I'm back on this blog; the other one, A Bit of Irish, is not working too well. It doesn't get picked up by Twitter, I can't find old posts and comments, there is no record of how many people are reading it and I have problems putting photos on there so we are on here again and my new list of readers are now introduced to it.
Had a great day yesterday; it rained so we couldn't do the flier duty in the afternoon but the rain didn't seem to put the audience off at all and it was a good show too; everything went well, they joined in and sang with the songs and laughed at all the funny bits.
After that we went over to the Captain's Bar where they have a poetry and short story reading season to coincide with the festival and I got up and read my story The Gold Watch – it's on this blog around February, I think. I didn't have a copy with me so I downloaded it and printed it for the pub.
I got up within an hour of my show coming down and I was the first on; it went very well.
Following me was a poet from San Diego who read a few poems, then a fella from Telford, who is teaching at Edinburgh University, read a few of his poems.
This was followed the only Scottish person to read and he read his short story about a 'blind date' which was followed by an Asian fella with a London accent who lives in Glasgow; he read his poetry which was socially observant and some of it had a great rhythm.
It was amazing to see and hear so much talent in such a short space of time; I'm afraid I don't have any of the names – I'm ashamed to say it – but I remember their stories and poems and they were terrific.
I'll try and dig some more of my stuff together and maybe read another one.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Internet Movie Data Base.
I'm changing the subject away from current affairs, disasters or even politics as this blog is to do with my novel and me – on Twitter I'm described as a Hollywood Professional Actor and Novice Novelist; and that's what I am.
One of the things you need as an actor is a way of getting yourself known to the people who can give you a job – or as the Americans say hire you.
In Hollywood it has always been The Academy Players Directory and in London it's The Spotlight.
There's a difference between the two of them but basically they are the same thing; a directory of actors both male and female. One of them is very expensive the other is very reasonable; I hesitate to use the word cheap but that would describe it better.
The Academy Players costs about $70 per year although I pay $18 as I subscribe to a casting service who have taken over the running of the Academy Players and I get a discount.
The photos in the Academy Players are usually about ten to the page – this is big enough for any casting director or director to see what you look like.
In the Spotlight you are expected to have a half page or even a quarter page – if not they kind of imply that you are a novice or not successful or, Lord help us, an extra!!!! The half pages are used by big names or even stars. I remember Roger Moore didn't have a photograph at all; just his name. He rightly (or his agents) deduced that we all know what he looks like.
The half page in the Spotlight goes into the hundreds of dollars – I can't remember how much it was the last time I subscribed; I think about £150 or so; now I may be wrong on that but it was certainly a lot lot more than the Academy Players.
So in the nineteen nineties Amazon, the people who sell books on line, started the Internet Movie Data Base; it wasn't meant to be a professional site, like Spotlight and the Academy Players, but more a fan site or for people generally interested in the film and television business.
Up to a few years ago it didn't cost anything to put your photograph on your page – we all have a page and it doesn't cost anything – but now you have to pay for the photos. I don't have to pay because I came in on the ground floor and put photos up there very early.
They had to start charging because many actors started to put their photos up. There are quite a few on my page because added to the ones I put up there are some production photos too.
The other day when they held the Golden Globe Awards here the photos of the winners were on their pages within minutes; those photos were put up there by an agency and didn't cost the actors anything.
The IMDb, as it is known, has more or less taken the place of the Academy Players Directory here in Los Angeles and you can usually tell the British based actors to the American Based ones as the Americans use it and have their photos on their pages whereas the British don't.
If you have no credits I believe you can put your resume up there – your CV in British speak.
There is also the Starmeter which leaves a lot to be desired; this is made up of the number of hits each actor gets in a week; you get lots of hits if you're in the news, have a movie out or you die.
Recent number ones have been Brittany Murphy, David Carradine and other people who have suddenly died but ordinarily what happens you go higher if you have a movie or play, or whatever, on television.
A lot of people watch a film on TV, of DVD, then look it up on the IMBb (notice the little 'b' by the way) then they click on every member of the cast and these are counted up over the week automatically and each Sunday the new list is there for all to see; when I say all to see I mean if you subscribe to IMDb Pro that is.
