TalentPro Software Help

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Login Problems

I can't open up my webpage from either using the traditional way "Talent Log In" and I can't log in using "click on Talent Pro..etc. Nothing happens.

Most likely, Internet Explorer has "Pop-Up Blocking" enabled. Open Internet Explorer (IE7) and return to the Talent Login Link. When you get to the page with the link to open a new window...

You should see a yellow bar activate at the top of the Web page, just under the "File Edit etc." menus.

Click on it and choose "Always Allow Pop-Ups From This Site..." It will ask you to confirm allowing pop-ups on HeymanTalent.com.... say Yes.

The Talent Control Window should open... but you might have to "Refresh" the page.

I can't log in to my bookmarked page at...
https://www.IsaacAgency.com/ia/db/TalentAdmin/MemberHome.asp

This link is no longer valid. Thank you Internet Explorer 7.0 for giving us this ugly message.

The security certificate is signed from our TalentPro Server at "www.kineticstudioserver.net" and IE7 now throws an error page because the domain name does not match.

It's okay... the Internet can be a scary place... so they have to close certain loopholes that us honest guys use in developing smooth web sites.

That is why we changed the login process altogether and use the Pop-Up window to connect directly to our root server for encryption without throwing the nasty error page.

Registration Questions

My son is 16 - should he register as an adult or a child on the website?
Also, what restrictions are there on people viewing my son's profile? Is his contact information freely avaliable, or only available to verified clients?

Thank you for your questions regarding the Web site.

First... contact information is restricted to the agency only. No phone numbers, email addresses or any type of contact information are available from the Web site. We feel it is important to keep everything working through a trusted agency for professional negotiations and accountability... so the last thing we want is for our clients or the general public to know anything about our talent. We don't even give contact information to our registered clients.

Our clients will see the talent's first and last name when they are logged in to the search engine. That is it. Everything else on the Web site uses the "TalentPro Id" as the unique identifier. Usually it is the first name and some numbers.

All information should be filled in for your son and put your contact information in the Parent/Guardian fields at the bottom of the application. 16 is technically a minor and requires adult supervision and verification of all communications. You are, essentially, his manager until his 18th birthday.

As for payment... there are PayPal buttons on the Portfolio Upgrade page for each different age group.

One more note about privacy and security... we use Secure Socket Layer Encryption on the Talent Control Panel and the Agency Administration Tools. Be sure to look for a "closed padlock" somwhere on your browser (usually bottom right next to the scroll bar). Our software is hosted by www.kineticstudioserver.net and the security certificate will say so, instead of the individual agency name.

Q:  Why do I have to pay to appear on the galleries, search engine or to clients who use your your Web site?

Portfolios, when not paid for by the Talent, are available to the agency only.  Your picture may be submitted electronically by the agency to their client, however only your picture and comp-card information are visible to the client.  If you choose not to pay for portfolio hosting, the client will not be able to click on your picture to see your other pictures, video clips, audio demo or resume.

Clients are only able to view your portfolio if you pay for the portfolio hosting.  Also, the "MyPortfolio" features of our web site are only available to paid members of the Web site.  This is not an "agency fee" and we are not forcing people to join the Portfolio Hosting program to be represented by our agency.  The Portfolio Hosting program is an expensive feature, and we do offer a generous price t

As the software developer and service provider, we have negotiated fees and pricing with the agency to account for the usage of our software, our hard drives and our bandwidth...

Our software provides their internal database via Intranet solution... therefore all talent are visible to the agency. However... to appear in the Galleries, the Client Search Engine or the Electronic Submission System... you must pay for the service. This is because every time your pictures or resume are viewed, it represents usage of our bandwidth, electricity to power the servers, management of storage, database overhead... and many more components which represent costs to my company... plus you are utilizing the agency's human resources to manage your account and work with our database.

I understand that many people feel they should not be required to pay fees to their agency. But keep in mind that agency fees from bookings only cover, and only barely, the salaries and wages of the booking agent. That is why you have always had to pay for your own head shot and comp card printing and any fees related to being published in books.

Your agency and many others in the country, have engaged in a "technology venture" with my company, Kinetic Media called the "TalentPro Network. " Which will soon become one branch of my vision, launching in January, 2007... the Production-Matrix.com... which will be a complete project management, booking and invoicing system that works for talent, agencies, casting directors, producers, unit production managers... it will provide unparalleled accountability and communications to all who use it.

