photo credit: Nogwater

Now I know the title of this blog is “The occasional ramblings of an out of work actor” but I’ve really taken the piss, haven’t I? No posts since April? Shocking behaviour…

There’s no real excuse, to be honest. Sure I’ve been busy with stuff but not so busy that I should neglect you - my solitary reader. I know you’ve been checking back every day to see if I’ve updated. You probably thought the RSS feed was borked or something, right? I feel so totally connected to your IP address. It’s like an old familiar face to me. There you are. Every day. Hoping I’ve updated the blog.

I love you mum.

So what’s been happening that’s kept me away from the keyboard? Well sadly it hasn’t been any acting work. This has been the worst year I’ve had in the business. Pinewood recently announced a 55% drop in first half profits and a lot of the TV companies have slashed their budgets by 30-40% so I put the lack of work down to the fact that less is being made. The bigger names in this game are taking on work they would have previously rejected so less is filtering down the food chain.

It’s easier than thinking I’m unemployable.

The zombie comedy movie I’m involved in had a pre-release screening in August. It was a great night catching up with all the cast and crew as well as seeing the film on the big screen. Here’s a short video of the night. I’m the bald guy standing by the door at 0′43″ sweating like a biatch.

We’re busy remastering the film, getting a new trailer done in preparation for release as well as negotiating the minefield that is music clearance. I’ve touched on it before but getting everything tied down to get tracks in your film is a ball breaking job. Still, it’ll be good to finally get the movie out there after having worked on it for so long.

I’ve been writing a screenplay for a vampire movie I want to make but my enthusiasm has been tempered by the realisation that there’s a good chance it won’t get made for a while. Even paying everyone at union minimum rates the budget would be nigh on impossible to raise for a UK indie and it’s not really feasible. I’m still going to finish it off but then maybe look to sell it and let someone else make it. Dunno. Haven’t decided yet.

The other idea I have knocking around my head is for a web series. As far as I can see there are no decent UK based web series out there; everything is US based. Maybe the UK guys aren’t as proactive at marketing as our American cousins but I’m not seeing a UK series as high profile as The Guild, for example. I’ll probably write more about this sometime soon.

Talking of The Guild, I watched every episode back to back the other day. All two and a bit seasons. My eyes hurt at the end of it but it was so good that I couldn’t help myself. I’ve also now got something of a crush on @feliciaday. She makes my winky go funny.

So what else has been going on? Well I closed my old online marketing and search blog. I’d kinda got bored writing about the topics so decided to put it out of it’s misery. Still up for sale if anyone wants it My cricket blog is still alive but barely. Despite England winning the Ashes I wasn’t too enthused to update it much over the summer.

I think I’m suffering from a serious dose of meh.

This might have something to do with my impending 40th birthday. Everyone says life begins at 40 so perhaps I’m subconsciously not starting anything I won’t be able to finish in time.

Rambling now. Will stop. Just wanted to let you know I was still alive and I figured that if I didn’t write a blog post soon that I’d have to scrub ‘blogger’ off my list of part-time activities on my Twitter profile…

Post from: Mikey Bee

Holy Crap! I’ve Got A Blog?

Demons DVD - Image courtesy of Amazon

Despite all the recent furore over Amazon (search results for Amazonfail), I’ve been a happy customer of theirs for many years. You can buy anything on Amazon. It’s like an online Woolworths without the pick ‘n’ mix.

One of the things I really like about Amazon is the recommended products feature. Every time I log in they try to entice me with a list of DVDs or CDs that they think I’ll like based on stuff I’ve bought from them in the past. On the whole the products they recommend are pretty accurate.

However today Amazon failed. Forget all that business about dropping adult material from their searches, today Amazon thought that I might like to buy Demons on DVD.

WTF? Demons single handedly put the turd back into Saturday!

I loved Philip Glenister in Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes but even he couldn’t save this utterly apalling show. His ridiculous American accent has made him the Dick Van Dyke of a new generation.

