Primacy is a digital agency that builds websites, marketing campaigns, tools, and experiences for its brand clients, with a focus on the healthcare industry.
With offices in Boston, Hartford, and West Palm Beach, Primacy must staff talent for creative across all three locations. Before Backstage, this involved the time-consuming process of facilitating their own casting calls or hiring third parties to source talent.
With a growing roster of clients and demand to execute more creative projects faster, Primacy knew their existing system for staffing projects was not sustainable.
The solution for fast, effective, diverse casting
The agency turned to Backstage for a solution to efficiently find the right performers and voiceover talent across three separate studio locations for a diverse array of projects.
With Backstage, Primacy was able to:
- Cast 25 principal and background performers across 7 branded projects
- Speed up filtering, reviewing, categorizing, and selecting talent with the Application Manager tool
- Create a ground-breaking and award-winning VR-based training program for a healthcare provider that has been shared across the industry
“When we found Backstage, we realized we could not only access local talent much easier, but we could also control the casting process more intimately,” said Nick Manning, Director of Primacy Studios at Primacy.
Primacy has had success with all of their Backstage-staffed productions, using Backstage’s application management system to speed up the time required to find the right performers.
“I like being able to filter talent by roles, and all of the organization tools that allow me to categorize talent throughout the pre-casting and casting process,” Manning said.
Award-winning success for a challenging project
One of Primacy’s most challenging projects was for their client SCAN Health Plan, a Medicare provider in California.
SCAN tasked Primacy with modernizing and improving their 20-year-old training platform, Trading Ages, a program that assists SCAN employees and community members with understanding the struggles seniors face every day.
Harnessing the empathy-generating power of virtual reality, Trading Ages VR gives participants first-hand experience of conditions such as macular degeneration, hearing loss, and dementia via immersive, real-world scenarios that were filmed in 360-degree video.
Primacy used Backstage to hire principal and background talent for the project. And the quality of the actors’ performances was crucial to the success of these virtual scenarios.
“We set up a casting call on Backstage and received some really great submissions, and invited 30 actors to audition for the lead roles,” Manning explained. “We then narrowed the selections down to 7 final leads. We also hired 10 local extras from Backstage. All talent were friendly, timely, accommodating, and professional.
“The production turned out to be a huge success!”
Trading Ages VR improved SCAN’s training program so well that SCAN is now sharing Trading Ages VR with other organizations across the country.
To further affirm the project’s success, Trading Ages VR went on to win a Webby Award, bringing industry attention to Primacy and their work.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better turnout for this project, and a large part of that effort came from using Backstage to source talent.”
Performers cast in Trading Places VR:
But for Primacy, most important of all was delivering results for their client.
“Our clients have been very happy – not only with the talent used on productions, but also with the talent selection provided during the casting process,” Manning said. “Our other Backstage-sourced productions have been used in broadcast, social, and online marketing campaigns and have been very well-received by our clients.”
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