No More Work For Actors

1882

A normal year for the hide hunters living in Miles City, Montana

The great bison herds moved through the area during their annual migration

And

Like every year during the previous four decades

Millions of bison were killed

The hunters were doing their job

Collecting the inexhaustible resources

Filling train carriages with hides to be sent to New York City.

One year later

In 1883

The hunters waited eagerly

Ready for another year of normal work

But that year

Something was different

The great herds never came

“Tough year”

They thought.

In 1884

The same thing happened

“Don’t worry - it can’t be over”

They thought.

For several years after the great herds were gone

The hide hunters in Miles City

Continued to wait

Waiting for work to resume like normal.

The work was finished before the workers even knew it had finished.

Time and time again

Industries go through great change

New technologies are invented

Old resources are replaced

We find more efficient or economical options

And workers have to adapt

For those that don’t adapt

Well

They end up sitting in bars

Talking about the good ol days

When work was plentiful

When jobs flowed like wine.

Change is in the air

Years ago

Actors began realising that residual checks weren’t coming through for jobs which were on the biggest streaming platforms in the world

The industry had changed without actors even realising

The great move from cable to streaming

Resulted in seismic systematic shifts which happened right under their noses

And now

We find ourselves in another great time of change

The streaming platforms are scrambling to make a profit

And filming lots across Los Angeles are strangely empty and silent

People are leaving Hollywood

The once great mecca for our industry

Moving to other cities like Austin or London

And many in our industry are experiencing a huge amount of fear

I have friends who are extraordinary at what they do

Once high up at the largest studios in our business

Who find themselves without work

Sitting in job opportunities being so over qualified that even the interviewer feels embarrassed

Man it feels exhausting

Where are the buffalo?

Where do I need to go to find the buffalo?

Do I need to pack my bags (and family)

And head out over the prairie?

Mmm

Lets slow down here

To chase the externals

That just seems unsustainable to me

In 2011

I was told that due to external factors or trends

(My eyes, hair, skin, sex, gender, nationality, sexual preferences etc)

I could have all the buffalo I ever dreamed of

And?

I didn’t find many buffalo during that time.

In 2018

I was told that due to external factors or trends

(My eyes, hair, skin, sex, gender, nationality, sexual preferences etc)

I would not find any buffalo in the years to come

And?

I found more buffalo over the following 18 months than ever before.

What that taught me was that chasing trends is an utter waste of time

To place my worth as an actor

Or sense of security

Into external factors

(In other words: Trying to control the un-controllables)

Simply Unsustainable

But

What if we are not just talking about trends

What if it’s actually a systematic shift that means things will be different forever?

There’s no longer a few tentpole films which everyone goes to see

It’s cheaper to re-run an episode of The Simpsons or Seinfeld than it is to make a new episode of television

Social media is making reality TV redundant

It’s way cheaper to cast a real tradie as a strawberry-milk-drinking-bloke in an advert than it is to pay a drama school graduate to dress up in the same kind of clothes

And no matter how incredible the next acting job is

It’s likely

(Not definite)

But very likely there will be a hundred times the amount of eye balls

Watching a teenager on YouTube dancing in their swim wear

Than there will be on that piece of art that makes it to the most prestigious film festival in the world

The age of attention is influencing our industry in ways we will only realise in years to come

Now

What do we as artists do?

Do we react?

Get out there and protest for change?

Do we respond?

Become producers and work on changing the systems ourselves - Making it the way we would like to?

Do we put blinders on?

Just shut up and go back to making our skills as good as they can be?

Curious

Here’s what I don’t know:

Where the industry will be in 5, 10 or 20 years time

Absolutely no one does

Sure, people have fears, hopes, or can use their imagination to speculate

But no-one really knows.

Now

Here’s what I absolutely believe to be true:

We have made it this far as a species because of two things

Connection and technology

Technology, as we know, is ever changing

More now than ever

The rate of growth is exponential

But what has never changed

Is connection

We still need each other to survive

And one crucial way that has allowed us to connect to each other

Is through the use of meaningful stories

That has certainly never changed

Sure, the ways those meaningful stories are shared has changed

From painting, singing, dancing

To poetry, puppetry and acting

Radio, films, and television

To memes, tiktoks and computer games

But the fact remains

We as actors

Are tools, vessels to be used

For meaningful stories

Which helps the tribe connect

And therefore

Survive

I repeat

We as actors are vessels to be used for meaningful stories which helps the tribe connect and therefore survive.

Where I do feel clear

Is that as long as I keep my focus on providing or contributing to meaningful stories

I’ll still always be able to use the skills I’ve been training up over the last 2 decades

However

Sometimes I notice myself

Behaving in a way

Where I’m wishing the industry was as it use to be

Rather than acknowledging where it actually is.

Like a hide hunter standing on the prairie

Year after year

Staring out over the horizon

Telling himself those millions of bison are just about to arrive,

I find myself romanticising the golden era of film

As if I’m still in the industry that operated like it once did back in the 70’s or 80’s

Or even as recently as 5 years ago.

Interestingly

There were a small handful of those hunters

Who realised that change had arrived

Who began to see the bison in a new light

And despite ridicule or nay-sayers

They adapted to the new conditions

Those few individuals

Whose hands had literally taken thousands of animals

Now became protectors of the great beast

They saw more value in the animal being alive, than dead

They predicted that if people could watch the animal in its natural habitat

Then they would flock from all over the world

To see it living, breathing and stampeding as it had done so for thousands of years.

And 140 years later

The population has grown from less than 100 hundred individual animals

To over 500 000.

What’s my point?

Any time an industry goes through extreme change

There are individuals who take risks

And find a way to make it better

Sure, the first few who smash through that wall often end up bloody

But

I do believe that the best work is ahead of us

We just might not be able to see exactly what that looks like…

Yet.

Curious

I think the industry is waiting for a key few individuals

Like you

To go first

Hope this helps

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