I understand that not everyone understands just how much cost and energy is involved with our system. That is because we strive to make it easy and uncomplicated... and are always working to improve the system... did I mention Programming hours, database management hours, graphic design hours?

I only wish to impart to you a better understanding of why there is a fee to be on the Web site and why it would be great to take advantage of the opportunity we are providing. Your Portfolio Hosting Fee also gives you appearance on Artist-Spotlight.com and ActorsSpotlight.com which my company will be promoting to Casting Directors and Producers next year and give increased, national exposure to all the talent represented by our agency clients.

Thank you so much for your time and I hope this helps you understand why fees are required.

Sincerely,
William M. Fantini
President
Kinetic Media Engine, LLC
The TalentPro Network
will@kineticmedia.com
615-557-3583

Image Upload

Q. I'm trying to upload an image, but keep getting an error that the file size is too large... what can I do?

We have instructions here on how to use Microsoft Paint to resize your images... usually installed free with Windows.  You may also wish to try another highly recommended tool called IrfanView... which can be downloaded for free from http://www.download.com and then search "Irfan View".   You can also try this link to go directly to the download page...  http://www.download.com/3000-2192_4-10021962.html

Below are helpful hints and instructions for Microsoft Paint.

File Size

Please have a look on the CD from your photographer for a folder called, "email and Web" or "Web Gallery"... you should find another copy of your images at a more appropriate size, but don't go under 25k because they could end up grainy.

If you have any image editing programs, like Photoshop or Paint or another software which came with your digital camera or scanner/printer, you can resize your image to about 800x600 pixels and "Save As" a JPEG (.jpg).

Resizing Your Images with Windows Paint

1. On the PC, please open the pictures in "Paint" which can usually be found in your "Start Menu" [ Click Start - All Programs - Accessories - Paint ]
2. Open your image from your hard drive.
3. Use the window handles to crop in to the picture (please no frames or borders around the picture).
4. From the top menus, select "Image" and then "Stretch/Skew"
5. You can then put an equal percentage for "Horizontal" and "Vertical"
6. Click OK
7. Choose "File" - "Save As" and resave as a "JPEG" image (Ending with ".jpg"). Hint: you may wish to rename the file so as not to save over the original.
8. Then check your file size. The ideal file for uploading will be around 150K (Approximately 1200 x 800 pixels.)

If these options don't work for you still, please email your images to me and we'll take care of it for now.

FILE NAMES

Before you upload your images, please rename the documents on your hard drive (or save another copy on your hard drive with the new name). The best way to name your image document for our system is to use your Stage Name or First and Last Name with no spaces, commas, apostrophes or any other punctuation. For example, "JaneDoeHeadshot1.jpg"

If you try to upload a file with punctuation, you will encounter errors... so if your image file name looks like this --> "john doe's headshot.jpg" please rename it "JohnDoeHeadshot.jpg"

You may upload as many images as you wish.

On each image, you may select to mark that image "Visible." You may wish to upload your images to our server for easy CompCard and Portfolio Print ordering and also for building online portfolios, but not wish that image to appear on your main Talent Page. If so, upload the file, but mark "Visible" as "No" on the upload form. The file will be visible to you and your agency manager as you access your account, but not to anyone else using the system for searching or casting.

Blurry Images

Q: Today I was looking at My Son's picture on the website's "on line gallery". When I pulled his picture up it looks grainy and not clear. I looked at several other pictures for different people and their pictures were fine. Is there something we can do to clear his picture up?

I have noticed that when I use the disk that the photographer gave me with his pictures and send the picture via email it is not clear. Got any suggestions?

A: On the disk which Heath or other photographers give you... there are several folders with the same pictures in different sizes. It can be confusing, and we'll work with photographers to make it easier.

For now, take a look on the disk and find the same picture's "file name" and a file size of about 100 to 125 kb. The on on the web site now might have ben a "thumbnail" used in the web gallery. There should be the same file in a higher file size on the disk.

You can upload the new image and delete the old one. The file on the server is: Matt_Simmons_Headshot.01.jpg , but might be different on your disk.

