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Hello,

I'm wondering if someone can explain to me the benefit of being listed on Starnow. My daughter has an agent who has asked her to be listed in Spotlight which we have don. Does Starnow add anything to your visibility to casting directors? Can anyone explain? thanks.

Not sure StarNow is used all that much by 'major league' casting directors. We've had some limited success with commercials but usually the roles we've had are unpaid student movies. We are happy with this as we don't travel far and only pick things that we really want to be part of. This has given my DS lots of experience in front of the camera but I wouldn't say has really exposed him to casting directors of big budget movies or tv series. I may be wrong so I hope other comment.

For me they are 2 completely different animals. You definitely need to be on Spotlight which I hope your agent has arranged for you, but StarNow for us is more of an opportunity to gain useful experience at little cost - we've also met some great young directors and actors along the way, so please don't feel I'm being negative.

Feel free to pm me if you have any specific questions.

Hi emma7

CDs might look at Starnow but I have never spoken to a CD who has mentioned it. I expect they do if they are exploring every avenue - but for most jobs they don't really need to do that. Information for commercials does tend to get disseminated widely and so do calls for extras - so CDs for this kind of work may well use it. Every CD I have ever met has underlined how vital it is to be on Spotlight though.

If you have an agent then they will be likely to get far more information about decent jobs (and particularly paid jobs) than you would ever get via Starnow. Most of this information is likely to come via Spotlight - some your agent will get from other sources or the CD will ask the agent directly for specific actors. Some (like commercials) may go via Starnow as well as Spotlight - but if you are on Spotlight then they are generally covered.

Starnow may be useful to you if you want to consider unpaid work like student films or short films or independent features. My advice would be to consult your agent about these opportunities though, just in case you risk tying yourself up with an unpaid commitment which puts you out of the the frame for something much more worthwhile. Most agents won't bother looking at unpaid work (for fairly obvious reasons) but they may have no objections to you doing it for the experience and possibly showreel material. They would probably also be able to advise whether something is worth pursuing or avoiding if you are not sure.

There may sometimes be paid work like photoshoots or corporates etc that don't appear on Spotlight ( e.g.because it's a one-off job and the employer doesn't want to pay to use Spotlight). If you wanted to, you could check with your agent to see whether they know of it - if they do, they can submit you and if not, you could consider paying for Starnow so that you could apply just for that job?

I am also aware that Starnow often has work pitched well below the going commercial rate - so your agent may not be keen for you to go for these kinds of jobs (as they undermine the market) or may have a firm policy of not submitting for them. That will depend on how you and your agent feel about that kind of thing.

Thank you for all this- very informative! I'm sure we all feel the same- that since we are dealing with our children who are so precious to us, it really helps to be understand how this industry functions.

thanks again !

Thanks for that info pg. That's great advice for me too.


www.starnow.co.uk/adambeaver