July 16, 2025 • 35 mins
Cast Me Now: castmenow.co/cfa
Are you tired of spending hours submitting to casting calls every day? Cast Me Now founder Shreyans reveals how their AI platform is transforming the actor submission process by automating applications across multiple casting platforms. Learn how this innovative service is helping actors save hundreds of hours while landing more auditions without lifting a finger.
In this enlightening conversation, Shreyans explains how Cast Me Now works by scanning casting platforms for roles matching your specific parameters, then automatically submitting you to appropriate opportunities. Hosts Haeleigh and Indeana explore the platform's customizable preferences, pricing options, and upcoming features including voice agents and a "Finder Rep" tool to connect actors with agents. The discussion also delves into the entertainment industry's slow tech adoption compared to Silicon Valley and how AI might actually increase the value of human performers in the future.
Like, subscribe, and use code "CFA" for a free month of Cast Me Now!
0:00 Beyonce has star quality
0:06 Cinematography for Actors podcast intro
0:44 Onto the episode
0:50 Host introductions
1:08 Introducing guest Shreyans from Cast Me Now
1:42 AI services for actors
2:10 How Cast Me Now helps actors
3:02 Early callbacks through the platform
3:38 The beauty of automating submissions
5:16 Origins of Cast Me Now
7:10 Discovering CFA through AI blog writer
9:40 Learning about the film industry
10:15 Actors' silent suffering
12:10 Entertainment industry's slow tech adoption
15:16 Silicon Valley vs. Entertainment industry
17:48 The "vitamins and painkillers" analogy
20:40 How Cast Me Now's parameters work
22:20 Hailey's swimming audition story
24:22 Customizing submission preferences
26:02 Upcoming features including voice agents
29:48 AI's impact on entertainment industry
33:30 Pricing and subscription options
For our listeners, CFA’s teamed up with We Make Movies to get you a discount on production management services, including access to comprehensive production insurance and workers' comp for your next shoot.
Visit wemakemovies.org/insurance and use code CFA23 on your intake form for 10% off your quote.
Calling all actors! Take 25% off your membership at WeAudition with code: CFA25
Website: www.cinematographyforactors.com
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematographyforactors
Cinematography for Actors is a community aimed at bridging the gap between talent & crew through our weekly podcast & community events. Our weekly show supports the filmmaking community through transparent, honest & technically focused interviews with the goal of elevating the art of effective storytelling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Because he's.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Beyonce-ed us.
He's a star.
He has the je ne sais quoi.
This is the Cinematography forActors podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
More than a podcast.
Cinematography for Actors is avibrant community devoted to
bridging the gap between talentand crew.
Each week, our show offerstransparent, insightful
conversations with industryleaders.
We unveil the magic behind thescenes, from candid discussions
about unique filmmakingprocesses to in-depth technical
exploration.
Join us in unraveling theintricacies of filmmaking, one
(00:34):
episode at a time.
It's more than just cameras andlenses.
We aim to inspire, educate andempower as we peel back the
curtain on the art of effectivestorytelling.
Now on to the episode.
As we peel back the curtain onthe art of effective
storytelling.
Now on to the episode.
Hello everybody, welcome toanother episode of CFA Podcast.
I am your host, hayley Royal.
There's another host here.
(00:55):
Who are you, hayley Royal?
Yes, you are, we're both me.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We love being the center of attention.
We're both actors.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's Indiana Underhill over there.
Yeah, it's me.
We also have a guest Shrayansfrom Cast Me Now.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Hey, hey very nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
What's up, and we did decide we're going with a
single first name only.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Because he's Beyonce-ed us.
Yep, he's a star.
He has the je ne sais quoi.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That's all you're due credit.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
That was my idea I said french term, je ne sais
quoi, before this startedrolling.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yes, I know, that's why I brought us back to it
fantastic so it's cool becausetoday we have been having kind
of like an AI service for actorsrecording day.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, isn't that cool .
We started with an app calledRaffi this morning that we
interviewed.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
They're taking the self-taping drudgery out of the
process.
Taking the self-taping drudgeryout of the process and what
kind of drudgery are you takingout of the process with Cast Me
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
With Cast Me Now we help actors auto-apply to
hundreds of acting jobs everysingle day.
We save them hundreds of hoursand get them a lot more
additions without lifting asingle finger.
So we take away a lot of thepains of just scrolling through
casting apps every single day.
There's like three or four ofthem, big ones in the US and
(02:30):
then what our app does is wepull in your information.
We constantly keep scanning forbest fit roles across all these
platforms and if you find thatit's a good fit, we just
automatically apply you.
If you find that it's a goodfit, we just automatically apply
you, and the next step for youis really just to get a
self-tape email in your inbox.
So that's sort of what westarted with.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And you've been using it.
I've been using it and you gota callback through it.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I have had a couple of callbacks through it.
Now it's been really great.
Honestly, I was so excited tostart working with you early on,
really before the model wasready even because I was in a
place where I felt reallycomfortable just saying take my
profiles, submit how you willand we can tweak things from
there.
Um, which I think is rare,because a lot of actors are
(03:23):
worried about you, you know,submitting to the wrong thing or
like looking stupid or lookinglike they haven't read the
instructions.
But I was busy with CFA so Iwas not too worried about it.
But I want to talk about thebeauty of that as well, as far
as like what the actor's normal,like daily process is and how
(03:47):
you're improving that.
Because even though I wassaying, yeah, mess stuff up is
fine, that process still wastaken out of my hands and
improved even at that point.
So an actor uh, for anyone whodoesn't know will wake up in the
morning, a working actor wakeup in the morning and, like the
(04:09):
first thing you have to do.
It's basically like emails,like you get in and you go into
three, four, sometimes fivedifferent online casting
platforms where you have aprofile, which we have a YouTube
video of you doing this fromearly on at CFM.
We have a couple of YouTubevideos teaching people how to
use these processes.
(04:31):
But you wake up in the morningand you check for any breakdowns
that you may have missedovernight and you scan through
every single one to see ifyou're a good fit.
If you're a good fit, you clickin to them one at a time.
You pick the correct headshot,you pick the resume you want to
go with it, you pick the mediathat you want to go with it and
you send it off and that takesfive minutes usually.
(04:54):
So you're doing that.
Hopefully there are like 20 or30 in the morning and then you
should do it twice.
So you do it again in theevening because there have been
new breakdowns that have comeout during the day.
So you do it again in theevening, and that's.
You sometimes submit tohundreds of things a day.
So that's just a lot of adminand a lot of sitting at your
(05:17):
desk and working and notfocusing on your craft.
That is stressful, because thenyou've sent all of these things
out and a lot of the time younever get an audition request
from any of it, but you stillfeel the workload you still
spend all that time doing allthat work.
So then there's this beautifulapp.
So how are you pulling thingsfrom?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
multiple.
Yeah, and maybe to start you,you gave a lot of context and I
have to say we were very happyto work with someone like
yourself because it's funny.
We were experimenting with anAI blog writer and the blog was
pulling together acting articlesand stuff and it referenced
your video.
If you're doing castingnetworks, the same one you
(06:00):
mentioned.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Good.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
SEO.
That's just so we know.
Like I'm gonna have Lestereditor pull a snippet from that
video in because it's one of thefirst months of CFA at my
apartment.
We were at Indy's apartment.
My Emmy was behind us in a boxlooking at the through the video
the whole time as Haley did hercasting.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
But I was sat in front of a big bay window
because there was good lightingand I was like hi, I'm Haley.
I'm an actor in Los Angeles.
I've spent years trying tofigure out exactly what I need
to do to be the most effectiveworking actor.
With my co-founder, indianaUnderhill, we started a company
called Cinematography for Actors.
And it's such a successful videobecause so many people are at a
(06:45):
loss when they start andstressed out like they're like
are we actually going to have tosubmit to every single possible
role?
And the answer used to be yesuntil until until you found our
yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah.
So we started off and, honestly, the way we started Cost Me Now
is also very interesting.