The dialogue was full of more cliches than the Arsenal left backs family Christmas dinner, the effects more special than a convoy of Sunshine Variety buses and the acting of the “guest stars” suggested that they’d rather be somewhere else. Like most of the viewing audience.

I know after my recent outburst that I should be grateful that ITV drama actually made a program that attempted something different from the norm. Fuck it, I should be grateful that they actually made a program at all but watching it made me feel angry. It just felt like a massive waste of budget. They could have spent that money commissioning projects from the wealth of undiscovered talent we have in the UK.

So needless to say, Amazon, you’ve disappointed me. You’ve failed. We’ve been together long enough for you to know that I’d rather stir fry my own testicles than buy this pile of shite. I still love you but start showing me some recommendations that’ll have me reaching for my credit card rather than just reaching.

Post from: Mikey Bee

Demons - Amazon Fail!

photo credit: clspeace

So here it is. After literally days of planning, the new Mikey Bee blog is launched on an unsuspecting and, more than likely, an uninterested public. The irony of launching my new blog on April Fools Day is not lost on me but at least I’ll remember the anniversary, right?

Why another blog? After all, according to Technorati, there are 133 million blogs already out there. Does the world really need another one? Probably not but, since I’ve got nowhere else to have a brain dump I figured that here was probably as good a place as any. Besides, I’ve bought the domain name so why not?

I’ve kinda covered what the blog is about in the ever so informative About page so, rather than cover old ground, I’ll let you read that first and then you come back to me with any questions.

Finished? OK, so let’s crack on.

If you’ve been reading my stuff on Twenty Steps you’ll already know that this blog was in the pipeline. In fact you’ll recognise two of the posts included on this new site. If you’ve not been reading Twenty Steps then get your arse over there now and have a gander at my 2+ years worth of crap insightful posts about online marketing, blogging and search.

If the topics sound drier than a nuns chuff, fair one. It’s because they are which is why I decided to start up another blog which gave me free rein over what I published. Despite the advice of the various self-proclaimed blogging experts, MikeyBee.com is going to be about random topics and I’m not going to follow any publishing guidelines.

In a lot of ways this blog is probably going to be the most personal thing I’ve ever done online. Bearing in mind that I’ve been publishing content on the internet for 10 years under various alter-egos or pseudonyms, this is probably as close to “me” as it’s going to get. I’m not going to fanny around with protocol or pander to politically correct rhetoric, I’m just gonna write stuff and hit the PUBLISH button in WordPress.

Talking of which, I have to thank the guys at WordPress for providing such an excellent piece of free software to allow me to spout bollocks express my opinions, thank Chris Pearson at DIY Themes for putting together such an awesome theme in Thesis and the propeller heads at ServInt for their brilliant service.

Meh! Sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech. Still, only fair to thank the people who made it possible, eh? Which brings me on to the next point. Disclosure. Now I could write a long winded post about disclosing any kind of affiliate links or business partners but, in truth, I can’t be arsed so, instead, I’ll simply quote ShoeMoney:

You should assume I have motivation for linking to everything on this page and will benefit from it somehow. You should assume I am no better then you are and your opinion has just as much weight as mine. You should question everything. You should come up with your own thoughts and opinions and not trust some stupid blogger.

The fact is that sometimes I will link to products, services or websites which reward me for introducing new customers. An out of work actor has to eat, right? However I can promise you that I won’t link to any product or service that I don’t personally vouch for. Fair enough?

As I said earlier, I’m not going to write every day. Some days I’ll have something to say, some days I won’t. Consider the blog to be an extension of my Twitter feed with more than 140 characters. If you enjoy that, I hope you’ll enjoy my new blog. Following on from my own advice, the aim is to follow the Four E’s:

• Educate
• Entertain
• Enlighten
• Empower

With any luck, I’ll manage to achieve at least one of these per post. I’m sure you’ll let me know if I’m miles off track

Don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed. You can keep up to date with my inane banter in your favourite feed reader or by good old fashioned email.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you like the look of the site. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Post from: Mikey Bee

Blog Launch

photo credit: Jeff Kubina

When you tell people that you’re an actor, one of the first things they’ll inevitably say to you is “Ooh..have I seen you in anything?”. By “anything” they’re normally referring to a soap opera or a commercial rather than theatre. Mention Chekhov and they assume you’re talking about the bloke from Star Trek.

