Master Series: The Future of Casting Technology

foreign and good morning everyone here is kind of enjoying our Master Series webinar welcome to the first ever webinar that we have for casting at entertainment Partners here within the Masters series we're going to shortly introduce our speakers and I'm going to tell you a little bit more about ep's casting portal technology before we go into a lively conversation about the future of background casting and casting technology if we can move on to a bit of an intro around our speakers please Emily so first off in terms of speakers at the Master Series today we have Andy mikoth who is a veteran of the film industry at EP Canada Andy has over 20 years of experience overseeing Business Development sales marketing and client experience at the largest production Finance Management and Payroll Services in Canada he began his career in the banking sector specializing in forensic accounting and fraud recovery before gaining experience in production accounting payroll accounting financing tax incentive Administration to both the U.S and Canadian Studios today I'm delighted to say that Andy oversees the business development and the Canadian launch of the casting portal connecting with casting companies unions and associations to drive digital transformation within the background casting space in Canada Andy is also exceptionally well Connection in the industry and serves on the film Ontario board of directors since 2020. welcome Andy Jennifer lisco is a BP of tax incentives and business Affairs at entertainment Partners Jennifer brings a wealth of experience to her role as a leader of ep's Canadian tax incentive groups as well as a legal counsel for EPS Canadian operations over the course of her career she has consulted on over 2 000 film and television Productions helping Productions identify and take advantage of the best tax incentives for each highly individual project she's worked extensively with government agencies across Canada advising on and shaping tax incentive regulations and policy Tom Walker is managing director of extra people a uk-based casting agency started in 2009 Tom was the first agency to offer a paperless process in the UK and is the first adopter of the casting portal technology some help spearhead technical evolution of the UK background casting and in turn develops one of the most extensive book of contacts in the industry while often looking for innovative ways to streamline ever demanding production processes Tom believes ultimately The Talented ads and Bookers are everything to be relied upon he's also a co-owner of take three The Specialist talent agency dedicated to showcasing dances and skill performers on the highest stage in the UK and myself I'm proud to introduce myself as managing director of the global casting portal here at entertainment Partners I oversee the global strategic development and growth of the casting portal and I work collectively with casting experts and Productions across the industry an expert in background casting processes and digital transformation I work closely with casting agents across the globe to revolutionize the ways in which they work before joining EP I worked in a number of arts and media organizations including Conde Nas Publications in British Vogue and recently joined Chief and Lead ship for women in executive roles so Tom Andy Jennifer please do come and join us whilst I do a bit of an intro about what we're going to be talking about today bye guys so I'm going to give a bit of quick context around our platform and what exactly we do here in the casting portal team so EPS casting portal is an end-to-end piece of technology that helps all the stakeholders involved in casting and hiring background artists to find book manage and pay the talent and everyone can do the same thing in one place originally pop in terms of the name of the technology platform we required by entertainment Partners in 2020 and the EP casting portal is currently operational in the world's biggest production hubs and we partner with casting companies in the UK Ireland the US and tomorrow first of June we'll be launching the platform in Canada for Canadian casting companies thank you Andy we are an expertise LED and besting power solution as an example we have helped the UK cast Over 3750 projects since 2015 from Bohemian Rhapsody the crown Bridgeton 1917 Indiana Jones James Bond literally just to name a few and we have the pleasure of being the technology that powers exceptional casting companies like the legendary Central casting in the U.S that sounds like a lot so what do we not do so the entertainment Partners casting water on this team we do not do the casting ourselves at EP we provide game-changing technology tools to Casting agents directors ads agencies and artists to work together and my job is to work globally with leading experts in casting and production to help them find the tools to manage one of the biggest challenges in physical production which is background artists and today's discussion is quite timely with Global Production increasing and On The Rise albeit a bit of a pause at the moment because of the writer's strike but now is the time to pause and reflect on the tools available to be able to hit the ground running when the industry hits an inevitable surge in production again with streamer and studio production increasing soaring expectations of audiences we're really here as a group to talk about how off-screen practices can keep up to date with on-screen developments so guys let's get into it we're going to dissect how technology has helped some of the best casting agents in the business and what the future looks like background casting in Canada and Beyond so Tom our resident casting expert from the UK taking it all the way back to the very beginning client number one using Game changing technology for casting how did you get into background casting and