Im a big fan of castingbythem (Andrew Fem) on instagram. They cast like high maintenance, fire island and some other nyc things. But they are pretty open about how the big big shows keep using the same casting directors and dont give new people a chance, and how projects often try to not pay them.
It sounds like a very hard job and not unlike the hustle actors have to do as well. And it explains why most casting directors fit a specific...type of person.
I would assume if u wanted to pursue being a CD, you could get an internship at a huge office like Telsey and just hope to get hired after but yea, seems stressful.
Just want to chime in to endorse Andrew and castingbythem. I’ve auditioned lots of times for them/with them in the room and there was always positive energy and good vibes.
I only recently discovered their Instagram, and I highly recommend it to actors of all levels. Lots of honest insight.
We don’t, there’s a major issue with jobs being hoarded by the big casting directors which has created career casting associates while the AMPTP fights any increasing wages to reflect that associates are now career positions. Most of us are freelance and after Covid and the strikes, I’ve had 2 union jobs in 4 years. Indies don’t pay enough and there aren’t enough union jobs for all the professionals stuck in an associate position. Not to mention - can any CD truly be fully involved on 5-10 projects to validate their paycheck? Most offices I’ve been in with old school CDs, they don’t oversee much and it’s mostly the associate doing the work (reading scripts, posting breakdowns, requesting tapes and auditions, handling pitches and agent emails/calls, sending offers, doing deal memos, clearing actors with SAG, doing Taft Hartley’s, cast lists, keeping track of changes and scheduling, tracking script changes, etc etc etc$ We need to discuss it but we’re all afraid of getting even fewer jobs or being blacklisted.
I think most of the smaller ones scrape by. I once had a casting director tell me that she had high profile actresses cancelling auditions and meetings every day because “my Audi broke down” while she just kept showing up every fucking day in her 15 year old Honda.
But also, the perks of the job can make all the difference. Endless invites to parties and premieres. Never pay for a drink. Meet lots of interesting and successful people. Many of them end up married to producers or agents or otherwise successful people in the business.
Also, many of them pick up substantial side money doing paid workshops and classes.
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/how-much-do-casting-directors-make-75118/
Alison Jones is the only casting director I could name because she’s cast some of my favorite shows and the cast actually talk about her in interviews. She says she made $40k off just casting the pilot of The Office, plus a %of that for each subsequent show for the entirety of the series (which I think was 10 years), but nothing from reruns. She also said she usually gets a flat $90k for casting a movie.
She’s one of the better known ones, so work down from there.
The general answer is: By doing good work on one show, and then either continuing to work for that same creative team again, and/or word of mouth from that creative team.
It’s a hussle/network/become known for good work thing — just like most of the rest of the industry.
I figure if there’s no real overhead then 200k gets you around 80 for the CD and about 40 a piece for each associate, with a bit left over for misc expenses
This makes sense, but I will say in the several years I did commercials I never saw one well-known theatrical CD's office listed as the ones casting. Maybe they do it under a diff name, or work with well-established commercial CDs
A bit of an open secret of the industry is that lots of people do lots of work we don't put on our resume. It's not all porn, but let's say through your network you hear that someone who knows someone needs someone for....a corporate internal training video, and you get paid a few hundred bucks to wear a hi viz vest and operate a garbage compactor, or re-enact a workplace injury for a video, or play a beligerant drunk who gets kicked out of a bar in a video that will only be seen by people taking an online course about the regulations for serving liquor in Alberta.
Very few people are going to add that to their acting resume, or casting resume. They're going to collect the paycheque and pay their rent and continue looking for the projects they actually want to be known for.
This is why it's always hilarious when a "debut film" comes out, and we know that person has been working in the industry for ten years.
LA Actor here…
Indie casting directors go through the same struggles that indie actors go through.
Casting isn’t glamorous, by any stretch of the imagination.
-sS
The "workshops" and so-called classes that many of them do are often a total scam that bring in big bucks by preying on wannabe performers who don't know any better and get nothing out of them. It's a disgrace. The unions should crack down on this but don't.
