Panelists
Transcripts from Talk
Justin McAleece:
Hello. Hi guys. This is shoots.video crew talk. We are here talking with a lot of interesting people. One of them is Jade, and I’m going to let her take it from here.
Jade Zaroff:
Hello. My name is Jade. I am a passionate voiceover actress as well as on-screen musical theater. And then I founded a nonprofit organization called entertainment for change, which advocates for a better world and teaches kids how to amplify their voices using the arts as the vehicle to do so. And I’m so excited to connect with passionate women as well, who are in the industry that I strive to be in. And yeah, it can happen
Justin McAleece:
That people that we have today.
Jade Zaroff:
I know we’ve got Christina, Jenn from backstage today with us and we’ve got Mindy, who’s an actress who uses the platform. I’m sure a question mark. I would assume so because backstage is the driving platform I believe for, for actors. What do you all, what would you say to that and Janica as well? I’ll,
Mindy Montavon:
I’ll speak up. So I started my career in New York and every Thursday, the printed publication of backstage would come out and I would buy it and I would go through everything prior to this digital world that we’re in. And now it’s digital. It’s fantastic. I got the bulk of my work during COVID from backstage. So thank you for that. It’s a really great, really great platform. Love to hear that. Yeah,
Justin McAleece:
Jennica you’ve used backstage before. I would imagine.
Jennica Schwartzman:
Yes. I started in 2007 using it regularly as one of my, at the time five platforms that my agent asked me to get on when I first was submitting places to get work. But it has expanded quite a bit since then. And I would say it’s more user-friendly there are more opportunities for people who are trying to get auditions like myself. And on the other side, when you’re casting, I feel like a lot, a lot of progress has been made. And I’m glad that you guys are coming here to talk about that.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, that’s really where it’s at to have it on both sides of the equation. Right. You want to be able to have a cast and directors get on there and find people and you won’t have those people to be able to be found. So that’s, I’m sure that’s always the push and pull that you guys are dealing with. Jen, Christina, tell us a little bit about it.
Jade Zaroff:
And where did you meet backstage for the first time
Christina Kleppinger:
Christina, you want to go first? Sure, absolutely. So I have known backstage for a really long time outside of my work for backstage. I’m a filmmaker. And so especially the ability to cast projects yourself when you’re maybe not working with a budget that allows a casting director. That was my first interaction with backstage. And I started with the company in 2017 in a more formal way. I do all of our California based outreach and partnerships and some business development as well. Really just connecting other filmmakers with the platform, working with our casting directors that use the site sort of day to day. And then also as my sneaky favorite part of my job is our phone school partnerships getting to work with student filmmakers and really teach emerging filmmakers how integral casting is to the process. Beautiful.
Justin McAleece:
No, no, no, that’s great. Yeah, Jenn. Yeah. add to that. What else?
Jenn Zilioli:
Yeah. So I am on a slightly different side of the, of the business or of the platform. I’m actually the, the crew and production specialist here. So I’m focusing on creators folks who make the magic happen behind the scenes. I love actors, I’m not an actor myself. I was a dancer in a former life, so that’s how I’ve always known backstage personally, just kind of you know, for the opportunities for, for dancers and various productions. But yeah, so my, my work with backstage kind of similar to Christina I’m working with partnerships with various schools with film festivals and we are about to officially launch a dedicated crew and production side of the platform. So essentially we’re going to be a one-stop shop for creators to be able to cast and crew up their projects. So supporting both sides, like you mentioned, Justin supporting the, you know, the folks who are looking for work as well as the people who, who need to, to hire and make their projects come to life.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, totally. And it’s almost three sides in that regard, cause it’s not only actors, but it is crew and other support people and then the people who would hire them. So yeah, that’s pretty neat. And it’s been around since 1960, is that true? Holy Lord. That’s way longer than I’ve been around a long time. That’s great. And yeah, I gotta imagine you guys coming in later on that it’s like a lot to, what would you say you’re, you’re always looking to update things and keep it current and make it work with how people access information now and are able to get on platforms like these. Yeah. Jennica was saying too that like that’s maybe come a long way or Mindy might’ve been as well saying that, you know, it’s become more accessible, easier to work with all that stuff. Are you guys integral in that?
Christina Kleppinger:
We, I mean, obviously we have a really robust product team who do an incredible job of making the tools on the site really usable and really user-friendly. The idea is that it is everything kind of does what it says it’s gonna do, then everything does what you think it will do when you click on it. All of that feels very like intuitive the process. But I think this year we’ve really focused on kind of addressing the new way casting has to function and finding crew has to function and, and making these things accessible remotely. So they’ve, they’ve done a lot of great work in developing new tools and kind of updating things on the site to make it all doable in a safe way.
Jade Zaroff:
Yeah. What’s the hardest part about if you don’t mind me asking that what what’s been the biggest challenge doing that?