what was it like when you first started your business foreign mute myself there good start hi uh hello everyone um yeah got it was a long time ago um I got into it because a friend of mine asked if I could help provide he was a director he was directing a music video for a big band here he had a nightclub scene he asked me if I could get a load of people together to fill the nightclub and you know I put it together and I used Facebook actually to do it um and did it really easily and crazily thought hey I could do that as a job and a business and uh we set a business up we built a website within the first month we had a thousand people signed up and we were like wow we better get these people some work so we did and um we just hustled and made contacts and got to know people that's how it started and I ran it for three four years before Pop came along which was an inevitable thing to happen really and I suppose it's like a a first adopter what felt right about the time in terms of getting on the bandwagon of digital transformation like did it feel like a perfect storms of things happening that made it the right time yeah I mean digital transformation was happening in every industry around me um and in our process there was a hole in every single part of the process we had paper chips which had so many problems it would take weeks to get them sent through to us it would cost the ads and production so much time and hours and complicated over time working that out there would be queues out the door um and that became all online and it meant there was so much transparency for the performer to see how much they earned we were able to invoice literally the next day which sped up how much how quickly people got paid it you know we would get the money in you know a couple of weeks later if sometimes it's a week later and the performers get paid on the next payroll which is a few days after that so the speed in which people got paid which is obviously the most important part to it was just game changing honestly we would have accounts departments wait a month before they'd even put them in the post and then there was some missing and things like that it was just it was chaos and you're talking thousands and thousands of pieces of paper inevitably bits got Mis went missing um but the whole process of how we cast as well said up um we did use lookbooks PDF lookbooks but the quality of casting in the UK is so high you know so we do we've done all series of the crown and it's the one show that people always complement on and that's because if your your hair is so that too much too long you're not getting in so the the standards are so high so what happened was the rise of the Selfies yeah because there was no use looking at a headshot that was taken six months ago but that person's been on six different shows since then they've had a buzz cut they've had longer Hair Etc whatever we needed to see how you looked there and then so people were able to upload selfies immediately obviously that's sped up over the since then as well um so we were able to give our makeup departments our costume departments our ads real-time information essentially um of who was coming in who we were casting and how they looked um and then X for us as an agency my team's workload just became Slicker and smoothed out um because if you're dealing with 500 people one day and then 300 the next and then 150 on a different scene but even if it's 30 you know we're dealing with human beings life happens to everyone everyone's got kids they need to get pick up or something a doctor's appointment suddenly comes through even though it's one person it's in the individual detail that you have to manage and you know economies of scale just mean that's that increases so the platform enabled us to compartmentalize all that data into one place rather than an email here a text message a phone there or you know whatever but it was there for us to manage people's responses in terms of the availability inquiries because we only ever send available people to our Productions so hit look at these people but we've availability check them to begin with so that sped up it was all in one place rather than having to go through hundreds of messages and dealing with different replies yes I'm available and FYI and everyone was saying and FYI so there was always a nugget that we had to look at Etc but yeah yeah um everything's sped up I think like I I mean I remember when I first joined the company I think you're around Season Two Season three of the crown I think you just wrapped season six like I I do remember kind of going all the way through the numbers getting the bigger the demands getting bigger the costume requirements getting even higher and that's just Netflix there was you know obviously tons of production that came to the UK they got infinitely more complex as kind of the studio is kept pumping more money into the UK Jennifer and Andy are resident Canadian experts I suppose like reflecting on the picture that Tom's kind of painted of where the UK landscape was how is Canada currently kind of prepped to kind of deal with these type of challenges in background casting yeah sure good question um I would say from our proven history as educating Partners um on the industry side of things we've always kind of partnered with the major stakeholders to provide a solid infrastructure and shape policies and procedures um and more so on the production finance and management side of things we created Solutions in the industry to reduce the amount of administrative tasks for the day-to-day and give you back valuable time to do more constructive things so for example EP residency just more recently it automates the process of collecting the documentation securely and quickly so from all of our history we can now focus on this side of the business and remove those administratively boring but very necessary functions and it'll give you back