{"id":4374,"date":"2018-12-21T01:29:17","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T01:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=4374"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:14","slug":"my-favorite-role-brian-confer-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2018\/12\/21\/my-favorite-role-brian-confer-01\/","title":{"rendered":"My Favorite Role: Brian Confer \u201901"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Are you ready for your close-up?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Confer has his photo taken inside The Headshot Truck.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That bold white print above the orange type on the pink delivery truck-turned-mobile-photo studio makes The Headshot Truck hard to miss, especially in the palm tree-lined neighborhood where it\u2019s parked for today\u2019s appointments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to invite people to have their picture taken in a truck with no windows, it had better be an inviting, not scary, color,\u201d says Brian Confer \u201901, The Headshot Truck\u2019s co-founder and director of sales and strategy.<\/p>\n

A 20-something man in a navy blue business suit steps out of the truck, his 10-minute \u201cYou\u2019re the Boss\u201d photo session completed.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re next.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like stepping into a light box. With music playing. The makeup artist welcomes us, then calmly begins to work on Confer, who introduces us to the photographer.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding someone who can bring out the best in our clients is the most important factor we look for in our photographers. We\u2019re fun, we\u2019re irreverent, we\u2019ll turn up the music\u2014we want to bring out the personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shutter clicks and Confer glances at the monitor, subtly changing his expression. His acting career may be behind him, but he\u2019s still comfortable in front of the camera. The photographer quietly encourages every pose.<\/p>\n

\u201cActors all loved us the moment we started,\u201d says Confer. \u201cPeople said it was \u2018the most LA thing to happen to LA.\u2019 Traffic here is horrible, but with us you can wait for the truck to come to your area. And as the industry changed and headshots became photographs that represented you in real life in various ways, our bold way of bringing out your personality inexpensively was something actors liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, Confer says, to grow the business, it had to become more \u201ccorporate focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLinkedIn was growing, social selling. Everything became about profile photos. If you understand how to bring out the personality of an actor, you can do it for corporate.”<\/p>\n

While the truck works in LA, in other cities the \u201cheadshot truck\u201d is a cart carrying all that\u2019s needed to set up a mini-studio at a business. The company is in Atlanta and New York and is growing into other cities.<\/p>\n

That expansion is crucial if the company is to reach its potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cEntrepreneurship is crazy,\u201d Confer says as we wrap up the photo session and step out of the truck, and an actress steps in. \u201cWe cashed out my 401k and I sold my own house to start this business. I would never suggest anyone do that, but I\u2019m crazy, right? It\u2019s jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confer seems suited for the risk and the long hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was more of a success as an actor when I was a kid, auditioning for big-budget films. My dad was a 1960s ad executive on the East Coast, one of the original Mad Men. If I wanted something, I had to pay for it. So I was the kid selling candy bars, finding golf balls in the woods and selling them at the tee box, playing pool for money. I was a little hustler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always into the marketing side of things, and I loved performing. It\u2019s a rush, kind of like what I get from entrepreneurship. You are exposed, open, doing something you can\u2019t hide from.<\/p>\n

\u201cActing\u2014being able to put on different characters\u2014is always great. I do it when I\u2019m pitching this company to investors. I love being\u00a0on, being present.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my favorite role\u2014where I am in life. I\u2019m loving it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Are you ready for your close-up?” That bold white print above the orange type on the pink delivery truck-turned-mobile-photo studio makes The Headshot Truck hard to miss, especially in the palm tree-lined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-videos"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/12\/with-truck-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4379,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions\/4379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}