Jenn Zilioli:
That’s a good question. I mean, I think kind of having to be nimble and, you know, there were so many challenges that the industry faced this past year. So having to kind of focus on, on tools to be able to help people continue doing their work even during these times. So the team kind of decided that some of the things that really needed to happen were being able to push out like virtual auditions different types of, of tools and workflows to allow casting directors and creators to just keep doing what they, what they need to do to move their projects forward. So I would, I think that, you know, a big challenge was sort of trying to get these projects or these like initiatives off the ground as quickly as possible during this time. And I think that it’s really helped provide resources for the community on both sides, you know, during, during such a, like, I don’t know, that just continues to be bonkers and has question marks around it as we like leave the summer and go into the fall. So
Justin McAleece:
Jennica, yeah, I was just going to say Jennica is a very hyphenated film person, like a filmmaker, film, actor, film, everything, and like, just expand on that a little bit and how that would dovetail with what they’re talking about.
Jennica Schwartzman:
I was going to say in general, as an actor, I’m sure Mindy, you agree, there are so many things that a casting director will send you in software and things you have to download to your computer and things that you have to figure out. And what I love is that backstage is such a powerful, and there’s not an actor anywhere in the country, regional, or like major hubs that doesn’t know the name. And it feels so different to do something with backstage than it does with like, oh, I have to do this BlueJeans thing. I have to do this, or whatever, you know, like they’re just new things that are just coming out of these really like interesting Silicon valley kids who are making things happen. But backstage is really where I trust, like what I can do. And so I really appreciate you being able to jump on top of all of that. And not to be the newspaper only version that was in the back of my head. Like every time I come back to backstage, for things you guys have updated and kept up with professionals,
Justin McAleece:
That’s great to hear. It’s really, it’s a to speak to what Jennica saying a little bit there. It’s like, we’re always just braided and barraged by platforms. There’s like another thing you have to add. And another there’s the there’s. Yeah. There’s some funny stuff about that. It’s like, I don’t even want Uber. I already have Lyft, like, it’s enough for me. And then there’s 20 other things. And yeah. So like having one that you can rely on backstage in that sort of situation is really great.
Jennica Schwartzman:
And I’m sure we, all of us performers really appreciate you guys actually vet everything. That’s going out to make sure it’s not a scam. Like, how do you even do that? How do you even ask that as well?
Mindy Montavon:
And jumping on to that, I actually experienced something last year that was kind of like a bait and switch kind of thing. It was, it was, this guy looked, it was for a dental app. So I’m like, oh, okay. Models for a dental app. But then they’re like, send pictures of your teeth. You know what, no, you need to get your teeth fixed first. We’ll set you up with a dentist and became this whole thing. And actually I had gotten a message from backstage. It was basically like, we see that you have applied for this. We want to give you a heads up. Like, we think this is a scan. This has been switched. We’ve heard. So it was really nice to have that contact. It, you know, it shows that they’re looking out and kind of keeping their eye on things. So you don’t get trapped into something that you don’t want to be a part of. Yeah.
Christina Kleppinger:
Yeah. We, I mean, we, we take it super seriously. I think that having that history of the company has been around since 1960 and has been we’ve, we’ve definitely built the company around the idea of being a resource for creatives. And so it’s something that our team takes super seriously. And we have a team of casting editors who physically, you know, one by one as they come in and go through every notice that hits the site and, you know, weed out the scams and weed out the people who are doing sketchy stuff and approve everything else. And yeah, they work incredibly hard to make sure that either every everything we, it, the site is legitimate. And if we find out after the fact that something is like that, like a bait and switch that we get in touch with every actor that is applied to those, to make sure that they know that they’re not that they are safe to apply to things on backstage. I just think there’s so many people willing to take advantage of artists that it’s, it’s important to our team to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make that not happen.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Mindy you’re established, you’ve been acting for a while. You like make a career out of this. There’s a lot of women dudes, everyone that are in a position that have like 20 years ago, 20 years for you maybe earlier to where they’re like, I’ll take anything. Like, I want it, I just want to get a role. I want to be involved. It doesn’t
Justin McAleece:
And that’s gotta be really difficult when they don’t even know what a bait and switch is in that regard yet. So that’s great that that yeah, what backstage can do, cause that’s a lot of work, like you’re saying that’s just a ton of actual physical, hard labor, figuring that out. Yeah. Great.
Jenn Zilioli:
A team works hard on all of that as Christina said, and we make sure to background check everybody as well. I’ll be users just to provide some added security and transparency like for the same exact reasons that that we’re talking about. So the whole company and particularly at the team that we work on really takes it very seriously. Yeah.
Jennica Schwartzman:
I, haven’t gone on to look from the crew side. What, what type of reach do you have regionally, are you able to search and find and develop individual crew by is it by state or how narrow does it get? Yeah, that’s a great question.
Jenn Zilioli:
So the crew side of the platform is in beta right now. So we’re just starting to roll things out. And this is for the job seeker profile only. We haven’t quite launched the employer side yet. Um as well as the sort of like job market. So folks can build a profile who are, are going to be searching for jobs or applying to jobs, but won’t be able to actually apply for those jobs until about early October. But yeah, so it will be coming really soon. We’re very, very excited. The product team is working tirelessly to, to get everything ready to go. But yeah, to your, to your question, there will definitely be a very very detailed and easy to use search. So you can drill down by location by skills, by equipment. You know, you can look at credits all of this type of thing, the really sort of like quick and dirty details that somebody needs to see in order to, to reach out or to make a decision. So yeah, we want to make it as seamless and easy for folks as possible because we know that producers, production managers like creators have such limited time. So just being able to like quickly search, find people you know, message folks as quickly as possible, hire them, be able to pay them through the platform. That will be a feature that’s coming and then eventually networking side of it as well, which won’t be coming until about end of this year, maybe early next. So all really exciting things to come or pumped.
