Casting is critical to the success of any show – whether it’s scripted or unscripted. Innovative producer-designed technology, like Lumi Casting, can help create an engaging process for applicants and streamline production workflow by seamlessly integrating content and teams across every stage of production.
Bringing a cast together often starts with needing to cull a flood of applicants. A popular reality show may end up with ten cast members and a similar number of reserves, but there may be thousands of applicants to sift through and manage. Using technology to do the heavy lifting turns a complex and arduous task into something that delivers a great outcome. Lumi enhances and streamlines the casting process, ensuring all applicant information is visible, centralised and accessible. Teams can effortlessly manage and communicate with an infinite number of applicants, increasing the efficiency of every project and saving people time at every stage of production.
When Lewis Evans, the executive producer of Love Island UK wanted a better way to handle the thousands of cast applications he chose Lumi.Media. The innovative technology enabled his team to bring casting boards to life and worked incredibly well remotely when the casting team presented to the executive and network teams. Mr Evans reports “We love using Lumi; there is no other product out there with a backend like it. Lumi worked really well for us whilst casting Love Island Series 7.”
For applicants, a great casting process can help them become better engaged with the production from the outset. Lumi Casting engages applicants from first-touch with a personalised, mobile-friendly process. Producers can quickly customise Lumi templates to suit their project – without third-party involvement. This flexibility means teams can be creative when designing questions for application forms and modify them on the run if needed. For example, quiz show casting teams might like to ask applicants questions similar to those they will encounter if they are successful. For a reality show, producers might like to ask applicants to respond to some potential scenarios, perhaps drawn from previous seasons of the show, to gauge their reactions. Complementing an applicant’s video and background information, these types of questions transform a sometimes dry, information-focused process into one that is fun and engaging and gives producers far better insight into whether an applicant will be a great match for the show and how they might work with other cast members.
While casting teams generally focus on one production at a time, when you have a great digital system behind your casting process, unsuccessful applicants for one show may find themselves called up for another show later. This can only happen if you have a platform that makes it easy for talent to submit their applications, for producers and casting directors to review and make decisions on potential cast members, and for that information to be easily stored, recalled again and shared. Lumi captures and organises all project, cast and crew IP in one place – always growing, instantly searchable stored and leveraged forever.
Lumi’s secure and scalable enterprise platform is bespoke and agile and fits into every team’s workflow and way of working. Lumi helps to enhance and streamline the casting process facilitating an exceptional experience for both producers and applicants.