the time to do things that you want to do like the joys of the job of casting for sure yeah so to echo on some of the things that Andy's brought up EP has definitely made good strides with our digital onboarding tools proof of residency tools over the last couple of years you know and that got accelerated through covid you know one of the few Silver Linings of that time um but certainly more can always be done to integrate our workflows and make it easier for both Productions and production workers to share information so while you know we've had some success and made some good strides in you know some areas of the business you know with casting right now without something like a casting portal um definitely it definitely it still skews more toward a manual process a paper process and you know I can speak you know this is sort of casting is at the very beginning I can speak to the sort of the the other end of things at the end of production one of the things that's super important to Productions is getting accurate and real-time information about a production worker's place of residence about their time on set so all of these things you know become really critical and Productions that now expect to have full visibility and predictability so that at the end of all of it once the casting's done once production is wrapped they have real certainty around those tax credit dollars so that's you know one of the things that I think is you know a missing link right now and a super important element in that sort of end-to-end workflow that we're really working hard on and you know casting this casting portal um continues down that path of creating success for Productions agreed and one of the interesting things about the cost of Auto and about us talking about casting and this specific area of casting is it's genuinely the same stuff the same types of problems and challenges in every single country that we've worked in UK Ireland us now Canada some kind of book but really um interesting kind of set of points where you know you talk about the creative process but also like one of the most important things is about getting artists paid at the end of the day they are the job getting these people who look brilliant out onto set but getting them to come back again is such a huge part of this and Andy and Jennifer I wonder if kind of you could give a bit of an insight as to what you think some of the challenges are specifically for background artists in Canada right now and kind of what that landscape looks like yeah for sure um from my opinion I would say some of the challenges would be transparency uh security and probably manual documentation um performers are typically walking around with pieces of paper on production as you know like residency documentation or the vouchers and it it could pose a security a personal security risk to them because they have very sensitive data that's in their hands that they have to hand off to somebody with the casting portal it kind of eliminates that manual process they carry around those pieces of paper the platform provides the performer with an accountment of every production that they've worked on as part of their profile so there's no need to worry about security or transparency or any of that many manual documentation anymore yeah and as Ty mentioned as Tom mentioned earlier time is everything timing is critical everyone expects things done more quickly more seamlessly and you know Productions are no exception and neither are background actors everyone knows technology has a place in our lives and expects it to work and work seamlessly so I think that's super important I think you know the timing aspect of getting paid is exactly what creates continuity and and success with casting and people like you said Katie coming back and and wanting to continue doing the work and I think you know obviously the the film and realize very heavily on the Goodwill and enthusiasm of the gig economy right and there's been lots and lots of um advancements in technology within the gig economy in general not just thinking specifically about background actors Tom I'm interested as someone who's kind of out the other end of this tunnel as to as to how your relationship with background artists has improved or or developed kind of over the years that you've been kind of passing with technology yeah um well I'm our office manager is we're only as good as the artist that we send out on set so um we've got to know those people and you know we have a databases what 70 000 people so we can't know every single person but what we have is transparency we can understand them better via their profiles um we get to know them um better via the work that they do um we can rely on people we can see their attendance record we can see the kind of you know have they worked lots are they new can we give them a chance you know you can tell if someone's going to be good within two seconds of talking to them basically um and the technology allows us to quickly make that judgment um but it's a human the technology doesn't do our job for us it enables us to do our job yeah like it's it's the hammer that the workman's using it's us that it matters it comes down to us at the end of the day and how good my team are um but yeah the artists like it because they can log in they can see where their bookings are they understand it gives us the opportunity to write click one of the biggest things I always say to my Bookers is add the 20 add the detail that you don't think they even need so we give them that so that they have the transparency the understanding the knowledge that because we can't give out scene details until they get there for example but we can give them as much information so they come informed ready to work so then the ads are happy hey look everyone that turns up from extra people is really excited and like ready to you know go um and then they can log in they can see