My daughter was recently in the Jouneys Kidz shoes catalog. I notice that my friend's daughter, who was another model at the same shoot, has very nicely scanned in her pictures from the printed catalog, and I would like to do the same for my daughter. When I have scanned pictures before they haven't looked nearly so nice and clean. Any advice?

Scanning printed materials can be tricky. The reason is that printed materials are not "continuous tone" color.. an image is comprised of millions of little color dots (you can see them by looking at the printed piece with a magnifying glass).

Scanning printed materials often results in what is called "moiré pattern" (pronounced moray) which causes the image to have lines all over it or to be blurry.... or other unpredictable results. Especially when the images is resized.

Most scanning software have special settings for scanning printed materials. You might check the software to see if there is an option to correct the image as it is scanned.

Other tips... try scanning the image at 72 dpi at 100% size. Over-scanning and resizing can exaggerate the moiré pattern. Also... if you are using Photoshop, you can use a slight "Gaussian Blur" on the image.... not so much to blur the picture, but enough to soften and blend the scanned dots.

If you still have no success... you can send a copy to me by mail and I'll take care of it for you. No charge... in appreciation for your business on both sites.

I hope this helps. You can also consider Googling "moiré pattern" for a bunch of tutorial web sites... here's a good one with a different technique than I've mentioned... http://photoshop911.typepad.com/questions/2006/01/scans_produce_m.html

Image Size/Type

Q: I tried to upload my headshots onto my talent profile on your Web site, however, it said the files were too big. I also tried to upload some other pictures that I took with my own digital camera, and it still said they were too large. What kinds of pictures aren't too large, or am I just making some erorr that I don't see?

A: Our goal is to minimize confusion, however we also have to maintain some method of standardization with images and video and such.

When you upload images to the Web site, they need to be less than 1.5 MB in size and of file type ".jpg"

Generally, when you get a disc from a photographer, there will be one folder with all "high-rez" images in it, and another folder will be marked, "for viewing" or "emailable" or "For Web" or something like that. Those images should already be sized down for use on our web site.

The best thing to do with your images from your camera is to open the image in Photoshop or PaintShop Pro or any other image editing software and resize the images to be smaller than 800x600 pixels and save them as ".jpg" files with a compression/quality setting in the middle (between 5 and 8 usually is fine).

If you still have issues, please email a few picture samples to WebSupport@IsaacAgency.com so we may investigate the issue.

Edit Image Detail Information
(Change caption, photographer name, etc.)

Q: Hi... I was just at your workshop and I saw my photo on the gallery page and i like it. I like it but I am wondering if you could help me to change the caption under the picture?

A: You can change the caption and other information by logging in, clicking on the "Images" button, and then click on "Edit" next to the photo.

Resume Section

The Resume section of our Web site allows you to upload your current resume as a file and to build an online resume on our system that you can print.

Resume Upload

Uploading your current resume is the easiest way to make your experiences available to our clients.

Before you upload your resume, please rename the document on your hard drive (or save another copy on your hard drive with the new name). The best way to name your resume document for our system is to use your Stage Name or First and Last Name with no spaces, commas, apostrophes or any other punctuation. For example, "JaneDoeResume.doc"

If you try to upload a file with punctuation, you will encounter errors... so if your resume filename looks like this --> "john doe's resume.wps" please rename it "JohnDoeResume.wps"

Resume Builder

We highly recommend you use our resume builder application and start print your resumes from our Web site, even replacing your document on your hard drive with our online resume. It will be very easy for you to keep your online resume up-to-date, while ensuring it is searchable through our Web site and through various casting Web sites to which we subscribe.

You may create more than one resume if you have experiences you would target for specific casting directors. (For example, you might build one standard talent resume and another for behind the scenes crew positions if you've had any.)

Your Online Resume is a collection of Resume Sections, Resume Items and Skill Sets.

Your "Special Skills" are taken from your Talent Bio and are automatically updated when you update your Bio.

The Resume Builder lets you choose two ways of building your resume.

• First Method: Enter all of your experiences at one time by "Adding Resume Items." Then Add "Sections" to your resume and choose "Section Items" from a drop-down menu on the builder. This will also work for your second resume as all previously entered items are available for other resumes.
  
• Second Method: Add all of your ":Resume Sections" first and then add "Section Items" to each section. This may be easier if you already have a previously printed Resume document and would like to enter it into the Resume Builder.

