CASTING PRINCIPLES: Pilot Errors - When it comes to the special TV casting season, don't believe the hype.

Last year was the Year of the Teen for everything at the box office, from the faces on the screen to those who paid seven or eight dollars to watch those Noxema-fresh faces. As film producers have banked on this cash cow, so have TV producers, who have horned in for their own piece of the acne-set action. With as many new series featuring young adult performers as there were last year, one can't help but speculate on the potential for young-looking actors for the new fall stock of TV shows this year as well.
The maelstrom of pilots, which is essentially a test run of a new series, has just kicked into high gear, with February seeing the biggest push in pilot casting. But without any experience or repesentation, chances are you won't be seen by the right people. Industry professionals and working actors agree that without an agent or manager, actors will have a difficult time getting in to see a casting director working on a pilot, many of whom were too swamped to even talk to Back Stage West for this article.
Casting director Sarah Katzman, who works with fellow caster Lisa Beach primarily casting feature films, has taken part in the pilot season mel e. "You see more people for a pilot than you do for a feature," she said. Though the numerous opportunities seem encouraging, she acknowledged that without an agent, the chances of getting in the door become very low. But she conceded, "We definitely go into blind submissions for casting a pilot; you're more willing to open up and see everybody for a pilot."
Starting at the beginning of the year and running through April, pilot season has come to be known as the busiest time of the year for casting directors and agents, and arguably the widest opportunity for actors, with hundreds of pilots vying for a treasured spot on the approaching fall lineup: The networks announce their picks in May.
Actors who are booked on a pilot shouldn't expect instant episodic success. An estimated three percent or fewer of the pilots that are filmed ever see airtime. But beyond getting paid-sometimes even more than a guest spot on an existing series-there are myriad benefits to appearing in a pilot. As one actor said, "It's tape that's of the quality you're going to get if it were on television; it looks just as good on your reel, and it's not going to make your performance any better if it ends up on the air." Though the pilot may not go, someone at the network may find your work interesting enough to explore other avenues to showcase your talent.
Four-Month Fable
Keep in mind that the first four months of the year are not the only time to get work on a pilot. According to Gary Marsh, who since 1971 has owned and operated Breakdown Services, the company that creates the coveted breakdowns released for almost every project looking for actors, "Pilot season has become more unstructured through the years with the advent of cable, syndication, and other forms of television production."
Marsh does warn neophyte actors against coming out West during this season "cold," with no contacts at all. Instead, he recommends that actors-especially young-looking ones likely to have the look many producers are searching for-come to Los Angeles for a couple of weeks in November to interview with agencies in the hopes of being signed, with the understanding that the actor would be available for auditions from January through March. "That certainly puts an awful strain on a family, but that's the kind of commitment it requires," he said.
Because pilot season does attract many novice actors, many of whom know nothing about the industry, the potential for disappointment is enormous. One actor who has booked two pilots so far in his six-year television career agreed that an actor should come out during the slow season to first find an agent in preparation for pilot season. "It's crazy to come out here for a few weeks and expect to score something, but nobody discourages it, because it puts more money in the pockets of the hotels, acting teachers, and headshot photographers.
"If you come out [to Los Angeles], you're coming out for the long haul, so you shouldn't be basing your success on what happens between now and March. You think there's nobody like you in Hollywood, but when you get here, you find out there are a thousand people exactly like you," he said.
It's easy to get frustrated, but Hollywood operates on a system, as Marsh described: "Producers know they get the benefit of people watching their programs when they attach a name that people want to watch. The casting directors may know people who are more talented than a certain name actor, but they can't guarantee the success like a name actor can." In truth, many of the series-regular roles are going to highly recognized actors.
Breaking Out of Holding Patterns
Tired of being offered the "drapery roles," as she called them, LaReine Chabut decided to foster her own success for pilot season. Having appeared in the pilots for Vengeance Unlimited and Dogs for ABC, and in roles on Nash Bridges, The Secret of Alex Mack, and The Single Guy, Chabut took out her frustration of only being called for bit parts as the babe by finding another way to be taken seriously as a comedic actress.
By co-producing and performing in Good Jill Hunting, a film short she did with her comedy partner Elizabeth Keener (Catherine's younger sister), she was able to get the attention of Meg Ryan's entertainment company, Prufrock. Based on their tape, the comediennes were able to pitch their idea for a sitcom-a kind of AA for personal assistants-and now it's in development at Castle Rock with heavy interest from the Fox network. (Incidentally, Chabut met Keener while doing an AFI film which she read about in Back Stage West.)
Though Chabut admits the similar frustration of many actors competing for television roles, she does have hope for unknown actors, especially in March and April, when the casting directors can't find the specific types of actors they initially sought or can't attract the big names. Chabut also pointed out that the time between April and December is a good time to find an agent, because they're in the process of dropping clients who failed to book any pilots.
The prevailing opinion among industry professionals is that an actor does need some sort of representation, be it an agent or a manager, to be submitted for pilots during this frenetic season that wanes in April. How to procure representation, however, is another issue-the Nov. 25, 1999, BSW issue, to be exact. In the meantime, employ your investigative skills by keeping up with the trades, which do release a wealth of information about who is producing and casting pilots, and in some cases may reveal specific tidbits about certain roles. You should not rely on your agents to do all the work, because they are busy keeping up with their other clients, too. Besides, you may hear about something a month before your agent does.
Extras Fly, Too
Pilots do not only include principals, however. Appearing as an extra presents another opportunity to get in on the action. Debe Waisman, an extremely busy extras casting director, is currently casting extras for two comedic half-hour pilots for Fox and HBO. She noted the difficulty in casting extras for these particular pilots. "[The producers] have picture-picked absolutely every extra. They're trying to make such a good impression on the networks that everything has to be absolutely perfect. It's not like normal extras casting," she said.
Waisman said that extras in pilots have a greater chance of being bumped up to a more featured position. "They're still trying to figure out what's going on, what characters are important, and what lines are important," she said of the production teams of many pilots. For this reason, Waisman said she recommends extras have some acting ability or experience.
An issue that has seemed to plague casters and producers alike is the lack of ethnic diversity in primetime television. It is too soon to tell if more roles will go to ethnic actors, but in defense of casting directors, Marsh said, "I see they are making the effort, and have for quite some time, to introduce choices in ethnicity and gender."
He insists that the mindset of the writer and what the studios want are the true governing factors of who gets cast. "The writers are going to write those things that they think have the best chance of selling," he said. Marsh cites casting directors as the best advocates of non-traditional casting.
Waisman agreed: "I like to make my casts completely ethnically diverse at all times, unless I'm told otherwise. But people don't realize that we're the liaison between producer, director, and actor. We don't make the decision, we just bring people in."
Even though it's too early to tell who will dominate pilot season-teens, lawyers, doctors, single moms, standup comics, minorities, WASPs, urbanites-there are a few parts to the equation of a successful pilot season that we already know: representation, talent, timing, and patience. BSW