their patients they can download their pay slips there's a um a breakdown of their cost so they can do their tax returns at the end of the year etc etc so yeah it's it's massively increased you know I'm not gonna lie in the beginning there was a lot of mistrust they were like oh what's this brand new thing I've never heard of it you know people don't like change but now people understand that it's a legitimate business and it really kind of it works and people can understand and see and they've got now years and years that they can go back and on All in One login yeah I think you kind of touched on an interesting point there about you know having to put in the extra 20 and this kind of segues in nicely to kind of how the expectations of production has changed even when I started at the company the size of some of the Productions I think were like a quarter of what we've seen in the UK so I think you know we've had a widley Scott production come to the UK in 2021 I actually looked at it today it's time I thought 24 000 manatees all in all uh across like an Apple TV show absolutely insane you never would have seen that kind of back in 2016 it used to be like when's the big Studio feature coming to Pinewood so Tom I suppose kind of one of the the questions that I have is we've seen this record-breaking kind of production in the UK in the next five years Andy and Jennifer are probably going to give us a bit of a preview as to what's coming up in Canada but how are the expectations of Productions changed and how have you been agile enough to adapt your business because I feel the way I have felt kind of on this process with you guys is it's just kind of gone like hmm yeah um the thing is I wouldn't say it's changed I just think it grows one percent every day like the standards just keep rising and yeah I think we averaged in 2020 to 28 or 29 shows a month hot band two band three shows um you know before then we we couldn't have handled that so it enabled us to and I think it was like July we had sci-fi Supernatural modern day World War II World War One fantasy musical um and then there's more as well like what's Bridgeton Regency you know yeah what's The Witcher fantasy yeah exactly so we had so many different shows with different looks different requirements that my team need to be able to servicing all at the same time sending different people to different sets different locations Etc um so the volume is massive you know the crown was the big one for the UK for Netflix and that was like the first streamer that came along and now obviously we have so many um and then it's just like a ball that won't stop and even now with the writer strike it's really busy in the UK um because there's just so much content being made um so the standards just keep getting higher and higher and we make each other higher as well me and my competitors we're fighting each other for the business so we have to be better that's the way that we keep running business so you know you'll probably explain to the Canadian audience how it works and stuff but you guys are out I know it's not sexy but like you you guys are the X the XL and we're the accountants using it and it just that comes down to how good we are you know yeah so and you you just enable us we're sexier than Excel but I'll take it I'll take it I think like you the creative requirements are like up here but then at the same time what I have really noticed is someone who you know is looking at a technology roadmap and thinking about Studios and all the other stuff infosec security compliance audit trails and we have tried to take all of that on so you can cast fantasy Regency World War II and stuff all in one go I remember when like I mean covid having this job in covert I was like what do you do oh I work in technology that manages crowd and they're like oh that's great because you can't even go for a coffee with another person but I remember when Jurassic World 3 came up and I think um we were given something like eight different forms that the artists had to sign NDA release covered waiver insurance thing covered policy safety regulation thing something to do with masks and it was like you know the platform could suddenly bear the weight of that and like a pandemic or a writer strike or whatever it is there's really kind of like stress tested what it can handle Jennifer and Andy on the topic of stress testing uh Canada is predicted to grow quite substantially um how is production in Canada kind of predicted to grow and also what makes Canada such a great hub for production obviously for Brits like me things like The Last of Us coming out and all that kind of stuff we're now just laser focused and all the amazing locations in Canada but it would be great to get your view on that opportunity that's funny you stole my thunder with the last time oh sorry and Tom as somebody that has jumped into this um just in the past couple of months this side of the equation plenty sexy let me tell you from the industry side of things uh Canada as a whole over the past 10 years we've more than doubled in size in both uh domestic and foreign production and continue to grow like we keep having Benchmark year after year after year after year um and we have these amazing series that come to Canada which I was going to say The Last of Us production that's got recognition worldwide so we do continue to grow and you know on that we're continuing to build and expand on the infrastructure so so there's you know right now currently there's about two million square feet in studio development uh across Canada and our pool of crew and talented performers continue to upskill and be recruited with the helps of the units and yields um what makes Canada a great place for production I would easily say world-class crew and performers amazing locations and of course which Jennifer can speak a lot about our tax Center programs yeah you know I think another important