Oh my God!

So if you're new here, my name's Ikan Song.

I talk about acting and Hollywood-related things, and this one's kind of an urgent doozy.

If you're an actor, you need to know this.

If you have actor friends, it's probably gonna affect them.

Send this message along.

So we're gonna talk about everything you need to know, how to work your way around it, and how to protect yourself getting screwed from Casting Networks.

Depending on your needs, you have a free plan, you have a medium plan, and you have the pro plan.

I've had the free plan for months, if not years.

I have an agent who submits me for commercials, and I do not submit myself for projects.

So the other plans are 833 a month and 2166 a month.

If you wanna pay that, go ahead, but I kinda don't.

So this is what they did.

On the free plan, they have a 350 megabyte limit for media storage.

All your clips are under 350 megabytes?

You're fine.

Wrong.

If you get an audition and have to send in a self-tape through Casting Networks, that self-tape is going to count towards your 350 megabyte limit.

So if your self-tape is over 350 megabytes, you are not even able to send it through Casting Networks, unless you pay for a bigger plan.

Even though they're the ones that asked for it.

I know!

So I dug into my account, and I just had to send a self-tape.

That tape is there, and it was luckily under the 350 megabyte limit, so I didn't even know that there was an issue.

Also lucky for me, I don't really use any media storage for clips, because my commercial agents don't really need any of these for submissions.

But if there's another self-tape that comes in, I'm not going to have enough space to send that self-tape through.

So if you happen to be in my situation, email your agent, let them know that this is an issue.

They probably already know.

Side note, this is also a really good test to see how good your agent is.

My commercial agent said, under no circumstances should I pay to send in an audition.

I will send it to them directly, and they will send it to the casting director.

And if you don't have an agent, check in with the casting director and see if you can email it to them directly.

Chances are they might not even know about this change yet, and they'll probably be understanding that you're going to have to pay to send in your audition.

And I know a lot of casting directors are already boycotting casting networks.

So it gets better.

So when can I delete that self-tape?

21 days.

I know, right?

The other thing to keep under that 350 megabyte limit is shoot in a smaller size.

Definitely not going to use 4K, maybe not even 1080p.

Or you can use your video editing program to compress it to a smaller size, or use a computer program like Handbrake.

If you're non-union, if you don't have an agent, you're probably going to pay for a plan.

That's fine.

But if you're in my position, I say screw them.

For years, companies like this have been trying to take actors' money, and we haven't been able to do anything about it.

If there's any indication from the past five months of striking and the contract negotiations, it's that much harder for an actor to protect themselves.

And after all this AI stuff, it's going to get harder.

Woo, I'm fired up.

So tell all your actor friends, spread the word.

I want to hear from you guys about what you're seeing on your end, what you're hearing from your agents, and we're going to fight this together.

I hope you guys got value of this video.

And if you want to see other videos about the industry and acting, check out this playlist right here.