Spotlight expands its joining criteria
We’re excited to announce our new criteria for joining Spotlight as a performer. We’ve spent a great deal of time developing our criteria, taking on performer, agent and casting director feedback and carrying out discussions with numerous industry groups.
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We’ve taken the decision to broaden our criteria to help improve the industry’s ongoing issues relating to diversity, equality, and inclusion and to ensure that Spotlight remains the true home of casting in an ever growing and diversifying market, whilst maintaining the professional standards expected of us.
In the past number of years, we have been working to transition our offering from a solely acting-focused platform to a wider talent base, offering our casting members performers in all aspects of the industry, whether that be motion capture, dance or puppetry. We believe our new criteria services growing needs within the performance market and additionally opens up membership for applicants who previously struggled to get into the industry. Additionally, performers with UK bank accounts will be able to join on a monthly Direct Debit basis from the start, rather than pay for a year of Spotlight membership up front. We are also working on making this monthly Direct Debit payment option available to both our young performers and non-UK members in the coming months.
Spotlight are also offering up to 400 annual bursaries covering one free year of membership to help those performers struggling most with the financial barriers of entry to the industry.
We hope these changes improve on and identify issues in our previous criteria and open our membership up to the wonderful talent ready to join our industry.
These new changes mean that to qualify as a Spotlight member, a new performer will need to have one of the following:
- At least one featured role with an Equity or equivalent union contract or two contracted professional performance credits
- Or have completed at least a year of full-time professional performance training equivalent to a RQF level 5 or two years of part-time training
- Or have been recommended by a party that’s a member of one of the following professional organisations, Personal Managers’ Association, Casting Directors’ Guild, Casting Society of America, Casting Directors Association, Co-Operative Personal Managers Association, Association of Talent Agents, or the Agents of Young Performers Association. Please note - recommendations are at the discretion of the professional with whom you have an existing professional relationship. For example, they may have auditioned you, or watched you perform in a show. Applicants should not contact professionals via unsolicited calls or emails asking for a recommendation.
Apply for your Spotlight membership here
Performers can add particular skills to their profile to showcase what they specialise in. Equally, casting professionals can search our database by these specific skills to find exactly what they need from a performer, depending on what is required for their brief.
Spotlight’s changes to entry will help to open the door for talented, trained actors from a more diverse background, and reflects the changing landscape of our flourishing entertainment industry. We welcome this inclusive approach to membership, and the support it provides for non-traditional routes into the industry.
Opening up our industry more widely to embrace diversity, equality and inclusion is paramount. We at the CDG welcome the new changes at Spotlight, and in turn the opportunities it will create for all performers, irrespective of their route into the industry.
Broadening of the entry requirements for Spotlight is a move in the right direction towards improving access to the industry and supporting a talent pool that is more representative of the wider community.
If you have any questions or feedback on our changes, please email [email protected].
Photo by Nadim Merrikh on Unsplash
