Des, I think it is ESSENTIAL that you join other web-sites as well as this one! Although I picked up a nice, unexpected £400 from a corporate job advertised here on Monday morning this week, your real, well-paid casting jobs do lie elsewhere. CCP is made up mostly of lo/no pay or small commercial type jobs as far as I can see and I've been a member since 2003. It IS a really excellent WEB-SITE, beautifully put together and maintained and very user-friendly, but after several telephone discussions with the good people who run CCP I am in no doubt that the site is run by energetic young business entrepreneurs with NO experience or knowledge of what actors really want /need! Take this damned annoying "playing age" fiasco for instance! They've changed the criteria now for what someone's playing age can be to make it more closely resemble the age you LOOK like; mine is down as 35. But NONE of us has a specific playing range of JUST a set 12 month period! I am not eligible to ONLY play 35 year olds, I have an "Equity playing range of 26-40". What CCP could really do with is a Forbes/Blake/Tracey/Alan Brent type character in their midst to make sure the actor's viewpoint is also represented at the same time and not just worry about offending prospective employers all the time. This would also tackle the incredible situation for instance of not being allowed to join Voicespro.com, a sister site, because they think that actors and voice-over artists are totally separate and never the twain shall meet! Grrrr!
Editorial Comment Paid jobs
Over the last 30 days Casting Call Pro has listed 430 jobs opportunities, of which 209 were paid and 33 were low paid.
The remainder were unpaid positions, but please remember unlike other services, you don't need to be a premium member to apply for any of the unpaid roles.
Playing age
The new "Playing Age" is not intended to cover the full scope of an actor's playing range, rather the playing age is designed to say which age you are most comfortable playing and the age you are most likely to be cast as.
Research we've carried out suggests age ranges are not as useful to casting directors as you may initially think. Importantly we've found that given the opportunity over 80% of actors specify the maximum allowed age range rather than specify an age range which matches their looks and talents. As such in our system we ask actors to provide us with a single playing age around which casting directors can make age-range based judgements.
To show you why playing age ranges simply don't work, consider the case of a casting director seeking a 35 year old doctor who then gives us a brief with a casting range of 30 to 40. In a spotlight system where the average actor has specified a 10 year playing range, this means you'll have actors with ranges of 20 to 30 who feel they should be able to apply and also actors with ranges of 40 to 50 who feel they should apply. As a result the casting director ends up with applications from both 20 year olds and 50 year olds - totally inappropriate for the role.
Our new system puts the decision firmly in the hands of the casting director - you specify your playing age and if you fall within the playing age specified by the casting director you'll be able to apply for the role. In our system casting directors only receive applications from people with a playing age between 30 and 40, exactly as requested in the original brief.
Remember your playing age isn't fixed, you can update it at any time, just remember it takes 24 hours for these changes to be processed.
