A common grumble amongst Supporting Artistes often heard in crowd holding is the size of agency databases, with each agency boasting of having tens of thousands of SAs on their books.
And these numbers seem to get higher and higher, 40,000… 50,000… 60,000!
The knee-jerk response to hearing such numbers is bitterness and cynicism. And from the Supporting Artiste perspective, that feeling is understandable.
After all, that large intimidating horde represents your competitors, right? With each passing year, surely you’re competing with more and more faces for the same few roles. No wonder you’re always getting released!
But you’re not dumb, you know what’s happening… Agents just build a huge database and charge as many poor suckers as possible with annual book fees! The greed!
This is a sucker’s game - and the only winners are the agencies!
Okay, slow down.
Let’s analyse these assumptions.
Firstly, it’s key to remember that not all agencies charge annual book-fees or sign-up fees.
Some agencies, including us at Extra People, only make our money through commission from artistes' wages.
This incentivises us to get as many of our artistes booked for work as often as possible. It makes our casting honest. We don’t instruct our staff to prioritise those who owe a book fee and ignore those who have already paid for the year. In our ideal scenario, every single one of our artistes would be working every day throughout the year. (We will do a blog on book fees another time.)
If you’re not working, we are not earning. It’s that simple. We want you to work.
So if we are not in it for the book-fees, then why do we have such large databases? Surely it is easier to get 10,000 SAs regular work than 60,000?
The truth is that the only way agencies function is to have tens of thousands of faces on their books.
This isn't greed - this is a necessity.
An agency juggles dozens of productions and commercials every year, each project requiring a different look in a different era and different physical requirements.
In August 2022 alone, Extra People had productions that were all very different… A Modern Day, a Fantasy, a 1940's, a 1990's, a Sci-Fi, a Regency, a Victorian, a futuristic 2050's…and more! All of those have different designers who want different looks, different measurements, different locations - we need to be able to cater for that - and we have no idea what's coming next.
If a Fantasy TV production approaches us and asks for 30 men with great bushy beards and long hair between the heights of 5ft 8in and 6ft 2in that live local to Watford and can fit tomorrow and film this Friday, suddenly that pool of artistes shrinks from 60,000+ to maybe 100 possible candidates at best.
Even then, a significant portion of artistes that are sent availability enquiries do not respond.
Out of those that do respond, a significant portion will be unavailable for the dates listed. That means that we are left with a very small percentage of available options that we can send to production.
What’s more, the bookers at the agency need to provide productions with plenty of good options. This is because these options need to be approved by several different departments including costume, hair, make-up and sometimes the director.
A lookbook of 15 great faces may only yield 5 that are approved by all departments at production.
Our rule of thumb is 1 in 3, which means that for every 1 SA role, we look to offer 3 strong options.
The unfortunate truth is that the bookers at the agency don’t decide who gets booked and who gets released. As much as we’d like to book everyone, we can only put you forward for job opportunities.
Agencies put you forward. Production books you.
If we are 15 weeks into a shooting schedule for a TV show set in 1960s hippie culture, we may have to do a recruitment drive to find new available young men with long hair and great vibes, lest we keep sending production the same options again and again.
If a production doesn’t receive enough options from one agency, they will use another agency to get the numbers they need.
Ever wondered why half of you turn up through Extra People and the other half through Casting Collective? The Crowd 2nd AD has hired 2+ agencies because one agency isn't giving them enough of the options they need.
All these factors drive the need to add more faces to the books even higher.
Agencies NEED 30,000+ faces to function. The business would implode otherwise.
The demand for SAs has never been higher. We are currently working in the industry at a very exciting time. The British TV and Film industry is booming. American studio money is flooding into the UK. That is why it seems that every week there is a news feature about a new studio being built or big expansions happening.
What’s more, the Covid-19 pandemic only accelerated trends of households consuming content on streaming services at home. This drives the need to create more shows, more films to fill out every streaming service’s expanding library.
Some of you may despair at the lack of barriers to entry to be an SA, while conveniently forgetting that it is precisely this lack of barrier to entry that helped you get started.
This open door gives agencies and productions the numbers they need, but it also gives you the possibility to get started and impress the agencies by replying quickly to messages, taking great photos, providing your skills and experience… etc.
The size of an agency’s database should not intimidate or frustrate you. They are in fact a great yardstick to measure the healthiness of the industry and the current demand for Supporting Artistes.
Each agency may have tens of thousands of faces on their books, but you can take comfort in the fact that the bookers soon become familiar with their most reliable SAs that are switched on, turn up on time, do what is required of them and conduct themselves professionally.
While there may be 50,000 others on the database, there is only one of you, providing only what you can provide - your face, your style, your wardrobe, your flexibility, your efficiency and your professionalism.
On that note, we look forward to sending you your next availability enquiry.
Many thanks,
The Extra People Team