I mean, we had no idea it wouldend up this way.
But Guru and I teamed up maybeearly 2024.
And he has a background inentertainment.
He used to lead product atSpotify and a huge part of his
job was to speak to up andcoming artists and you know, and
(07:21):
sometimes their agents, andthat's when he figured out, well
, a lot of these agents wouldrep 20, 30, 50 artists.
And we heard stories like Iknow in my building we have a
news anchor who lives there andI was speaking to her and she
was like, yeah, I fired my agentlike three months ago because
he was charging me $5,000, andhe was not doing anything.
(07:41):
So then we found that out andwe're like well, obviously these
agents have an inside view ofthe industry, they have all the
connections, they, they'reobviously in some way
irreplaceable, they're very coreto the fabric of the industry,
but they're also overworked.
They're they're representing alot of actors.
You obviously can't do justiceto everybody.
You, you have high touchcandidates that you well, you
(08:04):
have high touch folks that youwork with and you have some
people who are still up andcoming and you, just as a single
human being, you're not able todo as much justice to everybody
, right?
So we understood that and westarted off actually trying to
build something for talentagents themselves.
We were trying to build this youknow platform that takes away a
lot of the admin work out ofbeing a talent agent.
(08:26):
So you know that includedeverything from.
You know when an artist booksroles, a certain percent of
their earnings go to the agent.
You know the billing process,the taxation involved there and
the split is kind of complicatedthere.
And you know there's the entireroster management component of
these things.
So we started off with this.
But the more we try to reachout to these people, we realized
(08:50):
, one, they're really busy.
Two, they're not very techforward at all.
It's a very still reasonably inour world it's called legacy.
It's like a legacy businesswhere they're still stuck on old
systems, like a lot of theagents that we spoke to were
using billing systems built inthe early 2000s that some
(09:13):
programmer built for them, right, and we're like well, this is
something that we can help with.
But the biggest issue we foundis that they were just.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
They just didn't have enough time they don't have the
time to switch over, even likeLike something like that, like a
billing system or a CRM, likethe company itself is too busy
managing their clients to evenbe able to have the time to
switch over.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So they have to stick with what they're like.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
This is what works and we have to stick with it,
because switching it over is.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah.
So they were very busy.
They were like, yeah, we canget on a call with you, we can
help you out.
It was just like the cycles ofiteration were very, very slow,
you know, and we're like, ok,this is moving very slowly.
We need to like really figureout what moves the needle for us
faster.
And then we had this entirephase where we sort of revisit.
So the reason we started evenis they're in tech my background
(10:03):
is in technology and financeand stuff is they're in tech.
My background is in technologyand finance and stuff.
And in tech.
You have a platform it's calledlevelsfii or whatever, and they
have this entire database ofcompensation metrics for every
level of engineer that you arein these industries and it's
very transparent.
It's very open.
There's a community around it.
There's a lot of statistics ofhow people were able to
(10:26):
negotiate certain numbers, getmore insights, things like that
and sort of the vision westarted off with.
Well, can we build somethinglike this for entertainment,
because a lot of these actors, alot of these artists, are
underpaid?
You know there's a lot ofthere's no like it's very opaque
.
You don't know what people aregetting paid.
You don't know what thebenchmarks are.
So then we revisited that,right, and then we're like well,
(10:53):
it seems like these, a bigportion of the actor's day is
going in this process and can wefix this?
And my instance is like no, Idon't think we can, and that's
what most people think.
It's too embedded in theworkflow, it's something that
cannot ever be changed.
(11:14):
This is how it is, this is thequo.
Right, like this cannot changeand that, honestly, is the
mindset for a lot of people ineverywhere.
Right, because things have beengoing the same way for so long
that disruption is is not thenorm.
Right, and then we wereoutsiders.
We actually we never.
We did not know a lot of thesethings.
So the moment we found outabout this, we were like well,
(11:35):
can we build some technologythat really like works for the
artists, like who's sufferinghere?
That was the question we asked.
Like what is the?
So we have this analogy yeah,we have this analogy of vitamins
and painkillers.
So whenever we're building,like you know, whenever you
start a company or tech companyor startup, it's like you have
these vitamins, it's like, oh,it's nice, I guess it's fine,
(11:57):
right, it's cool.
Then you have the painkillersthat solve a real problem.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
That really like you know what are our vitamins and
painkillers.
Our painkillers is the filmchallenge yeah, and fiscal
sponsorship yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
And our vitamins are probably workshops workshops and
podcast yeah, podcast is a realvitamin, yeah, real supplement,
supplement protein shake, youknow the life-changing vitamin.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, wait can I ask you something yeah the blog
writer, thing right yeah,hayley's video can you talk to
me more about that?
So what happened?
It pulled and you looked at theresources that it pulled from
when you found Haley's video.
Yeah, yeah, can you talk to memore about that?
So what happened?
You looked at the resourcesthat it pulled from and you
found that video.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, so in the New York Bay Area tech scene you
have all these people sharingall these apps, right?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And one of them came my way and it's like well, we
can improve your SEO by writingblogs for you that are very
relevant for your business,right, and improve your SEO by
writing blogs for you that arevery relevant for your business,
right.
And I was like, yeah, I'll tryit, I'll give it a shot, because
we were pretty new back then.
It was like I need someone totake this off of me.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So you were writing blogs for Cast Me Now to get
people to be able to find it.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, it was called SEObotaicom.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Oh, SEObotai yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
And it was like uh, I was like sure, I'll give it a
shot, I don't mind, yeah, Idon't have the time to do this,
like, let me just do it.
And then, funnily enough, yourvideo must have really good seo,
so we picked it up that onpurpose.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Here we are here, we are just indiana and they're
typing in the right words.
I think I have like my fourdummies.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
What's the best SEO?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, so that's how, and I went and looked at the
blog that it generated and thenpopped up your video and I was
like, well, I really this isgreat, that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Right AI's learning off of you.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Honored.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Really honored.
Honored guys.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Thanks, Fox listening on this video.
Thank you, Thanks, Fox,listening on this video.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So that's how I found out about Haley, and I reached
out to you guys on an email thatyou had on YouTube, which I
think was outdated, oh it wasContact Topanga Collective.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
It's still on there, the Topanga Collective.
We need to change that.
We can't.
I've tried so many timesYouTube.
Please email me because.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I've tried so hard, maybe mail forwarding.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
We need to turn mail forwarding on.
We have mail forwarding on, butthe problem is we can't ever
change the email that isconnected to our YouTube.
That's really annoying.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Anyway, thank you for telling us again.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, because we need to do that.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Yeah, I just have the board over there.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
But okay, so you found that and then you started
to obviously build the platformup.
What has it been like learningabout this film industry?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Because you're not in the same industry.
Yeah, I'm an outsider and yeah,like I was saying so, we
revisited our thesis and we'relike well, the people who suffer
the most are the actors, theartists, right Like absolute
bottom.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
You can say that again, right, and we're like the
people that suffer the most areactors are suffering they are
and it's hard for people to umbelieve that I think actors are
suffering and they're left tosuffer because once you make it
big, you never suffer again.
So it's hard to be like, butthere's this whole other class
(15:13):
of working actors that are, andthe whole reason we're here is
the shock.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Exactly.
Yeah, that's what people don'tsee.
The 99% are actually silentlysuffering.
There's a lot of pain.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I'm silently suffering.
Well, because also there's alittle bit of You're not silent.
There's a lot of shame too, andbeing like I chose to be an
actor.
It's hard and I'm having a badtime because it's like, well, do
you want to do it or you do,you know, is a lot of that like
there's a mindset around that oflike exactly that I found very
interesting as well, where it'slike oh well, this is the way,
(15:45):
this is how it is like, justsuck it up too bad too bad,
right too bad, and we're likeyes, yeah, fine, we get it, but
like we could do better guysit's one of those, like you said
what's been different?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I think the entertainment industry for well,
for some reasons that I cantalk about, has been pretty slow
in adopting technology yeah, we, we think a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
there's a lot of ai companies that are streamlining
different parts of the workflow,not just for actors, but, like
you know, imagine and stuff.
