CMU School of Drama


Sunday, September 15, 2013

BookYourCrew.com Is a New Way to Secure and Book Production Crews

Below the Line: BookYourCrew.com has been created by the commercial production industry for the commercial production industry. Each year in America more than 30,000 commercials are produced and distributed throughout visual media from television, to film and web.

3 comments:

AJ Cook said...

This is an interesting system. It's like a booking agent for crew, but allows anyone to be booked, much less selective. As it is tailored toward the commercial producing industry, it just seems like a general booking site made more specific. I wonder how well it will actually take off though as employers and employees must sign up. The thing with going back to old call sheets and looking for people is you know who they are and what their reference is. It seems like the ease of this system might be what people want, but I feel that soon people are going to want to have better rated crew and there might be more to it than just booking.

JamilaCobham said...

Just took a look at the website and it seems like a good idea. As the writer said it is a secondary option for finding crews, not your main source, especially when your typical crews may be unavailable.

As AJ mentioned, I wonder how many people will utilise this website in order for it to be as effective as the creators have envisioned. Some people may be looking for specific crew members who might not have registered with the site because they are unaware of its existence. I think that the success project will all depend on its popularity.

Cat Meyendorff said...

Looking at the website and the video tutorial, it seems like this could be a very useful service for both employers and employees. I agree with AJ and Jamila in that how successful this site turns out to be depends entirely on how popular it becomes among both crew and employers. My concern is that the website is described as a way for you to find all of the crew and not have to deal with calling people or looking at old call sheets, and I would worry about hiring someone site-unseen (or at least never having heard of them second-hand). Hiring someone on the phone or email after getting their contact information from a fellow producer or other employee is at least a minimal recommendation for their ability and talent to work, and so missing any kind of previous connection or knowledge of someone could lead to some problems.