Auditions held in Chatham today for Les Miserables

jessesims74 wrote:

Hi guys. You all could of just signed up on their website and waited for a responce. No need to queue. £12.00 join up fee .one off payment. No book fee at all, book fee is false info I'm preety certain of.
Sorry to say it guys.
If you wernt lucky, try signing up on line. NO QUEUING.

08 Mar 2012 1:45 PM

Report Abuse

dennie wrote:

I too took my daughter to the audition. We arrived 2 hours beforehand as it was obvious that there would be many thousands of people there considering the job had been advertised with many extras casting agencies, and in the local press!Why would anyone join a queue already thousands long in freezing temperatures when it is quite obvious that time would not permit you to be seen? All knew that auditions were only up until 4.00pm.It's a case of common sense. My daughter was shown into one of the waiting areas, where the organisers explained the order of the day. She filled in an application form and then was called across to another building for photographs and measurements. Everyone was friendly and polite, and the system was well organised. We have attended far worse auditions, even for west end. and have queued from 4.00am in the morning in equally freezing temperatures. This is the nature of an open audition, first come, first served, so my advice would be 'get there early'. Extras work is not glamorous,often standing around for hours repeating the same scene over and over again. Even though she was seen, we were still there for nearly 4 hours, and who knows whether she will be picked or not! Good Luck everyone.

10 Feb 2012 12:00 PM

Report Abuse

lu wrote:

Made to hang around for hours and treated with zero respect ...welcome to the world of extraing! I did it for years and would say you are definatly the lowest form of life in the film industry.it can be fun, you meet interesting people but dont expect to be treated like a human being or you will be very disappointed.

10 Feb 2012 9:11 AM

Report Abuse

ACTRESS wrote:

everyone who is going mad about this being unfair - especially the woman who says she is a 'proffesional' actress. Do you not understand the field you work in???
The world of acting is not fair!
It is all about the right place at the right time and you cannot expect casting people to wait around untill midnight why should they?
Even if you got to be seen you would have only had your photo taken then all they do is pick from photos it matters not one bit if you have trained as an actor or not - thats what open cating calls are all about. And if you did get the job you would be standing in the cold for up to 10 hours possibly not even to be used!
please if you are going to attend events like this do not then moan about the normal situations which extra work is asosiated with.
I agree with the other person below it was very well organised compared to some castings and everyone knew the cut off was 4pm.

08 Feb 2012 12:36 PM

Report Abuse

snath wrote:

I arrived at around 9am along with my uncle as we knew lots of people would be turning up and did not want to get turned away and good job we did as there were already hundreds of people there. I don't think Universal Extras can be blamed, there was only so many people they could see that day.

07 Feb 2012 10:43 AM

Report Abuse

MCINTYRE wrote:

Adding to my previous comment, I was honoured to be awarded the Medway Talent Trust Award in 1983.This enabled me to train in my chosen profession of acting and musical theatre and therefore I would have liked to have shown my gratitude by working in my home town.
It would be great if the Les Mis Production team could set up another fair casting for all us unfortunate hopefuls!

06 Feb 2012 11:42 AM

Report Abuse

MCINTYRE wrote:

I queued for hours for the casting of Les Mis on Saturday only to be disappointed as many of us weren't even given a chance to be seen.
I am a Professional actress based in Chatham and this would have been a perfect opportunity to promote a local actress, working on such a huge production, in the local area.
It is such a shame that we weren't all given a chance!

06 Feb 2012 10:25 AM

Report Abuse

Dad Of Ten wrote:

I was well gutted not to get used. I would of lookd like a briliant french vilager. I took my berray along and evrything.

Too make things wurse I caugt a chill while I was waiting. I hope i dont pass it on too all my kids.

