Instant Headshot Impact

How long does it take for your headshot to make an impression?

According to scientific research by Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov at Princeton University it takes just a tenth of a second for people to make judgements about you based on your facial appearance. Wow, that’s not a lot of time!

In this study Willis and Todorov asked university students to rate the attractiveness, likeability, competence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness of actors’ faces after looking at their photos for just 100ms.

The students were ordinary people but they made snap judgements, imagine what decisions a seasoned professional can make in the same time? You guessed it, I’m talking about casting directors who look at hundreds of headshots every week. That’s why your headshot needs to be the very best it can be. If you stretch out those 100 milli seconds to a whole second or even two or three – it’s still not a long time to make the right impression.

I’ve talked may times about things like the Wow factor,connectivity, understanding your castability and making the right first impression in this blog, and in my new book. The Headshot Bible covers everything there is to know about a headshot in greater detail.

Though sometimes it takes hard proof and concrete scientific facts help to persuade actors that first impressions do count with your headshot.

Going back to the research…

The ratings they gave the faces correlated strongly with ratings given by other students who were allowed as long as they wanted to rate the faces. The strongest correlation was for trustworthiness. “Maybe as soon as a face is there, you know whether to trust it”, the researchers surmised.

Do you need to be trustworthy in your headshot? I believe you do, in terms of doing the job the casting director needs to believe you can perform and deliver the role.

And back to the research…

As the time the students were given was increased up to half a second, or to a whole second, their ratings continued to correlate just as strongly with the ratings given by the students who were allowed as long as they wanted to rate the faces. However, with more time, the students’ ratings became slightly more negative and their confidence in their judgments increased.

“These findings suggest that minimal exposure to faces is sufficient for people to form trait impressions, and that additional exposure time can simply boost confidence in these impressions. That is, additional encounters with a person may only serve to justify quick, initial, on-line judgments”, the researchers said.

With more time the students confidence in their judgements increased so as the researchers said “ additional encounters with a person may only serve to justify quick, initial judgments” this suggests that casting directors go with their initial gut-instinct even when they have a longer time to look at the headshot.

How does this affect actors’ in real terms? Well if your headshot isn’t doing the business then don’t expect to get to many auditions. If you don’t get many auditions you don’t get the chance to show the casting director how good an actor you are. If you can’t do that, then you won’t be acting very much.

It is absolutely critical that you have a brilliant headshot, one that gets you noticed and helps you stand out from the crowd.

The Headshot Bible

As I say in my book The Headshot Bible, your headshot is your main marketing tool.

Further reading on this subject can be found at the New Scientist magazine where they did their own research based on Willis and Todorovs work.

 

headshot photographer

The Golden Rule of Headshots

Is there is a golden rule of headshots?

Yes there is and this is it – you must look like your headshot!

When you walk into the casting suite and the casting director can’t instantly recognise you from your headshot, you’re committing a cardinal sin. The number one complaint from casting directors is when an actor doesn’t look like their headshot! Don’t break the golden rule of headshots!

Is this breaking the golden of headshots?

It could be construed as cheating or trying to play the system. However you want to look at it, the person you’re trying to cheat is the casting director and they’re the one person who can give you that all-important career break. They’re absolutely the last person you want to leave a bad impression with. Whatever short cuts you might want to take in your acting career don’t break the golden rule of headshots.

Let’s talk about fraud

You could be forgiven for thinking that because it happens on a wider scale in phoytography it’s ok to try with headshots. Talking about breaking rules and cheating with photographs, there seems to be an ever-increasing trend in photography competitions to submit photographs that are false or of dubious origin. In the most recent case, Wildlife Photographer of The Year, a prestigious competition organised by the The Natural History Museum in London found a photographer had submitted a photograph with a stuffed animal, as it’s main point of interest. It was a night shot of an armadillo the problem was, the animal was a fake and therefore the photograph itself was a fraud.

 

Crazy photoshop on the hair is breaking the golden rule of headshots

Bringing the conversation back to headshots it’s crazy to think actors will cheat with their headshots. The proliferation of photos that break the golden rule of headshots has increased tenfold over the last few years. The ease of use of Photoshop and other image editing programs can make it all too tempting for actors to ‘tweak’ their own photographs to make themselves look better – even on their mobile phones.

 

It’s ok to ask the question

Obviously I’ve been asked many, many times to 'Photosho' an image, I’ve been asked to do things like; fill-in a man’s bald patch with hair so he looks younger, remove laughter lines and wrinkles around the eyes and mouth. Turn grey hair dark and remove a double chin and numerous clients have asked for skin smoothing and scar removal etc.

My attitude towards these kind of requests as a headshot photographer are quite simple; if it’s a permanent element of your character then don’t under any circumstances alter them. However, if in the case of a blemish or a scratch, then yes I’ll remove them. In terms of wrinkles and laughter lines, I may tone them down a little but I’ll never remove them. As a headshot photographer my reputation is critical to my ability to attract new clients, so I won’t break the golden rule of headshots. There is another important element to consider from my point of view; if an actors’ agent see’s a headshot that doesn’t look like their actor, which is in fact breaking the golden rule of headshots it reflects badly on me and will probably preclude me from shooting their clients in the future because I can’t be trusted.

 

In conclusion

This who I am, no tricks, no gimmicks – just plain old me.

There are many, many roles out there for actors and, an actors’ casting age changes with the way they look. Sure you might want to play the yoing person’s roles but when your face moves into it’s next phase, you have to accept that your castability now suits a slightly older role. What’s wrong with that? Accept how you look, the life you’ve lived and pitch yourself at suitable roles.

Whatever the temptations are, whoever suggests a ‘tweak’ here and there to your headshot, think carefully about the negative effects breaking the golden rule of headshots may have on your career and make sure YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR HEADSHOT.