What's a good casting website?

thanks I'll look into that portion of the site. Wow 500 bucks a day for an indie short. Thats over 60 bucks an hour for a product that generates negative revenue. In my case I'll be filming half days so thats 120 bucks an hour. Something tells me no-one gets paid that money in the indie short business.
 
No, I didn't mean to say that anyone would expect $500/day for an indie short. Almost everyone (well, actors at least) would expect more like $0. I just meant that under $500 a day for an actor under any circumstances is still "low". It's also low for most other jobs requiring the degree of training and skill successful actors must have.

But if you offer $100 a day to actors in your indie short I think they'll be very pleased - as I would - even though it's still very low pay by actual "making a living" standards (unless you work every day - which actors by definition don't). Which is why most actors who would accept roles in such films aren't making a living off their acting careers. They do that by being waiters, bartenders, temp workers, or maybe even have "real jobs" while they pursue acting on the side (the latter would be me). If they succeed enough to go full time, they'll usually have to be commanding well over a grand a day - maybe two or so - to make ends meet, considering that only a tiny percentage of them will work frequently enough to survive otherwise.
 
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I'll share my current experiences with casting and trying to find actors.

I'm holding open calls this coming Saturday, and my promotions guy (who is no longer my promotions guy) decided it would be smart to put my personal phone number and email in the newspaper to advertise the auditions. I gave him what info he needed to give the paper, but he decided to rewrite it to his own liking. Needless to say I wasn't too happy. Fortunately, I got a makeup artist out of the deal.

But, I did get a few odd phone calls..

- People who didn't read the article in the paper at all, and asked me stupid questions that were already answered in the article. Like.. "When are the auditions.." duh...

- People who blatantly do not fit for any of the roles listed, because they did not read. Think, people who blatantly can't sing trying out for american idol.

- People who think I'm dumb and will fall for BS. I had one guy call me and ask me what the starting pay was. I told him we didn't have that kind of information currently. He said he was an experienced actor and had been in several movies. He said his starting pay per day was usually 5000.00. I almost laughed, but decided to play along and asked what movies he was in. He claimed he was in Speedracer (Disney) and WAR (Jet Li I think) I asked him if Speedracer was the disney movie, and he got all uptight when I told him I hadn't seen it.. like I should have, since he was in it. Needless to say, his name isn't anywhere on IMDB for either film and judging by his very poor verbal skills.. if he WAS in those films.. he was an extra and extras get paid minimum wage around here.

I posted on craiglist but got hardly any hits, and the ones I did get weren't worth my time. I got the best response on some of the regional/local acting forums for my area (Atlanta Film Community) I've got 17 people auditioning from the casting call that was posted on there. I also received emails from starnow, and explore talent asking permission to post my casting call.

I will note that I had one actor who "submitted" through exploretalent, and he emailed me wanting to know when he would be contacted.. that he had already submitted.. yet I had no info on him or from him up until that point. Word of Advice, avoid the casting sites.. I'm no expert.. but it looks like all they do is scour the net looking for casting calls that are easily found with other means.
 
crazy man.


So I got a ton of responses already. It seems like people on LAcasting are a lot more professional. Some of the hits from mandy don't even fit the requirements like several of you have already mentioned. Unfotunately most of the peeps applying for my main character are Union and my project is listed as non-union. Actually I'm surprised by how many union members are responding. Does that mean that they didn't read the requirements or that they're willing to do and ultra low budget contract? Is it easier dealing with AFTRA than SAG? I'm really hesitant to use SAG
 
astigmatic said:
Does that mean that they didn't read the requirements or that they're willing to do and ultra low budget contract? Is it easier dealing with AFTRA than SAG? I'm really hesitant to use SAG
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What kind of project are you shooting? Short? And what's your budget?
 
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I'm shooting a short.. about 30-40mins long. 100 bucks a day. It's kind of an ambitious short with about 11 locations and greenscreen work. It'll cost a lot if I'm not careful. I'm planning to offset the costs by selling most my gear when it's over.
 
Zak Forsman said:
my personal recommendation is NOT to do your casting online. simply put, experience suggests that the sort of actor who picks up a copy of backstage west, reads the notices and physically mails in headshots and resumes is much more professional and serious-minded about their craft than the sort of person who goes to a web site, fills in their info once, than just has to scroll thru the notices clicking on the ones they want to electronically submit to. I look at it as a level of resistance that weeds out undesirables.

i've done it online in the past and the "no show" rate was 50%. but sticking with a simple ad in backstage west dropped the "no shows" to nearly nothing.
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This is likely good advice. I learned this too late. I was trying to get actors to submit via DVD audition. At least 70% of the submissions we got we never saw a DVD. There are advantages and disadvantages of doing this. Maybe submitting a DVD is too much work for them or maybe they get time to think on it and lose interest. I don't know. At any rate I am sticking to the universal, industry standard and post for auditions where they show up with their picture. The only way really.

Chris
 
When do go the videotape audition route

When do go the videotape audition route

You mentioned not to do casting online. Does this mean virtually no one who submitted resumes and headshots showed up? Are you talking live auditions or ones where they submit a videotape?

Chris
 
I second LACasting, Nowcasting, Actors Access/Breakdown Services. Write a good breakdown. Don't be afraid to tweak it if you're not getting responses. Check spelling and grammar; have someone proofread it-- it's their first impression of you, so look professional. Don't be over-specific about physical appearance.
Concentrate instead on the qualities of character that appeal to actors, the light and shadow aspects of the character, the stuff they can act. Don't restrict yourself only to actors that have reels, but do take a good look at resumes.

Do NOT rely on any of the email function of these sites. Actors don't always read them.

Have a real schedule and schedule specific times. (But be flexible, in that an actor may say "I have another audition in Culver City at two, but I don't know when it will be done and how long it will take to get across town... you can say, we'll be going til 5, just come whenever you're done as long as you get there by 5. You may have to wait a bit, but we'll squeeze you in when you get there.)

Ask for direct contact information in the breakdown and CALL the actors. If you leave a message, give them a reason to respond to you; "I have both early afternoon and late afternoon timeslots, let me know which would work better and I'll give you a specific time. " "give me your email, so I can send you sides and directions on how to get there." Make them call you back to confirm their appointment time with them. If you've left a message with them and they don't call back in 12-18 hours, call again, and if you hear nothing after that, cross them off the list. If there's more than a day or two between the time you schedule their appointment and the actual audition, call them the day before to re-confirm they're coming in. Sometimes they forget. Until an actor confirms, they're only pencilled in. Don't be afraid to bump an unconfirmed actor out of a timeslot (reschedule) for an actor that has actually bothered to confirm. Tell them to call you if they need to cancel.

I do a lot of casting for a school, and while the above technique won't guarantee that they show, I've found that it does cut down on no-shows. It does take time, but if it saves you paying for several vacant hours at a casting space, it's worth it. If you take the audition process seriously, they're more likely to, as well.

I would also say always meet and audition the actors live, rather than on video, if you possibly can. Casting from reels should be reserved for emergency purposes only.
 
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I can't praise LA Casting enough. Had over 100 submission for a few of our leads. The ratio from head shot/resume submissions that turned into video auditions was awesome. I have lost complete faith in Craigslist. To much red tape considering that you do find some gems on there. Now if you want to us an excellent site where actors can submit their auditions I recommend, Let It Cast.
 
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