Thousands of production companies, broadcasters, advertising agencies and independent casting directors use the Spotlight directories as a casting resource to access over 60,000 performers across the UK.
Known as the “Yellow Pages” of the casting industry, the multi-edition directories are broken down alphabetically and by age range. Carefully compiled by Spotlight and running across 10 print volumes totalling nearly 10,000 pages, the challenge was to extract this information from the print PDFs and present it in a clean, easy-to-use, fast digital edition, says Page Lizard.
The casting directories have been transformed into two iPad and iPhone digital editions for Actors and Actresses, with a number of features that will save casting directors, production companies and agencies precious time during the casting process.
According to Page Lizard, there are a number of features that make the Spotlight digital editions special:
1. Filterable content
With thousands of actors and actresses to scroll through on each digital edition, there is a search filter that allows users to condense their search by using Spotlight’s trademark options: eye colour, playing age and height. The digital edition also has search functionality across agents and performers.
2. Creating and sharing lists
Once a user has found the right professional for the job, they can add them to a list, save the list for later and share it with other casting colleagues once they’ve built up a collection of potential performers.
3. Offline browsing
Spotlight wanted to replicate the book browsing experience so users could take their time to ponder and keep a similar creative process. Also if users are on the move and are offline or using 3G whilst travelling between meetings, it was important for the content to be available when the connection wasn’t.
Kate Poynton, Head of Publishing at Spotlight, said: “Page Lizard constantly delivered on their promise to listen to us, be on hand whenever we needed, react quickly to our feedback and help make the process painless at all times. Simple and gorgeous. We have the most fantastic product as a result.”