Either way, the result will be the same. You will see on your Resume Builder a "View Printable" button which will present you with a Web Page formatted for printing your resume on the back of an 8x10 photograph or on a piece of paper. You could also save the printable document as an HTML document and reformat it in your word processing software (such as Microsoft Word).

Audio Upload

If you are new to audio recording and editing, the first thing you need to know is about the types of audio files you can use on the Internet.  The most common types, and therefore the most available to our clients, are Apple Quicktime (.qt or .mov), Windows Media (.wmv) and MPEG (.mpg).

Most software, however, use their own audio compression standard, so the original files you create will more likely be Microsoft Wave (.wav) files on the PC and (.aiff) files on the Macintosh.

You will first record your audio with a suitable audio software program and then convert the file for use on the Web.  If you already have files on your computer and wish to convert them for use on the Web, please skip ahead to "File Conversion and Upload."

First things first.  The Microphone.  Do not use the microphone that came with your computer.  We're going to take our audio through many steps to get it on the Web and you will find that you have greater flexibility working with your file if the original is the best quality recording, and that requires a quality microphone.  For the best results, search the web for "Professional Voice Recording Microphone" and include the quotation marks when searching as the search engine will give you matches first that include the exact words you used.  You can expect to pay between 50 and 200 dollars for a quality microphone.  If you are going to do voice work, you'll need it anyway.

There are several utilities that let you record audio from your microphone... you can use Quicktime Pro, or advanced audio editing programs like Adobe Audition or ProTools or you can use the "Sound Recorder" utility included with windows.

Keep in mind that when people listen to demo audio... they expect to hear 30 second clips at most.  Do not include an entire narration or record an entire commercial where you only speak five seconds.

For demo purposes, you can easily mimic radio commercials or television commercials... just slightly change the name of the product so you don't violate any copyright laws.  Of course, if you have professional samples of previous work, you are encouraged to upload them.

When you record:

Somewhere in the preferences or settings of your software, you will find a way to state the properties of the recording.  The settings generally include "stereo or mono," "bit rate (KB/s or MB/s)" and "KHz."  CD quality audio is Stereo, 16 bits/sec and 44.1 KHz.  You can use these settings for capture if you have a very fast computer.  You will resample later, but the better the quality at the beginning the better the quality at the end.  (The glass half full interpretation of "Garbage-In / Garbage-Out")

For older computers, set the Audio options to Mono, 16 bits/sec and 22.1 KHz.  This would be your best target output for the final sample.  You may find recommendations to move down to 8 bits/sec and/or 11 KHz.... but the final audio quality is not acceptable for our Web site.  Our clients tend to have high-end computer systems and quality speakers.

File Conversion and Upload

You can use a variety of toos to convert your audio for the Web. 

If you have prerecorded audio on CD you will need to "rip" the CD which imports the actual audio files and converts them to MP3, WMV or MOV format.  You cannot select the files on a CD and upload them (nor from a DVD) if the CD is designed to play on a standard CD player.  If you have data files on CD already in MP3 format, they are suitable for use.  The files your computer sees on an audio CD are reference files, so anything named .ifo or .cda are not the actual media files and cannot be uploaded.

We accept .mp3, .wmv, .wma and .wav files of a certain type and also realaudio. Audio files need to be able to play easily on client computers, which is the reason for our file size and file type conventions. 

Two common and free utilities for "ripping" audio are Apple iTunes and Windows Media Player.

iTunes

Open iTunes first and open your "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu. 

Make note of the folder identified as your iTunes Music Folder as this is where your files will be saved.

Click on the "Advanced" tab and then cilck on the "Importing" tab on the "Advanced" screen.

Change the "Import Using" selector to "MP3 Encoder" and set quality to "High".  Our upload file size limit is 2.5 MB which will be enough for about three minutes of MP3.  We do recommend, however, keeping your demo clips to 30 seconds to 1 minute in length as that is what a client expects to hear and we have to be mindful of how much time we expect them to wait for a file to download and play.

Apply your changes and close the preferences window.

Put your CD in the CD drive.  Let iTunes recognize the CD and display the files. 

Create a new Playlist in iTunes for your audio demo by selecting "File" and "New Playlist."

