[NEohioPAL]Re: Best New Talent Questions/Replies

[Luvin Life]

Dear Curious in Cincinnati (I feel like Dear Abby :) )


(I am responding to your e-mail privately and sending it to the Sternfeld 
list as well.  I removed all references to your name/e-mail to keep this 
anonymous - but thought others might benefit from your concerns and my 
reply. I don't know if it'll pass the Censors, but I thought I'd give it a 
try)

In regards to the Best New Talent BBB report posting that I placed on June 
26th, You Wrote:

(senders name removed for privacy)
>To: <luvinlifemi at hotmail.com>
>Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 18:57:36 -0400
>
>Yes  I noticed that the date of this message is rather recent June 26,2002, 
>what part of the state did they visit you?  North of Cincinnati?  Before 
>any decision was made, I also went to the BBB, however you noticed that 
>this business is rather new , started in 1999, and really began in 2000.
>The complaints stated were of issues relating to refunds, where they were 
>past the period of asking for registration refunds after the cooling period 
>of 5 days?  Remember, buyers remorse, is usually only 3 days, even if you 
>buy a car, a home, etc. As with pro scout (I do not know if you are 
>familiar with them) I too searched and checked the BBB along with other 
>reports on the internet. With this company, there were complaints of the 
>show and issues themselves, in meaning, how they promised you this would 
>happen and that, and mislead you into thinking even a person of 5'3" had 
>modeling potential.
>I did not feel with this organization that they mislead you in any way, 
>they said, if your not 5'9" tall your too short to model, they only put the 
>younger ones in modeling, if you were a teen and not 5'9" they politely 
>told you your too short,
>They not once told the group or any of us, you will be discovered, you will 
>find stardom, you will get an agent, they simply told you, you will be 
>performing in front of agents and by doing so, will give you feedback.  If 
>anyone thinks that they will be discovered and by tomorrow or the next day, 
>stardom will exist, than they do not know the business.  If one even has an 
>agent, that agent does not promise you work, but opens the doors for you to 
>go on auditions, without an agent, it is almost impossible to even get 
>anywhere.  Yes the BBB report states refund complaints , but what other 
>complaints have you found out about the company.?  I could not find any out 
>that they falsely promised you stardom, and did not deliver, I did not find 
>out, they promised you this or that and did not deliver, they stated you 
>will perform your talent with 100 other people in the category, and as a 
>pageant or any other competition it will be broken down  to the top five.  
>As with Ms. Teen USA and others, it is also broken down to the top 10 then 
>5.
>If you can find any other information out about the negligence of what the 
>company said, and from what people complained about that attended for the 
>last couple years, that would be beneficial.  I am very interested to hear 
>back from you and what you found.
>Curious in Cincinnati



Dear Curious:

This reply started out to be short and simple, but ended up a bit longer 
than I anticipated, but here goes!

Here are the facts that led me to my personal decision - and led me to post 
the BBB info on Best New Talent:

1. the fact that no one but the actual judges get to see the contestents 
until the top 5 are picked from each category.  Lynn Vanturella gave the 
impression that all of the judges/casting directors/agents will get to see 
you - but if there are 2 judges in say the adult acting category (and I 
don't remember the names of the categories off the top of my head) - and you 
only appear in 1 category - then you are only seen by the 2 judges unless 
you get selected into the top 5.  i.e., spending thousands of dollars to be 
seen by 2 people (costs/expenses of travel/hotel entry fees) does not seem 
worth it.

You only get seen by everyone else - other than your immediate judges ( from 
1 to 5 if I remember correctly - this is what Lynn Vanturella told me) if 
you make it to the top FIVE.  It's a bit misleading unless you pry for 
information.  When Lynn and the other lady (lost her name) announced this to 
the groups of people, they said that you get seen by - I forget the exact 
number - but it was a 'lot' of directors/agents etc.  What I found out from 
prying was that you ONLY get seen by your direct judges(about 1-5 per 
category from what they said) - no other audience persons/directors/agents 
are present UNLESS you make the top FIVE.  So you have a 5% chance of seeing 
more than say 2 signifigant people for each category you enter. I would 
guess your odds are just as good going to SAG auditions - open casting calls 
- and getting seen by casting directors there - and those are free.

2.  I called the Screen Actors Guild - both in Cleveland, and in California 
- and neither of them had anything positive to say about these competitions 
- they both said that these 'searches'(none named in particular) are scams 
for the people to make money.  Cleveland's SAG insisted - and I quote "You 
do NOT have to spend money to become an actor." - meaning that you don't 
have to pay anyone to get seen.  They said that these 'searches' are just a 
way for these people to make money.  And I respect SAG's opinions as well.

