Posts Tagged ‘extras casting’

Casting Calls For Extras Work

Friday, June 25th, 2010

If you are hoping to get plenty of work as an extra, then you should consider having an agent. You need to be careful about this, because some so-called agencies may actually charge you and leave you with no guarantee of work. Most extras get work without having to pay for representation, but since the work can be irregular and limited some people question whether agencies help them that much.

The more experience you have with extras auditions, the more you get to see that a lot depends on your availability and your reliability. The work doesn’t call on any specialised training, and the more ordinary you look, the more likely you are to be chosen. Since you are there in the background, it is important that you don’t pull focus: a striking appearance may, for that reason, be a disadvantage.

It helps if you are prepared to travel. Since the going rate can be around £100 per day (more if you have to work longer hours) for extras, it can be worth your while taking on projects that are further afield. Having said that, the bulk of available work is in the London area.

If you have no previous experience of extras casting, and you think that it might suit you, then there is an easy way for you to try it out. Here at Audition Now we can keep you posted about the latest casting calls and extras work opportunities by texting you direct to your mobile phone.

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Extras Work – Avoiding Some of the Pitfalls

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

With luck and persistence, it is possible to have quite a busy part-time career as film or television extras. Production companies are constantly on the look-out for ‘background artistes’, and although experience of this type of work is always an advantage, no particular training or skills are required to be successful at it.

One of the major difficulties is that extras work often comes up at very short notice, or may be available at only irregular intervals. This is why you should only consider this sort of work as a supplement to other forms of work. The difficulty then arises when you are called at short notice. If the timing is inconvenient then you face the problem of turning work down, which in turn will lead to your being offered less of it in future or of having to drop whatever else you do to be available.

You should also remember that, although you can find a number of agencies in the trade papers such as The Stage, through whom can get you work as production extras, there are also a number of operators out there who are simply trying to con money out of you, so be weary when it comes to who you’re dealing with.

At Audition Now, we help to send the work your way without your running these risks. We text information on shoots and casting calls direct to your mobile phone. In that way we help you make the best of opportunities to find extras auditions.

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Extras Work

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Actors who take work as extras are sometimes thought to be selling out. Some people even think that such work impacts adversely on an actor’s future prospects. Extras casting calls can draw large numbers of eager hopefuls with limited or no previous acting experience, and that too can make working as an extra seem the wrong choice for you.

There are some die-hard regular extras who have no ambition for more visible acting work, but who nonetheless get enough work to make a reasonable living, though usually they have to be prepared to travel a lot in order to keep working. There are also many amateurs who strike it lucky because their face just ‘fits’.

All of this makes it hard for the serious actor to find any value in turning up to casting calls for extras work.

If this is how you feel, you should perhaps reconsider. After all, no-one is suggesting that you should sacrifice fully professional theatre work in favour of doing tonnes of extras casting jobs. However, if you are finding it hard to get your next job, then working as an extra may offer a valuable additional income.

As an extra you will be working in your chosen profession: meeting and working with other performers may even lead to further, more visible work opportunities for you.

Here at Audition Now we can help you with all the latest information on acting auditions and casting calls; we can even line you up for some extras work.

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Are you a ‘Cardboard Cut-Out Character’?

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Extras work can sometimes feel a bit disheartening: you may think you are nothing more than part of the backdrop to a particular scene, and you may long to portray someone a little less two-dimensional.

At other times, extras work can be a considerable comfort to an actor. In a break from a long run of theatre performances it can be a lot less stressful than being ‘in the limelight’ and it usually offers reasonable pay and flexibility, so you can make yourself available for casting calls for other projects.

When it comes to acting auditions and casting calls, you need to switch into ’solo’ mode. You are no longer part of the scenery you are ‘no. 1′. Hitchcock famously said that Disney had the best casting; ‘If he doesn’t like an actor, he just tears him up.’ It is therefore important that you don’t let yourself get ‘torn up’ at acting auditions by not being prepared.

Some actors say you should never do extras casting work: by compromising your talent for the money, you may make it difficult to be taken seriously as a real performer. On the other hand, especially when you are starting out in your career, it is a useful skill to learn.  To play a piece of walking scenery is an important discipline and may genuinely benefit an enthusiastic novice.

At Audition Now we can help you with planning your future career as an actor, as well as keeping you posted via your mobile about the very latest theatre auditions and casting calls.

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