“You want to take away my livelihood” was the reaction of Tope Alake’s industry friend when he told them about The Casting Place. Since building this audition aiding tool in 2017, he has had to deal with these allegations from casting directors to producers. “We are not taking their jobs; we are just trying to make their lives easier,” he explains.
Why did Tope Alake build a tool that makes casting directors wary? The answer is simple: he went through the system. Alake left his home in Sokoto to chase his dreams in the country’s cultural hub, Lagos. Moving from one audition to another, exhausting funds. On the brink of giving up, the heavens finally smiled at him; he landed a job as an extra on a film.
Years later, he became a director on a project and was faced with a problem akin to what he saw during his audition hopping days: “I couldn’t hire talents.”. He could not find the person born for that role. “How could the same problem I faced years ago still persist?” he asks rhetorically. He posits the obvious answer is distance. “There is a good talent locked up somewhere in Yenagoa, another fantastic one in Sokoto.”
The first problem the Casting Place sort to solve was the distance barrier. The tool eliminates distance. Think of the Casting Place as Fiverr or Upwork but as a marketplace for actors. This market carries an array of talents in and outside Lagos. Actors fill in their profiles, listing their credentials, special skills, and every other related detail. It brings talents outside Lagos closer to opportunities and casting directors face-to-face with undiscovered talents, cutting costs for both parties. All benefits that can enrich the industry.
Another problem it decided to tackle is the audition process. Audition calls can sometimes be generic. An audition call can look like this: “Looking for actors between 18 and 65 years of age.” That is the entirety of Lagos, which makes it a large pool. The Casting Place reduces that pool by simply sending notifications to actors who fit the description. When they are alerted, they can take their self-tapes within the app and send them to the casting directors to have their pick. It lessens the amount of time casting directors spend fishing for their next star.
This method was used for the latest season of ‘MTV Shuga’. A call was put out on The Casting Place; actors whose resumes resembled the descriptions were notified. The casting directors auditioned them and selected their stars. It streamlined the casting process, making it less tedious for the team.
“Within the app, casting directors can raise casting calls, get audition entries submitted by actors on our platform, watch the audition self-tape submitted by the actors, collaborate with other casting directors to shortlist actors, filter through entries, and send group messages and callbacks to actors all from the comfort of their homes.” Alake elucidates.
In addition, foreign directors can easily cast actors from Nigeria. “For example, if Netflix is producing a film in South Africa or Los Angeles, they won’t fly out just to audition one person. Instead, they use platforms that support collaboration across time zones, allowing feedback without emails or calls. Everything happens within the casting and hiring system, ensuring nothing is lost in translation,” he adds, cementing the place of this technology in Nollywood’s ecosystem.
While The Casting Place welcomes all actors regardless of their career stage, emerging actors can take the most advantage of the technology. Emerging actors often struggle with finding auditions; with the tool, they not only market themselves; they are opened to a host of opportunities. By being on the app, they widen their opportunities. There are only so many places they can be in for auditions, so many “18-65 years of age” audition calls they can be present for. And for all actors, they are spared the chaos long queues can bring.
Physical auditions sometimes attract long queues, and long queues mean longer hours. Longer hours can trigger fatigue. Fatigue for actors who are unable to deliver their best performances when their names are called. Fatigue that can blur the judgement of casting directors. The streamlining nature of The Casting Place helps resolve that. It also poses as a security measure. When long queues are cut short, the casting process moves along quickly, and people are less likely to fall prey to the night.
As with every new development in the tech world and society at large, it can be a bit scary to engage but as tech has proven time after time, it is here to aid us and better our lives. The Casting Place is also here to do the same for actors, casting directors, producers, and the entire industry.
