An Open Call is a audition that is being held without scheduled appointments. It means that a time frame is given and anyone can show up during that period to audition. My experience with open calls is that they are crowded and normally have a long wait.
First let’s understand why open calls are held-
1. It could be that a small low budget production, that does not have the resources to schedule represented actors to audition, is making the project. They may have to resort to posting the casting all over town in hopes that actors will show up and out of those they will find who they are looking for.
2. At times Open calls are held for promotional purposes. For example: “They are casting a boy to play the new Harry Potter and are seeing kids in 20 cities across the U.S.”. The deal with situations like this is that they may be actually casting that role but trust me….they have plenty of actors with agents who are already auditioning for the role outside of the “open call“. These calls are mainly help to get the hype out about the film and get everyone talking about it.
3. An open call may be held when really challenging roles need to be filled. For example: They are casting Mel Gibson’s new movie about orphans who live in the jungles of Brazil and are fluent in Portuguese. These roles may be very hard to fill with just the talent pool of represented actors in LA and NY. Producers will be willing to see as many kids as possible (trained or not) until they find who they are looking for so an open call is necessary.
4. Or it could be that the film is being made by a director who does not like to work with actors but with real people instead. Some directors sometimes feel that only the real people who have lived the life of the characters can play the roles. I believe the Clint Eastwood movie “El Torino” had “real” people playing the main roles rather than trained actors.
So to answer your question…I would go to an open call if I did not have an agent getting me auditions. If there is some cool role out there that you hear about and that you are right for, trust that your agent will know about it and they will get you in on it. Now if you don’t have an agent…why not go. If you have the time, feel you are right for the role, feel confident about auditioning and trust that it is a legitimate project…go for it. Keep in mind that even if the open call is mainly for publicity, you never know what could happen. I know a boy who went to an open call where the producers ended up casting a famous actor for the role they were auditioning but still gave the new, unrepresented, actor a small role in the film because he was so unique and talented. The case I know of was a perfect scenario since there were several child roles in the film so it just worked out. Good Luck. Lorena
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