Since we’re now very close to the first phase of our launch, we thought we’d try and explain how it is possible for film makers to use our movie website, One Fat Cigar, to cast and crew your projects and apply for actor jobs/production jobs. The functionality we’re about to describe won’t all be there from our launch (we’re still testing a lot of it and doing our best to get it ready in time!), but by Christmas we hope to have most of the below working and provide a really great resource for film makers, casting directors and actors. As you can imagine this is a big work-in-progress so please bear with us – it will take a bit of time for us to iron out all the bugs before we can begin to add some additional ‘luxury’ features!

First of all, the site is designed to cope with developing projects from day 1 of script. This means that you can upload video about your project, what you’re trying to achieve, discuss it, and of course, get feedback from fans and friends. As you go through the various stages you’ll be able to add your key team members (Director, Cinematographer, Set Designer, Runner, Casting Director etc.) who will all be featured on the project profile. If you want they can do interviews, behind the scenes filming, images from location scouting, and written blogs and provide this as more info on your project – you can do as little or as much as you like.

What we like about it is that casting and crewing your project works as part of the mechanism. If you want you will be able to do video casting (i.e. upload a video/piece to camera which talks about the role you are offering and what you are seeking) and also key in certain information about the position. Otherwise, it can be done as a traditional job posting in text format.

For Actors and Casting Directors this ties in neatly, so that if you post a role to the site you will be able to a) make it visible to everyone or b) it will only appear and be visible to Actors who meet the criteria of the role – so this means that Actors have to be as accurate as they can with their primary information, but those who do see the role know they have a chance of getting it!!! (This is a priority so we should have this working shortly after launch).

Actors can then apply with their bio/cv and a brief note as well as a showreel and preferred headshot, which the production team can then shortlist. We’re working on some nice functionality for the short listing.

When we launch phases 2 and 3 for Pro members, Casting Directors will be able to directly contact Agents who can recommend Actors on their books with profiles on the site – and this will be particularly useful for movie projects, and major feature film productions. Therefore, if you have an agent, get them on the site when we launch the secondary phases – it will help you get some great roles!

Film makers can, of course, contact actors or crew directly if they like them for a particular role/position, so we’ve placed some emphasis on the showreel since, aside from the C.V. this is a real (excuse the pun!) selling point.

For Crew, the process is similar, but since Crews may have multiple skills – i.e. you may be an editor who can also work a camera – then we’ll cover for this in how the jobs are presented. They’ll still appear in your newsfeed/page and it will be easy to manage which positions you’ve applied for, which have said yes, “you’re on the shortlist” and those which have said, “not this time!” All applications are, of course, kept private and confidential to the general populous on the site.

Once selected for a role, you can be added to the cast or crew for the project, and this then automatically updates your ‘Credits/Filmography’.  It’s that simple.

So that’s a first bit of insight into how casting and crewing will work. As always we’d love your feedback so let us know if there’s things you hate about other sites, and we’ll try not to make the same mistakes!

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