Back Stage 411 - Casting FAQ

Resizing Headshots, Photos, Comp Cards, and Other Pics

To make it easy for casting directors, producers, directors and agents to be able to quickly view your headshots, photos, comp cards, and other pix, it's important that you find a good ratio between size and quality before uploading your photos to your BackStage.com Multimedia Resume and other websites (and before emailing your photos to casting directors).

A number of free and convenient options are available for resizing and web-optimizing photos. The following article provides links to some of the most popular programs, along with step-by-step directions and screenshots that will help you resize and upload your photos within minutes while still preserving the quality of your images.

Posting Headshots/Photos on BackStage.com

Headshots, comp cards, and other photos are typically posted to one of three places on BackStage.com:

1) To your BackStage.com Multimedia Resume. Your BackStage.com resume can include multiple photos, reels, links, and more. You can also include your resume (including all of the photos and other media you’ve associated with the resume) in our online talent database, which is searched by over 20,000 industry professionals every year. You can also use this multimedia resume to submit to casting/job notices online. This is the most popular way to post your headshots, photos, and comp cards on BackStage.com.

Document Manager - Help With Naming and Uploading Your Resume Documents & PDFs

Resume Builder - Help With Document Files

Multimedia Resume Documents-Display-Builder Interface -- Attach Documents & PDFs

You can attach multiple document files (.pdf, .doc, .rtf, and .txt resumes, press clippings, reviews, comp cards, bios, cover letters, etc.) to your BackStage.com Multimedia Resumes. Each resume can display 20+ document items.

Simply create a new resume or click the "Edit" button next to one of your existing resumes, and then click the "Documents" tab on the resume builder/editor interface. Then click on the "Browse" button next to the "New Document File " option to begin document files to your account.

Then click the "Add" button to add each document item to your resume(s) -- you can share your documents across all of the resumes within your account, or add unique document items to every individual resume, and/or showcase all of your document items on a single resume.

Instructions, Tips & Tricks:

Photo Manager - Help With Naming and Uploading Your Resume Headshots & Photos

Resume Builder - Photo Manager Help

Multimedia Resume Photo-Display-Builder Interface -- Upload Your Photos

You can upload multiple photos (headshots, comp cards, snap shots, etc.) to your BackStage.com Multimedia Resumes. Each resume can display 20+ pics.

Simply create a new resume or click the "Edit" button next to one of your existing resumes, and then click the "Photos" tab on the resume builder/editor interface. Then click on the "Browse" button on the Resume Builder's Photo Manager page to begin uploading photo-files to your account.

Then click the "Add" button to add each photo to your resume(s) -- you can share your photos across all of the resumes within your account, or add unique photos to every individual resume, and/or showcase all of your photos on a single resume.

Screenshots, Instructions, Tips & Tricks:

FILE HELP: Photos, Audio, Video, and Documents

Resume Builder - Photo Manager Help

Multimedia Resume Photo-Display-Builder Interface -- Upload Your Photos

You can upload multiple photos (headshots, comp cards, snap shots, etc.) to your BackStage.com Multimedia Resumes. Each resume can display 20+ pics.

• For photo-file details, help, and instructions, click here.

Resume Builder - Audio & Video Help

Multimedia Resume Media-Display-Builder Interface -- Upload Audio & Video Items

You can upload multiple video and audio items (media files and embedded media) to your BackStage.com Multimedia Resumes. Each resume can display 20+ audio/video items.

• For audio/video media-file details, help, and instructions, click here.

Resume Builder - Help With Document Files

Multimedia Resume Documents-Display-Builder Interface -- Attach Documents & PDFs

You can attach multiple document files (.pdf, .doc, .rtf, and .txt resumes, press clippings, reviews, comp cards, bios, cover letters, etc.) to your BackStage.com Multimedia Resumes. Each resume can display 20+ document items.

• For document-file details, help, and instructions, click here.

Resizing Photos Using an Apple/Mac Computer

Question: "Do you know of any programs recommended for Mac-users for creating web-optimized versions of photos? I noticed that the great free image-editing program IrfanView currently only works on Windows PCs, but I'm using an Apple PC to resize and web-optimize my headshots, comp cards, and other photos for my BackStage.com Multimedia Resume!"

Good question! The following info should help:

Creating & Editing Multimedia Resumes

Back Stage's Multimedia Resume System allows you to create a robust, highly searchable, HTML-friendly online resume featuring your name, contact info, agent/manager details, experiences (credits), education details (training, degrees, and awards), photos (headshots, comp cards, snapshots, etc.), demo reels (audio and video clips, short films, sizzle reels), documents (such as PDF versions of your traditional resume, press clippings, professional bio, etc.), all of the languages you speak, additional details (skills, character-type, mini-bio, search tags), and your links (hyperlinks to your personal website, your IMDb page, your resume on other acting/casting websites, etc.).

To get started -- create new Multimedia Resumes and upload new media/photos/reels or edit/build/add-to and update your existing Multimedia Resumes -- click on ANY of the the resume links or buttons on the BackStage.com homepage, log-in page, Casting/Jobs menu-toolbar, or Actors Career Center/Job-Seeker Toolbox:

Problems Viewing Notices, Resumes, Videos, Etc. -- Web Pages Failing to Open

If you're experiencing a problem with any aspect of BackStage.com or Casting.BackStage.com, then please try refreshing the page you're looking at or try clearing out your browser cache. This will usually resolve a variety of issues.

However, if problems persist, then it's highly likely that you either need to immediately upgrade your web-browser or adjust your pop-up blocker, cookie, JavaScript, privacy, whitelist, and/or other security settings on your computer.

The following five steps will help you resolve a wide variety of problems that you may be experiencing on BackStage.com and other websites: