Cast It – A Digital Audition Bank
We’re not quite sure how this fits in with SAG rules (but we suspect it doesn’t at all). The New York Times has a post on a relatively new casting system that seems like a slightly more protected, new video-only version of VoiceBank.
Auditions have been taped in casting offices, and sent to out-of-town producers for a long time. These systems are kind of the logical next step.
I’ve had clients do auditions for, and get, out of town projects using Breakdown Service’s electronic submission system.
As a local “plus”, this is a very “green” system. Actors spend a lot of money (gas, cleaning, coaching, etc), and time doing auditions. The savings and lowered environmental impact of doing auditions at home is a great extra.
I have worked extensively in casting and am quite familiar with Cast It. I’m not sure what exactly SAG’s complaint with the system would be, but I can say that this article seems to overstate greatly the way Cast It is used. At least for now.
Cast It’s primary function is as a system that makes it easier for Directors, Producers and Studio people to review auditions. As Neil said, it is just a technological upgrade on the way VHS tapes and later DVDs were made and sent to all personnel involved in decisions.
Projects are archived in the system but the usefulness of an audition from one project to another is very limited. Auditions are not polished like a demo reel and if you don’t know the context of the scene, you are not going to get that great a sense of the actor. And most directors and producers are still going to want to see the actor read their project’s material.
Casting Directors can use the archived auditions to refresh their memory of certain actors, especially when casting the same type of character on a different project, but that is pretty much where it ends. And most casting directors I know have their own system of keeping track of actors and may use Cast It as a supplement but not this “actors list on steroids” that the article describes.
I don’t know what the studios do with the system in terms of their cataloguing, but I really see this as a chance for actors who give good auditions to get on the studios’ radar more than anything else.
In the breakdowns the other day–there was a site looking for actors for an on line serial. BUT you had to be a member of the web site to audition. It was a new site and, I guess, they are hoping to get a lot of people to join and the serial was just the come on.
How many will join? Who knows?
Is this the same as that bar code stuff that some audition use?