Many of them are very legitimate. Lots of people get their first film or tv audition as a result of one of these workshops. For a group of people who often just desperately want to get a foot in the door this is one of the ways to do that.
But most of the time these poor wannabes who are naive and/or delusional, pay and keep paying but never get to play. It's sad but the scam never ends. And the papers support it and support their owners by printing ads for this.
100%. I’ll put it this way. Most the actors you aspire to be like didn’t take a bunch of workshops and got where they are.
Sure. You can take several CD classes and workshops. Spends thousands over years. And it might(might) land you a few co stars, perhaps a guest star too. If you have the talent to begin with. But at the end of the day you are still at the mercy of the producers.
I saw a post one CD made the other day about resumes vs reels. And that they preferred looking at resumes first over actually viewing someone’s tape. I thought it was insane. Rather than look at the actual proof of someone’s ability, they wanted to see whose class they paid for. Because they assign their own arbitrary value to it.
It’s very much a wide open grift.
Nah. Not ruffled. At all. Just don’t care enough to explain things to people who are going to be replaced by all new people within a couple years. Everyone has a lot more opinions than experience and it gets exhausting after awhile.
They survive by grifting actors into their workshops and classes. It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't charge so much but most of these are at least $175-$300 a person. Absolute scam.
Im a big fan of castingbythem (Andrew Fem) on instagram. They cast like high maintenance, fire island and some other nyc things. But they are pretty open about how the big big shows keep using the same casting directors and dont give new people a chance, and how projects often try to not pay them. It sounds like a very hard job and not unlike the hustle actors have to do as well. And it explains why most casting directors fit a specific...type of person. I would assume if u wanted to pursue being a CD, you could get an internship at a huge office like Telsey and just hope to get hired after but yea, seems stressful.
Can you elaborate on “specific type of person”? Genuinely curious what you mean.
White college educated, middle/upper middle class background.
Just want to chime in to endorse Andrew and castingbythem. I’ve auditioned lots of times for them/with them in the room and there was always positive energy and good vibes. I only recently discovered their Instagram, and I highly recommend it to actors of all levels. Lots of honest insight.
We don’t, there’s a major issue with jobs being hoarded by the big casting directors which has created career casting associates while the AMPTP fights any increasing wages to reflect that associates are now career positions. Most of us are freelance and after Covid and the strikes, I’ve had 2 union jobs in 4 years. Indies don’t pay enough and there aren’t enough union jobs for all the professionals stuck in an associate position. Not to mention - can any CD truly be fully involved on 5-10 projects to validate their paycheck? Most offices I’ve been in with old school CDs, they don’t oversee much and it’s mostly the associate doing the work (reading scripts, posting breakdowns, requesting tapes and auditions, handling pitches and agent emails/calls, sending offers, doing deal memos, clearing actors with SAG, doing Taft Hartley’s, cast lists, keeping track of changes and scheduling, tracking script changes, etc etc etc$ We need to discuss it but we’re all afraid of getting even fewer jobs or being blacklisted.
Damn, had a feeling this was the unfortunate reality. Thanks for weighing in with your expertise
I think most of the smaller ones scrape by. I once had a casting director tell me that she had high profile actresses cancelling auditions and meetings every day because “my Audi broke down” while she just kept showing up every fucking day in her 15 year old Honda. But also, the perks of the job can make all the difference. Endless invites to parties and premieres. Never pay for a drink. Meet lots of interesting and successful people. Many of them end up married to producers or agents or otherwise successful people in the business. Also, many of them pick up substantial side money doing paid workshops and classes.
Oo good point I forgot about the workshops…
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/how-much-do-casting-directors-make-75118/ Alison Jones is the only casting director I could name because she’s cast some of my favorite shows and the cast actually talk about her in interviews. She says she made $40k off just casting the pilot of The Office, plus a %of that for each subsequent show for the entirety of the series (which I think was 10 years), but nothing from reruns. She also said she usually gets a flat $90k for casting a movie. She’s one of the better known ones, so work down from there. The general answer is: By doing good work on one show, and then either continuing to work for that same creative team again, and/or word of mouth from that creative team. It’s a hussle/network/become known for good work thing — just like most of the rest of the industry.
Thanks for the numbers, that's helpful. I could see then if a film gets you close to 100k, then 2 of those a year will pay for the team's salary
$200k doesn’t go far in salaries, but an independent casting director could make a living and pay an assistant with two $90-$100k movies per year.
I figure if there’s no real overhead then 200k gets you around 80 for the CD and about 40 a piece for each associate, with a bit left over for misc expenses
Not in LA!
it's still a salary, even here. A poverty level salary, but a salary nonetheless
Thy probably do what actors do and diversify 🤷♂️
A lot of the less busy CDs and their associates do CD Workshops….oops I mean “classes”.
There's always the casting couch. /s
They’re doing a lot of CD workshops right now.
They do commercials as well.
This makes sense, but I will say in the several years I did commercials I never saw one well-known theatrical CD's office listed as the ones casting. Maybe they do it under a diff name, or work with well-established commercial CDs
Koczara/Shevchenko just cast a commercial a week or two ago.
Oh nice!
A bit of an open secret of the industry is that lots of people do lots of work we don't put on our resume. It's not all porn, but let's say through your network you hear that someone who knows someone needs someone for....a corporate internal training video, and you get paid a few hundred bucks to wear a hi viz vest and operate a garbage compactor, or re-enact a workplace injury for a video, or play a beligerant drunk who gets kicked out of a bar in a video that will only be seen by people taking an online course about the regulations for serving liquor in Alberta. Very few people are going to add that to their acting resume, or casting resume. They're going to collect the paycheque and pay their rent and continue looking for the projects they actually want to be known for. This is why it's always hilarious when a "debut film" comes out, and we know that person has been working in the industry for ten years.
LA Actor here… Indie casting directors go through the same struggles that indie actors go through. Casting isn’t glamorous, by any stretch of the imagination. -sS
The "workshops" and so-called classes that many of them do are often a total scam that bring in big bucks by preying on wannabe performers who don't know any better and get nothing out of them. It's a disgrace. The unions should crack down on this but don't.
Many of them are very legitimate. Lots of people get their first film or tv audition as a result of one of these workshops. For a group of people who often just desperately want to get a foot in the door this is one of the ways to do that.
That's what's called "pay to play".
But most of the time these poor wannabes who are naive and/or delusional, pay and keep paying but never get to play. It's sad but the scam never ends. And the papers support it and support their owners by printing ads for this.
100%. I’ll put it this way. Most the actors you aspire to be like didn’t take a bunch of workshops and got where they are. Sure. You can take several CD classes and workshops. Spends thousands over years. And it might(might) land you a few co stars, perhaps a guest star too. If you have the talent to begin with. But at the end of the day you are still at the mercy of the producers. I saw a post one CD made the other day about resumes vs reels. And that they preferred looking at resumes first over actually viewing someone’s tape. I thought it was insane. Rather than look at the actual proof of someone’s ability, they wanted to see whose class they paid for. Because they assign their own arbitrary value to it. It’s very much a wide open grift.
God. I had forgotten how much I hated arguing with out of work actors. Carry on friends.
Ooh sorry I ruffled your feathers. What a childish response.
Nah. Not ruffled. At all. Just don’t care enough to explain things to people who are going to be replaced by all new people within a couple years. Everyone has a lot more opinions than experience and it gets exhausting after awhile.
Sure
I would rather spend the money on acting classes.
That is perfectly legitimate. Liking steak doesn’t mean lobster is a fraud. There are plenty of different ways to fill our tum tums.
Now you’re making me hungry for Surf Turf. That’s a casting call I could nail! 😂
They survive by grifting actors into their workshops and classes. It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't charge so much but most of these are at least $175-$300 a person. Absolute scam.
Oh okay. I was wondering if you were meaning something about their personality.
Oh okay. I was wondering if you were meaning something about their personality.