The Crawford Agency is a nationwide talent management firm that conducts open audition calls in cities all over the country on an ongoing business. I first heard of the company through an ad on the radio. I had never previously been interested in acting, but am a huge fan of several of the Disney TV shows that they mentioned in their radio ads.
The auditions were held at a hotel in the city. The first 90 minutes or so of the entire presentation was actually really good and helpful for a newbie to the entertainment industry. Maui and David Voogd gave free advice about what it takes to make it, including how to assemble winning portfolios, acting resumes, and the importance of your headshots and demo reels. A significant amount of time was also spent, of course, talking about the agency's success stories, such as kids that recently made it big that they represent.
Very early on, I noticed the application of several classic sales techniques. One thing in particular was the frequent and repetitive use of the phrase, "... If you are lucky enough to receive a national contract..." The Crawford Agency works with people by giving them a one year exclusive management contract, from which The Crawford Agency derives a 10 percent commission on all work that you do. The repetitive use of a phrase like this is a common technique in doing sales to group audiences, because it builds a sense of exclusivity.
Throughout the sales presentation, they would use people from the group to do various exercises and make various points. They said that these callups to the front of the room were part of our auditions, and that our auditions started from the moment we showed up and signed.
After the sales presentation, we were all lined up and one by one did our formal auditions, which involved reading some scripted lines, and doing some on the spot improvisation given a scenario they gave us. After that, we were given a callback time and a copy of the contract to review.
I kept in touch with several other girls from our audition event, and every single one of us was "lucky enough to receive a national contract." In other words, we all made it. Everybody. A couple of the girls that made it really surprised me, since I didn't honestly think they had a chance (and I'm sure there was somebody that probably thought the same of me!).
It is very, very hard to find information online about The Crawford Agency, which is why I am writing this. While I do not believe that the company is necessarily a scam, their "auditions" are definitely just sales pitches. Also, the company IS NOT A LICENSED AGENCY. That's right - they are NOT AGENTS. They are a management firm.
As such, you need to know exactly what they do and don't do. If you are interested in acting, they will insert you into industry databases through one point of entry (their web site), and this service is going to cost you $1,000 for a year, or you can break it up into monthly payments for $150/month (that's $1800 total for the year). If you want to model, they charge you $175 to put your information on their web site only, then they shop you around to agencies.
The way the system works on the acting side is that, once you are in all the industry databases, you will be emailed casting opportunities that meet your profile criteria on a daily or weekly basis. Then, it is up to YOU to make your audition video and mail it to the casting director.
A big thing mentioned several times during the presentation was that finding the contact information for the casting directors was one of the most difficult things to do. This is actually not true, as anybody can subscribe to Breakdown Services and obtain full casting call and character breakdown information and the contact information for the casting director, and this service is only $68/year.
The largest industry casting databases, together, will run an individual about $300 per year to belong to all 4 of them. This tells me, then, that the remaining $700, give or take a little bit, is for The Crawford Agency to put you into the systems. Actually, you still have to do that, because you have to upload your photos, build your own resume, etc., on their web site, and then they likely use a database interchange program to dump THAT information into the industry databases, so it's all automated. Sure, they had to pay a computer programmer to put all the systems together, but this is most likely where they make their money, which is why I think EVERYBODY is offered a "national contract".
I am in no way saying that their service isn't good, and I do not doubt their connections to the modeling agencies. However, if your interest is in ACTING, I think you are better off going without personal management from a company like this and rather just doing it on your own for MUCH less money.
I found two very, very excellent sources of information for legitimately getting started in acting without managers. Read these two articles:
Http://bbs. Backstage.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/932105/m/846102181/p/1
Http://bizparentz.org/thebizness/onlinecasting.html
The information in those two articles is enough to get you started, without spending thousands of dollars of money you probably don't have.
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