thing to note about Canada is and its growth is that I think Canada is definitely poised to have sustainable growth you know often jurisdictions you know start a program or having a new incentive and everyone's all excited and then you realize very quickly well you know there's not a good foundation and and you know there's infrastructure lacking or there's you know Talent or or training you know programs lacking and and so I think Canada really does have it all I mean it's long you know been held uh you know as a world-class reliable stable location in which to create content and all the Hallmarks of what make Canada attractive to Productions continue to be important and top of Mind whether it's the currency favorable currency exchange the tax credit programs the you know not only um deep talent pool but diverse talent pool um you know which is super important I think again with casting being able to like open up that that pool of you know of talent um and have more diversity really I think works best when you can use technology to facilitate that so you know with as Andy mentioned more infrastructure and Studio space coming online legislative changes coming into play that require streaming services to Showcase even more Canadian content and Canadian talent I mean these are all things I think that make Canada um you know a great place to continue its growth trajectory one more thing sorry back at the beginning of the stream Awards when it All Began you would have multi you would have multiple agencies on one job because yeah they would be like three or four maybe five yeah depending on the show um because the requirements they'd be like hey this is a really difficult brief we need to throw the net wide and get every agency and their dog working on the briefs now we're just one you know maybe two like if like and they're there for like the kind of scraps um but like the briefs here here that are really really hard so it's it's changed the ability for one agency to service an entire production that's that's the biggest game changer and this is all kind of interlinked I suppose with like you know Canada kind of aiming for this this ramp up really is is being able to scale I do remember when I kind of first started working and the the different regions in the UK and in and in Ireland have gone through kind of really big pizza Productions and new Studios and great local incentives to kind of shoot there and it used to be like yeah we'll spread it between a number of agencies then when actually I don't know it's Netflix or HBO shooting out in the regions of the UK you're like oh actually I do want all the release forms in one place and I did want all of the time cards in the same system and you suddenly realized that actually there is like a consolidation piece to be had here that is beneficial on the creative side but also I can completely understand on the production side why you'd want to log into one thing and get right to work documents contracts ndas time cards etc etc so I mean I think with that in mind Jennifer and Andy you've obviously been at efe Canada for a while and you're very close to the industry how do you think Canada can prep for scale and obviously the casting portal is kind of like an answer here but kind of more holistically how is EP kind of prepped Canada for this kind of growth so I'll take a stab at it for some Jennifer is much more eloquent when she speaks about all this stuff so I'll take the the wild stabs and the dark here um I I think from EP and Canada's standpoint you know we've done really good at removing like I said before those administratively boring functions from the production from a crew level um and I've been thinking about scalability a lot in the past like a couple weeks especially with the strike upon us and I think that there is a massive opportunity with time right now where people can Embrace different Technologies to make their life easier whereas before you know you're kind of running and doing your day-to-day it's hard to get on board with something and I'll be able to learn it fully this allows now for you to embrace it learn it and refine your processes um and I think a very challenging area of production and I think what's been interesting to watch is that the industry while you know very broad you know and sort of well represented across Canada has always been kind of insular and sort of relied on itself and it's unions and its associations to sort of encourage growth and and you know start to think about how to scale and now what's I think what's shifted and what is really exciting and a great opportunity is that outside the industry you know the public at large government organizations um you know universities are coming together and really thinking creatively and collaboratively about how we scale together what training programs are required what are the skills gaps that need to be filled where is you know how do we bring technology together into one seamless end-to-end platform which is you know ep's domain right now and it's it's big push so all of those things working together I really think are going to be the the critical things that get Canada to scale you know and continue to grow you know the growth has been incredible and has been record-breaking year over year but we know there's more to do and I think you know casting is an element that has I think still been lagging behind a lot of those other initiatives and I think as Andy mentioned this is a great opportunity to really bring all the pieces together and really get everyone ready for this next Surge and this next phase of growth and you know start Skilling up start training start really getting technology embedded into the production workflows you know for the greater good of everybody and I love something that Tom said or you know in one of our earlier chats which I want to bring up is because you know so many of us have lives outside of this this