And the adoption rate is soslow and low, you know, because
you have to keep pushing it atpeople, being like it will make
your life easier.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
It's a better way to do it, like you know people find
the way they like to do thingsand like keep doing it that way
and it's hard to pick the samefor everyone, which is why it's
very hard to build a business inthis place, right, it's very
hard to build a sustainablebusiness for the same reason
that it's yeah, adoption is verydifficult, right?
And a voiceover artist we werespeaking with months ago when we
(16:43):
, when we started building this.
He was like this entertainmentspace is a small garden with a
very high wall to climb it'skind of like an inside.
Well, I like that you're reallycoming with those guard that's
what we found mr springsteen,yeah, we did find it to be very
guarded like.
So in tech, right, like in techat least you know where I come
(17:07):
from people are generally verywilling like you can, like
literally you know that'ssomeone.
People hop on a call with youand share.
Because I think and this is alittle bit of a controversial
take- but this is me just likeanalyzing things objectively Get
ready I think there's somesense of an abundance in tech.
just because it's a new industry.
(17:27):
There's like just so muchattention with there and there's
like there's always a lot likepeople in tech are like
delusionally optimistic.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
There's a lot like people in tech are like
delusionally optimistic.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
There's a lot of optimism, yeah, right in silicon
valley and you know, yeah, yeah, you see that in people raising
money like funding yeah yeah,like in new york city and
success, and they don't evenhave anything that one will take
off yeah, there's just a lot ofthis delusionally optimistic
right like and we, we come fromthat world and then I think when
we saw entertainment, we'relike obviously it's a very
established industries.
I think a lot of the easypickings have been yeah you know
, trimmed off and uh, there'sobviously a lot of competition.
(18:05):
This is not to say that there'sno competition elsewhere, or in
tech or anything, but it'salmost like, like you said, it's
like this is how it is, this ishow you have to do it, like
suck it up.
It's like it kills the spirit alittle bit.
Yeah, you know that's what itreally does.
So I won't say there's a senseof scarcity of some sort, but
it's like, yeah, I think peopleare more guarded, people are
more like.
You know they won't give you toomuch very easily yeah, and I
(18:26):
think that is one challenge thatwe continue to face, honestly,
uh, but that, that, I think, wasa stark, stark departure from
the style that we were used to.
So the moment you sign up, youhave this auto apply.
So we've changed it after wegot a little bit of.
It's like people are saying,hey, I'm getting submitted roles
that I'm not a good fit for,and then I look at their profile
(18:47):
and they just haven't set theirpreferences.
So we're like, well, we're justworking off of the data we have
.
You need to be telling usexactly what we want.
So the moment you log in andyou connect your accounts,
you're routed to your auto-applypreferences and you specify
just like you would to an agentor like a human being.
It's like, hey, I'm based inLos Angeles, I'm not willing to
work for roles under $200.
(19:07):
I am only interested in, say,supporting or principal roles.
Cool.
Your union status, status whichwe're great so you can be like
you are, are are.
We don't have like an intakeform.
You know, we you have theseintake forms that if you're
represented by an agent theyhave you to fill out and they're
very long, very tedious and Ithink our generation, the
(19:30):
younger generation, hates that.
We don't like fitting out bigforms no one likes when we.
We know that, right.
So we're like whatever, we'rejust gonna make super sleek,
like super quick, right, and uh,we're adding a new feature soon
uh, I don't know when, but soonis we're using, we're
integrating new voice agentsinto the app.
Uh, with where you know, youclick a button, um, you probably
(19:53):
get a text or you can do it onyour computer where you can
speak to our voice agent justlike you would converse with the
normal human being, and it asksyou a bunch of questions and
you can just tell it and thenour system just knows.
It's one of those things wherewe notice this a lot, where we
have actors, obviously a lot ofour actors on cast.
We now our rep.
They have agents and Actors arein this mindset that you know
(20:15):
well, especially those gettingstarted, is like I like for them
, they're the center of theiruniverse and they feel like the
agent is like very special, isgiving them special service.
But it's, at the end of the day, the agent is running their own
shop, they're running abusiness, they have finances,
they have a lot of actors, theyhave to rep, they're doing, they
(20:35):
have a lot of other things ontheir hand.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Until you're making the money.
Yeah, your career is your ownresponsibility, exactly so it's.
It's like well, it's great thatyou're repped, and obviously I
think the way we saw theindustry is like you sort of
need an agent when you get to acertain point.
Right, so that's fine.
What you also need to be doingis finding every edge that you
can to succeed in an otherwisevery competitive industry yeah
this is a very competitiveindustry.
So we have, like some of ourpower users have been playing
(21:04):
like I think you would somewhatqualify as a power user where
you were playing around with thepreferences, changing you're
changing, changing your,changing your parameters, seeing
how the our system reacts well,applies you to more roles, less
roles, very specific roles, andI think that's where you can
build the edge, like we're.
You know, we have this amazingtool that we can give you.
(21:25):
You know, some people come tous like oh my god, I cannot
believe this.
I got submitted to like 150roles just in one week, right,
like.
And they get like like 20s and30s of callbacks a week.
And that's amazing, right, thatwould have never been possible,
humanely possible, because it'sjust life Like life comes to
you.
You have a million other thingsto do.
You're not thinking aboutapplying the rules all the time,
(21:46):
right?
So I think if you consistentlyare able to offload this after
tuning your parameters on theapp, I think you can rest and
you can work on things thatactually matter.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I'm only gonna do parameters with horseback riding
amazing because we're gonnalearn horseback riding and I
only want to get practice on ahorse.
That's one of your skills,isn't that?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
uh, yeah, yeah I can ride a horse?
Speaker 1 (22:11):
not well, we're gonna take lessons together.
But one thing one audition thatI got from Cast Me Now a couple
weeks ago was something I havewanted for many years.
I can say I'm an expert swimmer.
I was a competitive swimmer formany years.
I'm confident I can jump in apool at any second.
(22:33):
She's crossing her arms like Ican do it at any second.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
You just let me know and I'll do it.
I'll jump in.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
If you would like me to jump in the water and do a
beautiful stroke, I can, yeah,and I always wanted to swim on
screen.
I wanted that to be a role.
So I got like this greataudition that came through.
It was a surprise, I hadn'teven looked at it, I hadn't been
thinking about it and Iaudition um.
(22:59):
It was also the worst auditionin my life for other reasons.
Wait, I'll tell you guys thestory.
Um, please, the breakdown saidyou know that the wardrobe was a
tiny bikini that we would bewearing um on the shoot day.
And then when I showed up, thewoman said and so we're gonna be
doing it on our swimming suits.
And I had thought before I leftthe house, maybe I should take
a swimming suit just in case.
And I was like, nah, they can'task us to like disrobe on a
(23:23):
first audition.
And then I got there andeveryone was in a tiny bikini
and I didn't have one.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So what did you wear?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
My underwear, which was a really, really old, dingy
bra and revealing underwear fromTeemu, and Indiana knows this.
I'm going to share this witheveryone in the world right now.
No, I have terrible acne on mybutt when I sit for too long.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I still don't believe it.
By the way, I haven't seen that.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Oh, really bad, really badass acne that day, oh
no, so I didn't get the part,needless to say, um Andy's eyes
twitch you stressed, about this.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I can't even imagine what you had to go through that
day.
It's so wild.
It's so nice that you guys aresimplifying that process, like
because now you can worry aboutthat, your butt symbols.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I don't have to spend time sitting in front of the
laptop doing hours ofsubmissions.
She can go to a dermatologistto fix her.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I have time to walk around and air it out a little
bit.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah, pretty much.
I need to add to yourpreferences.
Please apply me to sensitivedetergent.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Sensitive detergent company.
The before.
It's a good before picture, ohno, oh God.
But I want to talk aboutparameters, because you do set
them, yeah, but they're notpermanent.
So if your life changes, if youjoin a union, if you become
ficor and you can all of asudden accept non-union work, if
(25:02):
you become pregnant, if you age, if you want to, move which we
have an announcement I'mdefinitely not pregnant.
Um wow, a flashed before myeyes but, I don't have time.
Yeah, but those filters aren'tpermanent though.
(25:22):
The filters aren't permanent,so it's not like you're setting
it forever and like it has to beperfect, like you can go in and
play with those things to see,like are you getting the
auditions you want?
Are you getting auditions youdon't want?
Do you you know?
Like, are you?
Oh no, we're spiraling, we'rehaving we're having a lot of fun
thank you for allowing us onthis podcast sometimes they're
(25:46):
so serious.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Sometimes we just love hanging out and talking
about it.
Yeah, it's great okay, what'scoming out, so you have the
voice thing yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
So that's that's coming out and we've been heads
down working on, I think, afeature they're very, very
excited about, where it's calledfind a rep, where we've
partnered with somebody justlike yourself, uh, who's given
us maybe 10 years worth of theirdata for every you know um
agent that they know in the usacross different sort of
(26:15):
workhorses and segments, andwe're like, hey, he's like I am
in this business, I want to know, I know where all these agents
are going and they are lookingfor very specific kinds of
actors and let's partner andlet's do this together.
So we're launching a find a repfeature that lets any artist
who signs up on Cosby Nowconnect with you know curated
(26:37):
list of agents and we'veactually used it's like the
whole point of Cosby now isbeing artist first and using AI
to actually flip the script.
You know, there's a lot of FOMOand Silicon Valley and it's like
, oh well, ash is going to bereplaced and this, and that I'm
actually very we're taking.
The more easy this becomes, themore junk that there's going to
(26:58):
be produced.
It's just going to be a sea ofgarbage where it's like you're
going to be producing a lot ofthese things that don't mean
anything.
Right, these things pretty muchlack soul.
Anyone can do it.
The bar for somethingwell-produced goes up really,
really high.
I think there's a use case forit.
Like.
I think one use case we see isyou know, I think there's a use
case for it.
Like.
I think one use case we see isyou know, you have these script
writers who try to pitch theirstory or whatever.
(27:20):
I think you know, with these AImodels, you can build like a
quick movie, like a quick hackymovie, where you can feed in the
script and it produces a moviethat you can show and pitch it
in a much more compelling manner.
Right, you can have parts ofyour script that really pop out
when you pitch your script, butof your script that really pop
out when you pitch your script.
But I think that's one use case.
I think that is great.
I think to some extentcommercial casting could use
(27:43):
some AI element, but everythingelse I think it's just like.
I think real actors are going tobe like a premium as time goes
on, just because the moredemocratized, just well movie
making where anyone can makeanything yeah, I think, the
barrier to producing really highquality and I think, as as
(28:03):
someone who's not even from thespace right and is very ai
forward and is in the loop abouteverything, yeah if I go and
see a play or a movie orwhatever, I actually want to see
a human, I want to see theimplications, I want to see like
you, want it to be relatable.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Everything with AI and everything these models have
been fed are sort of perfectimages of perfect things, and
you know it comes out with allsorts of crazy things.
I don't think that's relatableto people, right?
And I think there's an elementof that.
I think that we're going to seestart coming up where people
are like oh, enough of this, Iwant to go back to yeah, like
normal human I saw last night abunch of asmr that was made all
(28:47):
ai.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
It was just like ai engines replacing.
They were like like you said,like ai is gonna replace asmr
artists.
Yeah, all of all of the videoswere like painful for me to
listen to.
Like it's, it's different, likethere's a.
You can feel it when it's real.
Yeah, yeah the um.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Do you have um?
What is?
What is it called like inparameters or your settings?
Can you say what words youdon't want included?
Speaker 3 (29:17):
yeah, you can like, can like, you would to a human
like.
Please do not apply me to rolesthat have.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Like make me a terrorist or like a spy or
something.
All of that stuff that's great.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, you could do like anything you could think of
, like, just like you would tella human, you would tell our
settings and, like you said,like it was painful for you to
listen that come.
That brings me to anotherelement of you know, while we
were building cost me now therewere a lot of nuances about the
industry or the process that wewere just not aware of right,
(29:46):
like some, it's like we wereworking with you hand in hand
and you're like, hey, thesecertain roles that have the word
real means real.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, if.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
I'm not a real.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
You have equity, I am not.
I'm not a veteran Hand in hand.
You heard it here.
It's recorded man Equity.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, how's your cap table looking?
We get it.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
We talk off the pot, yeah exactly, but anyway, so
real and stuff Well to be fair.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
We did give you free access to the platform for life.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, I do have unlimited access forever.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Forever, forever.
Yeah, everything We'll talkafter the break.
We're going to keep talking.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Anyway.
So the lingo of like real meantvideo.
Yeah, so real.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
That was one example.
Then there's the big unionthing that I think we had to
work together.
The big union thing, yeah, towork together.
The big union thing, yeah,there's all these sorts of crazy
like you know, it's like ifit's this, then it's that, if
you're a certain type of youknow SAG, then you can do this,
but you can't do that, and theseare things that AI is never
going to get Like unless youwere part of the industry,
unless you know you're nevergoing to be able to do it.
(30:53):
Know from users like hey, like,why did I?
Well, this is a real one.
Why did I get?
Like?
We submitted one of our usersto a role for a pregnant lady
and she's like guys, why did Iget submitted to this?
I got that yeah and I looked upthe breakdown and it said that,
um well, pregnant ladies arepreferred, but we do hand out.
Uh, they can do the belly, yeah, belly.
(31:13):
And I was like, well, there yougo.
And in her preferences it saidopen to playing roles like young
mother.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
That's why she was a partner so she was actually
correctly submitted, correctlysubmitted, but it's like you
know yeah, it's difficult yeahyeah right.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
So, uh, we're not perfect either, and I think you
know very well that we're notperfect but she says it all the
time.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
They're every day.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, we're still not perfect she says it all the
time, every day we're still notperfect.
Waiting for perfection.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
And that's the one thing that I think we are also
working on.
It's just because we're a smallteam and we're working on all
these features.
I think what we want to go backto is there's always this thing
in Silicon Valley, and I thinkit's changing now to some extent
just because of AI andeverything.
But I think the general thesisis that if you build like a
great product, and a greatproduct like people will come
(32:06):
you know, if you build it theywill come field of dreams you
like really understand theirpains and really build something
that gets those nuances andtakes it in account.
Yeah, like it will show, likepeople will know yeah, and I
think we're still getting there.
We're not there yet, but Ithink some of the early efforts
of you know, filtering off someroles and like getting this like
(32:28):
every day.
Every day I get an email likehey guys, I want to submit like
multiple reels to uh all my uhapplications.
I know you submit only one perapplication, which made life
very easy for us.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Right, right.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And we have an option that's one or all.
We don't have one in the middleand every day I get, every
other day I get like can Iplease do this?
It's like is a very heavilyrequested feature.
I hear you it's coming soon.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Coming.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
You know everyone has their own process that they've
been following for many years,so they want to be able to mimic
that they want to be able totune that right, Like someone
had all of their work split outinto different reels and they
submit all reels all the time.
That's just how they submit.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
And they're like yeah , great, so we have buttons like
submit all reels, so that letsyou submit sort of everything at
once, Everything.
And then, yeah, we have theunion stuff where you can toggle
all of those settings.
And there's more that we'recoming up with the more we hear
from our users on what they want.
Basically, but, yeah, I think,find a rep, I think is the big
one that we're coming up withand we're selling it at.
(33:34):
Well, the point is to be we'realways artist-friendly, so, and
we're selling it well, the pointis to be we're always artist
friendly, so it's like the pricepoint, like it costs me now,
right now, is $12 a month.
It's like.
It's like, well, maybe likejust below the price for coffee
in LA or New York City andthat's for unlimited, unlimited
solutions, the highest tier, soas many as you are a fit for per
(33:55):
your parameters.
