Directions Unit - Casting Websites

For my 4 minute drama I decided to cast people as my characters. I wanted to try and make a film realistically on how it is done in the industry, i.e. by casting people, scouting locations, etc. I think this is a good habit to get into as it gives you more of an idea on what it is like in the television/film industry.

We were given a couple of website names that we could use to post free castings onto, they were called 'Casting Call Pro' and 'Star Now.' These two websites are quite popular already so I had a good feeling that I would definitely get at least an application from either of these. Most websites used for casting today, you have to pay a subscription for the website to be able to post up castings, which is very annoying especially when your trying to post up on as many websites as possible. Even though I already had a couple of casting websites to use I wanted to branch out as much as possible and research into to see if there were any other websites I could post free castings onto. I found two 'Now Casting' and 'To Be Seen.' I didn't get any responses from 'Now Casting' and it made me think if people actually go on there, however 'To Be Seen' turned out better than what I expected. I ended up getting three applications from that website, more than I did from the main ones I used.

Here are a couple of websites I used:

Casting Call Pro - castingcallpro.com

Star Now - starnow.co.uk

To Be Seen - tobeseen.co.uk

Now Casting - nowcasting.com

I felt that I got quite good responses from these websites (except Now Casting), and was surprised on how many applications I got. One thing I did do was contact people on each website personally, as I felt this would help try to get more people for my castings. I'm glad I did this as I had more responses from people who I contacted personally, more than the people who applied for the role.

One of the people I messaged personally, sent a message back that surprised me. He answered with sarcasm and practically made fun of the message I sent him, despite me asking kindly if he would like to audition and if so contact me back. Just to confirm it wasn't just how I took it, I showed my lecturer Simon and unfortunately I was right. I can't believe that some people out there reply to a message like that on a casting website. It was a very unprofessional thing to do and it has made him look very bad. However instead of giving him the same attitude back I just sent him a message saying that if he was interested let me know what audition date he would like to attend, if not I wish him well for the future. I didn't receive any other messages from him again after that.

In the future I will definitely use these websites again, as they helped me get people to audition for my short film. It has also taught me that not everyone in this industry is nice and if you get a message like I did, just take it on the chin and be professional.