After establishing that they swear they spotted you in the background of the Queen Vic, the next thing they’ll say is “Are you resting at the moment?” and this will normally be accompanied with the old inverted commas finger gesture to accentuate the word resting. You know the one.

At this point I either respond with

1. Physical violence
2. A diatribe about how I’m not actually resting but that I’m spending my waking hours trying to secure work. I’ve slept with 14 casting directors this month, my bums sore and I’m seriously considering mugging the Big Issue seller outside Tottenham Court Road station.

Sometimes I combine the two. I find it helps get my point across.

The fact is that nobody understands what it’s like to be an out of work actor apart from another out of work actor. People will sympathise with you and come up with “helpful” suggestions but, to be honest, the vast majority of folks have no idea of the shit we go through to try to secure work.

Anyone who gets into this game is setting themselves up for failure. If you have a problem with rejection, get into another game. In my opinion, 95% of the work is getting the work in the first place. Applying for castings, speculatively sending out your CV and headshot, networking, attending auditions, scouring the online and offline casting resources, ringing your agent.

One of the best pieces of advice I got when I was training was “get yourself another job”. The vast majority of actors are unemployed so you need to find other ways to pay your bills. You need a job flexible enough to allow you the time to attend auditions but you also need to pay the rent. Most actors I know balance two or three jobs.

So going back to the original purpose of this post, I wanted to share some advice with the non-acting fraternity out there who might have friends who are actors or, God forbid, who bump into me and do the “resting” finger thing.

• Do not suggest I get another agent. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good agent? They are like rocking horse shit.
• Do not suggest I apply for The Bill. I already have. Many times. They have wallpapered the offices of the casting offices with my 10×8.
• Do not suggest I get a proper job. I will kill you to death if you do.
• Do not ask if I’ve looked in The Stage recently. I do not want to be a pole dancer or gay chat line operator.
• Do not suggest I do some am-dram to “keep my hand in”. The only place my hand will be in is your face if you say this.
• Do not suggest temping. I look shit in a skirt.

With ITV cutting their drama budget by 40%, the Beeb chopping £400m from their budget and the big film studios all saying they’re reducing the number of films they’re putting out this year, the situation is only going to get worse so do yourself a favour. If you meet any actors over the coming weeks, remember my advice.

Oh and don’t do that finger thing either.

Post from: Mikey Bee

Frustrations Of Being An (Out Of Work) Actor

photo credit: zoyachubby

Over the last few years I have been considering moving to the US. Let’s face it, it’s the land of opportunity, right? As an actor and an entrepreneur, this is the place to be. However there have been several things that have stopped me from moving.

Firstly my parents. They’re not in the greatest of health and neither of them are what you might call frequent fliers. In fact I’m not even sure my Dad possesses a passport. It’s a mission to get them to leave the Isle of Wight so travelling 4000 miles is not really on the agenda.

Then we have my friends. Sure we’ve got Skype, MSN and Facebook to keep in contact but they’re all as broke as me so travelling to the US is not an option for them either.

I play cricket. I love playing cricket every Sunday in the summer and would miss it terribly if I moved to America. I know they have cricket leagues over there but, somehow, it wouldn’t be the same. I get a feeling that cut grass smells somehow different in the States. Besides, where can you get a decent cheese and cucumber sandwich in New York?

And that kinda brings me to the main reason for me not deserting these shores.

Yorkshire puddings.

Now I have it on good authority from my blog-friend Anna that they have Yorkshires in America but they’re called popovers over there and they serve them with butter.

WTF?

