Customer stories


Liberman/Patton Agency

Agency Relies on FileMaker to Book Top Hollywood Talent

As the largest independent casting company in the country, the Liberman/Patton Agency is under constant pressure to provide the right actors for the right roles. With a roster that reads like a who's-who of Hollywood, the agency clearly is a success. It has cast such shows as Seinfeld, Party of Five, and 3rd Rock from the Sun, the X-Files Movie, and HBO's From the Earth to the Moon, executive produced by Tom Hanks. How does the agency do it? Every actor that comes through the doors of the agency is logged, tracked, and screened for future roles using FileMaker Pro, the award-winning database solution from FileMaker, Inc.

In 1998, faced with increasing demand both from studios and aspiring actors, agency co-owner Marc Hirschfeld decided that it was time to invest in a database. They were negotiating deals and generating innumerable memos, lists, and contracts by hand, sometimes with the help of a word processor. The new FileMaker Pro system, built by Scott Rose, president of Scott's Software Solutions, automates the agency's entire casting process.

Some 10 people access the system, entering and manipulating actor data to generate 12 different types of contracts required by the Screen Actors Guild or American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. A list of actors and their social security numbers is then automatically faxed to the various unions that must clear the actors so they can begin work. Meanwhile, staff also inputs the actor's characteristics into the system -- this can include anything from age and ethnicity to height, celebrity resemblance, or special skills. The database also tracks all actors' previous bookings, meaning that they can review actors' entire employment history with the agency while negotiating new contracts.

The FileMaker Pro system has eased the agency's workload immeasurably. No longer must they leaf through hundreds of pages of biographies and notes to find the right person. They can search the database of actors using keywords, and the FileMaker Pro system generates a report of all actors that match those requirements. The agency subscribes to an online service that stores their actor photographs, but Rose left the system open for photos if they wish to add them in the future. 'Since it's FileMaker,' explains Rose, 'this'll be a snap to do.'

The primary reason Hirschfeld chose FileMaker was because of its simplicity. 'We're not really technologically tuned in,' he explains. 'With this system, everything's clearly laid out in front of you.' Hirschfeld also appreciates the system's speed-to-deployment and low pricetag. Whereas others in his industry have spent upwards of $100,000 and waited nearly a year for similar solutions, Hirschfeld's system was a fraction of the cost and took Rose only some 90 days to complete. 'Now that it's done,' Hirschfeld adds, 'we can't believe we ever lived without it.'



Contact information

Contact Info for Customer:

Marc Hirschfeld
Co-Owner,
Liberman/Patton Agency
323-525-1381


Scott Rose
President
Scott's Software Solutions
323/954-1978
scott@scottworld.com


Filemaker Contact:

Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com


Overview
  • It's up to Liberman/Patton Agency, the largest independent casting company in the country, to find the right actor for the right show, including shows such as Seinfeld and Third Rock from the Sun. To simplify the casting process, every actor that comes through the doors at Liberman/Patton is logged, tracked, and screened for future roles using FileMaker Pro.
Industry
  • Creative Markets
  • Entertainment
  • Small Business