05 Feb 2012 8:11 PM

Report Abuse

Les Mis Fans wrote:

My wife and I arrived 9.30am and waited in the foyer of the building, after a few minutes we were told to go into one of basement classrooms to wait our turn others had been sent to rooms upstairs and were waiting in the corridors of the building (approx 1000 people) while the late comers joined the spreading queue into the carpark
After 2 1/2hours we were ushered from room to room to fill in application forms and eventually over the road to be measured and have photos taken
The staff attending were always polite and we were kept informed of the likely waiting times
This was our first experience of extra auditions but had assumed there would be many people interested and were surprised so few were there only 30mins before the doors opened
We had a fun morning and hopefully we be able play a part when our favorite musical is filmed

05 Feb 2012 7:06 PM

Report Abuse

terrypn wrote:

I attended the audition and was seen. I arrived about 8.45am so I had had a nice lie in. When you work as an extra it is not unusual to have to be on set ready to work at 7.00am. If I had turned up at 10.00am and seen a queue half a mile long I would have done what any sane person would do and gone back home.
Did the people in the queue realise they were in a queue for a job? I ask because I've never seen a queue like this outside any of the local job centres before.
Being an extra often involves hanging about for hours with nothing much happening so at least they got an idea of what it is like. Being an extra also involves lots of disappointment with jobs cancelled at the last minute, it's the nature of the work.

05 Feb 2012 10:28 AM

Report Abuse

dad of three wrote:

I have a daughter who for the past year or so has been doing extra work etc. 95 per cent of auditions and even the filming are unorganised so she was not surprised with her 5 hr wait!
She does this type of work for the love of the job and takes the shambles of most auditions etc as part of it.

05 Feb 2012 9:46 AM

Report Abuse

Angry Mum wrote:

You lot were in the right place - what propper dramma queens! i wanted to go but there werent nowhere to leave my kid's and i couldnt stand that long cos ive got ME.....but you dont here me moning! lol!

04 Feb 2012 10:29 PM

Report Abuse

jacob wrote:

I was just wondering if anyone realises that £110 is not 'take home self employed pay' - there will also be a book joing fee as well as commission who are not already on Universal Extra's books - so you might get about £5 out of it a day, if you're already on Universal Extras books then - does FAA rates mean anything to you or are you willing to have an agent that just sells you out? Extra Agencies need some sort of license - know what you're getting into people

04 Feb 2012 9:06 PM

Report Abuse

Earlybirdsarah wrote:

I too attended the 'open' auditions today in Chatham. The organisation was awful. There was no communication with the auditioners , no barriers, or general guidance. I have complained on the universal extras website so if you too had an awful experience why don't you share it with them. After waiting 4 hours in freezing conditions dressed as a nun, then to be told to go, with no reason was appalling. One of the staff actually suggested we attend next weekends auditions in London. Some people had carefully organised time off and paid for travelling to Chatham today. I hope that universal learn from this, apologise and next time are far better organised. Shame on you for treating us in such a manner!

04 Feb 2012 8:40 PM

Report Abuse

frostbitten wrote:

I too queued for hours in the bitter cold (my choice i admit) to be turned away by the police, earlier in the day people were coming round with leaflets saying you could apply online, when i questioned a fee i was told it would be £11.50 to register with them...mmmm im thinking a bit of a con! bet i wouldnt see any work from it. When questioning a member of the production company on the shambles that was a queuing system and them cutting the line off he said they hadnt anticipated that many people(when on itv and on many websites and job centre, they must be pretty stupid not to think people wouldnt turn up!)He also said we could try the london audition!! dont think so, just for this to happen over again.(if not with more people) If anyone knows of a name to complain to please post it here...

04 Feb 2012 8:29 PM

Report Abuse

Louise2112 wrote:

Today along with around 5-6000 people spent hours and hours queuing in - condition I arrived early to make sure of a place my friend and I were stood in the queue that grew at a fair pace spiraling with no logic and no crowd control. One of the organizers made an announcement for thoes needing to use the loo's to have some one save their place where they can return! This gave licience for anyone and everyone to queue jump! The spiral dispersed sending 100's of people pushing they way into the existing lines! After spending 5hours being pushed and shoved! We suffered sever first bite where by our feet were numb causing myself to trip over with not much control. I was totally appauled by the lack of sympathy and organization. And to make matters worse we were just about to enter the final stage if queuing (the stairs) where the police were forced infront if us and were told we were not going to be seen and were to leave. I feel that this was totalky unacceptable as many who arrived hours after us got to be seen and we were turned away. Without a ounce or remorce. I am gutted and feel totalky let down.