job and this you know this this industry in this world is to be able to send your people home at the end of the day to be able to be home for dinner I think you've mentioned that a couple times Tom just the idea of you know growth is great but not at the expense of life and you know I think casting portal is just yet another example of a success in that realm I think sustainable growth is like basically like the key phrase there is that you know we I've even after covert I was like is this gonna continue in the UK and it has been like a slow like Spike but it's not been oh well the tombow so differently so when I ask him another question but it's not been like wholly unbearable or unmanageable it has been like testing the bowels of the of what we are able to do I think I I mean I've been like reflecting on the opportunity in Canada and and what kind of the business biggest like benefit to production could be right so we've had lots of questions about technology about AI about all sorts of stuff and it is I know I've said this a couple of times to keep banging on about it and perhaps it sounds slightly boring but it is kind of the end-to-end bit right so you can be technology-powered and human-led which is effectively what the casting portal is like Tom said it's not going to make all the creative decisions for you and it's not going to make you the best casting director out there it is going to facilitate you with the tools to do a damn good job though if you have that kind of within you and I think it is that end to end that I kind of keep going back to it's not even just about multiple Bits of Paper now so it's not even just the stack this high of salary vouchers and kind of really spawns it's the fact you have paper and maybe three other systems you have to log into so I've got that paper I've got to move that data over here and then my artist has got to log into that thing and then that thing and then that thing and then may may be in a couple of weeks we'll get them paid and I think that that's what I'm most excited about is kind of seeing all the good intention all the training all the unions all the brilliant talent and kind of potential come together with game changing tools and time I was thinking about um how this has become even more pertinent with kind of the rising stream as an episodic television but we've had requests of could you open up the crown season two because the crown season four would like to see what we did on the crown season two or we've had yeah things like uh remember the first Star Wars of the new Star Wars that's complete I did sentence we would like to go back and see that and it's just having all of that in in one place I just feel like unlock so much potential that Andy and Jennifer has have kind of discussed this all sounds super exciting and super positive but we know that with big change comes its own kind of significant challenges and Tom you were the brave person to be the very first one to do it in the UK so what was the biggest challenge for you when partnering kind of with effectively the film and TV industry on digital transformation and how do you think you overcame it what was the biggest challenge in yeah with you guys in partnering with the industry I suppose in terms of getting ads accountants and artists onto technology because you were the very first people to make that leap and it was a very very manual physical kind of environment yeah yeah um well hey it comes down to how well you sell it the the challenge everyone was ready for it like like I said there's so many holes in the process all I had to do is get in front of people and just show them and show them how it worked um because it it does what it says on the tin well that's the saying we from a big advert we have in the UK and basically it just improves everything it really does and like you know I think back now it's like thinking back to the golden uh the old and Dark Ages it's very it was archaic using all that paper yeah that kind of cloak and daggering like you can't see anything and you're hoping everything yeah the biggest challenge was just getting in front of people and showing people how good it could be and then once they saw it it was like oh yeah wow yeah yeah that that works I do I do remember there being like a big hump kind of in terms of getting over the trust barrier I think there is you know I'm not gonna lie there is probably something comforting maybe not for a production accountant when someone's got terrible handwriting but there is something comforting about knowing that the physical stuff is in front of you and I know I'm gonna give it to someone else and I do remember kind of going through the rounds of production accountants and ads and and you know we built offline capability into kind of the UK version of smart voucher we call it Chipmunks to try and get rid of that wobble of what happens if the internet goes down or what happens if x1z I do actually remember kind of being in one of those discussions and literally on the day that a production was kind of deciding to use it they found out that a runner had left all of the salary vouchers such release forms in a higher car that they'd just returned to Heathrow Airport and I was like oh maybe the point has been proven in lifetime but it was like it wasn't it wasn't overnight I think it was a bit of like a journey but we were lucky to have people like you Tom who were real kind of pioneers for it and also some brilliant Productions straight out of the bat I think some of your early ones think you you were kind of on the early series of kind of Black Mirror and stuff like that so really and obviously the crown kind of like really strong credits where it just like knocked it out the park but yeah it definitely was a bit of a journey I think now we have yeah there was a hub yeah yeah yeah like there was just a trust thing like you know it's brand new technology and you know we've only