Tom Hanks for example is number 87; this week's number one is Zoe Saldana who was in Avator and number two is Naomi Watts.
The usual number one is Robert Pattinson who, this week, has dropped down to number ten for some reason and another regular in the top three is Johnny Depp.
If I killed somebody next week the week after I would be very high on the IMDb which brings me to a point I'd like to make.
Some casting directors, and even agents, will only consider, for certain roles or representation, someone in the top twenty thousand – which makes it ridiculous; just because you're on the news or people have looked you up you suddenly become a better actor??
The Starmeter, by the way – and there is a movie meter too – has every actor on it that has ever been in a movie so we are competing for popularity with all the stars of old; and they don't have to be stars.
Adolph Hitler is 8044; Marlon Brando is 364, Marilyn Monroe 981 and John Wayne is 472 and there are millions of others.
The average working TV or movie actor is usually in the forty to sixty thousands and people that haven't worked for years are usually between five hundred thousand and two million.
I go between eighty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand – peaking sometimes at around sixty thousand. Most of my friends who don't do TV or movies much are in the many hundreds of thousands and as high as two million.
I think there are a lot of Lifeforce fans who look me up. I get letters (e-mails) from people who have seen it numerous times and obviously look me up otherwise I'd be down in the millions as I don't usually get credits for dubbing, looping and voice matching which keeps me going between jobs.
One of the things you need as an actor is a way of getting yourself known to the people who can give you a job – or as the Americans say hire you.
In Hollywood it has always been The Academy Players Directory and in London it's The Spotlight.
There's a difference between the two of them but basically they are the same thing; a directory of actors both male and female. One of them is very expensive the other is very reasonable; I hesitate to use the word cheap but that would describe it better.
The Academy Players costs about $70 per year although I pay $18 as I subscribe to a casting service who have taken over the running of the Academy Players and I get a discount.
The photos in the Academy Players are usually about ten to the page – this is big enough for any casting director or director to see what you look like.
In the Spotlight you are expected to have a half page or even a quarter page – if not they kind of imply that you are a novice or not successful or, Lord help us, an extra!!!! The half pages are used by big names or even stars. I remember Roger Moore didn't have a photograph at all; just his name. He rightly (or his agents) deduced that we all know what he looks like.
The half page in the Spotlight goes into the hundreds of dollars – I can't remember how much it was the last time I subscribed; I think about £150 or so; now I may be wrong on that but it was certainly a lot lot more than the Academy Players.
So in the nineteen nineties Amazon, the people who sell books on line, started the Internet Movie Data Base; it wasn't meant to be a professional site, like Spotlight and the Academy Players, but more a fan site or for people generally interested in the film and television business.
Up to a few years ago it didn't cost anything to put your photograph on your page – we all have a page and it doesn't cost anything – but now you have to pay for the photos. I don't have to pay because I came in on the ground floor and put photos up there very early.
They had to start charging because many actors started to put their photos up. There are quite a few on my page because added to the ones I put up there are some production photos too.
The other day when they held the Golden Globe Awards here the photos of the winners were on their pages within minutes; those photos were put up there by an agency and didn't cost the actors anything.
The IMDb, as it is known, has more or less taken the place of the Academy Players Directory here in Los Angeles and you can usually tell the British based actors to the American Based ones as the Americans use it and have their photos on their pages whereas the British don't.
If you have no credits I believe you can put your resume up there – your CV in British speak.
There is also the Starmeter which leaves a lot to be desired; this is made up of the number of hits each actor gets in a week; you get lots of hits if you're in the news, have a movie out or you die.
Recent number ones have been Brittany Murphy, David Carradine and other people who have suddenly died but ordinarily what happens you go higher if you have a movie or play, or whatever, on television.
A lot of people watch a film on TV, of DVD, then look it up on the IMBb (notice the little 'b' by the way) then they click on every member of the cast and these are counted up over the week automatically and each Sunday the new list is there for all to see; when I say all to see I mean if you subscribe to IMDb Pro that is.
