What Are The Right Choices When Selecting Online Platforms For Kid Actors
Besides giving their aspiring kid actors their support and encouragement, parents are also in charge of virtually all serious matters of the child’s budding career, including every legal decision. While the restrictions may vary state to state, most online platforms are increasingly requiring parental consent before kids under the age of 13 or even older can sign up to their respective websites.
Parents' guidance is especially relevant for kids acting on related online platforms, as they primarily should aim to sign up their young aspiring performers at platforms that are recognized by the entertainment industry and have a good reputation regarding various privacy laws, including abiding by child protection laws. Also, the aspect of how commonly casting calls available for kids in general should be considered.
Amongst the best social media platforms for kid actors are YouTube and TikTok, as the content created there can showcase their talents, mass appeal, and ultimately add up footage to their acting portfolio. In the case of becoming popular within the respective platform, the newfound success can be used to bridge an easier transition to receiving kid acting opportunities. It is advisable that kid actors have their professional public profile while keeping a private one for their own affairs, like communicating with their friends and peers.
Yet, it is advisable that parents primarily use casting-focused platforms to look for their child’s next acting gig due to social media not only having less moderation and security but also essentially being focused on achieving engagement numbers instead of improving acting skills. Kid actors should also have a more focused, limited online platform presence instead of appearing at every single one of them, thus risking oversaturating their content output.
What Internet Privacy And Security Measures Can Parents Take To Protect Their Child
As far as their child’s acting career goes, parents should manage their online profiles while staying clear away from platforms that allow direct and unmonitored communication with the respective child performer’s account, as well as access to personal information about them.
Amongst the potential red flags for safety online that may indicate a web platform is not reputable is the fact that they have casting calls from unverified clients or any financial requests like upfront fees regarding kids' participation in auditions as a candidate. Overly aggressive communication tactics also may indicate misdemeanor attempts.
While children certainly should be adequately involved as far as their actor’s presence online is concerned, the main people in charge of all of it should remain parents or legal guardians. This means also implementing two-factor verification when possible, as well as other online security measures, as is would be with banking, emails, and other important personal online accounts.
How To Appropriately Work On A Kid Actor’s Branding Online
Despite them being of a young age, kid actors' branding should be treated not much differently than it would be in regards to an adult acting career. The ability to immediately introduce information and experience about child performers to casting directors and other industry professionals is the reason why they certainly require a professionally constructed acting portfolio.
While aiming for a brief but comprehensive text amount and a generally neutral tone, a kids' acting portfolio should always feature a resume with such personal information details as their name, contact information, age, height, weight, eye color, and hair color. Even if the child has not had any actual acting credits yet, it still should have an experience section. Even the most minor acting credits, e.g., participation in a school play, are important, as well as any training received and relevant special skills, for example, bilingualism or the ability to dance.
Headshots, in most cases, will serve as the first impression to industry representatives about the respective kid actor, thus parents certainly should avoid including randomly chosen photographs taken by themselves and instead hire a professional for this particular task. A professional will be able to provide images that fit industry quality standards in both technical aspects, as well as guide the child’s poses, while capturing their natural expressions.
Depending on the child’s aspirations, a demo reel with either video footage compilation or examples of their vocal performance abilities may also be necessary for a complete kids' acting portfolio.
As soon as there are new updates to the kids' acting careers, they should be included in the portfolio as well. It can be something as important as new acting credits or simply changes in appearance due to growing up. All of the above information for the acting portfolio should be cohesively organized, so it is convenient to quickly find a specific part of the available information.
Ultimately, while social media presence is more important than ever, it can not replace actual acting training and performance experience as the main things that any casting director will look at when evaluating a kid actor application.