They'll submit you for all ofthem, and our basic plan is five
dollars a month, which isinsane.
We probably, at some pointwe're going to start offering
that for free forever which wewant to soon basic is how many
submissions five a day
Speaker 2 (34:09):
five a day and how and what, and they can use our
code too, right?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
yeah, we have a code.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You get a month for free amazing and we'll put that
in the show notes.
Yes, please use the cfa sign upand how can they find you cast
me now ask me now, dot co co.
Love that easy, awesome trans.
Thank you so much for coming intoday and being here for one
day in la with us before goingback to new york.
Um, he loves cast me now it'ssaved.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
It saved me so much time, and so I can spend my time
working on CFA for youcommunity programs, workshops,
podcasts, raising money send inthose emails yep alright, bye.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Bye, shreyan, thank you, thank you Join us in
bridging the gap between talentand crew.
Start by subscribing on yourpreferred podcast platform.
Sign up for our newsletter tostay up to date on vendor
discounts, community events andnew podcast releases, and
educate yourself through ourfree course releases on YouTube.
It all starts atcinematographyfractorscom and,
if you like this episode,consider leaving a review to
(35:12):
make it easier for otherlisteners to find us.
Because he's.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Beyonce-ed us.
He's a star.
He has the je ne sais quoi.
This is the Cinematography forActors podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
More than a podcast.
Cinematography for Actors is avibrant community devoted to
bridging the gap between talentand crew.
Each week, our show offerstransparent, insightful
conversations with industryleaders.
We unveil the magic behind thescenes, from candid discussions
about unique filmmakingprocesses to in-depth technical
exploration.
Join us in unraveling theintricacies of filmmaking, one
(00:34):
episode at a time.
It's more than just cameras andlenses.
We aim to inspire, educate andempower as we peel back the
curtain on the art of effectivestorytelling.
Now on to the episode.
As we peel back the curtain onthe art of effective
storytelling.
Now on to the episode.
Hello everybody, welcome toanother episode of CFA Podcast.
I am your host, hayley Royal.
There's another host here.
(00:55):
Who are you, hayley Royal?
Yes, you are, we're both me.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We love being the center of attention.
We're both actors.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's Indiana Underhill over there.
Yeah, it's me.
We also have a guest Shrayansfrom Cast Me Now.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Hey, hey very nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
What's up, and we did decide we're going with a
single first name only.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Because he's Beyonce-ed us.
Yep, he's a star.
He has the je ne sais quoi.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That's all you're due credit.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
That was my idea I said french term, je ne sais
quoi, before this startedrolling.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yes, I know, that's why I brought us back to it
fantastic so it's cool becausetoday we have been having kind
of like an AI service for actorsrecording day.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, isn't that cool .
We started with an app calledRaffi this morning that we
interviewed.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
They're taking the self-taping drudgery out of the
process.
Taking the self-taping drudgeryout of the process and what
kind of drudgery are you takingout of the process with Cast Me
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
With Cast Me Now we help actors auto-apply to
hundreds of acting jobs everysingle day.
We save them hundreds of hoursand get them a lot more
additions without lifting asingle finger.
So we take away a lot of thepains of just scrolling through
casting apps every single day.
There's like three or four ofthem, big ones in the US and
(02:30):
then what our app does is wepull in your information.
We constantly keep scanning forbest fit roles across all these
platforms and if you find thatit's a good fit, we just
automatically apply you.
If you find that it's a goodfit, we just automatically apply
you, and the next step for youis really just to get a
self-tape email in your inbox.
So that's sort of what westarted with.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And you've been using it.
I've been using it and you gota callback through it.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
I have had a couple of callbacks through it.
Now it's been really great.
Honestly, I was so excited tostart working with you early on,
really before the model wasready even because I was in a
place where I felt reallycomfortable just saying take my
profiles, submit how you willand we can tweak things from
there.
Um, which I think is rare,because a lot of actors are
(03:23):
worried about you, you know,submitting to the wrong thing or
like looking stupid or lookinglike they haven't read the
instructions.
But I was busy with CFA so Iwas not too worried about it.
But I want to talk about thebeauty of that as well, as far
as like what the actor's normal,like daily process is and how
(03:47):
you're improving that.
Because even though I wassaying, yeah, mess stuff up is
fine, that process still wastaken out of my hands and
improved even at that point.
So an actor uh, for anyone whodoesn't know will wake up in the
morning, a working actor wakeup in the morning and, like the
(04:09):
first thing you have to do.
It's basically like emails,like you get in and you go into
three, four, sometimes fivedifferent online casting
platforms where you have aprofile, which we have a YouTube
video of you doing this fromearly on at CFM.
We have a couple of YouTubevideos teaching people how to
use these processes.
(04:31):
But you wake up in the morningand you check for any breakdowns
that you may have missedovernight and you scan through
every single one to see ifyou're a good fit.
If you're a good fit, you clickin to them one at a time.
You pick the correct headshot,you pick the resume you want to
go with it, you pick the mediathat you want to go with it and
you send it off and that takesfive minutes usually.
(04:54):
So you're doing that.
Hopefully there are like 20 or30 in the morning and then you
should do it twice.
So you do it again in theevening because there have been
new breakdowns that have comeout during the day.
So you do it again in theevening, and that's.
You sometimes submit tohundreds of things a day.
So that's just a lot of adminand a lot of sitting at your
(05:17):
desk and working and notfocusing on your craft.
That is stressful, because thenyou've sent all of these things
out and a lot of the time younever get an audition request
from any of it, but you stillfeel the workload you still
spend all that time doing allthat work.
So then there's this beautifulapp.
So how are you pulling thingsfrom?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
multiple.
Yeah, and maybe to start you,you gave a lot of context and I
have to say we were very happyto work with someone like
yourself because it's funny.
We were experimenting with anAI blog writer and the blog was
pulling together acting articlesand stuff and it referenced
your video.
If you're doing castingnetworks, the same one you
(06:00):
mentioned.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Good.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
SEO.
That's just so we know.
Like I'm gonna have Lestereditor pull a snippet from that
video in because it's one of thefirst months of CFA at my
apartment.
We were at Indy's apartment.
My Emmy was behind us in a boxlooking at the through the video
the whole time as Haley did hercasting.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
But I was sat in front of a big bay window
because there was good lightingand I was like hi, I'm Haley.
I'm an actor in Los Angeles.
I've spent years trying tofigure out exactly what I need
to do to be the most effectiveworking actor.
With my co-founder, indianaUnderhill, we started a company
called Cinematography for Actors.
And it's such a successful videobecause so many people are at a
(06:45):
loss when they start andstressed out like they're like
are we actually going to have tosubmit to every single possible
role?
And the answer used to be yesuntil until until you found our
yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah.
So we started off and, honestly, the way we started Cost Me Now
is also very interesting.
I mean, we had no idea it wouldend up this way.
But Guru and I teamed up maybeearly 2024.
And he has a background inentertainment.
He used to lead product atSpotify and a huge part of his
job was to speak to up andcoming artists and you know, and
(07:21):
sometimes their agents, andthat's when he figured out, well
, a lot of these agents wouldrep 20, 30, 50 artists.
And we heard stories like Iknow in my building we have a
news anchor who lives there andI was speaking to her and she
was like, yeah, I fired my agentlike three months ago because
he was charging me $5,000, andhe was not doing anything.
(07:41):
So then we found that out andwe're like well, obviously these
agents have an inside view ofthe industry, they have all the
connections, they, they'reobviously in some way
irreplaceable, they're very coreto the fabric of the industry,
but they're also overworked.
They're they're representing alot of actors.
You obviously can't do justiceto everybody.
You, you have high touchcandidates that you well, you
(08:04):
have high touch folks that youwork with and you have some
people who are still up andcoming and you, just as a single
human being, you're not able todo as much justice to everybody
, right?
So we understood that and westarted off actually trying to
build something for talentagents themselves.
We were trying to build this youknow platform that takes away a
lot of the admin work out ofbeing a talent agent.
