Roadmap for Professionals

The Roadmap for Professionals is a resource for Professionals who are working as individuals or in a group. It allows folks to work at their own pace if working on their own in a focused, guided manner or get a general overview of the units they will learn if working in a group, or cohort.

The separate Facilitators’ Guide has more detailed session breakdowns for each specific unit found below. The Facilitators’ Guide might be particularly useful for Fellows, Assistants, and Working Partners.

Click here for a printable PDF version of the Roadmap for Professionals.

Introduction

The PERFORMING ARTS LEGACY Project (PAL) at The Actors Fund is an online platform to document and represent the careers of all kinds of Professionals in the performing arts and entertainment and save our national legacy.

PAL is a website where every contributing Professional gets to create their own child site within it. It includes a career timeline mapping one’s Professional history, places for audio and oral histories, video interviews and life review, links to actual performances, journals, blogs and stories. It is built on a WordPress platform and can be edited and changed with help from a Contributor Manual, video tutorials, a Legal Guide to Clearing Rights as well as through a “Help” email, and includes letters and forms to guide Professionals in requesting permission to publish uploaded works. PAL is multi-generational and interactive. It:

Captures memory
Shares collective histories
Uses Multimedia
Explores Life Review
Exemplifies Positive Aging
Enhances the quality of people, their communities and society

Click the headings below for more on the topic. To access resources and more, please click on the red links found within the sections below.

Working in a Cohort

PAL operates in a safe space. Information, stories, essays, blogs and expressions shared in these sessions are considered private within the context of PAL, until published on the PAL site. An important part of PAL is sharing as we create. Reading blogs, showing highlights, sharing challenges and triumphs with your cohort give us a collegial community.

Preparation

Click the headings below for more on the topic. To access resources and more, please click on the red links found within the sections below.

Organizational Basics

Click here for the Getting Organized Guide

Conceptualizing and organizing materials, what makes your project unique, conceptualizing your site.

Scope

Professionals are responsible for organizing memorabilia, typing Grid entries, providing rights clearance information, obtaining permissions for materials they upload to their sites. Sites will be checked for copyright, privacy and defamation before they are finalized. This is to ensure that artists respect other artists.

Technical Suggestions and Skills

We recommend each professional have a Gmail account, a Google Drive, and use Chrome (instead of Safari, Firefox, etc), and knowledge of Zoom meetings.

Equipment: In many cases, equipment you already own—such as computers, smartphones and tablets—can be used for audio and video recording. For computer recording, we recommend a USB microphone, which plugs directly into a computer’s USB port. For editing, use a low-cost or free recording program like Reaper, Audacity, or Garage Band for Audio, iMovie for video editing, and Zoom for video conferencing.

Quick Reference Guides

For help with Zoom, consult Senior Planet’s online guide. For general tech and other questions, see Senior Planet’s Coronavirus Resource Guide.
StoryCorps offers outstanding guidance on interview techniques and technologies:
1-On-1 Tech Tutoring via Senior Planet
- Senior Planet is offering virtual, 1-on-1 tech tutoring sessions! Volunteers from Verizon will join via Zoom to individually help you with any technology-related questions you might have. You do NOT need to own a Verizon device to take advantage of this free opportunity!
- Available in English, Spanish, and Mandarin.
  - To sign up for personalized assistance, please email Rebecca Altneu at raltneu@oats.org. Include your name, phone number, and the tech issue you would like to be helped with.

Using the Contributor Manual

If you need refreshers, written and/or video tutorials, or answers to common questions and troubleshooting, check the Contributor Manual which serves as a companion “How To” resource for you as you take the class and build your site. For access, go to “Contributor Manual” under the dropdown menu labeled “Resources.

Have a question that isn’t answered? Go to the “Help” tab, in the drop down menu under “Resources.”

Using the Session Archives

We record our Actors Fund Cohort class sessions so that Professionals can refer to them after the class. To access, go to Resources -> Reference Materials, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and click on the corresponding cohort.

Units

For instructional materials and resources related to each unit, please click on the corresponding unit link (in red) below.

Click here for a printable PDF version of the Roadmap for Professionals.

Unit 1 – Introduction
Unit 2 – Intro to Audio and Video & The About Page
Unit 3 – Mapping the Legacy: Your Career Grid
Unit 4 – Mapping the Legacy: More About the Grid
Unit 5 – Clearing Rights
Unit 6 – Enhancing your Grid: Highlights and Blogs
Unit 7 – Enhancing Your Grid: Images, Highlights, Audio & Video
Unit 8 – Customizing Your Site
Unit 9 – Reviewing Your Site for Publication in the Legacy Artists Directory

Performing Arts Legacy Project

An online platform to document and represent the careers of older performing arts professionals

Introduction

Preparation

Units

Terms of Use

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VIDEO: Learn About Our Work

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Performing Arts Legacy Project