Justin McAleece:
Totally. And that’s, you know, it’s similar to what shoots.video does obviously is we’re providing a place for crew to get on there and make themselves known. And what we’ve noticed is that a lot of times they need a nudge, you know, they need a little bit more whether it’s incentives or they just need to like, be aware of the power of marketing themselves. I think actors maybe know that inherently a little bit more, but the crew, a lot of times you get to twist their arm a little bit to get involved in these things, maybe because there’s so many platforms, but yeah, it’s, I, I would tell everyone out there who is a crew member who is looking to get on more productions, like add yourself to shoot some video, went backstage is ready, add yourself to there. I mean, those are going to be really excellent resources and are excellent resources to be able to get hired. So it’s definitely just because you’re a grip doesn’t mean you don’t need to market yourself and have like a good presence. I think that’s always valuable. Absolutely.
Jennica Schwartzman:
I’ll say as a job creator, like right now, I’m looking at a regional area and I’m having to physically fly to places and get on the ground and meet people and go to studios and ask for their Rolodex from six or seven places. And then I have to call around six or seven, six or seven, like different people per job. And usually I’m calling cinema schools in the area to ask them to put themselves on people’s Rolodexes because they’re going to be on the market next time when they graduate, or even now as an intern getting that training on the job, there’s just so much work that goes into regional markets and having something with this powerful brand like backstage that’s trustworthy and that’s a vetting things. I bet it’s so much nicer. Like when Justin is saying, trying to get somebody to get there, you want it to be fruitful. You know, you want to have a vetted, like if I put myself on there, I’m going to only be contacted by people who actually want to pay a rate and meet me.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. You don’t want to, you don’t want to operate in a vacuum. And it’s really important to from, from the platforms that we have and also from being an individual is to like get out there network, have your name everywhere and be able to be found that’s super important.
Jade Zaroff:
Yeah. The sources that backstage has are incredible too. I mean, I read a lot of the articles that you share. Where does that, how do you collaborate with different writers or do you have writers on staff?
Jenn Zilioli:
Yes, you do. We have, yeah, we have, we have, we have a whole team. Yeah. Thanks for asking that. It’s we have a dedicated team of folks who are writing the articles, who are producing various like panels and, and videos to really try to provide some education as much as possible, as many resources as possible to actors and creators alike. And, and to you know, folks who are looking to cast as well Christina feel free to hop in, but yeah, I was
Christina Kleppinger:
Just going to shout out also our podcast team. They do an incredible job of getting interesting performers and creators and, you know, just industry professionals and getting great interviews out of them. I think that it’s, it’s never feels like a fluffy self promotion kind of conversation. It’s always like very craft focused and, and into the, in depth of how to make this career work as an artist. Yeah, totally.
Justin McAleece:
A question that I had was do, cause I, I think people think there are a lot of what a gatekeepers in one way or another. And like, do you have to go to acting school to be able to be on backstage?
Christina Kleppinger:
No, not at all. I think we, the, the philosophy of the country or the com of the company clearly did not have enough copy today. I think our philosophy is that, you know, performers or performers and connecting them with the people that are, are hiring them or creators, or whether that’s like a filmmaker themselves or producer, casting director making the connection between those two people is the whole goal. Right. And so sectioning that off by like, oh, these people have, have gone to XYZ theater school. Like it doesn’t really fit with our ethos. It’s more about taking those creative people and helping them make those connections because networking is hard. And so just facilitating the creation of like those relationships in those job opportunities and all of that. Yeah. That’s it, we work with some really great theater schools and help them get their students on board and help them get that same educational aspect of like the industry side of things. So we do have some really great partnerships along there, but there’s no kind of delineation on the side of like these performers come from XYZ school and these performers, don’t, there’s
Justin McAleece:
So many different paths to success. I think that’s the important thing to remember if for people just starting out Mindy reflect a little bit on that. Like, what was your path or did you go to acting school or any of those types of things?
Mindy Montavon:
Yeah. I went to school in New York and train for musical theater. So you know, it was musical theater pretty much in New York and moving out I’m in LA you know, I wanted to focus on film and TV. And it’s interesting because in the process of moving from the east coast to the west coast for me is when everything went digital. So, you know, when I first moved to LA, it was like, like the two, like big things that I saw for casting stuff. It was like casting networks. It was actors access, but I was still kinda like, well, backstage is what I knew, you know? And, and then, you know, I moved out here and I was like, just filming TV, but then if you’re a theater person, you’re a theater person and you want, you know, you still want to be involved with it.
Mindy Montavon:
And really the main place that has any of the theater listing or like live performance theme parks, whatnot is backstage. Backstage is where they all are. And so, you know, it’s, it’s just been, I don’t, it’s like, it’s like that bit of home. The one thing that’s remained consistent throughout my career. And one of the things that I love about about backstage is with the other platforms, there’s always, you’re always paying to upload media of sorts. You know, you have to pay per picture or you have to pay, you know per minute of your reel, whatnot. And backstage was the only forum that I had seen where you could basically upload as much material as possible, and it was included in your subscription price. And that was really amazing and really nice to not feel nickel and dimed by a company, because as an actor, there’s so many, like we were saying so many platforms and whatnot out there. So it was, you know, I really appreciated that, you know, backstage had everything that you needed without any of these extra fees that you’d be finding, you know, kind of tacked onto things.
