

During high season - i.e. summer stock season from late January to early April - the competition is heavy and to have ones choice of the day's appointment slots requires a pre-dawn get-up.  The timing is more critical if there are multiple calls and at different locations about the city.  On top of this comes scheduling the rest of ones life.  Some of us have full-time jobs. Some of us have to take the kids to and from school.

The benefits of signing up in your bathrobe at home and having your day planned before you walk out the door are patently clear.  Here is the down side:

Before I continue, I want you to know that I am in favor of going on-line (the internet on-line, that is).  But before we throw all to technology, we should be aware what we're trying to put in place.  With every technological advance comes new problems.  Here are some which will surface right away:

• Some members do not have access to the technology.  

For many calls, being logged on at exactly the right time will be imperative to guaranteeing a preferred audition spot. As opposed to a physical line, where members sign up in the order that they arrive, in the digital world, hundreds will "arrive" at exactly the same time and will have to vie for their spot in the virtual line. There is a large number of people who do not have smart phones (or data plans) and so cannot be on-line at will. Some do not have home computers or have spotty or no internet.  There are those, especially older members, who rely only on the public library for any internet access. One argument says that this being the modern world, one must have these tools to compete.  My mother was in the business back in the early 1950s and did not have a telephone.  This was not uncommon then. Certainly, making accommodations today for those with no telephone would seem ludicrous.  Some day everyone will have access to the web everywhere, whenever they desire, but we are not there yet.  Until the day when having personal, mobile high speed internet is commonplace, the playing field will not be a level one for actors when it comes to EPA sign-ups.

• Your competition just increased ten-fold.

With the analog version of EPAs one has to physically show up.  Inherent in this circumstance is a geographic limitation.  If one lives in Boston, a four-hour drive from New York, one would have to leave in the wee hours to sign up for an EPA in NYC.  There is a risk, that one could drive all that way, buy gas and parking and still not get an appointment.  Obviously if you have a guaranteed appointment, you might be more likely to come a greater distance, and help swell the ranks of those vying for an appointment slot.  Right now there are close to 30,000 AEA members in the Eastern region.  More than half of that number live in New York City.  A couple thousand more live within commutable distance to the city. Let's say one-fifth of this number attend EPAs.  I know NYC-based actor who will not go to an audition below 14th Street.  But, I also know actors who will fly across the country for an EPA.  If actors in Sacramento, California can obtain audition appointments in New York City, we will start seeing Golden Staters in the NYC Audition Center.  Not that Californians or Montanans or Mississippians are not welcome to NYC auditions.  This scenario will not be a daily event, given the expense of time and money, but multiply this times a couple hundred additional people vying for one of those 115-135 slots and the arithmetic is clear.

• Frivolous sign-ups and no-shows

Getting up at sunrise to audition is a serious commitment.  Obviously, those who wish to be seen for a given show or season of plays have read the breakdown and have in mind roles for which they might be a good fit. One of the reasons that EPAs have become more effective hiring tools over the past couple of decades is that actors are focusing in on giving casting directors viable choices instead of just showing up to be seen, as used to be the case when EPAs started.  For this reason, CDs are taking EPAs more seriously than ever and using the EPA system as a real tool in casting a project. Casting is entirely subjective, of course, and there are roles for which one could possibly be right, but the role may not be an exact fit.  The only way to know is to show up and audition.  Appointments on the internet increase the likelihood that an actor might not be as assiduous in his or her assessment of the role's appropriateness.  And in the virtual world of obtaining appointments, it is more likely that an actor might sign up "just in case" he or she feels like showing up.  Virtual sign ups will increase the number of actors who show up for a role that is all wrong for them, or who will sign up and not show up at all.  In either case, if one of these gets an appointment which could have gone to you - you're still out in the cold. (Maybe literally)

• Tech glitches

I am sure you do not have to be told that networks go down all the time.  If the system crashes during sign-up due to an over-loaded server which would come from too many people logged-on, there would be nothing that could be done in real time.  The sign up would have to start from scratch when the problem gets fixed.  If some how there were  glitch where the completed sign-up list goes away into the ether - nothing could be done.  We all know this situation will happen a few times, no matter how many safeguards there are in Equity's IT Department.