Drag the files listed for your CD into the Playlist. 

iTunes will convert your audio to MP3 format and save them in the iTunes music folder.  Your files may be in a sub folder called "Untitled." 

Double click each of your audio files listed in your Playlist to open the file properties.  You should add your name, the date recorded and any other information you wish.  This information will be stored in the Meta Space of the MP3 file so when the file is opened by the client, your name and information will be displayed.

iTunes will rename the "Untitled" folder to match whatever is listed as the "Artist Name" in the properties of the files.

Your MP3 files should now be perfect for uploading and available to any client computer.

Windows Media Player

Open Windows Media Player from your Start Menu click on the "Rip" tab.

Set your import preferences by selecting "Options" from the "Tools" menu across the top of the player window.

Click on the "Rip Music" tab of the "Options" window.

Your options inlcude several flavors of Windows Media and also MP3.  You may wish to do some experimentation with your files and try both Windows Media format and MP3 format to see what the difference in file size and quality are.  Is some cases, the Windows Media file will be smaller and in others the MP3 will be... generally depending on the complexity of the audio, including vocals, music or sound effects.

A safe place to start and very likely your best solution, will be to choose the first Windows Media Audio setting (uses standard compression).

Leave the checkboxes unchecked so you can manually control the process and ensure the audio can play for anyone.

Adjust the Audio Quality slider to 128Kbps.  If your file is just slightly too large, you can try moving the Audio Quality slider to 96Kbps but double check the output file for quality control.

Uploading Your Audio Files

Once you have created your final render of your audio file, you can upload it to the Web site by logging in to the Talent Control Panel and choose the "Audio" button.  You will see a list of any audio clips you already have uploaded and at the top of the page you will see a link for "Add Audio Clip".

The required fields appear first followed by optional description fields.  The more fields you give information, including key words, description, recording information, etc... the more findable the file will be on our Talent Search Engine.  We therefore encourage you to take a few minutes to fill in the upload forms completely.

Video Upload

If you are new to video capture and editing, the first thing you need to know is about the types of video files you can use on the Internet.  The most common types, and therefore the most available to our clients, are Apple Quicktime (.qt or .mov), Windows Media (.wmv) and MPEG (.mpg).

Apple Quicktime.  This is the industry standard for video professionals and a player is included with every Web browser, so this is a safe format for our Web site.  Quicktime is available as a player for free and included with iTunes, for both Mac and Windows.  To edit and convert Video, you will need to upgrade the Player to the PRO version and you will see additional menu choices on the application. Visit Quicktime.Apple.com to download the player for free.  Once you install the player, open the application and you will find an "Upgrade" choice under the "Help" menu.   Quicktime does not Capture video... so you will need to use another program to get the video into the computer.  Most applications on Windows will capture files as Microsoft AVI (.avi) and most programs on the Mac will save video as Quicktime (.qt or .mov) and then you can recompress your video and change the screen size and frame rate from Quicktime Player Pro when you "Export" or "Save As".

Windows Media

You probably already have Windows Media Player installed on your computer, which can play video and music and can record music or audio files.  The Player does not capture Video or convert video.  You need to visit Microsoft.com and do a search for "Windows Media Encoder."  Here is a link, but because of the way Microsoft's web site works, we never know when links change.  TRY HERE.

Once you install the Windows Media Encoder, you can select your digital camera as the video source and record movies directly to .wmv format.  You can also use the Encoder to recompress other movie files you may already have.

MPEG

MPEG stands for "Motion Picture Experts Group" and the files are generally named ".mpg" or ".mpeg" or ".mp4" which is just a different standard than the Audio MP3 we all use on our iPods.  The name is not a coincidence... MP3 was created for audio on the way to MP4 by the same consortium.

MPEG movies are played in all sorts of media players, including Quicktime Player and Windows Media Player.  If you get any type of video editing software, it will most likely have the ability to save your files as (.mpg).

You can get much smaller files with MPEG... however... the price is quality and this is the least reliable of the three choices because the compression codecs are different on just about every piece of software with different versions out there.  We are not saying not to use this format... but encouraging you to work with Quicktime or Windows Media.