Tom Hanks for example is number 87; this week's number one is Zoe Saldana who was in Avator and number two is Naomi Watts.
The usual number one is Robert Pattinson who, this week, has dropped down to number ten for some reason and another regular in the top three is Johnny Depp.
If I killed somebody next week the week after I would be very high on the IMDb which brings me to a point I'd like to make.
Some casting directors, and even agents, will only consider, for certain roles or representation, someone in the top twenty thousand – which makes it ridiculous; just because you're on the news or people have looked you up you suddenly become a better actor??
The Starmeter, by the way – and there is a movie meter too – has every actor on it that has ever been in a movie so we are competing for popularity with all the stars of old; and they don't have to be stars.
Adolph Hitler is 8044; Marlon Brando is 364, Marilyn Monroe 981 and John Wayne is 472 and there are millions of others.
The average working TV or movie actor is usually in the forty to sixty thousands and people that haven't worked for years are usually between five hundred thousand and two million.
I go between eighty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand – peaking sometimes at around sixty thousand. Most of my friends who don't do TV or movies much are in the many hundreds of thousands and as high as two million.
I think there are a lot of Lifeforce fans who look me up. I get letters (e-mails) from people who have seen it numerous times and obviously look me up otherwise I'd be down in the millions as I don't usually get credits for dubbing, looping and voice matching which keeps me going between jobs.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Twitter and Stephen Fry.
Well it looks like I am getting quite a few people to read my blog; the only person I have actually told about it is Jim Makichuk; he has put a link on to his site and, as you can see, I put a link to his site here; the only other person I have told is my wife, Margaret, who hasn't read any of it yet.
So I get a couple of hits per day from Jim's site but the rest come from one of the words I type and from Twitter; I'll deal with Twitter later.
I had loads of hits from all over the world (and many other places) when I mentioned dubbing Anthony Hopkins's voice the other day; I also mentioned the movie Season of the Witch which was what the supposed dubbing was for and these two things were the words or phrases that drew a lot of attention to my site.
In the Internet game these key phrases are called meta tags and they are there to attract the spiders from the search engines to your site and the more hits your site gets the busier it looks and if you get really successful you will attract banner advertising.
Look at the really successful sites and see how many pop ups or adverts they have. The IMDb attracts millions of hits per day so you can imagine how much it would be to advertise on that site – the same with other successful sites.
One little trick a lot of (small) sites use is to put text in invisible writing on their sites; if you know some meta tag that is bound to bring hits, shall we say, Britney Spears, who is the number one hit on Google, you can put her name all over your site in white on a white background when the only way you can read it is by highlighting; the spiders don't differentiate as to what colour your text is in.
You may ask what the point is and it is to attract traffic to your site. I have probably attracted a few hits by mentioning Britney Spears on here now – what I have just noticed by the way is that she doesn't spell her name in the usual way as Brittany; maybe her parents spelled it wrong as Elvis's parents did when they spelt Aaron as Aron.
The other place I mention my blog is on Twitter and that has attracted some hits too; there is a well known actor in London called Stephen Fry; he played Jeeves in 'Jeeves and Wooster' and Oscar Wilde in the movie 'Wilde.' It would be unfair to call him just an actor as the man is brilliant at all things; all things in his field, I might add: I don't know what he's like using a pneumatic drill?? He describes himself as British Actor, Writer, Lord of Dance, Prince of Swimwear & Blogger.
He writes everything from screenplays to articles, books, plays – you name it – and if you want to see an example of his writing output look on both sites of Amazon - http://tinyurl.com/ylgbuho or http://tinyurl.com/yfdnaxq. He is a wit, a presenter and general factotum; well maybe not that, but I wouldn't be surprised, and he does a load of other things and today the followers he has on Twitter is at 851,627 – in two minutes that's gone up to 851,646 so you can see where I am going.
Each day his followers see his tweets on Twitter and his followers love him; a few weeks ago he mentioned a book and the book jumped to number one on Amazon for that day; he has also mentioned sites in the past and his mere mention has attracted so much traffic to those sites that they have crashed.
