Hello beautiful people!
Let’s talk tiers. They’re fun li’l career benchmarks and I’m gonna clarify their edges a bit today.
As you navigate the tiers, you’re always moving toward or away from your true north. Choose wisely, my friends.
As for THE TIERS, I want you to remember that these are just broad-strokes outlines of the significantly more meandering paths we know are possible. Think of this like one of the maps Google may provide between you and your destination. There are many alternate routes and once we get going, there’s often recalibrating to do.
Each of these tiers is described using Hollywood billing for on-camera trajectory. You can approximate a version of all of this for your stage career, voiceover career, showrunner career, and so on. Ask questions in the comments below if you’re unsure.
For my non-showbiz creatives in the dojo, your tier labeling will be different — and using revenue level is one EASY way to set them up for yourself — but the trajectory is similar. All creatives have an apprenticeship period, a low-pay/barter phase, a not-making-enough-to-quit-the-day-job level of work, an OMG-I’m-actually-DOING-this tier, a zone at which upper-limit problems and limiting beliefs may start popping up more frequently (this is usually when you’re hiring team members more consistently and paying THEM what you used to *hope* you could make in your baby business), and whatever the highest level of your career looks and feels like for you.
Throughout these approximations of benchmarks and tier jumps, remember that only you will know for sure when it’s time to “level up,” as they say in the gaming world. AND… at *any* time, you may find yourself sliding back to a more comfortable, more familiar tier. Do not hate on yourself for that! Just notice it and keep doing the work to navigate to your true north.
A quick-and-dirty showbiz overview:
Copy-Credit-Meals Work. This is the tier at which you’ll work for free. Well, not without any compensation, but free. No paycheck. But hopefully you get copy of the work you did (to use on your reel), credit in the scroll at the end of the piece (and on IMDb, if the project goes up there), and food (hopefully good food) while on set. Please be clear: You could stay at this tier for your whole life as an actor (and many actors do), as there is no end to the number of people who will ask you to work for free. You can be cast all the time if you don’t need to be paid for your work. At some point, honey, you need to be paid for your work.
Nonunion to Union, Small Roles in Big Projects, Big Roles in Indie Projects, and Spec Work. There’s a good combination of stuff here. You can work nonunion gigs, you can work small roles in larger films, you go from nonunion to union-eligible to union, you can do a ton of indie or spec projects, and it’s all in that same tier: You may or may not get paid, you may or may not get footage, you may or may not get credit on IMDb, you may or may not get invited to the premiere, you may or may not get interviewed on a podcast, you may or may not tier-jump due to these types of projects. A lot of actors get stuck at this tier. In fact, MOST actors live at this tier.
Network TV Co-Stars. Ah, the holy grail: working on a network television show that everyone who knows you already watches on a regular basis, and there you are… a co-star… on their favorite show. Your name is in the credits at the end-scroll on a shared card with other co-stars. Hooray! But… there are so many thousands of dollars more for your initial booking at the guest-star level than there are at your best gig at the co-star tier. That doesn’t mean you say no to co-star altogether, it means you pay attention to when you’re feeling DONE with co-stars, because — in television — billing is negotiated and all you need is a badass agent to help you accept a “guest-star gig at co-star money” (a truly ninja move up to the next tier) so that the next job gets paid as a guest-star and voilà: tier jump. Warning: Many agents idle at co-star tier and have no ability to help (nor interest in helping) you get past this tier.
Network TV Guest-Stars and Studio Films. Getting cast in studio projects is amazing. There’s a totally different experience on sets at this level. You’re well cared for. You’re paid. A lot. You’re invited to premieres and even if you don’t get to be a part of junkets or red carpet mic time, you’re still there — and you can leverage it all. If you get media trained or hire a publicist and dress the part, you could really maximize your attendance at the events associated with booking at this level. Those guest-star roles on network television series pay crazy-well, your on-brand photos on another awesome step and repeat up your heat with the buyers, your team gets you better meetings in better rooms, and you’re building your way toward the next tier faster than ever before. Whoa, momentum is an amazing thing!
Recurring/Series Lead/Series Regular on TV and Larger Roles in Studio Films. By now, you feel it. You don’t need me to tell you you’re fancy. You have a spectacular agent — not just a “hell yes” person who gets you and who knows how to get you out but one who also knows what your goals are and where to get you out next so that you can get to the next tier. You definitely have done some media training, you probably have a publicist on retainer (vs. doing spot-work for you), you’ve had some films that have done well at festivals, you’re booking on serious projects that you only dreamed about a few years ago, and hopefully you’re NOT forgetting to say “thank you, Bonnie Gillespie” when you’re holding up something gold and shiny next awards season! 🙂 You’re living the dream and spending more time worried about dress shields, fashion tape, how to get out of your limo without flashing people, and how to introduce your mom when she’s your date to the big awards shows than you are about what TMZ is saying about you (but OMG, TMZ is totally talking about you). Congrats. You’ve accomplished something that the majority of your fellow creatives will never experience. Stay humble. This is potentially huge.
Celeb! Dude. You’re not only tracked by TMZ, you’re a meme. You’re in the Ulmer Scale. You’re on the Forbes Bankability Index. That means your name is used as bait for financing and your pool boy is bringing you mojitos while you plot out your next favorite book to acquire and have adapted into a screenplay you’ll ultimately produce. The only advice I have for you once you’re here is: Don’t surround yourself with so many yes-men that you start believing your own hype. You are still normal, baby. And the way you get to KEEP the career of your dreams is to STAY normal — even though you’re getting ridiculously surreal opportunities.
Again, for my non-showbiz creatives, your labels will be different and your benchmarks may be structured in slightly more corporate looking ways, but whether you use financial benchmarks or less concrete ones, I want you identifying your tiers so you can know for yourself what to look for to know you’ve leveled up!
Enter: Self-Management for Actors and the work we’re doing these 100 days. I really want you to give yourself the space to get to the next tier in a healthy way. That means both saying NO when you are repeatedly asked to work at a tier you’re ready to leave and being aware that you’ve come so damn far.
It means lovingly releasing the tier below the same way you release training wheels when you’re ready to ride on two wheels. It’s scary. It’s wobbly. It may even happen prematurely (hence the desire to keep ’em on longer than necessary), but ultimately, you will be able to fly along on two wheels, so those training wheels hafta go!
We tend to feel like beginners much longer than we should. I’m not saying we shouldn’t honor “beginner brain,” as it’s a beautiful place that leaves us open for all sorts of discoveries, but when we decide we’re permanent residents of beginner-land, we hobble ourselves. And that’s no fun.
Prepave now for your next tier. Study success. Don’t wait ’til you get to the next tier to start figuring out how to enjoy your time there and build toward the next.
Don’t spend too much time looking at a tier too far from the one at which you now live — study the one just above where you are, map a path to it from where you are, and let’s get on the road!
So. Where are you? And what can you start doing at your current tier to get on up to that next tier on a thrilling timeline? Not one that has you racing through prematurely, but one that has you wringing every bit of goodness there is to get out of where you are and then happily leaping on up without blocks and without delay. What’s next?
’til tomorrow… stay ninja!