Yorkshire puddings should come complete with a roast dinner and lashings of gravy as standard. Cumberland sausages and onion gravy=bonus points. Big fat chips and a dollop of curry sauce=I’ll have your babies.

Serving them as an alternative to bread complete with butter simply doesn’t work for me.

So despite the fact that the country is rapidly going down the toilet, I will remain a UK citizen until such point that the former colonies reintroduce the Yorkshire pudding in it’s original state.

It’s your loss, not mine.

Post from: Mikey Bee

Yorkshire Puddings - The Food of Gods

photo credit: pasotraspaso

Whether you’re recording a podcast or looking for music for your short film or documentary, making your way through the minefield of music licensing can be a right pain in the arse. You’ve got recording/master rights, publishing rights, there’s the whole business of synchronisation and mechanical rights.

Slapping in your favourite tune without getting the rights cleared will see you hit with a hefty bill and the chance that your project will never see the light of day.

You could try to negotiate a good deal with the PRS or get a composer on board but the chances are that your budget won’t stretch to it so it’s good news that the guys behind iStockphoto, one of the best sites for royalty free images, have launched a new royalty free music service.

iStockaudio offers 30,000 royalty free and single production audio tracks. I’ve just been listening to some of the tracks on the site and have to say I’m fairly impressed. I’ve been to other production music libraries in the past and found most of the tracks pretty bland, cheesy and uninspiring but there’s a really good selection on iStockaudio.

Buying your music is dead easy and, depending on how you intend to use the music, pretty inexpensive. Rates start from £2 for stingers for web use (ideal for podcasts) up to £80 for full length tracks by indie artists for unlimited use on a single production (i.e. TV show or movie).

If you can’t find what you’re after there, I heartily recommend giving Audio Network a go. They’re more expensive per track than iStockaudio but you’ve got the option of buying a blanket licence for £195 which covers you for unlimited tracks on a single production so, in theory, you could score your entire movie for a couple of hundred quid.

There are other music libraries out there including an extensive production music directory on the PRS website but, in my experience, Audio Network and the new iStockaudio service look to be the most cost effective.

Post from: Mikey Bee

iStockAudio - New Royalty Free Music Service

Post from: Mikey Bee

Kung Fu Flid

Seems like I hadn’t seen anything yet!

Dublin web designer Jason Roe wrote a blog post last week regarding a glitch he’d discovered on the Ryanair website which appeared to allow him a free flight.

Ok, As I was booking flights down to cork for the blog awards, I noticed something a bit strange. When I went to change my flight times, all of the prices on the flights had changed to “Total Cost of Flight 0.00”.

In the comment section of the blog post, someone purporting to be a Ryanair employee called Jason “an idiot and a liar” before going on to say that Jason led a “pathetic life“.

Now, if you were working in the Ryanair PR department, what would you do? Dismiss the blog commenter Ryanair Staff #1 as an imposter, thank Jason for his time in pointing out the error on the Ryanair website and offer him reduced price tickets on his next flight? Or would you write to The Times and say this:

Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.

Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.

Isn’t it good to see a company in these difficult times going the extra mile and acknowledging their customers in such a wonderfully unique way? I’m sure that, like me, you are now reaching for your credit card to book a flight with Ryanair. Either that or shaking your head and uttering the words “EPIC FAIL!”.

Still, what do I know? I’m just a lunatic blogger.

UPDATE: The Ryanair PR machine just keeps rolling…Today they announced they are considering charging customers to use the onboard toilets (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7914542.stm).

Chief executive Michael O’Leary told the BBC that the Dublin-based carrier was looking at maybe installing a “coin slot on the toilet door”.

Calling bloggers lunatics and idiots is one thing but charging people to use the toilet really is taking the piss..

Post from: Mikey Bee

Ryanair: Bloggers Are Lunatics and Idiots

Do you suffer from Internet Schizophrenia?

I do.

Well, technically speaking, I suffer from Internet DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder - but somehow it’s not quite as catchy a name although some of my personalities might think differently.