3.  As far as the Better Business Bureau is concerned - I trust their 
decisions in these matters.  They know the law, and the time frames that 
people have to legally back out of a contract - I believe they even state 
that in the post that I copied - so, based on that,  the fact that the BBB 
gives them an unsatisfactory rating leads me to believe that at least some 
people tried to back out in the alotted time frame, and were hassled about 
the money.  The other thing that I have to say about that is - why WOULD so 
many people want to back out?  My guess is that the sheer volume of people 
who tried to get their money back, combined with the unsatisfactory response 
of the people in charge, helped the BBB come to their final decision.

4.  Lastly, one big Red Flag - I have 'Roots' in sales - won't go into great 
detail - but I do know some of the tactics - and there were a number of 
people who e-mailed me, and stated that when they told the women in charge 
of this thing that they couldn't afford the fee's, the Women in charge (i'll 
shorten it to WIC)  WIC told these people "Tell ya what I'll do.  I'll 
'Scholarship' you $100.  how does that sound? does that make it easier for 
you?"   Typical sales tactic is to "CLOSE" the sale - you have the person 
hooked, do anything to reel them in.  and they didn't 'scholarship' everyone 
the same amounts - they just threw a figure in the air on how much they'd 
discount whom.   If these were strict entry fees - there would be no such 
thing as 'scholarships' and they weren't based on 'need'-- i.e. lower income 
- because no income figures were mentioned - just someone saying "I'm just 
not sure about the cost.. the fees are rather high.." then they get thrown 
more bait "oh, we'll drop the cost for you... " typical sales tactic.  If 
you know anyone in sales - ask them about closing the deal.

I hope I didn't come off too harshly.  I Did a LOT of research on this - and 
ended up at the BBB in the end. Between my acting coach, SAG, and the BBB, I 
decided my thousands (again cost of airfare, hotel, entries, food etc)would 
be better spent on things like acting lessons and - oh - maybe a nice 
vacation :)  Everyone has to make their own decisions.  And I didn't do 
anything nasty by posting the facts - there were a lot of people wondering 
about the legitimacy of this thing, and I was one of them in doubt - so I 
researched it in depth, and posted what I found. All of the replies up till 
now that I have had have been positive.

You sound like I did when I first got the envelope :) I was all excited, and 
didn't really want to hear anything negative about it, and My acting coach, 
family and friends all said - 'hold on just a minute, it's going to cost you 
HOW MUCH?'  You know what I wish I knew for sure? was if "STAR SEARCH" - we 
at least know that was legitimate - I wish I knew if they had the same kind 
of policies.  And keep in mind this Competition isn't televised like Star 
Search either.  I wonder if Star Search charged the entry fees and such 
(don't know) and I THINK they didn't just show 5 people from each category 
from the getgo (like this competition will - only the top 5 get anywhere or 
seen by anyone really - beyond their immediate category judges) - If it WAS 
a star search type of thing - that would have been GREAT!  but, I just 
wanted to believe in it SOOO badly, that I was reluctant to believe anything 
negative.  I am not saying that some people won't get discovered - OH.. and 
let me say this - MOST ASSUREDLY - IF you believe you have the potential to 
make the top 5 - If you are that good for SURE - then it may be worth the 
risk for you.  I was pretty sure the top Five was out of my league, so I 
KNEW I'd be throwing my money away no matter what.  On one hand, I want to 
tell you that if you think you have a real chance at it, and want to spend 
the money, do it! - BUT then I remember that SAG gives open casting calls 
for free - still my choice over dishing out wads of cash.    The sad truth 
is that hundreds of people entering this contest won't make the top 5 - and 
will just lose Thousands of dollars on a dream.  NOT that everyone should 
expect to WIN - but what they were touting was not the WINNING, but the 
chance to be SEEN or DISCOVERED - but they didn't make it clear that only 
the top FIVE would have the best chances of that.

If BNT wants to make this contest more appealing - and worth the entry fees 
- they should have ALL- or MOST of the judges/casting directors/agents 
present for ALL or MOST of the contestants - starting with the top 50? or 
even the top 25? that would be closer to acceptable.  Or, televise the 
thing.  Give EVERYONE a fair chance to be seen by all or at the very least, 
a large number of signifigant people for all the money they will spend 
getting there. After all - getting seen by 2 to 5 people MAX can be done 
right here at home at open casting calls for Free.

Geez - Sorry I have been so long winded - I am dead tired too.  I'm off to 
bed. I hope this helped you rather than make you more upset.

Thanks for replying to my post.

Luvinlife






_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com