Casting Resources

[Todd Terry]

Well there’s just not a big enough talent pool of professional actors in our area for CL to work, and I don’t really want to have to post CL ads in all the next nearest few cities (those being Birmingham, Nashville, and Atlanta, for starters) and then wade through what comes in. We did try it once in the past. A handful of losers was all I got. I had somewhat better success with some of the regional casting forums (we’ve used Southern Casting Call), but I still get lots of submissions from people four states away for tiny one-hour-shoot parts.

After 25 years I’m convinced actors are the dumbest batch of folks around (and I can say that as a former screen actor myself)… little things like me harping on NAMING submissions with their name I’ll still get 50 files called headshot.jpg or resume.doc, and I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had emails bounce as undeliverable or call to hear “This user has not set up their voice mailbox.” It’s dumbfounding. Thus… I tend to hire either actors that I personally know, or represented talent. If an actor has an agent, at least they are halfway trying.

Now…

Actually it looks like Breakdown Services is going to work like a dream. I posted the breakdown at about 10am and by noon I had 300 actor submissions from about eight or nine agencies.

Now, I had some trouble with a casting agent who used Breakdown Services before… one of their submissions was an actor I really liked. A quick Google though revealed he was an LA actor with a strong reel and resume. Los Angeles?? Why the heck was the CD submitting an actor from 2000 miles away on the opposite coast for a puny $400 day rate part on a local commercial?? C’mon, people, stop wasting my time. That’s just one example of several with that particular CD.

So anywho, I called one of the talent agencies that had responded and asked for some education and perspective from their end, since I hadn’t used Breakdown Services before…. I was a little afraid my list was just auto-populated with people of at least the approximately correct age range and gender. No, the agency in Atlanta assured me that they hand-selected talent to submit for my particular breakdown, and ONLY submitted talent that fit the specs and that was willing to work in my area for the day rate we posted and all had the correct affiliations for the job.

I was wildly impressed, but I’ll be a skeptic until the job is done. It’s really looking good so far, though.

T2

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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Walter Biscardi]

As you’re in the southeast, Houghton Talent Agency in Atlanta is awesome and they’re willing to work with you on your budget when necessary. Recently we decided to hold an open casting call for a 15 – 20 year old for a new gig. Of the 15 who auditioned, we narrowed it down to 6. 5 of the 6 were from Houghton as was the kid we chose to do the hosting.

Time and again, they simply have the best folks and super super easy to deal with. They can provide video auditions via upload so they don’t even have to come to you to audition. I’ve known Mystie for years and she’s just an awesome person to work with and that quality runs through her company.

https://houghtontalent.com

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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Posts by walterbiscardi

[Todd Terry]

Thanks for the tip, Walter.

Atlanta is definitely close enough to be do-able as a talent source for us, even as “local hires”… we’ve used several different talent agencies from Atlanta for years, as well as a few from Nashville… I’ve probably cast dozens of Atlanta actors through the years, and always been happy with the talent. I’m not familiar with Houghton though, will check them out.

So far for this project we’ve received 372 talent submissions in about 10 hours, which is pretty overwhelming. There are 24 different talent agencies submitting, and 10 of them are from Atlanta.

Houghton wasn’t among them, I’ll send them a message to see if they are interested in requesting the breakdown.

Thanks!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com