Child extras / acting agencies and fees

[Duvetstealer24]

Is your child with an extras agency and how do they find it? I'm considering signing my daughter up to Ann Koska as they look good, and are branching out beyond extras roles to speaking roles too.
Anyone have experience with that agency and can recommend?
They have a joining fee as well as taking a percentage of the payment, which I guess is pretty standard?

I don't think it's standard to have a joining fee and is often (not always) a sign of a scam. My daughter is with an acting agent - but not for extra/SA work, so maybe it is an extras specific thing? Percentage of payment is straightforward. Setting up Spotlight is charged directly by Spotlight normally so is another cost if they ask for Spotlight but isn't a joining fee as such. No experience of this specific agency.

It is standard to have a joining admin fee. Many agencies charge around £40-£60 as a one off payment for this. My daughter’s agency charged £45, it’s a well known reputable agency. If it’s much more or annual fees then I wouldn’t pay. The agency will also take commission too

For SA agencies then it is normal to have a joining fee and pay a percentage of earnings. For acting agencies then no, it should just be commission on earnings. There are some child agencies that do modelling as well and they charge admin.

We have never paid anything but commission, Spotlight fees and headshots.

Make sure you understand exactly what is involved in SA work - it is very different from acting, and credits are not useful in any way at all for acting. They won't help you get speaking roles (those are auditioned for in a different way) and a lot of actors who do SA work for the money do it under a different name as it can be very looked down on by production/casting.

There is a lot of waiting around, you are not treated the same as the cast members, and there can be a lot of last minute calls/let downs. Plus all the faff of having to get a license, time off school etc etc.

If you live near a studio, have a very flexible job and your child finds it fun then probably worth it though.

Thanks. The admin fee charged is £240 which seems steep but they said it can be taken out of earnings rather than paid upfront, so you would only pay it when/if work arises. I appreciate it's quite a lot of admin for them to sort out all the child's details, arrange the council license etc, so they probably do it partly to deter time-wasters.

Thanks for this, that's helpful. The reason we are looking for her to sign up now is because of the Harry Potter TV series. We don't live too far and she would absolutely love to be part of it, even despite all the waiting about etc. She has of course applied for the acting role but didn't get anywhere there.

In terms of the split between SA and actors, I totally get that. This particular agency is developing a talent management wing as well, so there may well be opportunities for her to move into that if they rate her acting skills. That then requires Spotlight membership etc.

An admin fee of £240 sounds very steep! My daughter recently did extra work through Ann Koska, we didn't pay any admin fee, they just took a small fee from her earnings. It was all very disorganised though!

Thanks Hazel. Did your daughter enjoy the extra work? Has she been with Ann Koska for long or just for this one? Maybe they especially wanted her so they waived the joining fee!

Yes she really enjoyed the experience, though there was a lot of waiting around, it was very exciting for her (and me) to see a proper film set. She was just recruited for this one job via her stagecoach drama club. We don't live in a location with lots of filming so I assume they came looking for local children.

£240 is way too high. There are several SA agencies with open books right now specifically looking for children near enough for the Leavesden Hogwarts commute, so you don’t need to overpay. Have a look at Sally King. They also have a division for acting but they are separate. Do keep in mind what Crumbs says that SA work doesn’t count as a credit and it’s quite gruelling. Will suit a kid happy to sit around with a reading book all day though! And also happy to be with different children each time.

good luck!

My children are with Ann Koska and paid their fee off their first job (or two for one as first job was just a day) - the other got a big job after they advertised looking for someone like her, and she didn't have to pay the admin fee to do that one job but did to sign up to be put forward for others. It's a one off fee rather than a yearly fee.

They have a different agent for talent but thinking of asking if they can go with AL for talent too in due course as Maria is very responsive and good so I trust them.

Sally King and Extra People Juniors don’t charge any admin or joining fees - they just charge commission if you get work. I really wouldn’t join any agency charging a £240 joining fees (unless that covers your Spotlight and photos).

My children have worked professionally and had two different agencies. Neither have charged a joining fee.

I work with child actors and extras as a chaperone and tutor and have found Ann Koska a bit unprofessional and not great at paying on time, to be honest.

Some productions do book extras directly through open SA casting calls, so perhaps keeping an eye out for one of those might be a good idea if you're keen to avoid upfront fees. But if it's Harry Potter you're keen to be involved with then I think Sally King is handling the child SA casting.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Jesus! Never heard more BS!! Get a grip and stop misinforming! Being an 'extra- does not look bad at all for productions/casting directors etc. @Duvetstealer24 Please go and do proper research and not listen to this nonsense this person put on here!
A good agency shouldn't charge an admin fee to join. Register with Extra People Junior,it's free and they are very professional. Good luck, it's a great experience and it does help going forward!

@parent1984 are you always this rude?

You may not like the idea, but extras work is viewed very differently from cast roles in the screen acting world. There is a misperception that actors start out as extras and “move up” into speaking roles but in practice this rarely happens - not least because the casting processes for actors and extras are completely separate.

Extras are a necessary and valuable part of screen productions (no-one wants extras replaced en masse by AI/CGI!), but a string of extras jobs, even ones on big-name productions, won’t cut any ice with a casting team or producers when an actor auditions for a character role - and may even, as Crumbs has said, count against them.

12 years in the industry, seeing how SA kids are treated on set compared with main cast, knowing that a lot of agents don't allow their clients to do SA work as it has negative implications for acting work tells me that I know first hand what the realities are.

By all means go and do SA work - some people enjoy it, or just like to see themselves on screen, or want set experience, or some extra cash. Nothing wrong with that at all.

But it is not "acting", it doesn't gain you credits, it does not help your acting career and it doesn't get you bigger roles or a better agent. FACT.

@parent1984 do you work for an extras casting agency? I can't work out why else someone would come back to a thread weeks after it's last been posted on, only to make a dubious claim and then big up a particular company.

Extra and SA work has actually been a godsend for my DD. She is exceptionally tall for her age (5’8” aged 12). She was dropped by her agent when she was 10 because of her height. They will have her back once she’s turned 16 - all to do with child licensing - but she is stuck in a big casting black hole right now. Her agency actually recommended it.

What it does is keep her love for being on set ticking over in the meantime. You can learn an awful lot just by being there.

But yes, it’s a totally different experience to being in the main cast and it doesn’t lead on to bigger parts.

Look at it simply as something fun to do as opposed to breaking into an acting career.

Completely agree that it can be a good choice for “deadzone” (whether due to height or age) to help maintain a sense of enjoyment and connection to the industry - as long as expectations are realistic and child finds SA work fun and interesting.