Christina Kleppinger:
I think that’s really important here in LA because the casting directors here want to see specific images, you know, our casting directors here, if you’re going in for a doctor, they want to see a picture of you and scrubs, or they want to see a picture of you on a bike or whatever it might be. You know, I started my life at a talent agency. And so getting our actors to have all of those images was really important here. So having the ability to say, maybe I don’t need a picture of me in scrubs on my profile all the time, but this casting director wants it. And so I can upload it right. Then submit to that job and maybe even pull it off next week when, you know, again, it doesn’t make sense to have that picture on my profile 24 7. Yeah. It’s been great.
Justin McAleece:
That, that seems really really easy to move in. And out of those things, you don’t want, like some sort of, sort of cheesy picture of you being a lumberjack all the time up there, but you want to be able to add it when someone’s like, Hey, have you ever been to lumberjack? And you’re like, oh yeah, here’s a picture.
Mindy Montavon:
If somebody is asking for it, you don’t want to be like, all right, I guess I’ve got to pay $25 just so I can get them this one picture he is, because I feel like that it’s just one less thing that you have to pay for in like a business where you spend a lot of money as an actor or actors are
Justin McAleece:
Rich though. We all know that. So it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Jennica Schwartzman:
That’s true for anybody who’s watching, who doesn’t have the day to day. What Mindy is saying is that we pay between 10 and $25 to add a single photo that’s required by our agency and manager. And if you change agency and managers, they want to pull off all these old photos and have you do an entirely new 200 to $800, a headshot session with editing and then put up new 12 photos of different things. But when you do theater, you have different shots and we do comedy. If you do more commercial, you want to have all these materials. And then when you upload a reel, it’s $22 a minute, and then your agent is on your back. Yeah.
Jennica Schwartzman:
Then your agent is on your back to have you upload. I need a comedy reel. I need it to be no longer, a long, real, I want two minutes. And so you’re instantly like $44 right there. And I need it to be of this show and I need it to be separate clips. So I need 150 things that I can click on. And you build that repertoire over time and you don’t use them all the time. And sometimes when you’re between agencies and you’re paying per submission, it is a very expensive market. And that is per platform per yeah. There’s no way you can suddenly just go, well, I’m going to go with this one forever and I’m going to invest and I’m done paying your, you’re paying probably $200 a year just to upkeep in any, any place that you go and that’s on top of what you pay to be there.
Jade Zaroff:
Yeah. And to speak for someone. I studied musical theater on five years out of college. But when I graduated and moved to the city, that was a huge roadblock for me in needing to financially sustain myself as well as say ambitious.
Mindy Montavon:
I mean, it’s tough. It’s like you spend like earlier this year I had new headshots done and I dropped a big chunk of money for that. Then you have to pay to have them retouched. And then on one, just one of the sites alone to upload all my pictures was going to be $200 on top of everything else. And it’s to have the material that I just spent all this money having to put it on the platform. Yeah. And also backstage being a resource during COVID I had classes that I put forth through my nonprofit and I actually posted about the classes on backstage. My friend had recommended doing that. I hadn’t even thought about it, but I got some kids from backstage because their parents were scrolling through. And those kids really resonated with the descriptions that we really put thought into. And I connected really deeply with the kids that came from backstage because they were like seeking education at the time. That was specifically in the art form that they were looking to do while they were sitting at home.
Jennica Schwartzman:
That’s pretty neat. Yeah. with that, I was wondering, do you have a statistics on as, as an actor we can, can doesn’t mean, we always do go on every day between nine and 10:00 AM and read and research everything that we’re going after in submit every day. I’m not really in that stage of lights, but I remember I was in that stage of life for at least five years. What type of pull, like how many projects are you think being added every day or weekly on this site? Like, do we have like a general because you guys are going through them so quickly. I checked even today, a bunch of new things that were there. Is it constant? Is there a season
Christina Kleppinger:
It’s constant? I think they’re used to, when I first started with backstage, there were seasons. And so you’d know that like the summer, everything kind of slowed down November and December things kind of slowed down. That’s just not the case anymore. We talked, we were actually joking the summer right before. COVID where we were like, oh, summer doesn’t exist anymore because it’s no longer, you know, just film students and just commercial casting directors, but content creation is now happening kind of all the time. And so, because we have so many notices coming in for web content or short films or digital series that just the same way that kind of pilot season has become a year round thing for actors. That’s, we’re seeing that as well, but there’s just a constant influx of jobs. I’m sure our casting editors would be able to give you better numbers on how many of those have been to date. But I know that’s a lot,
Mindy Montavon:
I sign up so that I get the emails that fit the criteria. So I would say on average, I probably get 20 to 30 emails for backstage testing notices a day. That’s great. That’s great. Yeah.
