this is going to be REALLY long, i'm sorry guys. i'll probably have to break it into several posts.

but hopefully this will give anyone wondering what it's really like. the truth of IMTA. maybe adults were different. but kids? it's quite sad.

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INTRO

I attended the IMTA convention in a “judge” capacity last summer. I was asked by a friend of mine who has been judging for many years.

I judged child and teen singers and actors. The general idea is that the judges are given a list of numbers (every talent has a number and in competitions, is not referred to by name, though we are given a program that has all of the competition talent in it with their number, so you could look talent up). During competition, we are given a scoring sheet and had to rate each talent on a scale. I think this is just for the judges because we were given a second carbon copy sheet to fill out, used to call back talent who we believe should get to perform in front of agents and CDs, and then eventually win, my guess, based off of our scoring sheets. So my job was kind of a “weeding out” step. You go through preliminaries then get called back to audition again in front of more people, and then I think there’s another cut after that.

I wasn’t told that I could not come back to callbacks, but I was unavailable for callbacks, though I’d wanted to. See who got weeded IN.

I have to admit that it was fun being on the “other” side. To be able to watch and judge performances and, as an actor and performer, to really learn what goes on on the other side of the table. And to see the mistakes made and the pieces done. It was really such a learning experience. I actually want to go back and do it again.

Now, please understand that I have my own opinions of this convention. This is just a recounting of my experiences as a judge.

I noticed some of the names on the judge/auditor check-in list and was quite amazed to see some very recognizable names on the list from both coasts and everywhere inbetween. Agents, CDs, music people, etc. Legit people do attend this. I do wonder if any of these people were being paid. I wasn’t, but got a decent hot meal and lunch provided.

Many of the talent present were there with JRP, if not most. And many of those JRP were from NJ.

My first night, we were given a fairly nice catered dinner. Then judges were lead off to their rooms.

My event of the night was judging child and teen singers. When we were lead into the room, I was surprised to see the room filled with at least 20-30 other judges sitting in a U shape on one side of the room. In my years of auditioning, even I have never auditioned with this many people in the room. No, that’s not true, once I did, and I was definitely an adult at the time. So these kids were up against something quite unnatural, even for the industry. For this, I give all of the kids a round of applause. I know at their age I would have been completely unnerved.

The young children came in one at a time first. The kids had to turn in music in advance and were given a microphone and one minute to do their thing. The songlist here was fairly typical for the 4-12 age range. Annie, Sound of Music, Disney songs, Les Mis, teen pop stars, etc. If I remember correctly, there were over 75 in this age range, maybe even up to 100 or so.

These kids were pretty cute, but I would say that without question, nearly 2/3rds of the kids in this group did not want to be there and really should not have paid the money to go. Someone clearly led them to believe they had a shot when they never should have been told that by an actual professional. They lacked talent, personality, any performance skills, and most of these kids were dressed like they rolled out of bed and decided to be a singer that day. Maybe I was just really tough, it being my first time as a judge, but I could only see calling back about 5 of these kids, so that’s all I suggested on my callback sheet. A very few kids were clearly primed to be stage kids and just for that reason, what can I say, I’m mean, but I didn’t call them back and scored them low, just because I strongly disapprove of overbearing stage parents who try too hard and push their kids into a false sense of stardom. And I really disliked the pageant quality or the trying way too hard quality of their performances.

Immediately after the young kids were the teens, 13-17. These kids typically tried to sing songs way too big for them, but these kids fit into clear “categories”. Songlist included Reflections, Over the Rainbow, JoJo, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, etc.

Funny, though, because there were actually a few boys in this group and they were all clearly the leads in their high school plays, and, I kid you not, ALL of them came in and sang “Luck Be a Lady”. Except one boy who wrote his own song and played it on guitar. His singing was pretty bad, but it was a good song and he played guitar well. I called him back for the simple fact that he did not sing from Guys and Dolls. I called back one boy and three girls. And everyone else got the mediocre ratings to match the mediocre talent.