(08:26):
So you know that includedeverything from.
You know when an artist booksroles, a certain percent of
their earnings go to the agent.
You know the billing process,the taxation involved there and
the split is kind of complicatedthere.
And you know there's the entireroster management component of
these things.
So we started off with this.
But the more we try to reachout to these people, we realized
(08:50):
, one, they're really busy.
Two, they're not very techforward at all.
It's a very still reasonably inour world it's called legacy.
It's like a legacy businesswhere they're still stuck on old
systems, like a lot of theagents that we spoke to were
using billing systems built inthe early 2000s that some
(09:13):
programmer built for them, right, and we're like well, this is
something that we can help with.
But the biggest issue we foundis that they were just.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
They just didn't have enough time they don't have the
time to switch over, even likeLike something like that, like a
billing system or a CRM, likethe company itself is too busy
managing their clients to evenbe able to have the time to
switch over.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So they have to stick with what they're like.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
This is what works and we have to stick with it,
because switching it over is.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah.
So they were very busy.
They were like, yeah, we canget on a call with you, we can
help you out.
It was just like the cycles ofiteration were very, very slow,
you know, and we're like, ok,this is moving very slowly.
We need to like really figureout what moves the needle for us
faster.
And then we had this entirephase where we sort of revisit.
So the reason we started evenis they're in tech my background
(10:03):
is in technology and financeand stuff is they're in tech.
My background is in technologyand finance and stuff.
And in tech.
You have a platform it's calledlevelsfii or whatever, and they
have this entire database ofcompensation metrics for every
level of engineer that you arein these industries and it's
very transparent.
It's very open.
There's a community around it.
There's a lot of statistics ofhow people were able to
(10:26):
negotiate certain numbers, getmore insights, things like that
and sort of the vision westarted off with.
Well, can we build somethinglike this for entertainment,
because a lot of these actors, alot of these artists, are
underpaid?
You know there's a lot ofthere's no like it's very opaque
.
You don't know what people aregetting paid.
You don't know what thebenchmarks are.
So then we revisited that,right, and then we're like well,
(10:53):
it seems like these, a bigportion of the actor's day is
going in this process and can wefix this?
And my instance is like no, Idon't think we can, and that's
what most people think.
It's too embedded in theworkflow, it's something that
cannot ever be changed.
(11:14):
This is how it is, this is thequo.
Right, like this cannot changeand that, honestly, is the
mindset for a lot of people ineverywhere.
Right, because things have beengoing the same way for so long
that disruption is is not thenorm.
Right, and then we wereoutsiders.
We actually we never.
We did not know a lot of thesethings.
So the moment we found outabout this, we were like well,
(11:35):
can we build some technologythat really like works for the
artists, like who's sufferinghere?
That was the question we asked.
Like what is the?
So we have this analogy yeah,we have this analogy of vitamins
and painkillers.
So whenever we're building,like you know, whenever you
start a company or tech companyor startup, it's like you have
these vitamins, it's like, oh,it's nice, I guess it's fine,
(11:57):
right, it's cool.
Then you have the painkillersthat solve a real problem.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
That really like you know what are our vitamins and
painkillers.
Our painkillers is the filmchallenge yeah, and fiscal
sponsorship yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
And our vitamins are probably workshops workshops and
podcast yeah, podcast is a realvitamin, yeah, real supplement,
supplement protein shake, youknow the life-changing vitamin.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, wait can I ask you something yeah the blog
writer, thing right yeah,hayley's video can you talk to
me more about that?
So what happened?
It pulled and you looked at theresources that it pulled from
when you found Haley's video.
Yeah, yeah, can you talk to memore about that?
So what happened?
You looked at the resourcesthat it pulled from and you
found that video.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, so in the New York Bay Area tech scene you
have all these people sharingall these apps, right?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And one of them came my way and it's like well, we
can improve your SEO by writingblogs for you that are very
relevant for your business,right, and improve your SEO by
writing blogs for you that arevery relevant for your business,
right.
And I was like, yeah, I'll tryit, I'll give it a shot, because
we were pretty new back then.
It was like I need someone totake this off of me.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So you were writing blogs for Cast Me Now to get
people to be able to find it.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, it was called SEObotaicom.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Oh, SEObotai yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
And it was like uh, I was like sure, I'll give it a
shot, I don't mind, yeah, Idon't have the time to do this,
like, let me just do it.
And then, funnily enough, yourvideo must have really good seo,
so we picked it up that onpurpose.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Here we are here, we are just indiana and they're
typing in the right words.
I think I have like my fourdummies.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
What's the best SEO?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, so that's how, and I went and looked at the
blog that it generated and thenpopped up your video and I was
like, well, I really this isgreat, that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Right AI's learning off of you.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Honored.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Really honored.
Honored guys.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Thanks, Fox listening on this video.
Thank you, Thanks, Fox,listening on this video.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So that's how I found out about Haley, and I reached
out to you guys on an email thatyou had on YouTube, which I
think was outdated, oh it wasContact Topanga Collective.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
It's still on there, the Topanga Collective.
We need to change that.
We can't.
I've tried so many timesYouTube.
Please email me because.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I've tried so hard, maybe mail forwarding.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
We need to turn mail forwarding on.
We have mail forwarding on, butthe problem is we can't ever
change the email that isconnected to our YouTube.
That's really annoying.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Anyway, thank you for telling us again.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, because we need to do that.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Yeah, I just have the board over there.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
But okay, so you found that and then you started
to obviously build the platformup.
What has it been like learningabout this film industry?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Because you're not in the same industry.
Yeah, I'm an outsider and yeah,like I was saying so, we
revisited our thesis and we'relike well, the people who suffer
the most are the actors, theartists, right Like absolute
bottom.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
You can say that again, right, and we're like the
people that suffer the most areactors are suffering they are
and it's hard for people to umbelieve that I think actors are
suffering and they're left tosuffer because once you make it
big, you never suffer again.
So it's hard to be like, butthere's this whole other class
(15:13):
of working actors that are, andthe whole reason we're here is
the shock.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Exactly.
Yeah, that's what people don'tsee.
The 99% are actually silentlysuffering.
There's a lot of pain.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I'm silently suffering.
Well, because also there's alittle bit of You're not silent.
There's a lot of shame too, andbeing like I chose to be an
actor.
It's hard and I'm having a badtime because it's like, well, do
you want to do it or you do,you know, is a lot of that like
there's a mindset around that oflike exactly that I found very
interesting as well, where it'slike oh well, this is the way,
(15:45):
this is how it is like, justsuck it up too bad too bad,
right too bad, and we're likeyes, yeah, fine, we get it, but
like we could do better guysit's one of those, like you said
what's been different?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I think the entertainment industry for well,
for some reasons that I cantalk about, has been pretty slow
in adopting technology yeah, we, we think a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
there's a lot of ai companies that are streamlining
different parts of the workflow,not just for actors, but, like
you know, imagine and stuff.
And the adoption rate is soslow and low, you know, because
you have to keep pushing it atpeople, being like it will make
your life easier.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
It's a better way to do it, like you know people find
the way they like to do thingsand like keep doing it that way
and it's hard to pick the samefor everyone, which is why it's
very hard to build a business inthis place, right, it's very
hard to build a sustainablebusiness for the same reason
that it's yeah, adoption is verydifficult, right?
And a voiceover artist we werespeaking with months ago when we
(16:43):
, when we started building this.
He was like this entertainmentspace is a small garden with a
very high wall to climb it'skind of like an inside.
Well, I like that you're reallycoming with those guard that's
what we found mr springsteen,yeah, we did find it to be very
guarded like.
So in tech, right, like in techat least you know where I come
(17:07):
from people are generally verywilling like you can, like
literally you know that'ssomeone.
People hop on a call with youand share.
Because I think and this is alittle bit of a controversial
take- but this is me just likeanalyzing things objectively Get
ready I think there's somesense of an abundance in tech.
just because it's a new industry.
