I'm Jill bearup and I am a maths teacher a member of the FBI a British police
officer a scientist an American lawyer and a mum or a mom both are good my
name really is Jill Bearup but very few of those statements are completely true
some of you may remember that a while ago I took this picture and constructed
a self management for actors style typing survey on it the results were so
interesting that I both bought Bonnie Gillespie's book and did the survey
twice more once on a silent video and once on an actual headshot but you might
not care about any of this because you want to know what your casting type is
and that is why you clicked on this video thing is I probably can't help you
with that but we probably can so what is a casting type I hear you cry if you've
clicked on this video because it had my face on it
you're casting type is the types of roles for which you are likely to be
cast in a production basically it's how people see you when they look at you
when you're looking for someone for a role you might want someone of a
particular sex or age range or physicality you might want someone who's
really tall and broad you might want to someone who's very small and slender
what it is that they do so student mom lawyer doctor whatever and what kind of
personality they have so are they clever are they quirky are they serious, what. to
know what you're most castable type is you need to know how you appear to
random strangers 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 if you came here to learn what your casting type is then I would
suggest you go down to the doobly-doo where there will be a link to both an
article that Bonnie Gillespie has written on the topic of how you find
your casting type and how you set up a Google survey to do that and a video on
that topic depending on how you learn best there are lots of different ways to
set up a typing survey and they're all good they'll all get you information but
I think this is the one that gets you the best quality data and I'm all about
the quality data scientist you know how it is so here's the basic gist for doing
this online you set up a Google survey and into that Google survey you put one
thing your current headshot a silent video if you want to know how you come
across in the room so to speak a snapshot of you whatever you then cast
your net as wide as you can and you ask people's opinion on it you say could
you take two minutes and do this survey here are the questions go. and the
questions are what adjectives do you associate with this video this picture
this person you can give them a short list you can give them a long list you
can give them a space in which they can write as many words as they want you ask
them what age is this person you ask them what ethnicity is this person you
ask them what shows what franchises what genres you see this person and then you
also leave a box which is like do you want to tell me anything else because that
stuff is gold you can also do this in real life if you do in real life may I
suggest that you ask people who don't know you because the judgment of people
who know you is coloured by the fact that they know you and they know your
personality already if you come across in a certain way to strangers that you
don't to your friends you kind of need to know that if you're meeting lots of
strangers especially strangers that you want to give you a job so you make this
survey you hand them out or you send them all over the Internet and you
collect some responses and once you have enough responses you start to see the
patterns so if you want to make your own typing survey now you know how you can
click on the link below and it gives you a bunch of words the questions to ask
and how to set up a Google survey all that kind of jazz very useful highly
recommend it and that was what I made my first video about but challenge level if
you repeat this every I don't know a couple of months with a different piece
of media you get the underlying patterns so over the course of a year or so I
created three basically identical surveys for three different things for
this picture for this silent video which lasts for about ten seconds and I guess
I'm showing you most of it right now and for this headshot that's basically
three different iterations of me and I now have over a hundred responses on the
topic of how mostly complete strangers see me and that is when it gets really
interesting my initial picture was serious and
theatrical and bespectacled and so the words that came with it were often
serious and theatrical and bespectacled which to be fair was kind of what I was
going for so that worked the headshot was smiley and period and so there were
a lot more suggestions for period drama and there were
more friendly sounding words than with the serious headshot and as for the
silent video well it was lit so poorly that ten percent of respondents thought
I could realistically play a drug addict as opposed to one person for the serious
head shot and absolutely no one for the smiley head shot apparently this is not
the face of a drug addict good to know most common response for the smiley
period headshot ninety seven percent of respondents said this person is
sophisticated so thank you to David Yiu my headshot photographer for that most
common response to the silent video intelligent a minor point you can take
as many of the boxes as you want there isn't a limit and that's quite important
you can just say as many of them or as few of them as you think are relevant so
in addition to intelligent you might get a lot of responses that say educated or
a lot of responses that say smart or nerd or bookworm or something like that
so now you have enough information for you to say well okay Jill people look at
you and think yep she looks clever but I have all the data and all the
spreadsheets and all the questions which included ethnicity and age and when you
put all the responses together it turns out there are things that show up no
matter what it doesn't matter if it's still or if it's a video it doesn't
matter if it's serious or if it's smiley if it's glasses on glasses off doesn't
matter some things show up every time and those are what I would call your
sweet spot I guess Bonnie Gillespie would probably call it
the center of your brand umbrella like the thing that you do just so amazingly
well and basically effortlessly the stuff that's in the sweet spot is no
effort for you to play whatsoever which is kind of useful to know right so to
take me as an example literally everyone can tell I'm white so white ladies it is
most people think I'm about my actual age or a few years younger so they're
like you are somewhere between 29 and 33 somewhere in there the adjectives that
show up for me every single time basically come in four categories I'm
sophisticated I'm clever I'm creative and I'm in charge
basically I'm your favorite teacher from high school incidentally for me there
were also jobs that showed up time and time again teacher scientist doctor
lawyer law enforcement writer librarian and indeed mum so definite patterns
there too for example nobody saw me as a plumber. incidentally
did plumb in my own sink when we lived in Germany but apparently this is not a
face that people look at and go yep that's a plumber all right so there were
very clear patterns with age and ethnicity and jobs and general
adjectives that you associate with this face there was however a category which
showed no clear patterns at all and that was which shows or genres do you see
this person in fantasy sci-fi Marvel police procedural period drama those
courtroom shows sitcoms gritty Indies basically there is no genre that
everyone looks at me and goes yep you would definitely be good in that it's
good to know that even if my sweet spot is basically smart 31 year old white
lady I could be in space on horseback fighting with swords or in charge of
this investigation get out of my crime scene I know right
data is fun so if you want to know your casting type please don't ask one person
unless they're very knowledgeable instead ask many people and if you do
the self management for actors thing and you make a survey drop it in the
comments below and I will do some and everybody else will hopefully also do
some and if you have made a survey you should do at least three other people's
because you know that's just good manners I mean the surveys are links and
so they will probably get caught in the spam filter but I promise to go and
rescue if you've already done the survey like this leave us a comment and tell us
those words that you learned about you or at least the you that will soon be
appearing on television and then we can all say that we knew you before you were
famous if you would like to watch more of my acting related videos there will
be a playlist thank you for watching thank you to my patrons who make this
show possible in all of its weird and wonderful permutations and I will see
you next time happy surveying