Category: UK

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Casting Call Pro

Emily Connell shared this one with me. This website seems to be like Star Now. It’s trying to be global but really only has a lot of coverage in it’s home country, the UK. For the US there were 3 job postings on there “recent jobs” page but for the UK there are 100+. Without a membership, you can’t see much of the job details but it looks like a variety of theater, film, and commercials.

  • Subscription costs: Profile is free, £17/pm to submit to paid jobs
  • Headshots: Free
  • Video Hosting: Free
  • Example Profile Page
  • Territory: UK
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Casting Networks

This is the parent company of LA Casting which is one of the top 3 Los Angeles casting sites. They also have local sites for San Francisco, Australia, United Kingdom, France, India, Latin America, and Russia. I don’t have any information about these other sites except that they may be similar to LA Casting which is covered separately. Their blog has some good articles.

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Cast Upload

This site was submitted in the comment section and claims to be a European Union casting platform. The site is only available in English or German. There’s a video to watch to explain things but I never watch those – I’m honestly not sure why websites think people would rather watch a 5 minute video than scan a page of text for relevant information. I wasn’t able to find any pricing without creating an account. That’s a red flag right there (they do say it’s free in the comments but I couldn’t find that on the website). There appears to be 3 current casting calls available today sitewide. It’s nice that these are available to view without logging in. It looks like this is designed for submitting your own video auditions on roles. I’m actually not a huge fan of having actors submit an audition as the first step as it seems like an enormous waste of actors’ time. For example, one open role is looking for a “24 year old Mixed martial art athlete”. That’s the extent of the description. They must have some idea of height, hair color, ethnicity, or style. If so they aren’t mentioning it. This means lots of submissions that are going to be watched for a few seconds before they are skipped. I’d much rather submit my profile and be invited to submit an audition if I meet the CD’s basic idea of the character. This isn’t Cast Upload’s fault of course. The website does seem to be well designed and speedy. I found the example profile via the link they put in the comments – I couldn’t find it on the website.

  • Subscription costs: Profile is Free (?)
  • Headshots: Free (?)
  • Video Hosting: Free (?)
  • Example Profile Page
  • Territory: EU, but focus seems to be on the UK and Germany
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Shooting People

This is a UK based site that is a job board for all roles in production including actors and crew. They have an interesting discussion board for asking and answering production related questions. They have a job board which you can see as a guest but can’t really see any detail without paying up. It looks like more crew positions than cast. There is no mention of a profile so I have no idea if they charge for headshots or reels or an example profile page. A friend living in London recommended this site. She subscribes and honestly, I think if I moved to London I’d sign up too.

  • Subscription costs: £39.95/yr
  • Headshots: ??
  • Video Hosting: ??
  • No Example Profile Page
  • Territory: UK
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Spotlight

Emily Connell shared this one with me. It’s a major casting site in the UK and while they don’t show any current breakdowns to non-members they claim to have cast Game of Thrones, House of Cards, and Black Mirror. Oddly they are showing stills from the US version of House of Cards rather than the British original. They want £220 for a year and a half membership which seems steep.

A friend who used to be on Spotlight tells me that she no longer subscribes because it was too expensive, and they starting offering unpaid jobs. While they claim to be the industry standard, she didn’t know anyone who had actually been cast in a film or television role through them.

  • Subscription costs: £146/yr
  • Headshots: Free
  • Video Hosting: Free
  • Example Profile Page
  • Territory: UK
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Star Now

This is a casting site that started in Sydney Australia where I went to acting school. At the time, it was the only online player in town. It was useful for student and lower budget indie films in Sydney. While they have a global presence, when I moved to L.A. there weren’t any local jobs on there so I unsubscribed. Checking the postings today, there is one project that fit my criteria shooting in LA – an unpaid student film consisting of 5 minutes of “mostly improv” for some London film students coming into town for 2 weeks.

  • Subscription costs: Profile is free, but to submit to jobs costs $4.99/mo
  • Headshots: Free
  • Video Hosting: Free
  • Example Profile Page
  • Territory: Global – Best for outside the USA