The girls, as they walked in, after a while, you could actually tell what kind of song they were going to sing. And the song of the day? “Before He Cheats.” It was sung no less than 5 times, but I’m guessing closer to 8 or 9. I doubt any of these girls even know what the song is about, but they were growling, badly riffing and running, gyrating, and none of the girls who sang it were older than 14. Each performance of this song got progressively worse and aggressive. It was almost amusing! Some of the judges were even laughing. The poor kids thought it was a good sign.

In the older group, there was a bit more talent and personality.

In all, we likely saw over 200 singers. It was a LONG night.

But the thing I learned is, you never know what’s going on before you walk in the room. After hearing songs for the third and fourth times, you could visibly see the demeanor in the room sink when you heard the same song start, again. The CD player didn’t work multiple times. The pre-sent songs went into a computer system and quite often, the song was wrong, the cut was wrong, it all became very frustrating. And a few didn’t turn in their music in advance and that created a mess. There was one judge who kept her ears covered the entire time making sour faces and in between performances kept screaming something about getting kids on Broadway while no one was really listening. I have no idea who she was, and no one else seemed to know either. But I know how hard it must be to have someone sitting there acting like that in your audience. You take it personally. You could take all of this personally. But you can’t. You can’t take anything personally because you just don’t know what happened in the moments before you walked in the room.

This comment goes for girls over the age of 10. If they didn’t look like they rolled out of bed, the were wearing way too mature outfits, tight lowcut sexy shirts, very short skirts, way too much make-up… it was very distracting.

Choreography… some kids had it. Only one in the entire group committed to doing it, so the rest who tried it just looked awkward and very uncomfortable, and it was uncomfortable to watch,

Material choice… except in the young kids group, most of the songs were not age appropriate or material appropriate. Many songs were about cheating, marriage, murder and death, suicide, being “touched like a woman.”

I made friends with the judge sitting next to me. He was just a regular person too, brought to help a friend of his who runs some kind of music business. I’ll be honest, I tried to take it seriously, but after about an hour, it was really hard to because it was just ridiculous how many people had clearly been suckered into this and you were torn between being sad for them because they had been suckered in and being sad for them because of how ridiculous they looked up there.

He and I talked the entire time, and would end up scoring kids based on unrelated to talent things: oh, I like that song! Oh man, did you see her shoes? She looks really mean. I mean, it didn’t matter. When everyone was horrible, there’s nothing you can do but try to make light of it yourself. After something like 5 hours late on Sunday night of watching bad performance after bad performance… really…

I came back a few days later to judge tween girls sitcom performance. First off, the scene wasn’t funny! It just wasn’t funny at all. Someone picked a horrid scene for these girls to do. We saw well over a hundred girls do this scene, just in our room! There were multiple other rooms with tween girls doing the same bad sitcom scene where the poor judges were forced to sit and watch horrid acting skills.

It wasn’t just bad acting. There was no acting, There was staring at the floor, the ceiling, straight at us judges… few girls used the scene reader provided (and lordy, did she have a task of performing the same scene the same way over and over regardless of the performance given to her…)

Again, the girls were dressed either like they rolled out of bed or were trying to look like a sexy 18 yr old. It was so inappropriate. It takes nothing to remember 10 lines. Almost anyone can do it, and they did! Only one or two girls forgot their lines, but they were clearly not taught what to do with their lines after memorization. It was really very sad. One girl, she had this ANNOYING fake giggle that she did through the entire scene on purpose, I think she thought it would be good, I don’t know.

It was not good. I’m not sure I actually called anyone back. No, I probably did for a few. Not that it matters, I wasn’t looking to cast anyone or keep files on anything. But I didn’t think anyone was good.

And I believe I wasn’t being overly harsh, there just wasn’t any talent. If someone displayed some level of talent, I gave them a decent score. If someone was really good (which was VERY rare), I called them back.

In the singing room, the guy on my other side suggested to me that you have to look at this type of thing in a different way than professionals would. Someone who can carry a tune deserves a high mark. Someone who can carry a tune and didn’t stare at the floor should get called back.

I’m just saying.

I had some time to wander around, so I went and checked out the runway room.

