What is the business of Marie Salerno Associates?
Marie Salerno Associates, a Bay Area entertainment consultancy founded in 1998, provides business coaching for creative people. Marie Salerno gives aspiring talent the business and management tools for joining the ranks of the pros.

What does Marie Salerno Associates do for performers? What's the difference between what you do, and what an agent and personal manager do?
Marie Salerno Associates works with clients on fundamentals such as how to get work, how to work with an agent, how to treat their performing career as a business, and how to spend time and money wisely. An agent tries to get work for the performer. If the performers get work they pay the agent a commission. A personal manager manages a person's life, which includes everything from checkbook balancing to working with the agent. Most people retain an agent while few actually feel the need for a personal manager.

Why do people seek you out in the first place? Isn't this just about entertainment, acting, and being funny?
It's called Show Business, not Show Fun. It's a business and the performer is the product. One must sell themselves. Selling is difficult for most people - selling oneself is even worse. It's important to have fun doing it but it must be treated like a business if they want to succeed. Our typical client has always wanted to perform. They may have tried years ago, had a bad experience, or became scared. They have a head full of questions and don't know where to turn for help. Many acting and voice over teachers and coaches discuss the business as part of the curriculum, but the business of entertainment is our specialty. We understand that we are the only consultancy in the Bay Area doing this full time.

What kinds of people come to you for help?
Parents of child performers; individuals who performed years ago then got scared and didn't pursue it; people with great careers in other fields who always wanted to perform, thought they'd be rejected so they never tried and now they're ready; and a surprising number of middle to older aged people. There may be more of this older group because one gets a certain sense of freedom to develop their creativity as they get older, and there is less that one is afraid of.

What do aspiring performers need to know?

• How to choose a teacher, photographer, printer and agent
• What they should pay them and what to expect from them
• How their resume should look
• Where to find the right teacher or school
• What they should be paid for a job
• What is tax deductible and do they need an accountant
• How to read the fine print on contracts
• How to file for unemployment

What are the six most important pieces of advice for novice performers?

1. Don't think everyone in this business knows more about it than you do
2. Do not reach for your checkbook quickly
3. Don't rush into it, and have clear goals
4. Know how to get work
5. Know how to earn more
6. Know how to protect yourself

What is the single most important thing to know?
Wait three days before reaching for your checkbook and talk to at least three organizations. One should be the union office, the second should be the Better Business Bureau or the Department of Labor Relations, and the third should be to call our organization, Marie Salerno Associates.

How much of what you do is common sense, how much gut, intuition or psychology, and can it be learned in a book?
The answer is all of the above. One can read many books to retrieve information, but that will take a long time. Our firm provides a faster and cheaper alternative, and will keep someone looking brilliant while they're still learning. But there is more to it than that. Performing touches a very vulnerable place in people and their own common sense goes out the window. Someone just starting out believes that if they only have the right agent, the right wardrobe and the right piece of information, they will be rich and famous. This is a falsehood in all but the rarest of cases. Mostly, it's preparing to succeed and doing it correctly with the least possible waste of time and money. If a person is determined to succeed, Marie Salerno Associates is there to make sure they don't fail.

If one wants to be a performer and has no experience, how long does it take?
It depends on the performer and the kind of work being pursued. For a beginner to act in commercials it may take two years or more to land that first well paid spot. To be an extra on a regular basis allow as little as a few months. We talk about the three Fs - Fame, Fortune and Fun. Knowing which one or combination of the three to pursue is imperative, otherwise one could run in circles, spending money and time foolishly and paying too much attention to rumors that the industry is rife with.

If one wants to be a performer, why not go to LA or NY?
Why be a small fish in a big pond? Why sit around and wait to get an agent and then wait for the agent to call when one can go after their own work? A performer can pursue work on their own in San Francisco, but in LA they must work through an agent. As the heartland for new technologies, the Bay Area is host to an abundance of work for performers. And with San Rafael's new Rafael Film Center and George Lucas soon to anchor in the Presidio, local work will double again as it has in the last couple of years. The Bay Area is the third largest membership base for AFTRA performers and the fourth largest for SAG, (the two main performers unions). That does not take into account Actors Equity for the theatre, or non-union work of which there is plenty. As long as the Golden Gate Bridge is standing there will be production and theatre work in San Francisco.

What other kinds of opportunities are there for performers in the Bay Area?
Opportunities for performers are unlimited. One can find everything from student films to talking elevators. The first voice mail recordings were done in San Francisco, and many of the first interactive games were produced here. The unions have gone out of their way to develop contracts that fit almost every producer's budget. A union contract that has been established for a certain type of work indicates that nonunion work is also available in that area

Does one need to quit their day job to get into performing?
No. Entertainment is one of the few businesses where one can start out part-time, and as the work and money grow the goal for quitting a day job can be set.

Is it important to join one of the performing unions to get work?
Absolutely not. In fact, for the person just starting out it would be foolish to join a union. The best place to learn and hone one's craft is in the nonunion market. With tenacity and talent, however, a performer is eventually asked to join one of the performing unions.

What are the major pitfalls of the business?
Typically they are: how many hours to work; pay rate and when one gets paid; whether performing in a nonunion production will affect being a union member later on and getting union work; and what protections exist on the set. These pitfalls should be understood before accepting any work. For child performers there is more to know.

Like what?
For example - no child should ever be on the set or in an audition without a parent or guardian, no matter what the director says. California has some of the best laws in the country protecting performers and their interests.

You run seminars called Creative Control. What do you mean by Creative Control and what do people get out of attending?
The Creative Control seminar program prepares Bay Area performers to work in the entertainment business. The seminar was developed by Anni Long, a veteran actress and on-screen talent who is now President of the San Francisco office of Screen Actors Guild, and Marie Salerno, who has spent over 30 years working with performers in a variety of functions, including 17 in management with AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). Separately, the two discovered that performers had nowhere to turn with their pressing questions. The seminars address the pressing issues facing all performers, and provide excellent next-step advice for those with some industry work experience. A key objective of the seminars is to help attendees present themselves professionally, in order to incent producers and directors to return to the area for its talent.

Attendees learn which areas are their responsibility, and issues for which they are not responsible. They learn how to promote themselves, how to get more work and more money, how to work better with agents and casting directors, how to read contracts, keep records, and file for unemployment. Attendees are given a thick stack of information and resources to take with them after the jam-packed, three-hour presentation. Many people take the seminar more than once.

Are there trends in this business?
There are trends and they vary from medium to medium, and year to year. At the moment, independent filmmakers and filmmaking are hot -- directors and producers are hiring people under union and nonunion contracts. Commercials change from season to season, often in the way they use talent; sometimes it's all top personalities in the spots, at other times there's no one on camera and it's all visuals with a voice over. Or, the trend may be to use huge crowds of people.