Talent Cricle vs Shooting People

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Originally posted by Kiff_Kroker:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">CastNet was very useful for finding actors willing to work for free and travel to Portsmouth, and I think we maybe got a couple through Shooting People as well, I can't remember. Or maybe it was PCR.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just clarifying the numbers behind mikers point -on crooked features of our 8 main actors we got 3 from PCR, 3 from castnet and 2 from shooting people. Most of the auditionees were from SP but by that point we were more desperate so nothing should be read into that. Most of the applicants who applied though PCR were technophobes or agents and getting in touch with them was a pain. Personally I wouldn't bother with PCR again.
Castnet is probably the biggest actor database around and is the best for searching if you want something specific from your cast but 99% of the people take 2-3 weeks to get back to you if they get back to you at all so it's no good at short notice. Shooting People is better at short notice but only if they actually post your advert in time. talentcircle was recommended to me (by actors) after we'd shot Crooked Features but I used it to cast one of my shorts and it's much like shooting people (i.e. 99% london based, butt-end of the industry) only they did post my advert in time ;-)
Shooting people is about 10% better than talent circle at the moment. BTW be careful with talent circle because it's free to register but I believe you have to pay to post (I could be wrong though).</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">no, i've never paid to post and on their main page at http://www.talentcircle.co.uk they state "The UK's only completely free resource for independent filmmakers, crew & actors.", which I have found to be true... unless anyone knows of any other services that don't have different levels of membership to access certain stuff?

I recently had a good response using UK Screen. I signed up to the basic - free - package, which gave me an individual page (but I believe you are not allowed graphics) and the ability to put out casting notices. I had approximately 80 responses, and invited about 40 people to audition. About 30 turned up, and 10 either had to cancel or simply failed to attend. The 30 we saw had wildly varying ability, but we were (just about) able to cast the vast majority of main and supporting parts.

Many of the actors that I have worked with, said that Shooting People was the first port of call, when looking for casting notices, and next time, I will probably use them as well.