my name is Jill Bearup I'm 34 Irish American and I'm an environmental lawyer
or I'm detective Inspector Jill Bearup I'm 32 and I'm from Sussex or I'm Irish
I'm 27 and I'm a biology teacher these are the conclusions that 17 mostly
strangers came to avoid me based on this picture hi I'm Jill Bearup I make
videos about media analysis science sometimes and occasionally acting when I
like something like for example acting I like to do it but I also like to read
about it. I also love data because I'm a nerd so I was reading an article
recently by Bonnie Gillespie Bonnie Gillespie wrote a book called self
management for actors which is aimed at American actors who are working or who
want to work basically people who want to actually make money at the business
of acting. And one of the things she talks about in this is the importance of
aligning your marketing materials with your brand. It sounds a bit strange when
I say it. basically the idea is if you have headshots and a showreel or a demo
reel or whatever you call it and they say one particular thing about you like
for example "I'm a sexy vixen" but when you come into the room your vibe
actually says more like "I'm a kindergarten teacher"
you're not gonna book any work because people are gonna bring you in for things
which you aren't right for in the first place and then they're gonna go no I
think we'll go somewhere else Thanks. to know what your most castable
type is or types are I guess you need to know how you appear to random strangers
basically like what is your vibe when you walk into a room, before you even
open your mouth. what adjectives do people use to describe you when they've never
met you before? that is fascinating to me and I love that stuff so I joined the
self management for actors Facebook group and because it works as a kind of
quid pro quo system I went through and I did about a dozen other people's "cast me"
surveys where you answer questions like what adjectives would you associate with
this person in this silent video or photograph. what age do you think they
are? what ethnicity do you think they are? or what nationality? what type of roles
could you see them playing? what kind of shows do you think they'd be in? and the
all-important is there anything else you'd like to tell me which you haven't
covered already? so I did a bunch of these got
this picture (the actors in the room are now saying "Jill that is not a
professional acting headshot" to which I can only respond "look I work with what
I've got here") made a Google Form and put it up on the Facebook group I got 17
responses and individually they're interesting but together they are
fascinating because when you collate them you can see the patterns. Man I
love data isn't it great so the questions I asked were
what is the first impression you have when you see this photo? then I gave a
really long list of adjectives and said just pick all of the ones you think
apply. what age is she? what is her profession? what shows do you think she'd
be on? and is there anything else you want to tell me? I collated these
responses and Bonnie Gillespie suggests that you put them in a word cloud and
actually that was really helpful because that's very visual and YouTube friendly
so here it is oh yes. I imagine the results if I ask my YouTube audience to
do an anonymous survey on what do you think I'm like would be really
interesting but not great for the whole first impressions acting thing. The
reason I love the silent video ones is that it's very hard to cheat it if you
understand what I mean. The picture I put up was a serious picture, in the style of
a theatrical headshot so you're supposed to look serious, so I did. but what if you
put up a really smiley picture? what if you wear different makeup? what if you
change your hair? what if you change the lighting? what if you take off your
glasses? I would love to know but that's probably more data collection that I can
really ethically do. Still, art and science: I love it. Anyway in case you didn't spot
it from the word cloud my top responses were intense intelligent determined and
then slightly underneath that we had stuff like educated, detective, lawyer,
teacher, and direct. In order to verify some of these I considered texting some
of my friends but then I realized that basically the text would go like this
would you consider me direct question mark also hi its Jill, how are you? Which
sort of proves the point on at least one of those. It's a little uncanny how well
the hivemind of Internet strangers can know you, I'm just saying.What I would
like to know though is if you are an actor and you're watching this hello
welcome have you ever done something like this? Or did you do it in drama
school or did you hand out paper surveys or something? and if you're not
an actor do you also find this really interesting because I find it just
fascinating. Could you do this for internet dating profiles? I mean there's
a subreddit which is like rate my profile! But that's more about how hot
they think you are. I feel like there's a rich mine of information to be tapped
from the Internet hive mind which we're just not taking advantage of. Strangers
on the Internet I have found are often honest in a way that even strangers that
you are in the same room as aren't because especially if you're British
there's still a little bit of that "I don't want to tell you like mean things
about yourself even if they would be helpful to you in your acting career"
like I saw this survey which I didn't fill in because I looked at it and went,
"you look like the guy in the police procedurals who drinks too much and
beats his wife" I didn't want to say that even though that would probably be
useful casting information I couldn't do it I just couldn't. My internet strangers
however being mostly American were... direct shall we say and that was really
helpful. that's about all on the topic of how
internet strangers perceive you but I have some good news
Ryk Spoor is writing a fourth book in the Arenaverse series! Or he's trying to but
he has to kick-start it because the publishers like: nah, we're not gonna give
you any more money. So if you have watched any of my previous videos on the topic
if you've read the arenaverse and you liked it which you should because it's
amazing, you should go to the link which I will also put in the description and
you should like give the man money. I have given him money I'm hoping he hits
his target. alright see you next time!