04 Feb 2012 8:05 PM

Report Abuse

Auditionee2 wrote:

I arrived at 9.50 where we joined the very end of the queue which at that point was going around in a spiral. However, the queue quickly got very long, and due to a complete lack of barriers, many people on the inner spirals who had in fact only been there a short time, pushed into the outside spirals which were originally full of people who had fairly been there hours. Eventually it got to the po...int where everyone was cheering when we moved even two or three feet, and the movements were around 45 minutes apart. There were people who had got into the building way before us who had arrived two hours after us, and yet we were left in the cold literally crying in pain from the cold. Five hours later, we got right up to the steps leading into the building. The producer and police then came out and told anyone that wasn't on the stairs to simply go home because they weren't willing to see us. This was at 3 o'clock, and yet the event wasn't set to close until 4 o'clock. There are reports that two people fainted in the queues, whilst a friend of mine who I was standing with experience an anxiety attack due to the pushing and shoving that was going on. When we got to the end, we were told rather abruptly that 'we did not want to be seen', and when someone in the crowd spoke up about the unfair nature of it all, the reply she got was 'I don't care, you just need to go home unless you have nothing better to go!' We had to just go home, despite having stood still for five hours whilst people pushed us around and got in front of us.

04 Feb 2012 7:15 PM

Report Abuse

k8m8 wrote:

I think I may have developed frostbite after the appalling organisational skills that the audition had. I have been to many auditions including film and musical ones, and I have never been more appalled or disgusted in the sheer chaos that was this audition. Even if it wasn't freezing conditions, the fact I alongside many others had to queue for 5 hours or longer to be told we couldn't even go and audition was shocking. I am disappointed in the company who was looking for extra's and I hope they realise that they need to organise more carefully or at least expect more auditionee's from the advertisement they had made.
As said by the other comments, using common sense by the amount of advertising made and using barriers or any sort of logic to keep auditionee's in order would have made the audition process a lot easier and quicker. This would have even allowed all the people who had turned up in the -2 conditions to even have a chance to audition.
(If not frostbite, I reckon I'll have the flu tomorrow)

04 Feb 2012 7:10 PM

Report Abuse

Ann1e wrote:

The auditions were from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm today and the organization was completely abysmal. I understand from a fellow queuer that there was just one person organizing the audition and the queue had to organize itself which resulted in a kind of inward spiral with those coming later having to fight their way though the people already there to the centre of the spiral. Once the line began moving the people from the centre spirals were muscling into the outer spirals and a lot of people were getting very upset about this. Sadly, we arrived at 10:00 am by which time there was already a very long queue. Today is my daughter's 17th birthday and we queued for two hours until, at her own instigation, we decided to call it a day.

I would dearly like to know who was responsible for the farcical 'arrangements'; why there were no barriers or people helping those queuing in the sub-zero temperatures and why, when they were obviously going to attract a great many people they didn't make allowances for the enormous crowd they attracted.

It would be much appreciated if you are able to let me know who I can contact to complain about the ridiculous situation we were in this morning - I understand that police were called subsequent to our departure which is no surprise as tempers were running high when we left.

04 Feb 2012 6:59 PM

Report Abuse

Auditionee wrote:

I attended the 'Les Miserables' casting in Chatham today and was appalled at the organisation.
We turned up at the start time, 10am, and already the queue was ridiculously long. (Fair enough to say 'turn up earlier' but if everyone did that, it would create the same situation... just earlier in the day)
When we eventually found the back of the queue, it was poorly organised, a mass of people trying to create a spiral shape, yet with no crowd-control barriers to show where the queue was going, which (after just a few hours) turned into a massive crowd with people (probably 500 +) pushing to get past the bridge. It was very dangerous and our group was separated.
The majority of queuing took place outside and it was below 0 degrees, (the casting was advertised for 16-90 year olds, this was hardly a safe place for them to be standing for up to 6 hours)and many people, although prepared and dressed for the cold, began to feel unwell.
I also saw on the Facebook group, that there are reports of two people passing out due to the dangerous conditions.
The group of friends which I was with have recently performed in our theatre groups' production of 'Les Miserables' therefore were very excited about the casting, and were highly disappointed at the poor organisation of the event. I hope that the people in charge can learn from their mistakes and improve the quality of further events. Best of luck with the movie and to those who managed to be seen x

04 Feb 2012 6:37 PM

Report Abuse