What exactly does it mean to be a local hire?
A local hire means that you are able to work in the shooting location without the need for travel expenses. If you consider yourself to be a local hire, it means you are willing to: fly yourself to the shooting location, put yourself up at a hotel or other residence, and get yourself to/from set without any reimbursement. Is it worth it?
That’s a question you’ll want to ask yourself and your agent. If you have an offer for a weekly scale but you have to be a local hire in another state, the cost of airfare, accommodations & rental car/Uber will have you barely come out even (taxes & agency fees are other contributing factors).
At the end of the day, it’s important to prioritize what it is that you consider valuable to your career. Will this job be your first credit? Will it give you career-changing footage for your reel? If so, it might be worth it. It’s important to know the facts & rules when it comes to being a local hire.
Just saying you can be a local hire and having some friends/family in that region may not be enough to fully qualify as a “local hire.” Productions are going out of state due to the many tax incentives offered there and lower cost of shooting.
However, in order to qualify for these incentives, they must hire a certain percentage of local cast & crew. Many times, for cast, the percentage that can be out-of-state is reserved for the larger, leading roles.
This means that some states will require either a state ID, or a document proving you are resident within a certain number of miles from the shooting location. (these requirements differ by state)
#actor #actorslife
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This is such important advice and information for actors. Thank you Tammy Hunt!
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This is all great info! I’d add a little nuance and that’s when it’s a project with shifting dates. Since you’re pretending to be local, they have the right to ask you to suddenly be able to come in today or tomorrow for a fitting, when you weren’t planning to fly in til the shoot next week. Or to shift your dates with very little notice, potentially causing you to rebook flights.
Or your initial shoot goes well, but they had to postpone some of your work to next week. So now you have to fly back next week. And if you can’t do it because of whatever reason, you could quickly burn a bridge with that Casting Director and/or your representatives. I’ve seen it happen.
In my mind, lying about local hire status is poor form and has so many potential down sides for your finances and possibly your career if the above scenarios play out.
The CDs here in the Southeast have all been burned by LA/NY actors lying/pretending to be local and then something going wrong, so they’ve cracked down on the phenomenon. The agencies have also largely stopped repping those actors who do not actually have boots on the ground in Atlanta.
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This is so helpful, Tammy Hunt! Thank you!