Jenn Zilioli:
Yeah. There’s I mean, you know, and, and during COVID too voiceover work has, has really sort of exploded. So that’s a newer, we’ve always had voiceover jobs, but sort of like a newer focus. And I would say just as, you know, a booming, booming spot on the on the platform and perhaps like across the industry, but yeah, we, we received so many notices for, for voiceover or for sort of like branded content or branded commercials, that type of thing. So, you know, to Christina’s point, it’s just like constant and year round. I mean, even today we were joking like that. It’s just been very, very busy and that’s a great problem to have, of course, it’s, everyone’s trying to keep up with all the notices that are coming in, but you know, unusually busy for this time of, of year for, for like in years past. So,
Christina Kleppinger:
And I think one of the things that helped that happen during COVID is like Jen was saying the kind of revamping of the way we do voiceover, where now voiceover talent can create a unique profile for those jobs that, you know, you don’t need your height on your voiceover profile, but you do need to say like, these are the dialects that I can do, or the character voices that I can do. But the ability for employers to tag jobs as work from home or work remotely, I think really helped during COVID, when we weren’t able to maybe have even voice actors into a booth to perform, it helped the actors who weren’t comfortable or weren’t in an area where they could physically go out to work a job, refine their search even more so that they’re just seeing the things that work from home that branded content or voiceover work or whatever. I think that’s one of the things that we saw a ton of last year was the ability to or the influx of jobs that, that were looking for actors who had the setup to work from home, or we’re able to kind of do their job remotely. And so that’s been kind of great to see on the site, but we’re still seeing a ton of those jobs come through.
Justin McAleece:
That’s great to hear. Very good. We have a question from one of the people in the audience says, can employers write reviews for talent and crew on backstage? Are there, is there a review section,
Jenn Zilioli:
A great question. I can speak to the crew side. That is something that we will have in development, but it is not going to be part of like the initial rollout. But yeah, that’s a wonderful question because being able to see a review for transparency purposes is, you know, I think great on both sides.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, totally. That’s one of the things that shoots that we’ve tried to do is make that a big basis of how we can help you find the right people. And I, we, we have found that a lot of those things come across pretty genuine, usually people who don’t usually people who aren’t all that great. Can’t get very many great reviews, no matter what they do about it. And they’re probably not going to go to the work to do it. So usually that stuff works pretty well, even if there’s just a couple of reviews anyway, anytime you can get someone about for you, I think it’s pretty important. So that’s been really valuable for us.
Christina Kleppinger:
Oh please. Oh, it’s just so much, that’s how the industry rolls anyway, you know, we were just hiring cinematographer for a project and went word of mouth and called a bunch of people and got, you know, verbal reviews, photographers. So you didn’t talk to me though.
Justin McAleece:
It’s kinda messed up. I mean, I’ve got you on the show on everything. It’s crazy. All right, Christina, you’re off the list.
Christina Kleppinger:
Sorry. Sorry. Can add review for you.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s fine. It’s super important. And you know, that’s, that’s the other reason why you don’t try to never burn a bridge. I mean, that’s, that’s, it’s a very small industry for anyone getting into the industry too. It’s like, this is everyone knows everyone. They can find out very quickly. Mindy, you know, I’ve worked with her on the on on a project in the past and the year ago and all that. And I can’t remember if I’d worked with you on a previous thing that I sort of forgot about or something like that many, but
Mindy Montavon:
I think you were cruel on a commercial.
Justin McAleece:
These things come around. The point of it is like you’ll meet a lot of times talent and crew will, you know, they’re just a million different combinations of that. And so you will meet the same people over time. And it’s really good to try to make a good impression, both online and offline. That’s super important. And for a place like backstage to be there to where you can instantly see like the other people that you’re like, oh, I know that person. I’m sure I would assume Jennica you’ve you’ve went to cast people in this scene. The same people come up for multiple projects. Is that true?
Jennica Schwartzman:
Yeah. There’s this very small world thing that happens, especially if you cast similar types of roles you recognize, or back in the day, it’s not so common and more, which is sad, but I would see similar people in the room when I was auditioning. Like I remember seeing like, oh, you six women, you and I go to the same auditions all the time. Or you guys see you guys together, or, you know, my children and their age, seeing some of the same kids over and over, that’s part of the industry. And it’s nice to be able to go back to different databases, to find people you’re like, how is that person with short hair? They were in that one spot. Like you’re able to look up people in different databases to find somebody, or you keep seeing their name somewhere or their face somewhere. And you’re able to put it together. Like it’s really important to be on a lot of platforms and be easy to find, even if you’re not putting yourself out there in places, at least having your profile existing and submitting to things it’s really important because it just builds up over the years. Like I already knew who Mandy was and I was like, I don’t think we’ve ever worked together, but like a lot of people are from years of that.
Justin McAleece:
That’s great. And, and I think it’s it speaks to how backstage is allowing you to basically upload whatever you have. That’s worthy of uploading. That’s really good because then, you know when the casting directors, whoever it may be as looking for someone in a role, they can see that you’ve done the thing, like there’s a weird sort of barrier to entry. Sometimes they’re like, like we were talking about before, have you been a lumberjack before? And so it’s sort of silly that you couldn’t play a role unless you were, but when they see that stuff on there and you have the ability to put a bunch of stuff up there, they’re like, they can picture it in a different way. And I think that’s really important. So the fact that you guys allow all that is really great
Mindy Montavon:
And something that backstage does that I have not seen anybody else do are the pre screens. So if you let’s say you want to get started on voiceover, you don’t have a voiceover rail. Most of the things basically to even submit, they have their own copy that they want. And so you really have the power in your hands to self submit and it’s like, here’s, it’s like open call. Here’s my audition. And you can actually do like their material, which is I think a really nice feature and very helpful to get your foot in the door.
