Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 29, Issue 13 - Index

Casting Some Light
The State Of The Talent And Casting Industry
By Amy Wilschke
As of press time, there is a chance that that Screen Actors
Guild (SAG), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary
with a huge gala benefit in Chicago, will strike in the coming
weeks. The contract between SAG and the Alliance of
Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expired
on Monday, June 30, and as this issue of SCREEN went to
press, there was still no word on whether SAG has moved to
strike or not.
This strike falls on the heels of the WGA strike of last fall. With
writers finally picking up their pens again a few months
ago, the production industry might be headed into another
work stoppage if SAG and AMPTP can’t agree on a new
contract.
This certainly is not good news, and talent and casting
industry professionals don’t like to comment on news that
isn’t good – does anyone, really? That being said, SCREEN
was able to glean a few glimmers of hope from folks in the
industry for its annual talent and casting report.
For starters, O’Connor
Casting in Chicago recently
announced that 2008 so far
has been its “best in the last
decade,” according to a
press release issued on June
25. Last year, the company
began offering in-studio
video conferencing for outof-town
clients, which has
proven successful this year
with a 10 percent increase in
business. O’Connor Casting
partnered with Envision
Studios (New York), which
operates a network of casting studios nationwide. All
of Envision’s studios are connected with state-of-the-art
quality video conferencing technology.
This year, O’Connor Casting also saw the hiring of three new
staff members. Casting assistant and Chicago native Kristen
Funk hails from the University of Miami, where she received
a degree in Communications with a double major in Motion
Pictures and Art. Gina Lawrence has also come on board
as a casting assistant after graduating from Northwestern
University in Chicago. Both women aspire to become
casting directors.
Additionally, Max Mount was hired as session director at
O’Connor Casting. A veteran of the industry, Mount has
a Master’s Degree from the Univeristy of Massachusetts
– where he also taught – and has spent years working as
both a director and writer in the Atlanta and Boston areas.
The news from O’Connor Casting is certainly welcome,
especially this year, with the overall economy being as
stressed as it is.
SCREEN also reached out to a few other local talent and
casting companies in the hopes of garnering some positive
news on the state of the industry. One professional who was
able to offer some insight is Lynne Hamilton of Chicagobased
Shirley Hamilton, Inc., a talent representation
company. She noted a couple of interesting points about
the industry today in order to help bolster the more upbeat
side of talent and casting.
Hamilton points to an article by Eric Benderoff that ran in
the June 25 web edition of the “Chicago Tribune” titled
“Who Better (or Worse) to Measure Online Ads?” that
answers the question “How measurable is the Internet?”
with regard to media buy and advertising. Benderoff writes
that when people in the business are posed this question,
their responses hit all across the board.
On Tuesday, June 23, Google – “the Internet advertising
king” – launched its own Internet measurement tool, called
Google Ad Planner, and though it’s too soon to tell, the tool
could serve to smooth out
any confusion that comes
with online advertising
measurement, according to
Benderoff.
The reason Hamilton brings
up Benderoff’s article is that
Google’s new tool and way of
measuring advertising could
be helpful for SAG. Since
the Internet is increasingly
being looked at as more of
a business than a toy – with
the advent of “new media”
outlets such as webisodes
and viral advertising – the ways in which the Internet
as a venue for this media is measured is also becoming
increasingly important.
She says that, in the way that Nielsen ratings and other tools
help give values to performance and enable media buys
to be quantified, so, too, might Google and this new way of
measuring the Internet. This will be especially useful in terms
of commercial use and media buys that SAG measures, as
the problem for SAG previously has been that the advertising
arm that does the negotiating isn’t very measureable. As the
Internet becomes more measureable, negotiations between
SAG and the producer side will become easier.
This is definitely good news, and SCREEN will continue to
deliver as much good news as possible as it comes through
the door.
//www.oconnorcasting.tv
//www.sag.org
//www.chicagotribune.com
//www.google.com/adplanner
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