How to Get a Great Headshot: Inside The Casting Office With Jeff Mitchell - PodCast

• Unless you've got an agent and manager out there really pitching for you, your best tool for gettting "in the door" is your headshot: It's critically important.
• A "bad" headshot is almost guaranteed to keep you from being called in (by casting directors) for projects. A "bad" headshot is the headshot that doesn't look like you, and according the Jeff Mitchell, most actors headshots do NOT look like them. By simply making sure you're headshot looks like you, you'll be way out in front of the crowd for professional work.
  
  no if's and's, but's or touch up's (unless they are very minor, e.g., removing a stray strand of hair that's fallen over your face); your headshot needs to be honest, true, you.
  
• When you're unknown, the more information ("data") the casting director has about you, the easier it is to confidently call you in for something the CD thinks you're right for -- but you BETTER look like that picture. 3/4 vertical shots (face & body) are best in terms of giving the CD as much information as possible.
• Ideally, you should get new headshots once a year -- at least once every two years.
• Don't spend too much: $350 - $500 is reasonable. Sometimes sessions that cost more than that are designed to make you look "great," like a fashion model -- but it won't look like you on the day you walk into a CD's office or casting session, and no matter what happens next, you're going to lose points in their eyes.
• Finally, be aware that a bad headshot you've paid a lot of $$ for is what economists call "sunk cost." "Sunk costs" are just that -- costs that you can never recover. Emotionally, however, you may try to recover your cost by using the headshot with the justification that "I've spent all this time and money."
  
  Well, that was yesterday, and yesterday is gone. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. If the headshot doesn't work, if it doesn't look like you (and you've spent $1200), that $1200 is gone. If you continue to use that headshot based on nothing more than all the money you've spent, you'll start to incur other costs, "opportunity costs," the cost of missed opportunities, e.g., losing future opportunities with a CD because you walked into a casting session not looking like that great headshot; the cost of the missed opportunity of never getting called in for a role you could have had if the CD had a picture that looked like you.
  
  This is what Dr. McCoy was trying to say to Captan Kurt as Kurt looked helplessly on the body of yet another dead "extra" that barely made it to the planet surface: "He's dead Jim." (See Making Great Decisions in Business and Life for more great advice from economists!)

Jeff and Melissa below discuss what makes a great headshot and how to avoid the classic headshot pitfalls. Learn all the tips and tricks to getting the shot that captures your essence and opens doors for you.

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