If you’ve been online for any length of time, created a few websites or blogs, have an account with Flickr, Last.fm, Google, MySpace or any of the social media sites, the chances are you also suffer from Internet Schizophrenia.

You have multiple online identities.

On the face of it, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing but what happens when you launch a new project that is totally unrelated to your regular online activities? If you use your current online moniker, will the new project water down your existing brand?

Let’s also throw into the mix the fact that your online personalities are now starting to affect your offline life.

What can you do?

As you may have guessed by now, this is the conundrum that I am currently facing. I’m in the process of starting up a new website and am agonising over what name I use to both write with and also to promote the site. This problem is further compounded by the fact that I have my fingers in a number of different pies, both on and offline.

I’m Mike the actor. I’m Mike the independent film maker. I’m Mike the voiceover artist. I’m Mike the cricket blogger. I’m Mike the cricket player. I’m Mike the web developer. I’m Mike the part-time SEO. I’m Mike the writer. I’m Mike the director. I’m Mike the generous lover.

If you were to look at the Google results for my name, you would find all of the above. Well, all apart from the last one

Why is this a problem? Well I had a situation last year where I attended a casting for a low budget film and the casting director had Googled me before the audition. We were chatting about the film when he suddenly started talking to me about his website and wanted my opinion on what he could do to improve it. He’d seen that I did websites and picked up, presumably from this site, that I also knew a bit about SEO. He was more interested in how I could help him jazz up his site than he was about my suitability for the role. Needless to say, by the time I did my audition piece, I was completely unprepared and didn’t get the role.

On the flip side of that, I lost out on a web development project a couple of years ago because the company had also Googled me, saw that I was an actor and were worried that I’d bugger off at the drop of a hat as soon as a decent acting role came in. They said they didn’t think I would be able to commit to the project.

So there’s the first part of the problem. As someone who publishes content online, should you use your real name or come up with a pseudonym? Your online activities could come back and smack you in the face. I talked about this nearly two years ago in my post How a blog search could cost you your dream job and, in Nostradamus fashion, I predicted this:

However, as with every struggling actor, I also need to do other work to keep food on the table so I can imagine that any prospective employer for a regular job would take one look at the SERPS and question my statement that “I’m 100% committed to this corporate company, Mr Big Cheese, and of course I won’t piss off as soon as an acting role comes up”

One, Two, How Many You?

Yummy mummy Ann Smarty wrote a post over at Search Engine Journal the other week about online identity theft.

Someone has most probably used your original well-branded name to register an account at a number of less known user-generated sites and talk to people online on your behalf.

The post is all about the problems of people stealing your online brand via the plethora of social networking sites. It’s an interesting read and the link to UsernameCheck is worth it’s weight in gold. However when reading the article it finally hit home to me just how badly I suffered from Internet Schizophrenia and all of the problems associated with it.

I have a number of different online personas. For example, on Digital Point I’m known as Actor Mike whereas on Digg I’m known as MikeyBee but on StumbleUpon and Sphinn I’m known as BigPond. All of these ‘people’ have different personalities, likes, dislikes and interests. The BigPond on Sphinn, for example, likes a different set of sites to the BigPond on StumbleUpon. The Mikey Bee on Digg is a very different Mikey Bee to the one on Beer In The Evening.

As I’ve blundered my way through the Internet over the last 10 years, I have created hundreds of accounts on hundreds of different websites and it’s only now that I can see the mistake I’ve made. I guess the explosion of social media sites over the last few years is what has brought it home to me.

Online Branding

If you read any of the blogs about Internet marketing, you’ll know just how important it is to establish an online brand. Once you’ve got your brand, you reinforce it by using your avatar on all of the social networking sites, dropping it into forum and email signatures and championing your brand at any given opportunity. You become known by your online brand and build up trust, or otherwise, as a result.

I didn’t have a clear objective about who I wanted to be when I set out and, as a result, now have dozens of user names out there associated with a vastly differing range of topics. As I said above, I have used the same user name with the same avatar for some wildly disengaged topics. With the wonder of hindsight, I can see that perhaps a better way of doing things would have been to create very specific online personas for each of my activities.

