Crunching the Numbers: IMDb Starmeter Rankings

Wayne Pyle in Philadelphia, PA

At least once a week, I like to go to my IMDb profile and check my ranking to see how much it has gone up or down that week. If the little arrow chart symbol at the front of the ranking is green, it means it has gone up, if it's red it means it's gone down. If I hover my cursor over the words SEE RANK it tells me exactly how much I've gone up or down in the last week.

As I hover over it right now while I'm writing this, it tells me that I've gone up 11,646 this week. Last week, I shot up over 106,000. In order to see the actual numbers, you have to look under IMDbPro which I subscribe to. From May 13, 2012 to May 27, 2012 I went from  being ranked 189,998 to being ranked 71,719. The lower your score, the better. Steve Carrell is currently 196. But if you go back to February 1999, when he was on The Daily Show, he was only ranked 109,267.

Some people think that the IMDb Starmeter rankings are related to the number of hits to your page, or the rankings of the films you are in, or even some mathematical formula that IMDb won't release, but no matter how it works, I just enjoy seeing how much it fluctuates depending on the amount of blogging I'm doing, how many Twitter posts I make and how much the films I've been in have been in the news.

I don't think the rankings really "mean" anything for someone at my level, but I do feel like I'm "active" in the independent film scene when my numbers hover around the 70's to 30's. People in that range seem to be working fairly often and doing interesting projects. Looking back at other actor's rankings is also interesting because you can get a sense of when they really took off and which of their projects  got them there.

In my everyday actor's life, these number don't really do much to advance my career. I'm busy right now trying to learn the lines for Shadowland's FULLY COMMITTED that I'm going to perform in June and July, preparing to do a performance for Marist's Center for Lifetime Study tomorrow morning and preparing for Half Moon Theater's 10-minute Play Reading Festival this Friday and Saturday. (Please join us!)

The feedback I'll get from these live theater events will be immediate and is part of the reason I love doing live theater. But the fluctuating numbers of IMDb's Starmeter rankings also give me a sense of satisfaction in knowing that I am part of the dynamic and fascinating world of filmmaking and that the films I've worked on are out there in the world affecting people's lives.

For other interesting takes on the IMDb Starmeter ranking system check out:

How to Boost your Starmeter Ranking by Tommy C. Kendrick

IMDb: The Basics and Starmeter by BENWHITEHAIR

Internet Movie Database on Wikipedia

Face the Fear

Wayne Pyle as Sam (and 40 others) in FULLY COMMITTED at Shadowland Theatre, Ellenville, NY.

This has been a particularly productive time in my actor's life. I played Franklin in Liza Johnson's film RETURN, starring Linda Cardellini and Michael Shannon, ended up in the trailer and it opened in some great theaters and had great reviews and lots of press across the country. I directed BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS at SUNY Dutchess. I just finished working on Eddie Mullins' new film, DOOMSDAYS, with Heidi. I'm prepping right now to perform in Becky Mode's one-person comedy FULLY COMMITTED at Shadowland Theatre in Ellenville, NY. I'm directing staged readings of two ten-minute plays for Half Moon Theatre Company in Poughkeepsie, acting in another, preparing two other readings for another Half Moon event, recording voiceover work for clients and working on my own scripts as well as finishing up one semester of teaching and trying to prepare for another at SUNY New Paltz.

Let's talk about the summer today. I've been working on Becky Mode's FULLY COMMITTED for a few weeks now, trying to get the 40 different characters I have to portray to play nice with each other and working on a few pages each day to get a vague idea of what each character wants, how they might sound, what physicality they might embody and what else I might have to do to fully commit to this whirlwind of a comedy. Each day brings new insights and new challenges and I'm looking forward to working with my director, Brendan Burke, to really get the play up on its feet and try to figure out to make this farce fly.

At almost 90 intermissionless minutes, the memorization task seems enormously daunting right now, but I know with steady work and concentration I'll soon have the whole story in my mind and be ready to explore these people and situations out there on the stage instead of in my cramped living room. This is the first time I'm taking on such a huge actor's task and looking at what I still have to accomplish, I would say that the emotion I'm mostly feeling is...SCARED.

I think it's healthy to be scared of certain things like heights, snakes, weird looking plants, some people, daunting acting challenges, because it's our body's way of telling us, “Proceed with caution. Harm could be done.” Even though it can be extremely painful at times, I do like to do things that scare me, that take me out of my normal comfort zone, because I know that in the past when I've “faced the fear” and done it anyway, I've always grown as a person and an actor. I've definitely gotten a few bumps and bruises and cuts and scrapes here and there, but what an adventure I've had in the process.

Usually when I feel that fear coming on, about memorization, auditioning, a role that I'm not sure I'm cut out for, I try to focus on the work process and see where it leads me, rather than focusing on the outcome that hasn't occurred yet. By focusing on what I'm doing now, how I'm doing it, and why it is being done, I become more present and that chattering voice that says things like, “You'll never get those lines memorized, you're not really very good at this, don't try THAT, that will never work,” starts to get quieter. If I don't do that, that little voice gets very, very LOUD.

By engaging in the struggle, feeling the feelings of unworthiness or inauthenticity or stupidity or whatever else might come up and acknowledging that those feelings are there, I find that they dissipate much more quickly than when I try to resist them and pretend they don't exist. By acknowledging the fear and focusing on the process, I'm often left tired, but with a great feeling of having done something worthwhile just because I did it despite being afraid that I might fail.

What are some things you've done that you've been afraid of but were later really glad you did them? I'd love to hear from you.

Gotta go memorize some lines, but I'll leave you with this video of my first tandem skydive at The Ranch, in Gardiner, NY. I recommend jumping out of a plane to get your mind in the present pretty darn quickly. Scared, yes, but an amazing day and an experience I won't forget.

WP

http://imdb.me/waynepyle

Welcome to An Actor's Life for Me!

Although I plan on covering many topics in this blog, the main focus will be on what an actor's life is like from day to day. There seem to be so many ideas about what being an actor means and I'd like to dispel some of the myths that so many young people seem to have when they enter this business and explore my own reasons for becoming and continuing to pursue an actor's life.

I have a lot of experience as an actor in films, television and onstage and yet I still struggle day to day with finding the joy in the work and finding the best way to express myself within my chosen art form. 

I like to do many things besides acting as well. I garden, write poetry and scripts, teach classes at various colleges, do voiceover work, make films, videos and art, use social media like Twitter and Facebook and I've dabbled in many different kinds of hobbies and pastimes. I love spending time with my children, my wife and my family. I love that an actor's life is a collaborative one, not just for projects, plays and films, but also in the everyday living of life.

I'm about to embark on a more detailed journey than I ever have before. I've been acting since I was very young when my parents first enrolled me on Romper Room, a children's television program from the seventies. I've been doing this for a long time, but this is the first time I've ever explored what and how I do what I do in any depth by writing out my process, thoughts, struggles and rewards.

I hope you'll join me in this journey inward and outward and that my words will inspire, educate and entertain you whether you are pursuing the actor's life yourself, or  just a curious onlooker. Thank you for allowing me to spend some time with you, I'm looking forward to seeing what we create together.

Since I live near Hyde Park, NY in the beautiful Hudson Valley, I'll leave you today with this quote from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose home and library is nearby. 

"Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples."

*Update: Renamed the blog YOU, LLC and I'm currently living in Tivoli, New York. Although I will continue to cover topics on acting, I'm also looking at how we can all live our lives more creatively. YOU, LLC.

WP 
http://imdb.me/waynepyle