Using FastCapture with Cast It Systems and Casting Networks

FastCapture is the application to record live auditions directly to Casting Networks.  With a little extra effort, it can also be used with Cast It Systems, to record and upload live auditions in real time. This article will describe the extra setup involved, and the hardware requirements for connecting your video capture device to the MacOS computer that runs FastCapture. 

Requirements for FastCapture to work with Cast It Systems:

1. You will need accounts on both Cast It Systems and Casting Networks.
2. You must have an active Project on Cast It Systems.
   1. The roles set up on Cast It. These role names will be duplicated on Casting Networks.
3. You will need to set up at least one project on Casting Networks, which will be the source of the role names that FastCapture will use.
   1. You can set up a project in Casting Networks for each Project you have in Cast It, or
   2. You can treat projects in Casting Networks like a storage device for role names that FastCapture will use when recording talent.
4. Roles in Casting Networks don't have to be published, you can create roles with minimal information (Role name, principal or background, and role type).
   1. The role names in Casting Networks should match the role names in Cast It.

Set Up FastCapture to Work with Cast It Systems:

If all the requirements are in place, you next have to set up FastCapture to use Cast it.

1. To use Fast Capture with Cast It Systems, you have to enable CIS in the FC preferences.
   1. Open preferences from the FastCapture menu, or by pressing ⌘-,
   2. Go to the Integrate tab .
   3. Select “Uploading to Cast it Systems.”
2. Create a New File.
3. Log in to Casting Networks account.
4. CIS login will pop up, login there with your Cast It login.
   1. Select the Cast It Project you want videos to upload in CIS.
5. Now you will choose the company and project on the Casting Networks side
   1. Select your Company on Casting Networks
   2. Select the Project in CN used to store the role names
   3. You need to create a new session name
6. Once logged in across both platforms, the logo will turn blue, orange, and green to indicate FastCapture is ready.

FastCapture Workflow:

FastCapture is designed to help you easily repeat this three step process, in your auditions:

1. Add individual talent or groups of talent into a session 
2. Record that talent auditioning
3. Upload the video to Cast It

Adding Talent to a Group

The "Add Talent" functionality pulls talent from Casting Networks' database. Usually, talent names are imported either via searching the database, or by importing an audition schedule that was created in a Casting Networks project.

If you won't be using the Casting Networks talent search or importing an audition from Casting Networks to bring in talent names, you'll need to use the "Quick Add" feature to type in talent names manually.

To add talent names to your audition group manually, click on the add talent button. Select the Quick Add Tab:

You'll have to enter the First name and Last name

Even though phone and representation are required fields in FastCapture, the only information that will be brought into Cast It will be the first name and last name, the role, and the videos.

There are two places to add talent: the Talent Pool, and Current Talent. The Talent Pool is the leftmost pane, and includes all of the talent names and associated role names for which they are auditioning. The Current Talent is in the middle pane. FastCapture will add the current talent name to Cast It, under the role name they have been assigned (in FastCapture), and the video that is recorded will be attached to their name. 

Double click, click the "+ Add to Current Talent" button, or drag and drop talent to move them from the Talent Pool to the Current Talent group.

Recording Talent

Once you have talent in the Current Talent pane, you can record their audition. The recording interface has a number of features for recording in different media formats, as well as importing media if you need to add external clips.

Click on the red Record button to begin recording. Click on it again (as the stop button) to stop recording. Use the photo tab to take still photos through your attached camera. 

Upload Video to Cast It

When you are finished with your audition recordings for the talent in the Current Talent pane, click on "Finalize Group" and the files will be uploaded to Cast It.