Background Talent is the leader in Extras Casting in New Zealand, supplying talent nationwide from Auckland to Queenstown.
Background Talent its the best 2nd job in the world.
21st December 2014 Background Talent is an amazing experience, landscaped to a kaleidoscope of lights, camera, action sourced productions and awarded challenges for Extras as myself from NE SW to mingle and work with the best and finest an evolving Film /TV industry has to offer, signaled only to the last post of the day with, 'it's a wrap guys, cut' - 'just brilliant! Always a sound investment with BT who keep you informed, really listen to your needs and always do what they say they are going to do. Thank you so much BT. / Peter Cara - NZ
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DSBD
24th August 2014 They take 20% of your pay on top of tax, so if you are a student you only get half of what you earn. Most of the jobs they offer you are minimum wage so you're literally working for about $8 an hour which is completely illegal. They charge you $150-$250 a year on top of that, which is pretty standard for talent agencies but they never warn you that you're going to get stung with another couple hundred dollars of ACC tax which they manage to avoid and put onto their already ill-paid contractors. They are completely inflexible as well and if something pops up and you can't make a shoot, no matter how minimal your part/pay is, you will get stung with $90 no show fee. I had an exam on one day, which is an obvious priority and made an honest mistake, letting them know immediately which they took as an opportunity to take $90 from my next pay. Also, they had me driving out 50km to get to a shoot and take other people for them and didn't even cover my gas (only paying $10) even though they said that they would. Not worth the hassle, not worth the stress, not worth the minimal money. DON'T SIGN WITH THESE GUYS.
Background Talent
26th August 2014 Dear DSBD Thank you for your review. I would very much like to respond and clear up some of your issues. Firstly you are a contractor and YOU decide what work you choose to do or not. Yes we charge 20% commission which is standard for talent agencies and we have to pay 20% withholding tax to the inland revenue as that is a legal obligation. Regarding our jobs you get to say whether you wish to do them or not so when we have jobs paying $14.25 per hour we do have to deduct our commission and tax as that is the only way we make money is when our talent work. If you didn’t want to do the job you can say no. In terms of a no show fee, we only charge a no show if you don’t turn up for work with no reason, if you are sick then we require a medical certificate and then your no show fee is waived. We do not charge $90 - I have no idea where this figure has come from, we only charge the amount that we would have earned had you completed your assignment. You mentioned that you had to drive 50Km to get to a shoot, all our talent are expected to get themselves to work but if the shoot is outside of the 20km zone of Auckland city then transport or extra time is paid to you. All our Auckland based talent again get to choose which jobs they take, you just had to mark yourself as not available if you didn’t want to do the work. Please feel free to call me and discuss this further if I haven’t answered all your queries in full. If you no longer wish to be with the agency please let me know. Regards Sarah Valentine Director Background Talent 09-827-9995
This is the best talent agency in auckland I have had loads of work and I highly recommend them