Avoiding Acting Scams

Video Transcript

"SCOTT DUPONT: Hi. Scott duPont. We're back once again on behalf of Expert Village and I'm the producer of a DVD called Acting-101 and we actually have a whole chapter in this DVD on scams 'cause it's so near and dear to my heart. It really breaks my heart when I hear these horror stories of actors who got totally ripped off for hundreds if not thousand of dollars and a lot of times parents and children are getting ripped off too. So let me just throw out a few different things to look out for there. Number one, if you find an acting school that's connected with an agent or if you're trying to get an agent and door number one is the agency, door number two is the acting class, door number three is the photographer, run like the wind, okay? Because here's the thing. A legitimate agent and any agent that falls under the Screen Actors Guild agreement, they are not allowed and they should not take any money from you, period. Until after they book you a job, then they take out their 20%. If it's a Screen Actors Guild agent on Screen Actors Guild job they will take 10%. So it's going to be 10% to 20% commission after you book the job. So some of the scams are, this guy pretending to be an agent or a manager. They'll say "Oh! I'll represent you!", but the first thing you need to do is you really need to take our acting classes and I can't really represent you unless we shoot you and you get good headshots. Now, a legitimate agent can recommend several different acting schools and they can recommend several different photographers. If they recommend just one, that smells a little suspicious, okay? Because they're probably in bed with that photographer and they going to kick back. Okay, so those are the common scams you really want to look out for. Now the other thing that is very, very fishy you want to be very careful of there are all these model--let's just call them "model scam conventions." They'll come in to your town, and they'll say searching for the next big star and they'll have this convention, they'll get thousands of people, and they'll tell you leave your chequebook at home, you don't need to pay any money and this is absolutely free, okay? What they'll do is to get thousands of people in this convention. They'll do a big pitch for like two or three hours. At the end of the convention, they'll say well if you really want to get in this business, we're going to pick a few people and what they do is they end up picking about half the people, and they come back and then they try to sell them 500 dollars to come back to this convention with these legitimate agents and they're all legitimate agents, will make you a star and they'll discover you. Here is the reality. Some of these conventions do discover one or two stars a year. Otherwise, they couldn't advertise. But there's a much, much better way to get started and that's with local casting directors, local agents, and we'll get more into that in one of our next segments. So, just keep your wallet tight, be very wary of those big conventions 'cause chances are if there's a big casting director in LA and he comes to--try to think of a little town--Morristown, New Jersey, he's not going to want to discover some talent over there. He has got 300,000 actors in Los Angeles, 50,000 Screen Actors Guild members in Los Angeles county to choose from so that's part of the scam. Start small and look, start working with some of your local casting directors and local agents. Like I said, I'll get into that."