Most of the digital cameras that record audio on the market record as MPEG.  This is a very easy method for you to record your video and copy it to the computer.  However, we recommend that you re-convert the MPEG file using Quicktime PRO or Windows Media Encoder.  The reason is that your camera may have a different standard of MPEG for saving its files than are available in other software players.  You would hate to go through all this work just to find out the file did not play correctly on the casting director's computer!

None of these programs are meant for editing video, but they do allow you to trim the beginning and the end of the clip.  Quicktime Pro does have editing capabilities, but only basic manipulation.

If you have a Mini-DV or DVD camera, you can use the "FireWire" connection from the camera to the computer and should have instructions with the camera's user guide for proper use.

To capture video from a camera that does not have "FireWire"... you need some hardware, some software... and obviously, a camera.  You should also consider getting an extra hard drive.  External USB 2.0 hard drives are relatively affordable and for about a hundred dollars you should be able to get a 100GB or more drive.  Video will capture better to a different drive than your system drive, and you will definitely need the storage space.

The easiest hardware solution is a USB to Video box like the Pinnacle 500-USB or the ProPix EVE, either of which will cost between 50 and 100 dollars depending on which model and included software you get.

Pinnacle is owned by Avid and works with Pinnacle Studio.  If you have a DVD burner, Pinnacle Studio has a utility which will burn video directly to DVD.

Video your audition or demo scene with adequate lighting.  If it is going to be indoors, do it during the day, near but not directly in front of a window and turn on every light in the room and bring in others from another room.  Your camera will adjust to compensate and there is generally no such thing as too much light.  Too little light or light from only one direction will cause your camera to have problems staying in focus and your image will either be too high contrast or grainy.

Connect your camera to the USB/Video box, launch the software and select the camera as the Source device.  You should see settings on your software for adjusting the size of the image, the frames per second (fps) and the data rate (MB/S) and audio settings.

When you work with images, video or audio on the computer, it is always best to get the best quality file as possible.  If you have a very fast computer, you can capture the video at "full-motion / full-frame" quality.  That will be relatively 640x480 or 728x462 pixels at 30 fps.

Unless you have a state-of-the-art computer system, don't expect to capture anything longer the ten minutes at full quality... the audio could drift and the video become jerky.  It is best to "digitize" several smaller clips than one big one.  If your video is less than ten minutes, you should be okay, but five minutes seems to be what a normal computer can handle.

You then use Windows Media Encoder or QuickTime Pro to resize and resample the video clip to the specifications for the Web site (see below).

If you have trouble or know that you have a slower computer... you will do better to digitize your video at 320x240 pixels at 24 fps.

As for audio, you will find settings for stereo/mono, bit rate and KHz.  CD quality audio is Stereo, 16 bits/sec and 44.1 KHz.  You can use these settings for capture if you have a very fast computer.  You will resample later, but the better the quality at the beginning the better the quality at the end.  (The glass half full interpretation of "Garbage-In / Garbage-Out")

For average computers, set the Audio options to Mono, 16 bits/sec and 22.1 KHz.  This would be your best target output for the final sample.  You may find recommendations to move down to 8 bits/sec and/or 11 KHz.... but the final audio quality is not acceptable for our Web site.  Our clients tend to have high-end computer systems and the audio of a video is as important if not more important than the image.  (See "Gestalt" principles of psychology for more information.)

Your final rendering settings, after capturing and editing... the file you will upload to our Web site should be...

• 320 x 240 pixels
  
  
• 24 fps
  
  
• 512 KB/s up to 1.2 MB/s (data rate)
  
  
• Windows Media (.wmv) or Quicktime (.mov)  -  be sure to add the file extensions to your file names.  People with Macs in particular have problems on the Web because Mac OS does not require filename extensions and everyone else does.
  
  
• If you use Quicktime... check your compression settings and use H.263 with Hinted Streaming.

For more information, please visit our affiliated web site, Artist-Spotlight.com.

Uploading Your Video Files

Once you have created your final render of your video file, you can upload it to the Web site by logging in to the Talent Control Panel and choose the "Videos" button.  You will see a list of any video clips you already have uploaded and at the top of the page you will see a link for "Add Video Clip".

The required fields appear first followed by optional description fields.  The more fields you give information, including key words, description, filming information, producers, photographers, etc... the more findable the file will be on our Talent Search Engine.  We therefore encourage you to take a few minutes to fill in the upload forms completely.

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