(17:27):
There's like just so muchattention with there and there's
like there's always a lot likepeople in tech are like
delusionally optimistic.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
There's a lot like people in tech are like
delusionally optimistic.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
There's a lot of optimism, yeah, right in silicon
valley and you know, yeah, yeah, you see that in people raising
money like funding yeah yeah,like in new york city and
success, and they don't evenhave anything that one will take
off yeah, there's just a lot ofthis delusionally optimistic
right like and we, we come fromthat world and then I think when
we saw entertainment, we'relike obviously it's a very
established industries.
I think a lot of the easypickings have been yeah you know
, trimmed off and uh, there'sobviously a lot of competition.
(18:05):
This is not to say that there'sno competition elsewhere, or in
tech or anything, but it'salmost like, like you said, it's
like this is how it is, this ishow you have to do it, like
suck it up.
It's like it kills the spirit alittle bit.
Yeah, you know that's what itreally does.
So I won't say there's a senseof scarcity of some sort, but
it's like, yeah, I think peopleare more guarded, people are
more like.
You know they won't give you toomuch very easily yeah, and I
(18:26):
think that is one challenge thatwe continue to face, honestly,
uh, but that, that, I think, wasa stark, stark departure from
the style that we were used to.
So the moment you sign up, youhave this auto apply.
So we've changed it after wegot a little bit of.
It's like people are saying,hey, I'm getting submitted roles
that I'm not a good fit for,and then I look at their profile
(18:47):
and they just haven't set theirpreferences.
So we're like, well, we're justworking off of the data we have
.
You need to be telling usexactly what we want.
So the moment you log in andyou connect your accounts,
you're routed to your auto-applypreferences and you specify
just like you would to an agentor like a human being.
It's like, hey, I'm based inLos Angeles, I'm not willing to
work for roles under $200.
(19:07):
I am only interested in, say,supporting or principal roles.
Cool.
Your union status, status whichwe're great so you can be like
you are, are are.
We don't have like an intakeform.
You know, we you have theseintake forms that if you're
represented by an agent theyhave you to fill out and they're
very long, very tedious and Ithink our generation, the
(19:30):
younger generation, hates that.
We don't like fitting out bigforms no one likes when we.
We know that, right.
So we're like whatever, we'rejust gonna make super sleek,
like super quick, right, and uh,we're adding a new feature soon
uh, I don't know when, but soonis we're using, we're
integrating new voice agentsinto the app.
Uh, with where you know, youclick a button, um, you probably
(19:53):
get a text or you can do it onyour computer where you can
speak to our voice agent justlike you would converse with the
normal human being, and it asksyou a bunch of questions and
you can just tell it and thenour system just knows.
It's one of those things wherewe notice this a lot, where we
have actors, obviously a lot ofour actors on cast.
We now our rep.
They have agents and Actors arein this mindset that you know
(20:15):
well, especially those gettingstarted, is like I like for them
, they're the center of theiruniverse and they feel like the
agent is like very special, isgiving them special service.
But it's, at the end of the day, the agent is running their own
shop, they're running abusiness, they have finances,
they have a lot of actors, theyhave to rep, they're doing, they
(20:35):
have a lot of other things ontheir hand.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Until you're making the money.
Yeah, your career is your ownresponsibility, exactly so it's.
It's like well, it's great thatyou're repped, and obviously I
think the way we saw theindustry is like you sort of
need an agent when you get to acertain point.
Right, so that's fine.
What you also need to be doingis finding every edge that you
can to succeed in an otherwisevery competitive industry yeah
this is a very competitiveindustry.
So we have, like some of ourpower users have been playing
(21:04):
like I think you would somewhatqualify as a power user where
you were playing around with thepreferences, changing you're
changing, changing your,changing your parameters, seeing
how the our system reacts well,applies you to more roles, less
roles, very specific roles, andI think that's where you can
build the edge, like we're.
You know, we have this amazingtool that we can give you.
(21:25):
You know, some people come tous like oh my god, I cannot
believe this.
I got submitted to like 150roles just in one week, right,
like.
And they get like like 20s and30s of callbacks a week.
And that's amazing, right, thatwould have never been possible,
humanely possible, because it'sjust life Like life comes to
you.
You have a million other thingsto do.
You're not thinking aboutapplying the rules all the time,
(21:46):
right?
So I think if you consistentlyare able to offload this after
tuning your parameters on theapp, I think you can rest and
you can work on things thatactually matter.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I'm only gonna do parameters with horseback riding
amazing because we're gonnalearn horseback riding and I
only want to get practice on ahorse.
That's one of your skills,isn't that?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
uh, yeah, yeah I can ride a horse?
Speaker 1 (22:11):
not well, we're gonna take lessons together.
But one thing one audition thatI got from Cast Me Now a couple
weeks ago was something I havewanted for many years.
I can say I'm an expert swimmer.
I was a competitive swimmer formany years.
I'm confident I can jump in apool at any second.
(22:33):
She's crossing her arms like Ican do it at any second.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
You just let me know and I'll do it.
I'll jump in.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
If you would like me to jump in the water and do a
beautiful stroke, I can, yeah,and I always wanted to swim on
screen.
I wanted that to be a role.
So I got like this greataudition that came through.
It was a surprise, I hadn'teven looked at it, I hadn't been
thinking about it and Iaudition um.
(22:59):
It was also the worst auditionin my life for other reasons.
Wait, I'll tell you guys thestory.
Um, please, the breakdown saidyou know that the wardrobe was a
tiny bikini that we would bewearing um on the shoot day.
And then when I showed up, thewoman said and so we're gonna be
doing it on our swimming suits.
And I had thought before I leftthe house, maybe I should take
a swimming suit just in case.
And I was like, nah, they can'task us to like disrobe on a
(23:23):
first audition.
And then I got there andeveryone was in a tiny bikini
and I didn't have one.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So what did you wear?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
My underwear, which was a really, really old, dingy
bra and revealing underwear fromTeemu, and Indiana knows this.
I'm going to share this witheveryone in the world right now.
No, I have terrible acne on mybutt when I sit for too long.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I still don't believe it.
By the way, I haven't seen that.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Oh, really bad, really badass acne that day, oh
no, so I didn't get the part,needless to say, um Andy's eyes
twitch you stressed, about this.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I can't even imagine what you had to go through that
day.
It's so wild.
It's so nice that you guys aresimplifying that process, like
because now you can worry aboutthat, your butt symbols.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I don't have to spend time sitting in front of the
laptop doing hours ofsubmissions.
She can go to a dermatologistto fix her.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I have time to walk around and air it out a little
bit.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah, pretty much.
I need to add to yourpreferences.
Please apply me to sensitivedetergent.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Sensitive detergent company.
The before.
It's a good before picture, ohno, oh God.
But I want to talk aboutparameters, because you do set
them, yeah, but they're notpermanent.
So if your life changes, if youjoin a union, if you become
ficor and you can all of asudden accept non-union work, if
(25:02):
you become pregnant, if you age, if you want to, move which we
have an announcement I'mdefinitely not pregnant.
Um wow, a flashed before myeyes but, I don't have time.
Yeah, but those filters aren'tpermanent though.
(25:22):
The filters aren't permanent,so it's not like you're setting
it forever and like it has to beperfect, like you can go in and
play with those things to see,like are you getting the
auditions you want?
Are you getting auditions youdon't want?
Do you you know?
Like, are you?
Oh no, we're spiraling, we'rehaving we're having a lot of fun
thank you for allowing us onthis podcast sometimes they're
(25:46):
so serious.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Sometimes we just love hanging out and talking
about it.
Yeah, it's great okay, what'scoming out, so you have the
voice thing yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
So that's that's coming out and we've been heads
down working on, I think, afeature they're very, very
excited about, where it's calledfind a rep, where we've
partnered with somebody justlike yourself, uh, who's given
us maybe 10 years worth of theirdata for every you know um
agent that they know in the usacross different sort of
(26:15):
workhorses and segments, andwe're like, hey, he's like I am
in this business, I want to know, I know where all these agents
are going and they are lookingfor very specific kinds of
actors and let's partner andlet's do this together.
