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The Casting Director - To much of a Twitter may not be a good thing…

March 26, 2009

Twitter, is a social network that lets you follow people and depending on how much information they give you, you can now literally stalk your friends or celebrities and see what they are doing at any given time. For me, I think that Facebook has enough information about my life on it for the people that I think want to see what is going on in it, to follow me. I have a Facebook page for Matthew Lessall Casting, which I encourage actors to join so that they can get additional info or ask questions. I also video blog for a few minutes every week. I do this because I’m a sharer, I work by myself and sometimes it is nice to get out thoughts and feelings about what is going on at work. While casting “Polish Bar” I included some video while I was casting. I think it can be a good insight to the trial and tribulations of Indie-film casting.

For me, Twitter, is over-sharing. I signed up under an alias, because I wanted to see what it was all about and which actors are on it. To my surprise, I can follow actors, agents, managers, PR folks; the list goes on and on. I am not sure why a celebrity such as Ashton Kutcher thinks it is a good idea to display so much of his life in the public domain. I assume at some point Mr. Kutcher wants privacy in his life, but clearly putting Demi Moore’s backside on Twitter and having it splashed all over the news doesn’t bother them, they think it’s funny. And I guess, if I were a College student I would think it is funny too, but at what point does all of this information become too much over-sharing? I think actors need to be careful about the info they give out. They are most prone to stalkers and if I was obsessed by Mr. Kutcher I could figure out based on his Twittering where he was in the world, what he is doing on set of the film he is on, cross-reference the director he is working with and see that he is Twittering and posting pictures from the set and then figure out where he was and stalk him…

When you place yourself in the public domain by writing blogs or posting videos or pictures or now, Twittering, every time you do that, you are not just sharing with your friends or the adoring public of gazillions of fans that you think you have, you may also be causing some damage to your personal privacy down the road.

At the gym last week, a woman stopped me and introduced herself to me, she recognized me from the video blog I do on Facebook. I was flattered, and we chatted about her career as an actress and she was so lovely and complemented me on being “brave” to let the public see what really goes on in my head/office (it’s the same thing to me). I thanked her, and then I felt strange. I was happy that the blogging and video blogging was doing what I wanted it to accomplish, but at the same time, I was in sweats and looked like crap and was probably smelly from running on the treadmill. My point is, I realized the power (as lame as this may seem) of posting information on line. It does reach people and one does not have control of over whom it reaches.

I just think we should all think about that for a while…