With COVID-19 shutting down in-person auditions and productions over the last few months, remote casting has been on the rise. User-generated content has become the new normal for brand marketers and has largely been a way that brand content production has flourished amid the pandemic.
Recently, Backstage teamed up with Digiday to take a closer look at trends in remote casting. What they found is that UGC has been elevated on emerging and existing social media platforms because of the unique ability for talent to shoot themselves without a professional team.
“The talent is shooting the content, which until now was fairly weird,” said Chris King, creative director at growth marketing agency Bamboo. “But what’s really started to work during this time when we’re all stuck at home is that people see real people using [brands’] products…It’s honest, and people can relate to a lot of it.”
The Content Creators’ Guide to Casting Remotely One way UGC has become the norm with remote casting is through Backstage’s casting platform, which allows brands and their agency partners to post casting notices for remote or self-tape auditions, and then plan and coordinate remote performances. These submission opportunities, Bamboo says, have brought out actors’ untapped potential to produce high-quality content from their own homes.
UGC was on the rise prior to the pandemic, but it’s clear that remote casting for UGC will reign in the casting world for the foreseeable future. Not only does it widen the breadth of opportunity for actors, but the cost-efficiency for studios and the simplicity of self-content creating are big reasons why the trend might be here to stay.
“In my commercial field, [UGC] adds another layer of authenticity,” said Sean Elayda, a creative producer who’s worked with brands such as Jockey and the gaming brand Scopely. “I do know that we’ll start shooting [in-person] again, but I still think that this kind of remote, at-home stuff is still going to be king. Self-content creation is going to be strengthening over time.”
Read the full article over at Digiday here.