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Sooner or later in your video exploits, you're going to need some talent: someone to fill the screen, or someone to read lines on camera. Sure, we all shoot birthday parties, sporting events, school plays and relatives' weddings. While this type of videography is certainly rewarding, and often times profitable, many video nuts yearn for a greater gratification. Their attraction to CCDs and flying erase heads stems from a deeper passion, that of entertaining an ever growing audience with something more than a record of daily life. They want to "go Hollywood."

Going Hollywood does not necessarily mean you have to produce a full-length feature movie. What it does mean is that you want to produce something you've scripted on paper days, weeks or even months prior to pulling the camcorder out of its case. You might want to produce an industrial training tape, instructional video, television commercial or yes, even a full-length shot-on-video movie. To pull off any of these productions, you're going to need to find people to fill the roles that the script calls for. This can be as simple as recruiting your four-year-old nephew to ride his three-wheeler in a bicycle safety tape, or as complicated as rounding up 60 extras for a crowded classroom scene in your own mini epic. Either way, you need warm bodies to move and/or talk in front of the lens, and the process for finding them is the same no matter what the parameters of the project.

Sources of Talent
Community theaters are a smart first choice in finding talent. The folks that put on the shows in this venue are very dedicated, professional and talented, and they are often looking to fill their non-performing hours with side projects. A community theater offers you a varied age, race and gender mix as well, filling most needs of any video p…