Christina Kleppinger:
Yeah. We’ve gotten really great feedback from casting directors about that as well, as far as getting to get a little sample of a talent. And I think it works really well. Both ways. You do get to have that opportunity to kind of put your foot in the door and, you know, like you were saying, Justin, some of the casting directors can, can lack imagination in that way. And so getting to see you do the thing to know that you can but also they’re getting to see talent that maybe they wouldn’t bring in otherwise. And so for them, it’s been a really cool opportunity to expand their talent pool. And, you know, sometimes you’ll see an actor come through on a breakdown and you’re like, eh, there’s like not that thing that makes you want to pull them in for a physical audition, but the pre-screen is kind of allow you to get a sample of that actor. And what I’m hearing from casting directors is it’s made them kind of open their network of actors a little bit. They get to see actors that they wouldn’t necessarily otherwise, which I think is a win all around when you can kind of build out your repertoire of actors that you like working with.
Jade Zaroff:
Yeah. Speaking to that what in how in a virtual world do you or all of you feel allows someone to stand out because I kind of from the theater world too, so you go into the room, I’ve walked in, in an earth costume before I’m like, oh, that’d be great. But if you’re virtual besides having maybe your profile picture as a lumberjack, how do you do something unique or show off your uniqueness?
Christina Kleppinger:
Yeah. I mean, I’ll just say for me when I’m hiring talent, whether it’s, I mean, I think this goes regardless, but especially virtual. I, I look a lot for actors who have a robust profile. So I think it’s one thing on the, on a platform where you’re being charged $25 a picture to only have one picture. I don’t think about it as much when I’m there. You know, I think then you think maybe as an actor who didn’t have $204 for that, we, you know, but especially when I’m using backstage to cast a project or I’m wearing, I’m working with the casting director, who’s using backstage, looking for actors who really seem to have taken care of their profile, having, having a set of headshots, having video clips, even if it’s not a fully developed and edited reel, having some video clips so we can see samples of you or an audio reel or whatever it might be.
Christina Kleppinger:
But just the idea that this person is, has taken the time to sit down and go through their profile and fill it out completely. I think that makes all the difference in the world because when you’re working on a project on the casting side, you often are on a very tight timetable. And so it’s hard to take a risk on someone, but if you’re looking at a full profile with a resume and skills filled out and, you know, experiences listed, it’s much easier to feel like you have a little glimpse into who this performer is before you’ve even brought them in for like a virtual audition or sent a self-tape request or anything like that. Yeah. As far as uniqueness, I think show that in your performances, put up, put up video clips that show what cool crap you can do. I brought an actor in on a project, not that long ago, what do you mean? We need them to skateboard, but one of his videos on backstage was him doing all these cool skateboard tricks. And I was like, that’s kind of rad. Like, I just feel like I have a better idea of who this person is. So let’s bring them in and have a conversation about the project with them. So you use the tools that we’ve, we’ve given to the actors to, to really show who you are as a performer
Justin McAleece:
And as creators we’ve pivoted in the past too, when, you know, maybe, maybe you do have a project and maybe someone’s riding a bike or doing, you know, performing some other sort of thing, but it’s sort of interchangeable. And if you have that skateboard thing on there, then maybe you’re like, well, if we get this guy, we can have him do the skateboard thing. Cause it doesn’t really matter what it was. It just needed to be something in the background. And so I think anytime you can show off your talent show off your unique abilities. Yeah. That’s going to be super valuable.
Jennica Schwartzman:
I think that’s a neat thing. That’s in demand. A trend that I’ve seen that when I was first here, you wanted to have some commercial pictures of you where you’re like a doctor and you’re a lumberjack. But it was also like a little cheesy that some people who are serious actors did not want that on their profile. Which is what we came to the money thing. And being able to access, putting things on and off is really helpful. But I’m also now skill clips, like not just having a picture of this is my personality, but having just a video of like, this is how I knit. This is actually like something that I do. And these are all the things like having skill clips, like my son is in karate and showing him in his G is cute. So why don’t you come do karate’s watching somebody do something that shows up who they are, doesn’t actually have to mean that they’re good at it. A skill clip is your personality. And having the freedom to put up a professionally done, really engaging one minute skill clip 10 different skills that you wouldn’t have before been like, well, I’m not a professional, like Olympic runner. You’re like, yeah, but let’s see you run. Do you run like Phoebe?
Jennica Schwartzman:
So it just shows off your, you know, through all those things. And this is, this is a different type of access. It’s cool. It’s why people who are actors also have like tick tock.