ever done this way for 50 years and this is literally upending it and it changed it but the idea of it not being what it is now to me is just incomprehendable because it's just that just like a process and as as you guys said as Jennifer said like I have my evenings back now as a casting professional I see the wife and the kids for dinner Etc you know don't don't get me wrong I still have to do stuff on my phone but I can be on my phone sending a call time or something like that yeah um so my life is less stuck to the computer but it's also less waiting for cool times to come in in the office and I can just operate freely um yeah and that's a big thing my wife often says we should work from a beach in Barcelona but yeah that's another you could work through the beach in Barcelona you've segued in life nicely to kind of one of my kind of final questions before we take some audience questions which is one of the real missions of the casting portal and Andy you touched on this earlier was to try I say try and try try and give people the joy of the job back again so cut away the admin and the first do what you love you came to be in the film and TV industry Tom what do you like about background casting now what do I like about background casting oh yeah well the fact like I said we can cast sci-fi Supernatural modern day all at what all at once you know I'm so proud of the shows that we work on um different people walks of life you know if you said to me like who is a background artist who's a supporting artist who's an extra you know you have retirees you have um you know people kind of students out of work actors you know you have like Carpenters you see you're dealing with different people all the time um different shows you know we've got a big 1970s Belfast drama on at the same time as we're doing um you know we're doing something set in the woods in well it's a comedy show but I can't really go on it but we did Ted lesson yeah atlasso was the best job ever it really was um so good like yeah so something like that that's what I really enjoy and then you get to watch it and uh yeah that's yeah I think that's personally obviously I kind of work with you guys as kind of casting companies and casting directors and and speak to ads and lots of artists lots and lots of artists and no day is the same I don't think there is any other job where you could be a managing director and someone texts you being like those are those you know anyone who's like a fire breather with like waist length red hair and it's like no I tell you it genuinely don't but we can like try and use the technology to help you find it I think it's just like seeing people quite literally deliver the impossible that is kind of one of the mantras of the casting portal but you know I've seen two people alone passed from their kitchen a 15 000 Monday show in like the depths of covid so that's like covered test days all the shoot days then the other covered test days then the person's got a website and you've got to find a new person type thing and it is I think for me what I love about it is the technology kind of sits at the intersection of like create creativity efficiency compliance I love all the Innovation that comes with it and ultimately I love being able to go to the cinema and be like that guy is that a guy again it's always the same guy especially because we're quite familiar with the UK kind of production scene um Jennifer and Andy and Tom have really enjoyed kind of getting into some of my questions with you and thank you so much for your kind of brilliant conversation we're not quite finished there because Emily we do we have had a kind of a whole swathe of questions that have come in from our lovely webinar guests so do you want to kick off with a handful of those and we'll try and squeeze them into the final yes and so we've had a very active chat so thank you everyone who submitted a question um we're nearly at times so let's see how many we get through uh Katie I think this first question is for you will the casting portal increase the amount of work available to casting directors or agencies and background actors I would love if the casting portal was a magic lamp that you could rub and it's it's just generates new productions everywhere but alas that is not by definition what it does what I think Tom and kind of the rest of the team have kind of Illustrated here is it frees up valuable time so it cuts out a lot of the extra work that isn't related to Casting so we have found that when we have worked directly on production so whether that's kind of Star Wars we did a huge Ridley Scott show called The Last Jewel out in Ireland the team required to manage like all of the admin stuff they could be deployed onto genuinely being crowd seconds crowd Birds Runners not having to deal with loads of paper actually getting their ad training and Extras casting directors could cast so it's not gonna necessarily generate more shows in the very literal sense it is going to give costing companies and casting directives the ability to take on more but take on more well I think that's the one thing that we've kind of navigated through here this isn't about packing on as much as you can't you know until you're at breaking point this is about skillfully and efficiently using your talent to be able to cast a multitude of very significant shows well and keep all of your stakeholders happy whether that's an ad whether that's an accountant and most importantly whether that's a background artist because like we said you're going to leave them happy so they're coming back the next day brilliant thank you um and Casey another one for you how does the casting bottle change the workflow of casting yeah I think obviously we've kind of touched on elements of this if I like the most literal senses is I mean Tom kind of used a good example of this I'll use our kind of casting clients in an island as as another example