09/08/2016
This Blogger said what many have been thinking. But yet, everyone continues to not say much, and acquiesce to the corporate elite...
It is hard to say what it will take for this not to be an age of acquiescence and for the domesticated American worker to wake-up, most are streaming from mythologies promoted to workers that have taken it in hook, line and sinker from the business interests and their political allies.
The Cinnabon Monster
Actor by day, monster whenever he sees a cinnabon.
IMDb is stupid. Extremely stupid. And greedy.
March 12, 2014, Journal Entries, actors, Herald De Paris, IMDb, IMDbPRO, money, scam
I’ve always thought IMDb was pretty dumb, especially their dirty pimp w***e of a brother, IMDbPRO. While IMDbPRO’s usefulness is made through being able to see the clients an agent or manager has, the contact info for industry folks (although they get their addresses wrong more often than not for casting directors), there’s a gnawing suspicion that I have had ever since I first paid my subscription for it several years ago:
I strongly believe that IMDb is actually run by a bunch of deficient money-grubbing monkeys. https://cinnabonmonster.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/monkeys_with_computers1.jpg?w=604
For starters, it takes them about a week or so to make any effective changes on your page. You want that uncredited extra appearance off your page? Tough luck. You want to add a credit for a project you did? Wait about 5 business days for any change, if any. You want someone to actually give you help on how to use the website? MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR.
But the biggest turd that IMDb has delivered so far (there’s a bigger one coming) was a system called the StarMeter ranking, the most utterly useless and vain piece of s**t that has made countless people stare at their rankings every Sunday night, to see if it went up or down. Oh my goodness, Jared Leto is at #1 now? OH ME OH MY. Herald de Paris does an excellent takedown of this as well as putting into light the scammy nature & meter rigging this whole system provides.
But as of March 11th, 2014, IMDbPRO unveils its greatest and most arrogant “gift” (cough turd cough) to the entertainment industry:
THEIR VERY OWN CASTING SUBMISSION SERVICES.
As if actors didn’t have to worry already with Actors Access, LA Casting, NOW Casting, Casting Frontier, CAZT, and Cinnabon Goddess knows how many others are out there, we now have IMDbPRO muscling their way in for a piece of the pie. Except they deliver this exquisite message:
“In addition to the launch of these new features, starting April 10, 2014, the subscription price for existing IMDbPro subscribers will become $149.99 per year for annual subscribers and $19.99 per month for monthly subscribers.”
What. The. Flying. F**k. They are actually expecting industry folks who use their services to pay $25.04 MORE a year (originally it’s $124.95 a year) for a casting submission service that places like Breakdown Services already has a corner in the market on. While it’s 30% off for SAG-AFTRA members, keep in mind that there’s a good number of people who are not in the union.
Casting Director Jeremy Gordon has this to say:
“As Casting Directors, we HAVE to have and pay for accounts. We have no choice and this is very much their way of forcing us to pay their new price. There is NO opt out option for this new service which is a feature we are not likely to ever use. For better or for worse, Breakdown Services has the monopoly on breakdowns and we are not about to beta test it on imdb and pay for it (we don’t pay to use Breakdown Services at all).”
Now, some of you may be wondering: “What does it matter, really? It’s only $25 more a year..how can it possibly hurt?”
First off, this extra services that people must pay IMDb for is not optional, it’s mandatory. Second, this line of thinking only encourages companies like these to continue charging extra money whenever they unveil a “new”, “helpful” tool. Third, actors already have a gang of casting submission websites to worry about, having another will not make it any easier for actors AND for casting folks.
With that being said, this blog entry also serves as a call to action to all the entertainment industry folks who read this and is affected by the actions of an inane credits services website. What IMDb is doing is absolute BS and I believe we need to do something about this. So here is what you as readers can do:
1. Flood their Twitter account (both IMDb and IMDbPRO) with your complaints
2. Flood their FB account IMDb and IMDbPRO with your complaints
3. Cancel your subscription (I just cancelled mine.)
My next target is the overly charged prices that LA Casting makes actors pay for when submitting headshots but that battle will be for another time…
https://cinnabonmonster.com/2014/03/12/imdb-is-stupid-extremely-extremely-stupid/