Christina Kleppinger:
Yeah. I think getting a glimpse of an actress personality because at the end of the day, having a really great actor is awesome, like skill and talent wise, but you’re hiring a person to work with for the day or the week or the year or whatever it is. So any of those, those, excuse me, scale clips or, or videos that you can add that give us a sense of who you are as a person. So we know whether we’re signing up to work with a really cool creative person or someone who’s going to be a diva on set or something like that. You know, all of that is super helpful for the casting side.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. And for crew, for hiring, you know, and that’s even maybe more cause if you’re doing something for a few days, you’re dealing directly with the crew every day, as, as someone who’s running a crew or whatever it happens to be as a DP or director, you know? And so you’re constantly interacting with them. So you want to be able to get a sense of self in that regard. And the actors are the exact same situation, very important. Quick plug real quick. If anyone has any questions, please enter them in the chat and we will try to get to them. That’s important here. We don’t want to completely monopolize the conversation, but yeah. What else, who else has a question on the panel here?
Jade Zaroff:
Yeah, I was just going to say, I’m just curious on what you love the most about your job at backstage.
Jenn Zilioli:
Oh, that’s a great question. I, I genuinely really love our team and I, and I say that like in such a genuine way, it’s such a very collaborative and like earnest, hardworking group of people. I really adore everybody that I work with and that is hugely important of course. And I think that comes across and sort of everything that we do, we, the whole backstage team is just like a great group of people. But yeah, on that, like, I really just like, Ugh, I love connecting with people, meeting new people, networking and sort of getting a chance to really like, I love meeting someone and then having them introduce me to another person in the, in the space, like whether it’s, you know, a production company independent filmmaker somebody who has started their own industry organization maybe, and are trying to support filmmakers. I just love sort of that like web of humans that you get a chance to, to meet working in this, in this type of, of job. So yeah,
Justin McAleece:
That’s great. I thought your answer was going to be about having a lot of books behind you. You just like to be backstage because you have so many books behind you. No, that’s an excellent answer, Christina, same thing. You like your team. I
Christina Kleppinger:
Love our team. I, Jen is 100% correct in that I think especially in the last year and a half, how the world has been kind of a difficult place. And so it’s made the importance of working with good people, even more critical. I love our team. I think they’re awesome people. I would say outside of that, my favorite thing about my job is working with our foam students. So I do a lot of our foam school outreach on the west coast. And I think film students are some of the coolest, most creative artists in the industry. I get to talk one-on-one with a lot of them. I do our like casting seminar talks here in California, where we go out to film schools and talk them through the casting process. And I just think that some students are great. I think they’re super creative. I think they’re always a little weird. They’re always working on projects that feel like totally different from anything you’ve worked on before. And so I, I think getting that little glimpse into like what the next generation of filmmakers is going to be like is such a cool experience. And I think this is my fourth fall semester doing these phone talks and it’s just always cool every single time.
Justin McAleece:
They’re so young and untarnished, and unjaded the difficult world of filmmaking.
Christina Kleppinger:
You either excited about jumping into their careers. Yeah, totally. It’s, it’s an amazing thing.
Justin McAleece:
It’s adorable and good at the same time.
Christina Kleppinger:
Yeah. And then they’re like skateboard away from you and
Justin McAleece:
You’re like, they put it on their profile. Perfect. Comes full circle. I like
Jade Zaroff:
It in a lumberjack costume.
Justin McAleece:
Alum check that’s wow. The trifecta, we can all have it. Perfect. Yeah. That’s good to hear. I
Jennica Schwartzman:
Was going to ask the crew is in beta, but any crew right now, anywhere in the country can go online and get a free crew profile even today. That’s correct. Yes. You can fill in every single portion of it. The only thing that’s not available yet is the hiring part, but you’re trying to fill up your crew until then. So the encouragement is to get more people on there.
Jenn Zilioli:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, folks can also provide feedback too about the beta. So any feedback that people have about how the platform works or doesn’t work for them, like you can absolutely share that our product team would love to, to receive that feedback they’re even reaching out and directly talking to people, scheduling calls, just to really understand, you know, what, what the needs are, what might be missing, what, what, you know, could be improved. So definitely the link is dropped in the chat actually to sign up it’s that backstage.com crew production jobs link. But yeah, the, if you’re a job seeker that is the best resource for you, I can also drop a link in if you’re a creator and you’d like to be notified as soon as the full product is launched, once you are able to post a job or, or hire crew there’s another link you can just be notified to get an email as soon as it’s ready to go to.
Jennica Schwartzman:
So how, what, where does the crew level stop like above the line? Like you can have producer director, you can have people like that on there as well.
Jenn Zilioli:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, folks who are producers directors can technically sign up for a job seeker profile as well, but you know, most of the folks on that side of things are looking to hire. There is so much crossover though, of course, as you know, I mean, there’s, there’s triple and quadruple threats across the industry. So you know, there’s actor producers who are sometimes working as crew on like passion projects or their own personal projects that they’re, that they’re working on. So it’s kind of a more like fluid, I guess, side of the industry in some ways. But yeah, we’re seeing that you know, I think a lot of our users are very, very excited or current users are excited even on the actor side, because for that exact reason, you know, they might be looking to gain experience sort of behind the scenes just to strengthen their skills as performers and really have an understanding of like what it’s like to be on that side as well. So yeah, kind of works both ways.
Jennica Schwartzman:
So your actor profile, wouldn’t be connected to a crew profile if you were doing both, but you can be on both?
