IMDB Star Meter Scam

IMDB/Amazon Starmeter involved in meter rigging, a year-long investigation reveals

By Herald de Paris Contributor’s Bureau on March 10, 2014

“LOS ANGELES (Herald de Paris) – There is nothing like waking up in the morning and being blackmailed. This is essentially what is happening to thousands, and possibly millions, of hard working entertainment industry professionals, who woke up to find their “Starmeter” ratings on IMDB.com had lowered by thousands, sometimes millions, of points. The higher the number the worse the ranking. In other words, 1 is good, and 10 Million is bad. What’s driving these changes is even more concerning than the numerical changes, themselves.

IMDB is short for Internet Movie Database. For more than 15 years, IMDB has attempted to list all the credits in movies and television, to partial success. Initially, IMDB.com was a simple site not run by conglomerates with their own advertorial or promotional agendas. Since that time, however, IMDB.com has been bought and sold and bought again by Warner Brothers, and now Amazon, with a clear bias towards certain movies.

IMDB already collects fees from industry professionals through a portal called IMDBPRO.com, where professionals can manage their personal profiles on IMDB. Also visible on the public IMDB.com site is something called a STARMETER ranking. This seemingly innocuous ranking is an attempt to quantify the popularity of entertainment people into some sort of ranking system. To many, the starmeter rankings are irrelevant, but if you put something out there in the public domain for long enough, some people, like first time film investors, new producers, or new casting directors, begin to take it seriously.

In the spring of 2013, one of our contributing editors, who is also a known and award winning entertainment professional, received a rash of email offers from companies like Direct Image PR and Star Boost Media, offering to lower her starmeter ranking (remember, a lower ranking is better here). Why would these all come at the same time? A simple “whois” search on the internet revealed that regardless of their claims, all of these companies went online beginning in the spring of 2013, just before the mass emailing of registrants on IMDB and IMDBPRO began. All these companies claim no affiliation with IMDB.

This proliferation of companies offering to better your starmeter ranking directly coincides with a decision made internally, at IMDB’s parent company, Amazon. Shortly before these ranking companies emerged, Amazon made the decision to end its long standing relationship with CMGI Tabulations Inc., and now tabulates the starmeter rankings internally, using an algorithm nobody will talk about.

Curious, last year our contributing editor, Anna Wilding, signed up for one of these services to see how these new companies were able to manipulate Amazon’s new, and seemingly impenetrable new algorithm, and how it affected her own starmeter ranking. Anna has been ranked by IMDB’s starmeter rankings for 15 years. In that time, her ranking has been relatively consistent, ebbing and flowing organically between 90 000 to 5000 with Ms. Wilding’s film projects and presence in the media, as evidenced by the graph only available to IMDBPRO’s paying customers. Ms. Wilding’s graph had not gone below 100 000 in all those 15 years.

The one week test yielded a temporary gain in starmeter ranking. But, when Ms. Wilding stopped her payments to this company a week later, the sample ranking company hounded Ms. Wilding, relentlessly, with request after request on PayPal. When she refused to pay what amounted to hundreds of dollars, her ranking immediately went up (up being bad). This morning, the starmeter scam hit a new level. Ms. Wilding awoke to find her starmeter ranking had fallen from its average of around 35,000 to an all-time low of 5,000,000. Accompanied with this drop was a Google search claim from a company called IMDBPROMO.com, asking for $999.00 to restore someone’s ranking. Apparently many IMDB users woke up in the last ten days to find this anomaly.

How, we wondered, could a third party company manipulate starmeter’s rankings? We pulled the source code from the graph page, and found that the rankings are fed not from IMDBPRO’s own servers, but instead directly from Amazon’s servers. And why would Amazon allow a company to use the name and logo of one of its subsidiaries, IMDB, in a third-party website and logo? True, IMDBPROMO’s website states they have no affiliation with IMDB.COM, but IMDBPROMO registered its website in 2013, and updated their database on March 10th, the same morning Ms. Wilding’s starmeter soared off the charts from 90,000 on March 9 down to over 5,000,000 this morning.

To make matters even more confounding, Ms. Wilding’s starmeter ranking remained relatively consistent even while she was out of the country for two years. This year, with increased visibility and publicity in Hollywood, and especially with the media generated during Oscar season, Ms. Wilding’s ranking should, organically, be lower, not higher than ever. There is no question that these rankings were artificially manipulated. Thus, the starmeter ranking system makes no sense, and should now be ignored.

This is especially true, as other sites have been reporting, that actors nobody has heard of, and who have not been in the media at all, have topped the starmeter rankings for weeks on end. This has all been very damaging for hard working entertainment industry professionals, who are falsely judged by these bogus starmeter rankings.

It is clear from IMDB message board complaints and complaints across the internet that hundreds, if not millions, of IMDB users are being conned, blackmailed, and fraudulently shamed into paying millions of dollars to maintain their starmeter rankings. And it appears that the main company benefiting from all this, through a series of shell companies, is Amazon, the very company charging IMDBPRO members, in the first place.

To date, IMDB has not been helpful to its complaining customers, basically just letting it happen, and that is questionable given that IMDB and Amazon continue to allow some of these third-tier companies, like IMDBPROMO, to operate using their name and likeness.

A message has been left with the Screen Actor’s Guild for comment and action, and it is known that law firms have received queries about class action lawsuits against IMDB and Amazon for directly manipulating select subscribers’ data. There is also the matter of the questionable sale of data and information to third parties.

One thing is clear – whatever credibility and integrity that IMDB and their starmeter rankings may have had, has disappeared. Amazon’s dirty little secret is out.