I wish I had the opportunity to be there from the start of a competition to the end. It was an incredible set-up they had in the main ballroom. Just incredible. IMTA is really a modeling competition, not for any other kind of talent. They just had this amazing room with multiple cameras, runway, and then outside the room in the lobby they had pictures from your walk(s) and those were amazing too! I didn’t have much time to stay and really watch though. I was trying to get into a panel they were having in another large ballroom. Maybe my opinion would be different had I been able to watch more of it.

Industry people that I know were leading the panel. Yes, true industry professionals, all of whom you’d know their names and I guarantee you’ve met before. Well, two were actors (who’d won IMTA in the past), and Dora the Explorer’s voice over artists, but the rest were valid industry pros. Surprised they were there, but everyone’s getting paid, I think. So why not?

It was interesting how the moderator spoke in such a way as to convince everyone in the audience that they were doing the best thing for their careers as they could by attending IMTA. I had to keep from laughing. I got some decent information from it. But I doubt that most of the audience would know what to do with the information they were given. And it was worse than the big panels at Actorfest when it came to Q&A. it was very clear that people were asking questions just to be able to say their name and have their face be seen, it didn’t matter how stupid the question was, and yes, stupid, not just clueless or ignorant, but plain old stupid.

Ok, so backing up, everyone in the event had to wear name badges. There were three colors of lanyards that the badges were on. One was for talent, one was for “industry professional,” and one was for event staff.

If you were wearing the industry pro color, you could not walk anywhere without being swarmed by talent trying to stuff their headshots and comp cards in your face. Of course, they would say, “are you an agent or a casting director?” if you said no, they would frown and walk away. So clearly someone is incorrectly teaching them that the ONLY people who matter are agents and CDs. As professionals, we all know this is wrong. You market yourself to anyone who could be valuable. I could have been a director or a producer or even a writer. You never know. But usually I was able to get headshots and comp cards, so I have a nice stack of about 50 in a folder. Most came from the JRP in NJ and had poorly taken pictures. Not one has personal contact info on it, like an email or cell phone or anything. Only the contact info of the school they were there with.

From what I saw, I would say that anyone who believes that these schools are teaching industry standards, or teaching anything at all, you have been severely misled. And what I saw at IMTA is proof of that.

But I can say, I had fun! It was fun watching the auditions. And I had fun being treated like a rock star. And the panel was interesting. I won’t be around for the next one, but I hope to be able to come back and do future ones. I know, it’s only perpetuating what we all know is the truth about this event and the “schools” involved with them. And as an actor, and as one who works with child actors, it was good to see things that the kids I would be working with would need to work on. It was a good learning experience, if nothing else.

I also wanted to add… I went to an agent connection thing at the JRP in Paramus about 4 yrs ago. Met with a very legit agent, had a great audition, and was told by her that I would be getting a call about representation that week. Never heard from her or her agency (but she does a lot of these agent connection things at almost all the schools in Manhattan, so I wasn’t expecting much anyway).

BUT I did hear back from JRP. We had to sign in for our appointment with agent, on JRP paper, which is how she got my info. Wanting to get the inside scoop, I went for the interview. The lady I met with was very impressed by my union status (AEA) and college degree in acting and all of my professional work. She wanted to put me in her advanced classes for some very high fee. So I said…

“I was also just accepted into the Lee Strasburg institute’s summer acting program. I can’t afford both.”

She looked at me with this wide pained look on her face and said with complete sincerity mixed with a healthy dose of attitude, “What could you learn there? I am the best teacher to learn from. I could teach you more than they could!” So I asked her where she did her studying and what her performance background was… questions completely avoided while she continued to completely dis LSI and make herself seem like the best teacher there is.

But I finally asked her, “Ok, but who are you? I know who they are.”

She was stumped, so I left.

QUOTE] But I finally asked her, “Ok, but who are you? I know who they are.”

She was stumped, so I left.[[/QUOTE]

LOL!

I would LOVE to have had both experiences. From IMTA, you at least learned what NOT to do. Did they pay well?

