13215: Hey, You Chose This. Why Be Righteously Indignant?

Raw transcript:

fair warning this particular episode May
tick you off it may make you send me
messages saying how dare you okay great
uh great because what I want to talk to
you today is about righteous indignation
and what a waste of time it is and we’ll
do that next in this episode of the vo
Heroes
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podcast so my buddy Michael costro who
does audition pych 101 if you haven’t
taken it yet go to auditions 101.com and
check it out cuz it’s
amazing uh he does a monthly Meetup with
all of his students and people in his
Circle and one of the things that came
up
today uh was this notion and I I went
off on a rant about this this
notion of how we deny our decisions and
become righteously indic
about our business let me
explain nobody’s forcing you to be a
voice Talent nobody’s forcing you to be
an actor nobody’s forcing you to be a
writer nobody’s forcing you to be an
audiobook
narrator all of these things are
choices and you choose to
participate in a world that is nuts it’s
weird the rules that apply to typical
blue collar and white collar jobs don’t
apply to what we do that the decisions
that are made are made capriciously
they’re made
randomly uh they’re made by people that
we have no control over we could do
great work and not even be seen or heard
for something else we could submit a
great manuscript and never be
reviewed
and I I’ve seen this happened over and
over and over again over the last few
years about being paid for auditions and
even the rules that the union sag after
here in the United States has has put in
place about notice you have to be
notified 48 hours in advance people
yelling about well they never look at
the whole reel that I send in the whole
demo the the whole audition that I’ve
I’ve worked so hard for you know I’m
sure writers uh will think oh they
didn’t even read my entire spec script
they didn’t read my my uh my section
that I sent in my sample you know yeah
yeah that’s right and then you
have the the the balls to be upset about
that this isn’t new these rules were not
unknown to you and especially if you’re
yelling about it you know that these
rules exist you chose to be in this
business and with that choice comes
pluses and minuses which by the way
aren’t always pluses and and minuses
they can be the opposite you know if you
get a script at the last
minute a rewrite at the last minute and
you’re able to use your Perfection your
your your loveliness as an artist as an
actor to learn that rewrite and nail it
and get it done or cold reading
something that’s a plus not a minus you
know
I I’ve got so many thoughts going on in
my head we
don’t have the
privilege of yelling about something
that we already agreed to we can’t we
just can’t first of all nothing’s going
to change Productions are always going
to have things that pop up last minute
changes uh schedules that get moved
around because of something that has
nothing to do with actors or directors
or writers it could be you know the
location falls through it could be the
makeup artist that’s that’s needed for
the horror film isn’t available that day
or gets sick or something happens all of
these moving Parts can grind their gears
and cause there to be an
issue and as
performers we signed up for being
adaptive for being creative for being
flexible not bitching and moaning and
decrying our fate and raising our fist
to the
heavens it doesn’t help it’s selfish it
doesn’t matter listen casting directors
are going to on the in the world of on
camera casting directors are going to
get thousands of submissions from Agents
and actors directly for five or 10
available Parts can’t see everybody
can’t see thousands of
people and the ones that they do see if
they start playing your audition your
self- taped audition and they get 5
Seconds 10 seconds in and they realize
you’re just not right for the part
you’re a great actor but you’re not
right for this part they’re going to
stop they got other things to do and
they’re going to go watch somebody
else’s tape you you you
can’t say okay I understand I I want to
be an actor I want to be a voice talent
I want to be a writer and then say uh
but I’m not willing to accept the
business that exists in terms of how to
do auditions how callbacks work how
Point uh pins work listen I was pinned
for a
commercial early last year that was
supposed to shoot in Mexico do you know
when they when they unpinned me the
morning I was supposed to fly to
Mexico that’s how the business works and
you you have you can’t waste your time
and your energy and your mental
health on yelling about these things you
know imagine how many Publishers those
of you that are writers imagine how many
Publishers how or how many submissions
Publishers get every
day via email via Dropbox via the mail
itself because there are some writers
who insist on sending things physically
think about this just think about this
and the next time you feel righteously
indignant about some sort of disrespect
that was shown to you I’m not talking
about overt disrespect I’m not talking
about somebody insulting
you I’m not talking about somebody
mistreating you I’m talking about you
deciding that how the industry works is
an insult or a mistreatment the way
things actually are and how other people
within this collaborative industry that
we’re in
works that somehow that’s a personal
slight it’s not it’s not not and when I
see especially when I see on camera
actors jumping on social media and
screaming about what they consider to be
an
injustice and it’s not it’s simply not
yes in this case I’m absolutely denying
your feelings you are out of your mind
go find something else to do and let the
rest of
us continue with our agreement to be in
an industry in a world world that just
simply doesn’t make sense sometimes and
allow us also to display how good we are
at being resilient and being adaptive
and adjusting to last minute
changes and that’s all I have to say
about that and if you got a problem with
it or if you agree with it hit me with a
comment below be
respectful but let me know what you
think let me know what you think hit the
like button if makes sense to you if you
like what you heard maybe if you didn’t
like what you heard I wish there was a a
dislike button who knows maybe people
just don’t like this stuff uh you can
subscribe to the channel you can hit the
notification Bell if you want to be
notified when new episodes come out
share this with an actor who’s
righteously indignant see what they
say I’m David H Lawrence 17th I thank
you so much for watching and for
listening and thank you Michael costro
again for being such a gem I will see
you in the next episode of the vo Heroes
podcast
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(from YouTube)