CASTING DIRECTOR WORKSHOPS

Talent agents and casting directors broker jobs for actors. They stand between actors and the money, between ambition and actual paying gigs. And there are a lot more actors than there are gigs. There are for instance -- in Los Angeles alone -- some 70,000 union-member actors, plus some untold number of non-union actors clambering for roles on television shows and movies. Everybody is chasing around after the casting directors and talent agents, hoping for the "big break." What this means is that, unless they are prohibited from doing so, unscrupulous talent agents and casting directors can set up toll booths for actors, charging actors to be seen. California law (Section 1700 of the Labor Code) and union talent agency franchise regs knock the agents out of the toll-booth game. The law intends that talent agents, which are really a form of the standard employment agency, earn 100% of their income from commissions on acting work which they arrange for their actor/clients. No up-front fees, no extra charges for photos or anything like that. But casting directors are another story. They are not covered under any laws at all, so they can operate as many toll-booths as they want. Hollywood and New York are chock full of casting director workshops (toll-booths), and frequently the CD's take their dog-and-pony show on the road. Popular pit stops are cities like Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando, Detroit and Cleveland. Here's how casting operates in the real world: Casting directors are hired by producers to find actors and bring them in for auditions. While it is true that a casting director can, if she wishes, bring in for auditions people she finds at the shopping mall or at a CD workshop, the reality is that she usually just calls talent agents. That's because talent agents have a financial incentive -- commissions -- to represent the best available, most-likely-to-book, performers. A casting director can call four or five talent agents and be virtually swamped with excellent, talented actors. A Hollywood casting director does not have to travel around the country in search of "new faces." Casting director workshops are advertised to be about glitzy education, about "audition technique". Who better to learn the in's-and-out's from than a real Hollywood casting director, right? And, in the bargain, you might get discovered! You might become a star! That's the explicit and implicit carrot being dangled by the cynical promoters. But CD workshops are mainly about two things: access and money. These events are gold mines for the CD's and their front men who rent the halls and place the ads. Recently, a woman in Texas (a very popular destination for the CD's because of lax state laws regarding talent agents, who frequently play host to the CD's) told me about attending a casting director workshop which featured two CD's from Hollywood in a two-day soiree, which cost $300. She counted seventy-five actors in attendance. That comes to $22,500 for the weekend, presumably divided three ways, between the CD's and the promoter. Do actors ever actually learn anything at CD workshops? Some say they do. But, since 90 percent of the true agenda at the events is the meeting of casting directors, the measure of value is whether or not paying to meet CD's actually leads to acting work. Almost always, it does not. The truth is that, if your aim is to land some auditions, then paying money to CD workshops is like folding it up into paper airplanes and tossing it out the window. If you want to work as an actor, what you need is an enthusiastic, honest, SAG-franchised talent agent. Your agent has a financial incentive to make sure you meet the casting directors who matter. And it won't cost you a penny. Until next month.... Ed Hooks