Friday 15 January 2016
Having signed unto IMDb, i also used this website to help cast the actors suitable to carry out the roles of the characters in GANGSTA. This process too was a VERY HARD process, and very laborious! As this was not a case of me just saying, i want X-Y and Z actor; i had to look through each individual profile and find examples as to why i felt that they would be suitable for the character role i chose them for. Of course i had my wish list before i approached this task, actors whom i thought at first glance would suit the roles straight away, however, to my disappointment, as i researched further about them (such as JOE Pesci) i found out that they either were no longer acting, or did not suit the role given to them.
The main factors that i took into consideration when i was casting these actors in order to select if they were suitable for the character role was:
Casting call requirements:
Looks: if they resembled the character
Acting ability & experience: Proven credited examples of prior experience acting out similar role in television, and also film
Popularity: For certain roles, besides having a capable character, a popular character will help sell the series
Versatility: Although they may be good at acting, can they also perform stunts, as constant stunt doubles would be expensive and time consuming
The main factors that i took into consideration when i was casting these actors in order to select if they were suitable for the character role was:
Casting call requirements:
Looks: if they resembled the character
Acting ability & experience: Proven credited examples of prior experience acting out similar role in television, and also film
Popularity: For certain roles, besides having a capable character, a popular character will help sell the series
Versatility: Although they may be good at acting, can they also perform stunts, as constant stunt doubles would be expensive and time consuming
How i went about searching for my actors, was first i went to the preferred list of people whom i had noted down (such as Iko Uais, Maisie Williams, Umma Thurman, Robert De Niro) and casted them against my casting call requirements, then i searched through series and movies that i liked, pulling up multiple actors profiles for each role, casting them individually until i was happy with the actor that i had chosen for a specific character. For example, before the actress Jonny Sequoyah was chosen to play Nina, there was another actresses, Kylie Rogers, that had been selected to also play the same role, so i had to re-look over various episodic material in order to make a firm decision as to whom would fit the role better, and i had to do this for over 30 characters, taking all of the actors casted for each individual character through a filtering process to decide if they would suit the role.
Talent Agent VS Lawyer VS Manager
Whilst casting the actors, when i was taking down their contact details, at first i was confused, because they had so many contact details to get through to them on, so many people representing them that i did not know whom was more important than the other. The descriptive roles i kept on seeing was either talent Agent, legal representative and manager. So in order to distinguish who done what, i done some research into their job descriptions to find out exactly what they are.
Here's the results that i found
Talent Agent: Talent agents is an agency that finds work for their talent (actor, writer, musician, singers, directors et.), representing them across their network of entertainment links that they have gathered throughout the years, trying to gain their client more work. The bigger the agency, the more clients they have, and the more likely you are to get work if your attributed to a reputable Agency. Talent agents normally take a 10% fee
Legal representative / entertainment lawyer: legal representative is a person that handles all of the legal aspect for a client, such as negotiation a contact, or chasing up the claim if a contract is broken. There's commonly two roles that a legal representative is used for, such as a Transactional attorney, who drafts and negotiates contracts, and a litigator, who handles claims and lawsuits such as a breach of contract, copyright infringement, fraud etc.
Manager: Managers coordinate and oversee the career their talent (actors, directors, writers and musicians ect). They are not regulated by the talent Agency Act and generally receive commissions of 15-20% of the client's gross income. Managers focus on strategising and monitoring the client's overall career.
A talent can have all three of these representatives, however, if they have a Talent Agent and a Manager, that would usually result in the talent getting a 25-30% cut. Although, if a talent has both, it means that the manager is more interested in the talent and boosting their profile to get them more work, working on their photoshoots and show reels to keep them current, whilst the talent agent acts primarily as the promoter, trying to promote the talent to get them work also whilst representing other Talent at the same time.
Having carried out this research, it's shown me that when taking down the contact details, it does not matter if i get the talent agent or the manager, as they are both responsible for dealing with the specific talent.
