Frustrations Within Casting

Being an actor or working in the creative arts has always been something of a passion led career path with many feeling they cannot get a foot in the door thanks in part to the ability to gain parts, an agent, or that elusive and somewhat necessary profile with the #1 casting directory. This has come to a head now and people are feeling pushed out with the system being called elitist, we at the lost creatives wanted to share some insights and options that are gaining ground and opening doors to people with a few added options that even at the lowest budgets, can make the dream become a reality with strategic work and a little planning.

As regular readers will know, we advocate for indie film and the creative talent behind it from the cast to the crew with our own allegiances being openly stated.

We are happy to endorse creative and commercial avenues of filmmaking with companies such as New Village Video and HOD TV being two of our favoured routes,

*It is worth noting that HOD TV has parameters that you need to match to get through their vetting process, we have this in a document and will share with those who require it through email.

In casting terms, it is not quite as simple, there are certain sites and companies that have all but cornered the market and are seen as the gold standard, this however, has been changing slowly and we want to talk about 2 of those options and are open to hearing from new services that may appear or alternative options at any time.

vShowcards: a game changing paid for service with a dedicated team who not only help and support their members with advice, but a multi-faceted company that takes on actors and crew giving them a manageable route to showcase themselves and promote their skills to multiple audiences and welcome new and established talent because the site was built by actors, there is more understanding of the challenges out there.

Casting Callback: a free at point of use service for the UK, I personally checked out the layout and actors pages to see how it works and I am impressed, the company ethos is simple, they want to the creative arts to be open to all backgrounds making it one of the best of the free services for its open platform and honest approach to the industry.

With just these 2 options under your belt, it offers up scope in particular to new entrants, and with the media market slowly getting back on its feet with global financial concerns, it shows that no matter what your background, no matter your financial status as an actor or filmmaker, there is a means to promote and market yourself and fortunately, in this content hungry age, platforms available to sell your work.

Lost Creatives will be using these platforms both for casting and for promotion over the next year and focusing on opportunities outside the mainstream with digital TV and film being our goal and of course, supporting creatives across the spectrum with the blog being open to those who need support to promote their projects.

We will be talking in our next blog about commercial avenues for short films and touching on team building for projects with small budget.

Timeline Updates

While the blog and other elements have been very quiet of late, we do apologize for this, it does not mean we have been idle. In fact it is the opposite with so much in the works we have had to set deadlines for projects and new launches before time really ran away and we lost track of what is being done.

Some of the domains we own are now due for renewal and we are using that as the baseline for soft launching websites and taking down some of the older work to make things as clean as possible.

With a wedding under our belt, in what will be a two-part package, there is some really beautiful images coming from that which will showcase our creative director and founder working as well as our beautiful bride.

Lost Creatives is going to be changed dramatically as well with new galleries being worked out to match the upcoming Lost Project Media site that will be the home of our video and print work, a mix of editorial and commercial campaigns, more on this later.

James will be launching a fresh new site which as a makeup artist he wanted to be a whole set of new work all tailored to the lost identity and brand and completely different from his previous site with a focus on the commercial.

In the next week we will be doing a very interesting set of blogs piece about indie brands that popped up on our radar and will be playing a part in the working kit of our house artist. Both of which are interesting and will offer very different perspectives on a makeup kit as well as product usage and placement.

With an end goal of updating not just the websites but our other networking sites such as Vshowcards, by August we will be well on our way to the whole new look and entirely different brand identity than when we started and it is truly exciting to see how things have developed from where we began.

Building Your Team Featuring Vshowcards

Something I have seen quite a lot of when on social media is the individualist aspect of marketing, by that I mean promotion of just one aspect of what you do as a creative, forgetting that when it comes to a shoot be it film, TV, or photographic it is a team affair.

One of the biggest reasons we say this is because our own creative director JamesC has reached out to the team behind vshowcards and will be working with them to assess a proposal for upcoming projects.

Networking, promotion and just old fashioned relationship building over time can be a difference maker in the world of film and TV, we rely on each other to make a shoot run smoothly and efficiently so having good relationships with the team make a huge difference.

With Vshowcards you have access to the a huge number of professionals within industry that will support your moves and if you reach out are willing to help and support, you just need to ask.

From an industry standpoint there is so much more than just your skillset to consider, you are a part of a team, the machine works because we do and supporting each other is the way to move forward and building your team is a lot easier when you have all your information at your fingertips and know you can reach out to others with questions.

To learn more about the Vshowcards set up or to join see:

Vshowcards Website.

Vshowcards Facebook.

Vshowcards Twitter.

Vshowcards Instagram.

Vshowcards YouTube.

Project Notes

A habit our creative director JamesC picked up when living in India that we are actively pushing again, is keeping a notebook and pen to hand, ideal for writing down phone numbers or emails, sketching ideas for photos or as we know he did frequently, outlining plots for TV or film projects.

JamesC has in the last few weeks come up with ideas that will work as short films for festival entry or expanded into a much longer concept that need to be padded to suit the plans for 2023.

Festivals are going to be a very heavy focus of the work ahead, we have spent a lot of time checking options of annual, quarterly and by far our most favoured, monthly film festivals that take film and photo projects.

Of course our favourite book for filmmakers “Don’t F*ck Up Your No Budget Film” by Ivan Peric, plays a heavy part in our thinking because this insightful first hand account of low budget creation is designed to shape your work into a commercial project and works well with our own thinking and add to this the very savvy and again, first hand account of Patricia Jones book “Opening Doors for Working Class Actors” which when combined with Ivan’s book has the scope to create a great combination and open up the projects we have to fresh talent and with the right focus and marketing (kept within a budget) see a series of smaller films and Web TV projects built with a commercially viable slant that will benefit all involved.

We will be using the Vshowcards site for casting and actively encourage people to check them out not just because we think it is a fantastic network site, but for the various casting calls that are available.

Expanding notes on our plan will be slow released through the blog and we will be working hard to get this push running with the Lost Agency supporting it and of course led by our own JamesC who will be front and centre with upcoming interviews including the Behind The Scenes Podcast, amongst the other elements at play.

Stay tuned for more updates and sneak images of our notes.

Finding Solutions

Finding solutions is a big part of the work we do, from our creative consultation work with the Sons of Adonis brand to blogging about shows, The Lost Creatives was built around that concept and we are truly grateful to the people around us, in the last few days our dear friend Keziah Nyam-jim who has been bringing her immense talents in the business world to the table and supporting our changes with some advice, gentle nudges, and more than a few laughs in the process, she has been talking us through options that we would otherwise have missed.

What this means, is we have a much clearer end goal and thanks to Keziah, a timetable to work to, and someone outside of the creative world we live in who is going to give us a critical eye that is much needed looking over the work and plans. Something that we highly recommend.

There are also updates we know are coming to the vshowcards site which will make a huge impact on how we work, and open up doors to projects for many people in the arts and media that will be a gamechanger. Our creative director JamesC, will be amending and changing his own profile with vshowcards and adding the link directly to the website to make promotion a little easier overall.

More updates will be available soon so stay tuned.