The Headshot Saga

I finally got new headshots taken, approved and reproduced. But it only took 2 months to do so.

My original headshot was not getting me auditions. I was more concerned about commercial auditions because I trust my commercial agent more so than my theatrical agent. I asked him to recommend a photographer that they trusted and they gave me the name of a guy named Maximo. Yes, Maximo.

I wanted to make sure that these photos turned out well, so I set up a meeting with Maximo in December to talk over what I wanted, look at my previous photos, and generally get on the same page. He was a good guy and we could shoot pretty soon, so I set up an appointment for a photo shoot.

I hate taking pictures of myself. I feel uncomfortable and I am sure that it shows in the pictures that are taken of me. But, I went into the shoot with a positive attitude and ready to get at least 1 great shot of me that Casting Directors would go ga-ga over. One is all that it takes.

The shoot went well and I picked up my CD from Maximo to look at the shots. Here is where it starts to get frustrating.

He gave me a disc of JPEG files that had about 50 shots on it that were his picks for my commercial agent to take a look at. Then he gave me a DVD with all of the files of the pictures on it. The problem is that my computer is old and does not have a DVD player on it. So I could not view all of the shots. I had to call him back and set up another time for me to come get a disc of all JPEG shots on a CD, not a DVD. That took about a week to get that and when I did it was almost Christmas and work was really busy and I was getting a show together for Chicago in a couple of weeks. I did not have the time to sit down for hours and pour through all of the shots. But in mid-January I finally sat down and picked a bunch for my agents to look at. I emailed my commercial agent, but he didn't get back to me right away. No big deal, I will just go to my theatrical agent and get her opinion. I got in and had the best interaction I have ever had with her. She told me that she liked some of the pictures I had brought in, but she wanted to take a look at the whole shoot. She didn't usually do that for people, but for me she would. She wanted me to bring in the whole disc of pictures that she would go through and pick her final choices.

I copied the CD, and dropped it off the next week. I emailed her that I had done what she asked and she replied "We don't accept CD's of photo shoots, please pick out your choices and make an appointment to come and see me". That was more like the interaction that I usually have with them. I know they see tons of people and it is hard to keep track of what you tell everyone, but it was frustrating none-the-less. I sent her another email telling her the situation and that she told me to drop it off. A couple of days later she emailed me back that she did remember telling me that and she would look at my disc and get back to me in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, I finally got through to my commercial agent and set up a time to come in. I brought the 15-20 choices that I had printed out on my computer, using up a whole ink cartridge in the process, and presented them to him. No way. He did not want to see my choices, he wanted me to leave the CD with Maximo's choices at the office and they would look at them and get back to me the next day.

The next day, I had not heard anything from them by late afternoon. So I sent an email checking up on things. "Didn't have time to get to it. Will look tomorrow" was his reply. So I waited again. Sent an email again late in the afternoon the next day. Same thing. Wait until tomorrow. I didn't contact them the next day and instead waited a whole day until contacting them. "Come in around 2 tomorrow" was his only reply.

I go in the next day, almost a full week since I had set up the first appointment, and he hand me the disc and says "Our systems are down, we can't look at the disc." I don't mention that I see at least 4 people working on computers at the very moment the system is down. "Go next door to Kinko's and have them print off a proof sheet, only costs a couple of bucks and then come back and we can look at them."

Frustrated again, but with hope that I will soon have an answer, I walk a block to Kinko's and ask the very helpful employee behind the counter a question.

"Hi, I have pictures on this disc and I need a proof sheet printed out"

"I don't know what you are talking about" she helpfully replied.

"Oh, well I wanted to print off a proof sheet that has all of the pictures on it."

"We can't do that" she helpfully pointed out.

"It's just a sheet that has all of the pictures on it, so I can take a look at them."

"If we print a sheet with all of the pictures on it, each picture will be so small that you won't be able to see it"

"Well, they don't have to be regular size, they just need to be.....

"The only thing that can do that is that machine over there" she helpfully pointed out.

"Oh, that can print a proof sheet?"

"I don't know. It can print the pictures" then she helpfully turned her back and pretended to helpfully talk to someone else.

I go over to the machine, put in my disc and try to figure out the cheapest and easiest way to get what I want. I fail miserably. I end up paying $16, to print off 4X6 copies of each of my photos. All 55 of them. It takes around 45 seconds to print off 1 picture, so I sit on the floor of the Kinko's and catch all of my photos that print off.

I thank the helpful employee and walk back to my agents office. I am sure they are wondering where the hell I went since I have been gone over half an hour. I walk in, start to give my agent the pictures, when he gets a phone call from some woman who is a model with them. She has been offered $10,000 a day for a two day Panteene shampoo commercial. She is wavering because she just got a small part on an NBC show and doesn't want to do commercials anymore and not be thought of as a real actress. So I sit and wait as my agent is trying to get her to take the commercial and he can earn his 10-15% of $20,000. After a few minutes, this nice other agent tells me that she can take a look at my pictures and I take the 55 4X6 pictures over to her. She begins to go through them and I can see that she is getting a little overwhelmed by all of the pictures. So I tell her that I have my choices of those pictures that I printed out and brought with me. She tells me to show her those.

So I end up showing her the EXACT PHOTOS THAT I COPIED AND BROUGHT IT A WEEK AGO to choose my headshot.

She choose two. My agent got off the phone and told me that he trusts the other agents judgment and does not take a look at the ones she chose.

But I got my photo choices. Now all I have to do is get them reproduced. Easy right?

Wrong!