So we're launching a find a repfeature that lets any artist
who signs up on Cosby Nowconnect with you know curated
(26:37):
list of agents and we'veactually used it's like the
whole point of Cosby now isbeing artist first and using AI
to actually flip the script.
You know, there's a lot of FOMOand Silicon Valley and it's like
, oh well, ash is going to bereplaced and this, and that I'm
actually very we're taking.
The more easy this becomes, themore junk that there's going to
(26:58):
be produced.
It's just going to be a sea ofgarbage where it's like you're
going to be producing a lot ofthese things that don't mean
anything.
Right, these things pretty muchlack soul.
Anyone can do it.
The bar for somethingwell-produced goes up really,
really high.
I think there's a use case forit.
Like.
I think one use case we see isyou know, I think there's a use
case for it.
Like.
I think one use case we see isyou know, you have these script
writers who try to pitch theirstory or whatever.
(27:20):
I think you know, with these AImodels, you can build like a
quick movie, like a quick hackymovie, where you can feed in the
script and it produces a moviethat you can show and pitch it
in a much more compelling manner.
Right, you can have parts ofyour script that really pop out
when you pitch your script, butof your script that really pop
out when you pitch your script.
But I think that's one use case.
I think that is great.
I think to some extentcommercial casting could use
(27:43):
some AI element, but everythingelse I think it's just like.
I think real actors are going tobe like a premium as time goes
on, just because the moredemocratized, just well movie
making where anyone can makeanything yeah, I think, the
barrier to producing really highquality and I think, as as
(28:03):
someone who's not even from thespace right and is very ai
forward and is in the loop abouteverything, yeah if I go and
see a play or a movie orwhatever, I actually want to see
a human, I want to see theimplications, I want to see like
you, want it to be relatable.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Everything with AI and everything these models have
been fed are sort of perfectimages of perfect things, and
you know it comes out with allsorts of crazy things.
I don't think that's relatableto people, right?
And I think there's an elementof that.
I think that we're going to seestart coming up where people
are like oh, enough of this, Iwant to go back to yeah, like
normal human I saw last night abunch of asmr that was made all
(28:47):
ai.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
It was just like ai engines replacing.
They were like like you said,like ai is gonna replace asmr
artists.
Yeah, all of all of the videoswere like painful for me to
listen to.
Like it's, it's different, likethere's a.
You can feel it when it's real.
Yeah, yeah the um.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Do you have um?
What is?
What is it called like inparameters or your settings?
Can you say what words youdon't want included?
Speaker 3 (29:17):
yeah, you can like, can like, you would to a human
like.
Please do not apply me to rolesthat have.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Like make me a terrorist or like a spy or
something.
All of that stuff that's great.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, you could do like anything you could think of
, like, just like you would tella human, you would tell our
settings and, like you said,like it was painful for you to
listen that come.
That brings me to anotherelement of you know, while we
were building cost me now therewere a lot of nuances about the
industry or the process that wewere just not aware of right,
(29:46):
like some, it's like we wereworking with you hand in hand
and you're like, hey, thesecertain roles that have the word
real means real.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, if.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
I'm not a real.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
You have equity, I am not.
I'm not a veteran Hand in hand.
You heard it here.
It's recorded man Equity.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, how's your cap table looking?
We get it.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
We talk off the pot, yeah exactly, but anyway, so
real and stuff Well to be fair.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
We did give you free access to the platform for life.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, I do have unlimited access forever.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Forever, forever.
Yeah, everything We'll talkafter the break.
We're going to keep talking.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Anyway.
So the lingo of like real meantvideo.
Yeah, so real.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
That was one example.
Then there's the big unionthing that I think we had to
work together.
The big union thing, yeah, towork together.
The big union thing, yeah,there's all these sorts of crazy
like you know, it's like ifit's this, then it's that, if
you're a certain type of youknow SAG, then you can do this,
but you can't do that, and theseare things that AI is never
going to get Like unless youwere part of the industry,
unless you know you're nevergoing to be able to do it.
(30:53):
Know from users like hey, like,why did I?
Well, this is a real one.
Why did I get?
Like?
We submitted one of our usersto a role for a pregnant lady
and she's like guys, why did Iget submitted to this?
I got that yeah and I looked upthe breakdown and it said that,
um well, pregnant ladies arepreferred, but we do hand out.
Uh, they can do the belly, yeah, belly.
(31:13):
And I was like, well, there yougo.
And in her preferences it saidopen to playing roles like young
mother.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
That's why she was a partner so she was actually
correctly submitted, correctlysubmitted, but it's like you
know yeah, it's difficult yeahyeah right.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
So, uh, we're not perfect either, and I think you
know very well that we're notperfect but she says it all the
time.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
They're every day.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, we're still not perfect she says it all the
time, every day we're still notperfect.
Waiting for perfection.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
And that's the one thing that I think we are also
working on.
It's just because we're a smallteam and we're working on all
these features.
I think what we want to go backto is there's always this thing
in Silicon Valley, and I thinkit's changing now to some extent
just because of AI andeverything.
But I think the general thesisis that if you build like a
great product, and a greatproduct like people will come
(32:06):
you know, if you build it theywill come field of dreams you
like really understand theirpains and really build something
that gets those nuances andtakes it in account.
Yeah, like it will show, likepeople will know yeah, and I
think we're still getting there.
We're not there yet, but Ithink some of the early efforts
of you know, filtering off someroles and like getting this like
(32:28):
every day.
Every day I get an email likehey guys, I want to submit like
multiple reels to uh all my uhapplications.
I know you submit only one perapplication, which made life
very easy for us.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Right, right.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And we have an option that's one or all.
We don't have one in the middleand every day I get, every
other day I get like can Iplease do this?
It's like is a very heavilyrequested feature.
I hear you it's coming soon.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Coming.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
You know everyone has their own process that they've
been following for many years,so they want to be able to mimic
that they want to be able totune that right, Like someone
had all of their work split outinto different reels and they
submit all reels all the time.
That's just how they submit.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
And they're like yeah , great, so we have buttons like
submit all reels, so that letsyou submit sort of everything at
once, Everything.
And then, yeah, we have theunion stuff where you can toggle
all of those settings.
And there's more that we'recoming up with the more we hear
from our users on what they want.
Basically, but, yeah, I think,find a rep, I think is the big
one that we're coming up withand we're selling it at.
(33:34):
Well, the point is to be we'realways artist-friendly, so, and
we're selling it well, the pointis to be we're always artist
friendly, so it's like the pricepoint, like it costs me now,
right now, is $12 a month.
It's like.
It's like, well, maybe likejust below the price for coffee
in LA or New York City andthat's for unlimited, unlimited
solutions, the highest tier, soas many as you are a fit for per
(33:55):
your parameters.
They'll submit you for all ofthem, and our basic plan is five
dollars a month, which isinsane.
We probably, at some pointwe're going to start offering
that for free forever which wewant to soon basic is how many
submissions five a day
Speaker 2 (34:09):
five a day and how and what, and they can use our
code too, right?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
yeah, we have a code.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You get a month for free amazing and we'll put that
in the show notes.
Yes, please use the cfa sign upand how can they find you cast
me now ask me now, dot co co.
Love that easy, awesome trans.
Thank you so much for coming intoday and being here for one
day in la with us before goingback to new york.
Um, he loves cast me now it'ssaved.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
It saved me so much time, and so I can spend my time
working on CFA for youcommunity programs, workshops,
podcasts, raising money send inthose emails yep alright, bye.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Bye, shreyan, thank you, thank you Join us in
bridging the gap between talentand crew.
Start by subscribing on yourpreferred podcast platform.
Sign up for our newsletter tostay up to date on vendor
discounts, community events andnew podcast releases, and
educate yourself through ourfree course releases on YouTube.
It all starts atcinematographyfractorscom and,
if you like this episode,consider leaving a review to
(35:12):
make it easier for otherlisteners to find us.
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