Phoenix Casting Agency Reviews 

Antwoord van Phoenix Casting Agency

Geüpdatet op 17 jan 2024

Hi Chester,
There are numerous points in your review that are untrue that we would like to address.
Firstly, the booking that you’re referencing in Birmingham. We sent you an availability check that you said YES to, i.e. stating that you were free and happy to attend. Production selected you and you were booked for the role. THEN you would have received multiple messages asking you to confirm the booking and in turn the call time (for the next day). It was at this point that you chose to ignore us completely, when we were simply asking for confirmation of a job that you had said you would like to do. As we could not get hold of you, we moved the fitting ahead by a day in the hope that this would be more suitable for you and that you would respond to us, but as you have stated, you continued to ignore us.
If you accept a shoutout for work and receive a booking, the next step is to accept it and in turn attend said job, which you did not do. We spent two days trying to contact you and to work around your availability but you refused to answer the phone or respond to any emails, hence our assumption, which we stated in writing, that you were no longer interested in this type of work or being registered with us, hence us de-activating your profile. We’ve still not had a response to that email, only this review.
In reference to your comments about Equity. We have never not paid anyone. As clearly stated in our T&Cs, we can only pay out when the production company whom you have worked for, pay us. We absolutely understand the frustration when, on the odd occasion, this takes longer than anticipated. For these situations, we can only apologise, however, our accounts team heavily chase productions to ensure that you receive your money and do not stop until we have it and can pay it out to you.
Being an Equity member or not bears absolutely no relevance to when you are paid or what work you are offered. We work in conjunction with Equity on a regular basis and frequently suggest to artists that a membership is useful, we are not in attendance at fittings or on set, so certainly do not pass on any in-person advice to state otherwise.
As for your comments about using graduates on set, we do not use graduates, or in fact any staff members on set, when you are working for a production, you work with that productions staff. We have a full time office staff who manage all of the bookings, none of whom work on an hourly rate nor do we advertise as such on any job sites. I can only assume that you have a different agency in mind here.
I hope that this clears up some of your points and leaves you with a much fairer impression. We wish you all the very best with your future endeavours.

Antwoord van Phoenix Casting Agency

17 jan 2024

Hello Julia,
I am very sorry to hear that you feel that way after participating in work with us in 2017.
We do clearly state in our T&Cs that we cannot pay any artist until the production company has paid us.
It was unfortunate that one of the productions you worked on was a late payer which our accounts team had to heavily chase. We paid you as soon as the monies were received. For the delay, we can only apologise.
We have a much smoother payment system now, paying by BACS not cheque, and although we say to expect to wait on average 6-10 weeks for payment, most productions are a lot quicker than this.
Unfortunately how quickly we can pay our artists is bound by how quickly monies are received.
We're very glad to say that we did indeed survive covid and continue to grow with a new chitless system and online portal for artists and an entirely new way of booking which has received a lot of praise.
We are very sorry that your impression of us was not a good one, we like to think that it would be very different now but of course understand your concern.
Wishing you all the very best.

Antwoord van Phoenix Casting Agency

17 jan 2024

Hi Jack, thank you for your review, glad to hear that you're pleased with our service.
We state our payment terms as 6-10 weeks as an average.
We can only pay out once monies have been received by production, this is generally a lot sooner than this, but to manage expectations we say 6-10 to be on the safe side as some can take longer than others.
Many thanks.