Wow--definitely one of the most interesting posts on the board!

i wasn't paid. i got an ok dinner the first day, and what ended up being a non-existant lunch (on the second day). but it was fun and only took a couple of hours each day.

the lesson here should be that this is what you are dealing with if you sign up for IMTA, and is reflective of what is coming out of JRP. i'm interested in the response from those who support JRP. i wonder what the excuses will be

from what i understand, IMTA is a profit-making venture with JRP. the franchises are told how much the convention costs, and they can charge whatever they want above that, which is how they make the profit.

i didn't add that the friend who invited me is just an AEA actor, and i ran into a few other friends who also somehow got involved as judges who are only there as actors undercover. one friend said, "i'm here for the free food." so hopefully now you realize what you are paying for, who is actually judging you. sure, there are legit people around, but many are just like me, and who am i in the grand scheme of things?

I agree with CS one of the most interesting posts. Can we move this to the child/teen actor section since most people looking here (for their kids) go to that one and also since JRP and IMTA seem to focus mainly on child performers. I think more people will see it that way. I only saw it from a link CS provided.

I'd be interested to see what the supporters say as well!

jactressk asked me to post that she can't login at work, but she'll repost on the child/teen board tonight!

That's great! Tell her thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by jactressk:
Industry people that I know were leading the panel. Yes, true industry professionals, all of whom you’d know their names and I guarantee you’ve met before. Well, two were actors (who’d won IMTA in the past), and Dora the Explorer’s voice over artists, but the rest were valid industry pros. Surprised they were there, but everyone’s getting paid, I think. So why not?

You could have summed up your entire opus with this one, single paragraph. Actually, in one word: SCAM.

Everyone rakes in obscene amounts money from these coast-to-coast misadventures, primarily the ones sponsoring them. Think of these events as casting director seminars, on steroids. But at least I have personally known many actors to have booked actual jobs from seminars like those at The Actors Connection, One-on-One and the like, and you don't have to sell the farm to participate. I have NEVER met a single individual who walked away with an actual contract or job offer from any of these highly profitable IMTA affairs. The fact that they are closely associated with JRP certainly comes as no surprise.

Years ago, I was invited to participate as a celebrity judge at their big LA convention by IMTA's V.P. after several of my clients won their respective headshot divisions. But before I agreed, I asked to participate first as just another convention attendee. It was an eye-opening experience. The cavernous space was a scene of organized mayhem, lots of young people excitedly running about and asking me for directions to their respective destinations, I felt more like a traffic cop than a guest. After watching several competitions and talking with many of the people behind-the-scenes, my overall impression was not a rosy one.

As much as I didn't read your entire treatise, I don't recall you ever mentioning how much money these contestants are forced to cough up in order to participate in these glitzy ripoffs . From overblown entry fees, to special classes and events, to air fare there and back, hotel rooms, ground transportation, meals, entertainment, taxes, expensive wardrobe considerations, and lengthy time off from jobs, these so-called "competitions" could nearly cost you your child's college tuition. And that's perhaps the most troubling aspect of these pay-to-play spectacles – that these thousands upon thousands of wasted dollars could have gone to far more realistic and productive career building pursuits. Playing the Lottery could be a far more profitable venture, and certainly more honest.

After sitting in the same audience and experiencing this wholly forgettable combination of empty Hollywood hype and carnival side show, I walked away with a far gloomier vision than what you reported in your experience. If you happen to be planning a sequel, a good title for it might be, "THE JON BENET RAMSEY STORY, PT. II."

www.robertkim.com

I was also involved in this in my early 20's but dropped out when I found out it was a waste of time...and I found out from a major legit agent who was friends with a co-worker of mine. Yes, big agents attend but they're only there to get paid.

As for kids, there's no way I'm putting my son out like that. His Agent has been submitting him constantly so I dont need to do "show off / my child is better than yours" competitions. I'm not gonna re-live my life through my son.

I'm surprised IMTA still exist. All the actors I know who did it either drop out the scene or still struggling after paying all that money.

uh, robert, maybe you SHOULD read the entire thing before you blast me. gosh, you sure jump to a LOT of conclusions. you're a newbie here. relax, stop acting like you are the forefront of knowledge of the business, sure you know a lot, but so do the rest of us. trust us. some of us know what we are doing.

and as you probably also didn't read, this was just an account of someone who went as a judge. and that's it.

I, for one, appreciated the "treatise." Thanks for taking the time to post about your experience as an IMTA judge. It was informative and made me grateful to have a resource like this board to have learned what kind of things to stay away from.