Reel-life hiring strategies

Singapore - Whether it is recruiting top employees or 20,000 actors to work under poor weather conditions and long hours, the issues casting directors and HR practitioners face are more similar than they are aware of.

Speaking at the Asian Talent Conference yesterday, Miranda Rivers, extras casting director for Lord of the Rings and King Kong says when hiring extras for films, she deals with the same issues that HR practitioners face - attraction, acquisition and retention.

Rivers admits she was lucky with garnering the attention of people, as the Lord of the Rings trilogy has a built-in fan base which was enthusiastic about the project from the get-go. Furthermore, as a New Zealand production, the film production had the support of the country.

However, casting 20,000 people was not easy, Rivers admits, especially since the production had decided to source for cast members only within New Zealand. This was further complicated by specific requirements for the various roles. For instance, cast who were picked to play elves had to be tall, blonde and androgynous looking. Actors chosen to play orcs were not allergic to latex and could not be claustrophobic.

In order to recruit extras, Rivers says she had to think outside the box. In addition to the regular casting calls, Rivers also tapped into other sources such as bowling clubs, Polynesian communities and even the army for the appropriate manpower. She also found the need to be extroverted, even going so far as to stop people on the street to ask if they would be interested in auditioning for the role of an extra.

But retaining staff was a challenge for Rivers, especially for those who had to wear full-body masks and work in inhospitable conditions at times. But there are ways to retain employees. "Feeding people incredibly well," was one of the surprising retainers.

Small things also go a long way in retaining extras, such as knowing people's names to make them feel included, no matter how small their part was. "We also made efforts to make everybody feel like their needs are met," she adds.

One reason for her professional success in retaining extras is by managing their expectations. Rivers says it was crucial that she was "upfront and honest" about what the extras were going to be in for. That way, extras would be aware that they were likely to work long hours and in inhospitable environments, but would benefit from the experience of starring in a movie, or as she puts it, "a chance of a lifetime".