Deciding when it is the right time to join the union will play a significant role in how you build your acting career.
While the unions aim to ensure fair wages, safe working conditions, and to create plentiful professional opportunities for actors, not everyone will benefit from joining.
I know that sounds backwards and most actors dream of the day they finally get their union card.
However, joining the union can be a big career mistake, if your career is not on the right trajectory.
Professional actors know that joining the union is not as simple as becoming eligible and paying your union dues.
They ensure that their careers will ultimately benefit from joining the union and they don’t always jump at the first opportunity to join.
If you want to build your career as a professional actor, joining the union is something that in all likelihood will be part of your career plan.
After all, most of the big projects you will be hoping to be a part of are going to be union productions.
If you want to make the most of when you join the union, it will take some planning. Here’s where to start...
While there are others, for the sake of simplicity we will focus on SAG-AFTRA, since that is likely the one to be the most relevant.
Joining the union will instantly help you communicate that you are a true professional that is completely committed to their acting career.
There are some great perks that come with your membership but perhaps the most enticing one is that your working conditions and the minimum terms of your performance will be pre set for you.
Many actors are afraid of having their agent set the terms so they just take whatever the production is offering, even if it is less than ideal.
Union productions are rather standardized. Smaller productions will often offer the standard union minimums and medium productions will often offer the standard union rates plus a certain percentage based on their budget allocation.
That takes a lot of the pressure off of you and your agent. You can rest assured knowing that you will be fairly compensated for your performance.
Also, union productions have strict safety requirements. For many genres that may not be a huge deal, but for others it can literally be life or death.
You don’t want to find yourself hanging off the side of a building, having been harnessed by somebody who doesn’t have to abide by union safety standards.
Sometimes, regardless of how meticulously things are planned, things happen differently on set. Conversations surrounding a prolonged production, or even a prolonged production day can be extremely awkward and stressful on non union productions.
After all, you committed to the time that was agreed to and you may not have the flexibility to adjust your schedule.
Refusing to be flexible, even if you have very good and valid reasons for declining, can lead to dismantling professional relationships. However, that’s not the case on union productions because those details are handled beforehand.
There are protocols in place to handle things, so it’s never solely up to you to decide how to handle those situations.
These are just some of the reasons that most actors want to join the union as quickly as possible.
Many actors have the good fortune of becoming eligible early on in their careers, only to find that they may have benefited greatly from waiting.
If you are in the early stages of building your career, the initiation fee alone can be a big burden. It may surpass or be equal to your career earnings thus far.
On top of that, you will also be responsible for ongoing annual dues and you will split your earnings with the union.
While the ongoing dues may not be a big deterrent, if you have to choose between updating your headshots or paying your union dues, which would you think would be more important?
Your union membership will also come with some limitations, as you will be restricted from working on non union projects. There are some exceptions, but the hassles for seeking a waiver are numerous.
If you have been in the industry for any length of time, you have probably noticed that there are some phenomenal non union projects. You may have even taken part in a few of them.
Those projects can be key to building your career but joining the union would mean that you couldn’t work on those projects anymore.
There is also something that most actors don’t acknowledge...
Being an actor is highly competitive by nature, but the competition in union auditions is unmatched.
That factor alone is what makes some professional actors wait to join the union. Actors that join before they are ready for that level of competition tend to have a hard time getting their career to the next level.
Many of them wait until their schedules are full of bookings before deciding to join.
They do so, to be sure that they are operating on a level that is in line with what they will encounter going on union auditions.
Doing so also allows them the flexibility to present themselves as being union eligible, without the limitations of membership.
I’ve seen many actors build their career this way.
Regardless of when you decide to join the union, the process is simple but it does change from time to time.
Once you meet your eligibility requirements, you can start the application process. You will have to gather some documents to submit along with the application.
This process is becoming more and more digitized so check with the union for the most up to date requirements and processes.
Most actors see getting in touch with their local as the first step in joining. Really, the first step may be deciding when it is the right time to join...
There may be some reasons to join that can be accomplished in other ways. For example, many actors want to join the union to get in front of more CDs and industry decision makers.
One of the reasons I created Boost My Star was to help you be more visible where Casting Directors and industry decision makers are already looking for talent.
When you are highly visible to the industry you are much more likely to be presented with opportunities to build your acting career.
That’s true whether or not you join the union. Joining may help you open a few more doors but either way, if the industry doesn’t know you, they can’t hire you.
The actors that make the most of their union membership are the ones that have the building blocks of their career in place.
There are several and one that applies whether or not you are contemplating joining the union is your industry reputation.
Whenever CDs make a casting decision, they are putting a lot of trust in the actors they decide to move forward with.
That’s why they tend to seek out actors with a solid industry reputation. This is one way that can help demonstrate you are a true professional and not a hobbyist.
Many actors think that joining the union will automatically take care of that for them, but that’s also only part of it.
CDs like to work with actors that they have full confidence in.
That’s why regardless of whether you are in the union or not, Casting Directors tend to do some research before deciding who to move forward with. Be sure that what they find about you is up to their standards.
Joining the union is likely to be one of the pivotal moments of your acting career.
It’s not a decision to be made lightly because whether you decide to join or decide not join at the time, there will be some big career implications.
So, if you want to bounce ideas shoot me an email or leave a comment below. I’m happy to help however I can because I truly want to...
See you at the top,
Scott