Last night I was on the panel for a SAG Foundation talk, “Conversations with Working Actors.” It was a blast. The other three were Curtis Armstrong, Beth Grant, and Richard Lawson. I would’ve been happy just to sit in the audience to watch and listen to those three. The video is now online.
This Tuesday, May 6, I’m on a panel in Los Angeles for one of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation’s “Conversations with Working Actors.” All SAG-AFTRA members are 
welcome. But beware. I’ll do my best not to steer anyone into the ocean with bad advice…
I’m on the board of the Artists and Athletes Alliance, which helps artists and athletes interact with and understand the politicalprocess. Recently, they offered to shoot PSA’s for causes we support. I shot mine for the National Center on Elder Abuse, and the PSA is now online.
Tomorrow night I return to ‘The Mentalist‘ as that bundle of joy and giggles, Richard Haibach.
It should be a lovely time for all.
As a co-founder of Slated, the film finance marketplace, I feel both fortunate and proud to have the team that we do.
And today both those feelings were boosted a good bit, because Slated just debuted a new, industry-wide scoring system. The two types of scores, Packaging and Credits, are intended to generate better practices when projects are packaged, or assembled for financing and production. The system is a great example of Slated’s goal since its beginning: Increase clarity, efficiency, and quanitification throughout the film industry. And it’s both overdue and badly needed.
The industry tolerates and even cultivates subjectivity and black-box secrecy in many of its business decisions. In addition to preventing standardization (and with it, a better ability to analyze results), this approach also discourages the participation of potential outside investors—something the film industry can no longer afford.
Our scoring system is far from perfect (yet!), and it’s sure to generate some indignation and debate, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
Finally, we didn’t publish our algorithm, but we did offer an explanation and some tips on how to boost your score. Keep an eye out for more features coming soon..
