Introduction
The other day I was able to attend my first special guest workshop on The Actors Network. The main guest was a woman named Jessica Sitomer. She is known as the ‘Green Light Coach’ for people in all facets of the entertainment industry. She has branded herself as someone who helps you build your ideal career with a set of tools and action plans tailored to your specific niche. For 7 years she served as an internal trainer for the International Guild of Cinematographers and has created more than 40 seminar topics and has trained more than 30 expert groups. She speaks professionally as an expert consultant for entertainment organizations and is a regular on BuZZ radio and Cynopsis.com.
Brand your brand with a web series or video blog
This was the topic of Jessica Sitomer’s talk the other day and it provided many valuable tools that I would like to share with you now. Most of us know how tough competition is for Hollywood actors. I haven’t met a single actor who doesn’t wonder how they can advance their careers and start competing with those who have more credits, gain access to higher-profile auditions, and have partnered with more influential agents. The answer according to Jessica is: Make your own brand! A web series is basically episode television released on the web and free for mass consumption. There really isn’t much of a difference between a video blog and a web series. I suppose you could call the platform from which you host your Webseries “Video Blog”. For details on hosting websites, you can check my affiliate link on HostGator service. I highly recommend them!
A blog is basically your own website that has the ability to continually update itself with new and valuable content for your readers. These sites often rank higher than others in search engines due to this very fact. For a creative team producing a web series, you can create a separate blog or video blog with the domain name as the name of your series. For example, if you were producing a web series about a man and his dog, you could create a blog called GuyAndHisDog.com and use it solely as a video blog. Upload new content every week and you will have a series of your own production! Now as long as you are also marketing your brand, you can easily update your series on many social media platforms at once!
What is the brand?
Now, why is it so important that actors do it right now? With the explosion of social media marketing on sites like Facebook and Twitter, the chances of “going viral” are very real. Actors must begin to think of themselves as entrepreneurs and as brands if we are to compete in the Hollywood market. The key to going viral? To be interesting! So what is your brand? Your! If you are an actor who does not use those platforms, you should correct it immediately. There is no reason not to. According to a source from Jessica Sitomer, some big TV networks like ABC may be gradually moving away from using casting directors to find actors for upcoming projects. They just contact the major agencies and ask them to record their cast for auditions. Is this true? We do not know. In fact, Jessica said studios and networks actually have jobs where people are responsible for scanning social media and the internet for interesting new ideas and actors.
This goes hand in hand with one of the best marketing tips I got from Mike Dillard, known as the godfather of internet marketing. He said, ‘Marketing is not about going out and finding those who want your product, but about making sure that those who want your product can find you.’ This is the essence of ‘attraction marketing’ and a philosophy that has enabled Dillard to amass a multi-million dollar company using the power of the internet and attraction marketing.
Creating your brand formula
Your type: According to Sitomer, before starting a web series you need to be clear about a few things so that your brand is consistent with your own perceived ‘character types’. In other words, if you want to create a web series about the girl who never gets the boy, and you are incredibly beautiful, then this may be the wrong direction for you to take your branding formula. It will definitely help your plan if you have some solid ideas about exactly what your ‘type’ as an actor is, before you start creating something that producers, agents, and casting directors just won’t buy from you. Almost every famous actor you can think of started out by playing characters that matched their physical “types.” According to Sitomer, this is a good thing! You want to be classified and known as something very specific. Otherwise, those who do the casting will not know how to categorize you.
Consistency – This is possibly the most important thing to consider before starting your webseries campaign. According to Jessica Sitomer, you want to have material ready for at least a year. This doesn’t mean it needs to be a finished product, just that you should have a roadmap for where to take your web series. Ideally, you want to produce a short vignette each week to achieve proper consistency for your branding and marketing. Without this kind of consistency, you won’t develop a dedicated list of readers (if you’re blogging) and audience if you’re vlogging. Consistency is the name of the game in any campaign. Have 1 year of material and it will be much easier to acquire other materials, actors, equipment, etc. as it advances.
The Registration Line – The ‘Registration Line’ is a catchphrase that you want to test and develop as an actor to make it easier for you to introduce yourself to agents and for your agents to introduce themselves to casting directors. This should be a single phrase that encapsulates your ‘character type’, or it will help you define your character.
Some examples include:
“A sex kitten with a sense of humor”
“Evilicious – A bad boy you love to love”
“Mom’s boy”
“Cool Club Kid living beyond his means”
“New Age asshole”
“Natural girl”
Some things to consider before starting to implement your ideas include:
Know who you are and be very clear about it.
Who you look like in movies and on TV right now.
How do you describe it?
Know what type you want to work on.
Develop 12 themes.
Be a stereotype that escalates.
What are the 20 themes that would fit your genre?
Get green light
Part one: development
Remember that you want to develop a character and series that will mark you for the types of roles you could definitely be considered for. The point here is to develop a lot of ideas and follow a clear path to have enough material to sustain your web series for at least a year. Jessica Sitomer then took us through a series of topics, questions, and other ways to structure your material based on your own or your character’s perspective. I want to explain some of what she taught us so that you can better understand it and implement it in your own campaigns. What you can do is start developing the material based on your questions, ideas, and structure, and start uploading new video content to your blog and social media sites on a weekly basis.
Character brand traits
Character situations
Conversation topics for your character
10 questions and answers for your character (as if they were interviewing you)
10 Questions must be asked
10 tips from your character
10 challenges for your character
8 curious facts and essential knowledge about your character
Character rants
Part Two – And Action!
Create your first episode. To be interesting. Be consistent. Start writing. You can do this on a limited budget and with very little resources, money, materials, or other people. Of course, you will be limited by what you can create if, but you may find it much easier to get other people involved if you are creating consistent material that people are starting to follow on social media sites. As you go along, you may want to add other actors, locations, a budget, team, and staff.
Of course, this is not all that Jessica Sitomer offers in her programs, training, and materials. Full access to your information can be found on their website. Jessica offers 4 training programs on her website, but requires an initial application of $ 19.97 to determine her level of commitment to advance her career. Subsequently, the application fee can be used towards the purchase of any product. Sitomer also has numerous products for sale on his site, including audio courses, his book, and a mentoring program that works on a sliding scale for a small monthly fee. In addition to these products, it also offers great value by offering 11 free e-books that you can easily download in PDF format to your computer. Thanks Jessica! Contact Jessica Sitomer – The Greenlight Coach for power tools on moving forward in Hollywood. Good luck! Feel free to leave a comment, ask a question, and share this information on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for reading!
