Is it time for an edgy headshot? Here is what I mean, You know the beautiful shot with the blurred background, and that perfectly matched your eye color and also coordinated with the color of your top, you know the shot we have all seen it. That shot that just made you look beautiful, like a throwback leading man or woman from the days of the Big Hollywood Movie Stars Garbo, Hudson, Grant, you know, but it was just in color?

In the old days we had ABC, NBC, and CBS. Today we have Amazon, Hulu, Youtube, Netflix, Vemeo, and about 100 more cable and online networks being created every week. And these outlets are cranking out content by the minute.  

Looks like to me the days of Movie Star Power may be changing to Character Star Power, in the old days if your got to be a big name in Hollywood you owned the town, now with so many content outlets, Character and Content are King. Which opens the doors for so many actors.

So my question is, if the new networks are Content driven, should you you have a headshot that is more Character or Edgy headshot, or beautiful and polished, or should you have both? 

Knowing your type can be the difference of working in the film and television industry or not. Many new actors have a hard time with the concept of finding their type for headshots. But its pretty simple, take a look at this guy, what type of role could he play? I would say your garden variety bad guy. Bad guys need love to, or should I say bad guys get roles too. The character should come through very natural, and not over done. Characters are not just bad guys, how about nerds, business guy or gal, moms, grandfathers or grandmothers, you get the idea, everyone in our lives is a character. Who are you! 

How about image number two, what do you think is he a little over the top or is her right on target? Let me know your thoughts.

 Personality is more important than perfect headshot. What! did I just say that out loud? OK, I did say it, but it's true, personality in your headshot  is more important than a perfect headshot. That casting director isn't a photographer teacher he or she is not grading your picture on the technical aspects of your image. But they are trying to find an actor, and actors need to have personality, and it is important for it to show in your headshots. 
 As a photographer my job is to try and get that personality out of you! How I do it is top secret and I can only tell you if you have a CIA clearance. OK, you don't? I guess I will have to trust you not to tell anyone...If I see this anywhere on the internet I will know it was you that told, and I will send my highly trained attack cat to your house, she has a special talent of ripping off you window screen when you don't feed her. This is the secret part ("secret...Make your client feel comfortable and their personality will come out on its own, a couple ways I do this is with my winning personality, music, candy, you get the picture...secret end)  
 If your headshot has you down because your not getting noticed the way you know it should, Its time to turn that frown upside down and add some real personality to your Los Angeles headshots. You want to be one of those people who's phone won't stop ringing not one the phone never rings.

Here we are in a New Year were does the time go? One minute  it's January 2013 next thing ya know it's January 2014. Well Happy belated 2014! 

So now you have taken that amazing acting headshot and you're ready to print but the photographer took the headshot in the landscape orientation. Oh Oh! What do you do? Have it printed in landscape or crop to the portrait orientation? Your acting coach says "dont print in landscape you kill yourseeeeeelf!" Maybe she didn't say you'll kill yourself but it was something close to that. So do you take her advice and crop and print in portrait style. Was that wrong? Should you have done it in landscape? The answer is either is fine, currently there are tons of modern photographers capturing and printing acting headshots in landscape, as well as tons of old school photogs capturing actor headshot in portrait. So what does this all mean, are the casting directors getting confused and setting fire to the landscape shots? No, remember the casting director has a job to do if the shot is a shot of an actor that they are looking to cast, they are not saying man if this guy would have printed in portrait I would have given him the job, but because this headshot is in landscape I hate it! "and were is my lighter" My belief is like many things in photography it can be very subjective. My advice would be get the best shot of yourself with a quality photographer, and the rest will take care of itself.





written by Kerry James 

To sum it all up, character actor headshots can be a great asset to up and coming actors and it can open up multiple marketing avenues for their agents and their careers. 

Kerry James