NOTE: It was brought to our attention after publishing this article that Star Boost Media and IMDBPROMO are the same company.“

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Reels – The Catch 22

IS YOUR REEL REAL?
April 18, 2014
by TheAvenueAgency

“Building a reel is one of the most challenging tasks an actor faces. Like the corporate world where building a resume of experience is imperative, so is building reel footage in entertainment. So how do you build a reel if you have to have a great reel to get booked on the job in order to build it? Catch 22, right?

In this series as we read between the lines of CD Cathy Reinking’s recent blog post, we realize how important a great reel is.

CR: . . . if you don’t have a demo reel of some sort, and we don’t know you already, we most likely will pass. We just have too many folks to choose from.

It isn’t personal. People who know you, know you are a lovely and talented person! But if the CD doesn’t already know you (as she clearly spells out), your marketing materials have to scream “I’m your best shot! Take a chance on me!” Casting watches thousands of tapes on any one project. In fact, LA transplant to the southeast’s CD Jackie Burch told me over lunch one day she actually starts every single taped audition she requests. Without being lost on a bunny trail of what happens after she presses play, let’s consider how much time is involved in watching that many auditions — different faces doing mostly the same thing over and over again. It doesn’t get much more monotonous than that! So the bottom line is : why would they want to add another tape to their already long and laborious snooze-fest to find the one person who will book the role? If your reel doesn’t give them significant reason to go out of their way to ask for an audition, you are passed over.

Your headshot catches the eye and makes us curious, but your reel is the nail that seals the deal! We think, “Oh, she looks interesting,” and we click to find out more. If your footage shows us something that peaks our interest, you are in! If it doesn’t, we likely won’t click on it again in the future. Why? Because — and I’ll say it again for posterity’s sake — first impressions are everything!

Does your footage reel us in? If you are being read, you can give yourself a high five. If not, take a second look with honest eyes.”

Don’t Give Up

Werk!

Double Dipping

Facts

• If you are union or non union – get a copy of all your paperwork
• know the rate you should be paid
• account for taxes being taken out
• make sure your agency isn’t screwing you over on your checks
• some agents will double dip (take their 10-20% on top of your rate that they negotiated and then take another 10-20% off the bottom of your check)
• it is sneaky and it is wrong
• be your own advocate and don’t hesitate to ask what the commissions are when you book
• don’t sign any contract that seems shady
• ask questions
• don’t get taken advantage of because you are excited about the work

 

Luck?! P’shaw.

Acting Advice from Robert Deniro

Tips to Make Your Projects Amazing with Sound Design!

Reels – Just Like Headshots They Have Changed

Then and Now: 5 Big Changes in Demo Reels

By Retta Putignano
Feb. 21, 2014
From Backstage

“Technology has changed the structure and purpose of the demo reel. With the advent of online submission sites and self-production, there have been five distinct changes in demo reels in the last seven years or so.

Then: Demo reels were completely optional. Since there wasn’t much self-produced footage, reels were reserved for working actors with a collection of film and television footage.
Now: Reels are a must, as every actor has the means to self-produce or work with a professional reel company. From a business standpoint, headshots alone are no longer an effective tool for an actor’s casting when a reel offers so much more.

Then: Your reel was your résumé. All the footage was from jobs you booked and shot. The reel reminded casting of all the work you had done.
Now: The purpose of a reel is to show what you look and sound like on camera, and prove to them that you can play that role or that type. Your résumé conveys the jobs you’ve booked.

Then: Reels consisted of longer scenes that had a beginning, middle, and an end. The standard was to include as much of the full scene as possible with very few cuts so the viewer could really understand what was happening in the scene.
Now: Scenes are more succinct, like clips or snippets. Industry folks are pretty savvy at deciding fairly quickly whether you’re right for the role or right for their roster, so your reel must give them what they need more efficiently. The reel gets you in the room; your audition books you the job.

Then: Total reel length was anywhere from 4-7 minutes long. Longer was better.
Now: Total reel length is roughly a minute long. Casting moves fast; reps are busy. Don’t waste precious seconds or save the best for last—they may not get to it.

Then: DVDs or even VHS tapes were dropped off at agent, manager, or casting offices in the hopes they’d sift through the stack, be intrigued by your cover photo, go to the television in the office, and hope the media worked in their device.
Now: Reels, headshots, résumés, and more are all available at the industry’s fingertips on sites like LA Casting or Actors Access. Actors can now email directly using a custom link to their profile on those submission sites, or send a link to their website, YouTube channel, etc.

It’s worth taking the time to look at your most important marketing tool. Remember, actors with reels go to the top of the submissions page for casting directors. Is your reel up to date? How does the footage look? Is it clear as to what you’re selling? If you don’t have quality reel footage that represents you for the roles you can realistically play right now, you’re losing out to those actors that do. Technology is making the submission process easier, but it’s also making it that much more competitive.

Retta Putignano is partner and head writer of Create Your Reel (CYR), the Los Angeles-based demo reel production company, which writes, shoots, and edits custom footage for actor demo reels. Since launching in 2009, CYR has created reels for more than 800 clients. CYR was voted “Best Demo Reel Producer” by the Backstage Readers Choice Awards, and is happy to continue serving Los Angeles talent and the many actors who have flown in from all over the globe to shoot with them. Follow Create Your Reel on Facebook, Twitter @CreateYourReel, and at www.createyourreel.com.

Originally from Chicago, Retta is also an actor, producer, and graduate of the Second City Chicago Conservatory. She has appeared in more than 20 short films and three features. One film earned the Best Drama Award from the Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences. She has been a writing mentor for nine years with the Los Angeles-based non-profit www.WriteGirl.org, and her work has been published for as many years in their award-winning anthologies. Follow Retta on Twitter @RettaPutignano.”