In 2002, The Actor's Checklist launched as a website dispensing time-tested common knowledge and conventional wisdom for those looking to launch a show business career as a performer. A staple element of site activity is the Global News and Networking Events covering the media and show business industry, produced in newsletter format every new month. One of the goals of the media industry report - and the site generally - has been to tie the evolving and proliferating technologies of a burgeoning media ecosystem to the varied opportunities that performers, media-makers, and storytellers can have to project their images and content onto new kinds of virtual stages.
Part of the site’s programming, from 2002 (but suspended lately due to the site overhaul planning), a monthly video news summary was produced every month in a 10-minute format previewing recently released indie film trailers, indie music video, animated works and the occasional documentary. Planning for a new focus for the monthly video news summary that presents and gives exposure to artistic endeavors of film/video and musical artists is still in the planning stages.
The title, "The Actor's Checklist," is a suitable naming convention for this website. But in all practicality, nearly all media production and performing arts endeavors, and their requisites, have similar requirements even if there are different methods for achieving them. Don't be misled by the title. The term "actor" has an expanded connotation in today's world where digital technology has provided a megaphone to thousands of storytellers interacting in various media.
Streaming, podcasting, Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook video have fragmented a once unassailable monopoly stronghold that primetime television networks, network radio, and major motion picture studios had on the attention span of viewers. iTunes and Amazon make it possible to self-author one’s print and musical creations. Entertainment marketers now tackle a “second screen” in the living room phenomena where customary television viewers will multitask by indulging in social media and/or supplemental television program apps all at the same time.
If you are an actor you are taking part in the retelling of a story. But the same can certainly be said of a song/singer, comedy skit, mime, graphic artwork that forms a scenic backdrop, and so on. Perhaps a good way to gather all these crafts under one category is to refer to them as media making. Presently on the horizon, transmedia storytelling - digitally created content that engages an audience using techniques to develop stories across multiple forms of media - is gradually taking shape as a narrative influence.
In certain regards, the Internet has surged past television as a delivery platform and offers little clue as to when it might ease its adoption rate. Currently, the number of broadband customers exceeds the number of cable subscribers, according to data from the Leichtman Research Group analyzing numbers from the nation’s nine largest cable companies. As of the second quarter of 2014, the number of broadband subscribers clocked in at 49,915,000 customers, compared to 49,910,000 cable TV customers.
The Actor’s Checklist serves to monitor, report on and hopefully facilitate dialogue and personal connection among its forum chat participants about these innovative developments on the media landscape, any new opportunities they present for new ways of expression, and the evolving identity of what it means to be a performing/media arts practitioner.
______________________
______________________
______________________