I am a talent agent in Winnipeg. Winnipeg has become a very busy center recently. We have two principal casting directors and two extra casting directors. Both are starting to venture into principal and commercial casting.

Another principal casting director always publishes his breakdowns, and as a result I have been able to get a few of my people that I rep on tape for consideration. Any thoughts about the casting directors who refuse to use Casting Workbook?

For those readers who are not familiar with Casting Workbook, it is another web-based submission service in use primarily in Canada. Just as Breakdown Services (and its actor-level listing area, Actors Access) is the standard for feature film and television listings and LA Casting seems to lead commercial listings in Los Angeles, many of Canada’s casting directors use Casting Workbook. Obviously, from this particular agent’s question, not all of them do!

No one particular service can mandate that all casting directors use its interface. That’s just not possible. Even if casting directors don’t use casting services at all (which some don’t), no agent could insist upon being notified of every role in every project put out by every casting director. A big part of the filtering process we use, in casting, is our relationships. For example, I will always put a breakdown out on Breakdown Services (and usually on Actors Access too) for the films that I cast, but right now I’m in the stage on one of the films I’m casting where releasing a breakdown would be counterproductive. What I’m doing instead is sharing the script for this particular film with agents and managers whose actors I’ve cast in the past, or with whom I’ve developed relationships based in great trust. I know they rep amazing actors and they know I cast projects I feel very passionate about. So, until it’s time to share the breakdown with all of the subscribers of Breakdown Services, I will connect with specific agents and managers on my own.

Since Breakdown Services is my preferred casting interface, I won’t bother listing my casting breakdowns on other websites. It doesn’t mean that any one service is better than another; it’s just a matter of which service meets the individual casting directors’ needs. So, in the scenario you’re describing, it’s likely that one of the casting directors in your area is releasing breakdowns through Breakdown Services instead of Casting Workbook. Or perhaps there is another service in your area, with which I’m not familiar. Point is, agents, managers, and actors cannot dictate which services a casting director will use (or that a casting director will even bother to use a casting service at all). Every casting director has an individual style and way of doing business.

Just as you wouldn’t want casting directors to be able to insist that all of our favorite actors are managed by one particular person, and we wouldn’t like to imagine that you could designate which casting directors are hired to cast which projects, we all use the systems that work best for our needs. Best piece of advice I can give you is this: develop relationships with the casting directors in your ever-growing area. Take ’em out to lunch, introduce them to the actors on your roster, spend a little time making sure they know you’re dedicated to your clients and that you’re going to always pitch with accuracy and thoughtful consideration of the casting director’s needs. These sort of relationship-building activities will pay off far more than being a subscriber at the casting directors’ services of choice ever could.

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!

Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/000344.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.