• Sh*t happens

We're all busy. The best laid plans get way-laid.  Auditions run long, making our appointments later in the day stack up.  Trains stop dead in tunnels.  Traffic is insane.  Assuming that on-line sign ups were in place, what procedures would there be for missed appointments?  There do come times when one misses an assigned appointment and desires to obtain a later one the same day.  With virtual sign-up it would almost be assured that all appointments would be gone before the actual call even begins.  Would there be a virtual alternate list, too?  It is possible that leaving the system to a computer could prevent human remedies to human problems that arise in a given day?  Perhaps if the alternate list were not virtual - that one must physically show up to be on it - this could be one remedy.  Signing-up virtually would make ones schedule more rigid in this case, and not less.

• Solutions

"Alright already, enough!" I hear you say, "I want on-line sign ups NOW!" One of the most important elements in getting on-line sign ups to be a reality is member involvement.  Too many policies and systems for those who attend EPAs have been imposed by those who have no experience with same.  This is where we come in.  We have to be a part of this march into new technology.  Get involved.  Join the EPA Committee, write Council, go to membership meetings.  Tell the powers that be that we want to be involved in crafting this new system.  Here are some suggestions that I would offer:

• Partial On-line slots

Until we live in a world where on-line access and speed are more equal and ubiquitous, perhaps in every block of 6 audition slots, we start out with 2 out of the 4 being on-line accessible, with the remaining 4 of the traditional variety. This might be a good get-your-feet-wet test toward the move into on-line sign-ups.  Let's start with a call that usually would not have a high turn out. As Equity gets the hang of administering the system, it could expand to more calls and maybe eventually more slots being virtual and fewer early get ups.

• Geographic Limitations

Based upon member numbers (on our Equity cards) on-line sign-ups could be limited to - say people within a 100-mile radius of New York City.  Similar limitations could be applied to the L.A. or Chicago memberships.  Outside of these groups members would be required to physically show-up.  Actors who move around could petition to be included in any of these geographical groups.

• No-show policy

Let's establish a policy aimed at those who abuse the system, where those who blow-off three or more auditions are prohibited from signing up online for 6 months.  We all have times when time and circumstance collude to make us miss appointments. There are those, though, who selfishly game the system and this policy is aimed at them.

• Bar-coded or magnetized stripe membership cards

If everyones union card could be scanned at the audition, many benefits could be in place.  If every audition monitor had a digital reader, check-in for virtual appointments would be fool-proof and instantaneous; getting bumped for late-check in would save vitriol being hurled at the monitor; all demographic information would be updated instantaneously (no more white cards!); work search records for unemployment purposes could be printed out from ones account through the Member Portal.

• Texts/Twitter/Email notifications

Many AEA members use the excellent service, Audition Update, to keep abreast of how crowded calls are, who is in the room and other info helpful to actors.  Through the above-mentioned Member Portal, ones account could be set to be notified, in real time, on ones smartphone as to the progress of alternate lists, availability of appointments, last minute changes in audition preparation, cancellations, et al.

• Archiving

It's a small business and people move around a lot.  If there were a searchable archive of EPA/ECCs, one could see who they met and on what date, thus allowing them to better keep records and be on top of their careers.

• Do ECCs NOW

All the caveats above about EPAs are, for the most part not germane to Equity Chorus Calls (ECCs) Right now, an open list is posted on the board at Equity and members sign up first-come, first-served. On the day of the call, the list is read and members receive appointments as soon as their names are called.  We could have on-line sign up for these calls today with very little effort or cost to the Association.  Just like now, the list would open at 9:30am, a week before the call. A computer terminal would be made available and members could sign up just as they always have.  (And illegible handwriting would no longer be an issue, nor would scratch-outs, repeat names or fake names like "Seymour Butts")  At the close of business, the virtual line would open and anyone could sign up from anywhere in the world.  On the day of the call the list would be read just as always.  If my dream of bar-coded cards were in place, members could swipe to check-in at a half-hour before the call just like now. Those who were not previously signed-up on line would be given appointments in the order that they checked in.  ECC virtual sign-up is something that is actually doable right now.

• ECC cards

While we're on ECCs, another element that could be streamlined is the Chorus Call Card. Right now every auditioning actor at an ECC is given a card to fill out - a mini resume, if you will - to be filled out by hand.  This is sometimes given to the auditor(s) in addition or in lieu of of a traditional photo/resume.  If there were chorus cards available in ones Member Portal account page that could be printed out, this would make every actor's presentation that much more professional and slick.  Few of us got into show business because we had good penmanship.

You probably have ideas and solutions that I didn't mention here.  What do you think?