We've explained in previous blogs that the way we find local candidates is to search for artists within a certain mile radius of the filming location.

The harder the casting brief, the wider the mile radius.

This approach hasn't been universally praised by our artists:

"Why am I being penalised if my postcode falls outside of your mile radius? If I say I can get there, I can get there! The travel logistics are my responsibility - not yours!"

We understand that a lot of artists are willing to travel great distances to make a job work, but in practice, we've been let down too many times. After a certain point, the amount of drop-outs & no-shows increases exponentially and these do not justify finding the additional artists willing to do the distance.

But what about all those on our books that have multiple bases and can stay with friends and family at short notice?

Or even those that have a campervan that enables them to go to the work, rather than wait for the work to come to them?

It's been a long standing frustration that artists cannot upload more than one house address to their profile.

We've asked the Entertainment Partners developers to expand the number of addresses attached to each profile, but this is far easier said than done; the platform's legacy coding is built upon one profile having one home address.

So in the meantime, we've come up with another solution.

Below you will find a form to tell us where you have additional bases in the UK.

We have created a 'Reserve' list for each county in the UK for those that complete the above form.

You will still largely be contacted for jobs based on your primary address attached to your profile.

But should we struggle to find enough candidates elsewhere in the UK, we will ask those that have told us that they have an additional base nearby.

We've restricted the amount of additional bases you can have simply because we don't want these reserve lists to become redundant.

To confirm, we're not interested in finding those that are willing to pay for accommodation or will go anywhere given a minimum amount of booked dates. This is purely an information-gathering exercise where you make us aware of your additional bases.

This arrangement is based on honesty. If we book you only to find out that you don't actually have a second base where you've told us you have one, we will remove you from all reserve lists.

So what's a good base? Ideally a second property or the home of your parents/sibling/son/daughter etc. Please don't tell us that you're available in Edinburgh because you could crash on the sofa of your cousin's friend's sister that you haven't spoken to for five years. That’s not a reliable base.

The point of finding your secondary base is so we can treat you as if you're just another local in that area. This expands your net for work opportunities but remember, just like the jobs local to your primary address, these jobs will have a fixed travel supplement for all booked artists, regardless of where they've originally travelled from. As always, only respond "Available" to enquiries if you're actually willing to commit to the job if booked on the advertised rate.

"I'll do the job if it's featured with dialogue!"
"I'm available if it's a minimum of 3 booked dates!"
"I can do it if my sister has cleared out the spare bedroom."

Nope - please save everyone the time and hassle. If there are too many variables or if your availability is conditional, then you're not available.

If you have a campervan or a van dwelling, please email epcommunity@extra-people.com with photos of yourself with your van attached. You'll be added to a separate reserve list of campervan owners.

Please bear in mind that your willingness to travel isn't the only booking factor - you will still need to match the casting brief of the roles available for us to put you forward, and you will still need to be selected by production in order to be booked.

As Extra People has grown over the years, the amount of regional productions that we work on up and down the country has skyrocketed. It's in everyone's best interests that our casting team knows our artists' bases as best as possible to better service our productions and offer more opportunities to those artists already on our books.

Many Thanks,
The Extra People Team.

Log in to your Extra People profile HERE!

Have an Entertainment Partners profile? Try HERE.

SUPPORT CONTACTS

The email address to use for any profile-related issue is epcommunity@extra-people.com

If you have any booking enquiries please reply to the last email concerning that project. Your email will go to a dedicated email for that production.

If you have general enquiries that are not pay or booking related, please contact team@extra-people.com

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