Or would it? Surely the hassle of maintaining multiple personalities online is counter productive? I mean, isn’t the whole idea of publishing online about expressing your personality? People buy into the person behind the blog or website so by creating a false persona, are you not cheating people? Also how do you keep tabs on which head you’re wearing at that moment in time? Am I the tech head at 9:50am on this particular Thursday or am I the golf enthusiast?

By creating multiple online identities, are you not setting yourself up for a fall? The counter to that is that by maintaining a singular identity, are you not spreading yourself too thin and reducing your authority?

There is no one size fits all approach to picking an online identity.

Or is there?

Online vs Offline Smackdown

So there are the two elements that I’m looking at today.

1. Should you use your real name to publish online?
2. Should you use multiple identities online?

The answer to the question is…it depends.

Jeremy Schoemaker is best known to bloggers as ShoeMoney. You’ll have seen the ShoeMoney logo all over the web. He uses it well to reinforce the brand he has created. When he launches a new project, he’ll use the ShoeMoney name as almost a quality stamp of approval. Now this works fantastically well for someone like Jeremy because he doesn’t have an offline life. I don’t mean that he has no life apart from the Internet - he has a wonderful family - but his business IS the Internet so appearing in the SERPs as ‘Jeremy Schoemaker’ isn’t an issue to him. If someone searches for him by name, it’s because they want to find Jeremy Schoemaker AKA ShoeMoney.

Likewise Darren Rowse (AKA ProBlogger), Rae Hoffman (AKA Sugarrae), Michael Gray (AKA Graywolf), Brian Clark (AKA Copyblogger), Seth Godin (AKA…ermm…Seth Godin). These people all run a business online either directly or indirectly. Their brand is their name. Their chief income is generated via online commerce so to appear in the SERPs by either their real name or by their Internet username isn’t a problem.

However things aren’t always as cut and dried. I have my reasons for distancing my offline life from my online life and there’s a very good chance that you do too and you’re not alone.

Let’s look at a different example. I’ve been chatting with Blog Bloke via email and blog comments for the last couple of years but I have no idea what his real name is. I have an inkling that his parents didn’t give him that name. For whatever reason, Blog Bloke has chosen the path of online anonymity.

Equally Maki from Dosh Dosh. As far as I know, Maki has never revealed his last name and, for all I know, Maki might not be his real first name either. I know that Everton Blair from Connected Internet uses a completely fictitious name to protect his offline identity because of his job at a UK ISP.

I’ve written about the case of Abby Lee/Zoe Margolis before. As the result of having her anonymity being blown by an unscrupulous journalist, Zoe found she could no longer get any work in the film industry because of the stigma attached to her sex blog. As its worked out, losing her anonymity has led to a book deal, a number of media opportunities and regular TV appearances but I’m sure that she would rather her family and friends had found out about her online alter ego a different way.

Going back to the whole Internet Schizophrenia thing, Zoe knows me through yet another Internet persona I used to write a blog some time back.

So as we can see, the whole issue of picking an online persona is a complex one. Do you use your real name? Do you use a pseudonym? If you use your real name, does your online persona clash with your offline one? In some cases, if you use a pseudonym you may lose the trust of your readers.

Once you’ve picked a name, do you use the same one for all of your online activities? What if you write about technology but you’re also a regular contributor to a forum about dogging? What if you maintain numerous sites about a wide range of topics? If you’re using social media to promote your websites, should you create multiple accounts for each of your online activities? After all, the tech head wouldn’t Stumble the same sites as the dogger, would they?

So after nearly two thousand words, you can see why I’ve been agonising over the choice of name I use on my new project!

I’m going to have a lie down now because my head hurts so it’s over to you to contribute to the confusion in the comments. What strategy do you use? Are you equally as confused? Have you had your online life make an unwelcome appearance in your offline life?

Post from: Mikey Bee

Do You Suffer From Internet Schizophrenia?