So he has a great deal of power. He knows this and is very responsible about it – thank goodness.
I'll look again at his followers – up to 851,845.
My followers on Twitter are at the grand total of 42 – pathetic isn't it; there is a long way to go.
When my followers are up to a high figure I will mention my novel and maybe it will sell a few copies; at the moment it isn't selling very well on Amazon – it's doing ok on Kindle but nothing to write home about in paperback – so I won't write home about; I'll just leave you with the (American spelling) blurb:
This is an Irish novel set in Los Angeles. It tells the story of Alfredo Hunter, a depressive Jewish/Irish playwright who is in Hollywood to make a killing in the film business. It also tells the story of the unknown narrator, who observes Alfredo's various fluctuations of mood and humor. Humor is to the fore in this novel of a building friendship between two Dubliners as they encounter the New World, with its new language and confusing mores.
So I get a couple of hits per day from Jim's site but the rest come from one of the words I type and from Twitter; I'll deal with Twitter later.
I had loads of hits from all over the world (and many other places) when I mentioned dubbing Anthony Hopkins's voice the other day; I also mentioned the movie Season of the Witch which was what the supposed dubbing was for and these two things were the words or phrases that drew a lot of attention to my site.
In the Internet game these key phrases are called meta tags and they are there to attract the spiders from the search engines to your site and the more hits your site gets the busier it looks and if you get really successful you will attract banner advertising.
Look at the really successful sites and see how many pop ups or adverts they have. The IMDb attracts millions of hits per day so you can imagine how much it would be to advertise on that site – the same with other successful sites.
One little trick a lot of (small) sites use is to put text in invisible writing on their sites; if you know some meta tag that is bound to bring hits, shall we say, Britney Spears, who is the number one hit on Google, you can put her name all over your site in white on a white background when the only way you can read it is by highlighting; the spiders don't differentiate as to what colour your text is in.
You may ask what the point is and it is to attract traffic to your site. I have probably attracted a few hits by mentioning Britney Spears on here now – what I have just noticed by the way is that she doesn't spell her name in the usual way as Brittany; maybe her parents spelled it wrong as Elvis's parents did when they spelt Aaron as Aron.
The other place I mention my blog is on Twitter and that has attracted some hits too; there is a well known actor in London called Stephen Fry; he played Jeeves in 'Jeeves and Wooster' and Oscar Wilde in the movie 'Wilde.' It would be unfair to call him just an actor as the man is brilliant at all things; all things in his field, I might add: I don't know what he's like using a pneumatic drill?? He describes himself as British Actor, Writer, Lord of Dance, Prince of Swimwear & Blogger.
He writes everything from screenplays to articles, books, plays – you name it – and if you want to see an example of his writing output look on both sites of Amazon - http://tinyurl.com/ylgbuho or http://tinyurl.com/yfdnaxq. He is a wit, a presenter and general factotum; well maybe not that, but I wouldn't be surprised, and he does a load of other things and today the followers he has on Twitter is at 851,627 – in two minutes that's gone up to 851,646 so you can see where I am going.
Each day his followers see his tweets on Twitter and his followers love him; a few weeks ago he mentioned a book and the book jumped to number one on Amazon for that day; he has also mentioned sites in the past and his mere mention has attracted so much traffic to those sites that they have crashed.
So he has a great deal of power. He knows this and is very responsible about it – thank goodness.
I'll look again at his followers – up to 851,845.
My followers on Twitter are at the grand total of 42 – pathetic isn't it; there is a long way to go.
When my followers are up to a high figure I will mention my novel and maybe it will sell a few copies; at the moment it isn't selling very well on Amazon – it's doing ok on Kindle but nothing to write home about in paperback – so I won't write home about; I'll just leave you with the (American spelling) blurb:
This is an Irish novel set in Los Angeles. It tells the story of Alfredo Hunter, a depressive Jewish/Irish playwright who is in Hollywood to make a killing in the film business. It also tells the story of the unknown narrator, who observes Alfredo's various fluctuations of mood and humor. Humor is to the fore in this novel of a building friendship between two Dubliners as they encounter the New World, with its new language and confusing mores.
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