is they were it's just casting directors who had a Facebook group they're a WhatsApp group they had a bunch of people in a G drive and people who would come in through Microsoft forms and they would text out casting pools and that's just the very beginning in terms of it changing the casting flow you're a private portal so or you invite your community you invite people who you want to cast into your space then there are the game changing tools that help you Whittle those people down whether that's Google Maps integration whether that's I don't know 50 plus Search terms that have been informed by at least I mean just from the UK over 3500 plus Productions so pretty much anything that you think could be a problem when you cast is kind of covered off here and it's in terms of changing that casting flow if you imagine that everything is disparate some things are in WhatsApp some things are in G drive then you're going to collect some pictures probably what's that green you're going to send them up to production and maybe you actually did this in a piece of software anyway but you've got to then take it from here and put it over here in the timeline it's creating the perfect line through the fine book manage paper so I'm going to do all that in one place and then hand it off to Smart voucher that's production world right they're going to sign people in they're going to download their residency you haven't had to send them to set with all of that stuff because it's there and then it's going to kind of swim Downstream all the way to the payroll company and that's how it changes there say how does it change the casting workflow it creates the end to end so you are you and everyone you work with is in the same place great thank you and we're just past the 45 minute Mark so let's have one last question which I think works for all about panelists what does the future of casting technology look like and what are you most excited about I'm going to give someone else the floor here how straight and party much um what is the future of background technology that's um casting um so first off AI the elephant in the room um I think I think AI will improve our process it will not replace um people on set 100 someone said um if kovid and VFX didn't kill off the background artist then AI won't um yeah and you just cannot beat real people on set you know so where I think it will improve is our processes in the office in terms of what we use to find people and book people and you know if if we're asked to find a body double of sub-obscure actor that isn't very famous or has just come along we need to search the platform for that person then AI I'm sure Casey will discuss like new features Etc over the next few years will come in to help us find those people um and that's where I see it improving um I don't think it's going to take work away from anyone um I think every human being watching this wants it to you know stay away from their jobs so you know we're going to put up a fight and it's not it's not going to do that it's just not going to do that I think it comes back to the what I said about being human-led but kind of like technology powered I can so see like you know if you're an artist you used to upload your selfies I'm a very good example two years ago I had like black hair down to here I've uploaded a new selfie I may not go and then change my profile to say I've chopped my hair off and covered and bleached it blondes and all the other stuff AI could look at that photo and fill out your profile for you they are the interesting things that I think could really kind of speed up the process but of getting actual human beings on set I mean Jennifer and Andy I'm not sure if you've kind of got any other thoughts to add but I think AI is exciting I don't think it's a like for like replacement I think I would back up a few steps and say what is the future of background casting look like in Canada we're at the infancy of all of this and while AI is exciting I think what's even more exciting I know Andy will probably agree is just the idea of having technology solve for so many of the pain points that have historically existed um and that you know and and bringing that into the fold with the rest of ep's Suite of technology and products I think that's really the biggest game changer unlike pop in the UK which started out as sort of a standalone we have this huge Advantage if you think of already having a pre-existing kind of platform and workflow and we get to plug this into that and it's so powerful I mean I think really that's the exciting part of the Canadian future um when it comes to background casting very grounding Jennifer is also getting excited [Laughter] I think that that is it exactly right Andy and anything for you on this topic follow-up on that that was perfectly set that's exactly the case and Jennifer I think you've quite literally given us so perfect kind of ending point for this discussion Emily gonna hand back over to you but I would just like to really thank Tom Andy Jennifer for just a phenomenally interesting discussion I've thoroughly enjoyed kind of getting into it and kind of talking about it more but thank you so much thank you everyone I just love seeing Katie's face light up when she talks about casting to learn more about the casting portal the world's leading technology for streamlining the process of finding booking managing and paying background actors head to ep.com Casting and if you would like to revisit today's recording or you want to view any of the other recordings in our Master Series Library head to ep.com Master Series where you

can find them all we cover all topics from industry and product news incentives financing payroll and payroll tax legislation and legal and compliance and with that thank you all for attending today and we will see you at the next Master Series

2023-09-21 07:21

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