Jenn Zilioli:
If you are doing both, that’s actually one account you’re going to have two separate individual profiles for the exact reason that you really want to showcase your skills for whatever, you know, talent or role type that you have. So if you’re an actor you’re going to have a different profile than crew, you don’t necessarily need to present different headshots for crew obviously, or you know, different accents that you can do and that kind of thing. You’re gonna have a really lovely, yeah, maybe. I mean, maybe that’s important for, for some introductions, I don’t know. But yeah, you’ll have a nice profile picture and then most important is just being able to showcase your skills your resume, your credits, your experience what type of equipment you work with, what, what you really specialize in.
Jenn Zilioli:
Yeah, that, that stuff is really the most important to be able to showcase for, of course, the cruise side of things. And we do it in a way where it is just very kind of like streamlined and straightforward to be able to fill out your profile and everyone should do that to completion. Same, same with the actor side. You really want to be able to, to fully showcase all that you can do.
Jennica Schwartzman:
Um when it says like skills in place, are, is there also a place to put in your, your software that you use is that skills and training your workflow software and things like that.
Jenn Zilioli:
Yes, exactly. All of those things can be entered right into the profile and then will be highlighted and displayed. So yeah, we know how important that is for, for folks to be able to search by that too. If you’re looking for someone with a very specific skill and you need to hire, let’s say very quickly, or just to gather, you know, enough candidates to be able to review being able to search by that is, is key.
Jennica Schwartzman:
So if you needed somebody who was familiar with after effects, but they’re in a certain state because you’re going to spend your money in that state for tax incentives, you can just search by after effects in that section.
Jenn Zilioli:
Exactly. That sounds like that might be what you need.
Jennica Schwartzman:
What I love is that right now, hiring and working at a state sometimes and producing different places. I don’t like that. My like IMDB is a great example. I don’t like that. I’m like, Hey, I’m an actor here. Check me out. And they’re like, cool. So you actually, I need a producer and I’m like, that’s cool that you found that information there. I wish there was a place that I could have sent you where I could be like, I want this producing job. And then I want to go hire a producer on the ground in the state runaway, make a movie, I need a location manager and I need this person, this person, but I also really want a local producer and yeah, producers are often job creators, but what you need is somebody who has that skillset somewhere else, or I, my I’m based in Fresno and I want somebody in LA like you sometimes want to find above the line places because you want to spend your money in that state.
Jennica Schwartzman:
Yeah. And so sometimes it’s really important to be able to search by these functions. So what you have here, like, it is really hard to find exactly this sort of thing. So you can tell that a lot of people have been surveyed and have contributed to your building and in your beta period. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. That’s great to hear. And I agree with Justin, I like the idea of a references. So we vote that, you add that on, join that now, and I’m going to write some beta thoughts to be like, I want to write that this person’s amazing for this specific reason so that when people are considering hiring him, it could be like, oh, and also this really cool thing that you don’t really know if you worked with him. Yeah.
Justin McAleece:
That’s awesome. Thank you for that. I think we’re about to wrap up here. Any parting thoughts from anyone specifically? Good. Good. Okay. Good. All right. Excellent.
Jade Zaroff:
A love fest about backstage, which was so amazing. Yeah. You can tell that people use it.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, so that was fun. Excellent. this has been shoots.video. We have two lovely ladies, Christina and Jenn from backstage telling us all about it. So definitely go on there. Before we cut out, you guys, everyone has to say how to get ahold of you, how to find you on the interwebs or any other way, Jade
Jade Zaroff:
@ Jadezaroff.com and that’s it.
Jenn Zilioli:
You can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Jenn Zilioli. you can email me at [email protected].
Justin McAleece:
Perfect. Christina?
Christina Kleppinger:
I’m thinking I’m on LinkedIn as Christina. I think I’m on all the socials as Christy, but you know, close enough. And then I can also be reached [email protected].
Justin McAleece:
Very nice. Mindy?
Mindy Montavon:
MindyMontavon.com, Mindy Mantovani Gmail, make it nice and simple.
Jennica Schwartzman:
I would say I am most responsive on LinkedIn at Jennica Schwartzman or Instagram at @JennicaRenee, J E N N I C A R E N E E. I respond really well there as well.
Justin McAleece:
Very nice. And yeah, we all have websites with our names. I was such a bunch of narcissists over here. You can go to Justinmcaleece.com. Are you going to add, Justinmakesmovies. And don’t forget to watch break madness. Where’s the poster, the poster don’t forget to watch Brick Madness. Yeah. Jennica knows all about it. She did about a billion things on it. And cool. So I think that’s it. Thank you for joining us today with shoot stab video and backstage, and we will talk to you soon.
Jade Zaroff:
Thanks Jen. Thanks Tina. Thank you. That’s wonderful.
Speaker 4:
You might be looking at shoots.video and thinking. So how does this all work? Is this about a setting up the crew for me B just giving me options and having me handle it or see something in between. Well, it’s D all of the above to put it simply, we’re here to help you in any way that we can to get the crew and talent you need for your next production. We believe that every level of video production can benefit from a well-maintained list of qualified crew members for every position. This goes for pre-pro onset and for post, every project is different. So if you need a producer to help manage the decision making process, then we can totally do that. If you’re already a producer and want to build your own crew from scratch, then go for it. We’re here to make your next production a success. And if you are crew or talent, looking for producers that want you, then you’ve come to the right place, sign up now and also leave a referral for any solid people that you know that are already on here. Thank you for considering shoot stop, video and happy shooting. [inaudible].
