Mandy

I have absolutely no problem getting work anywhere else (15 years experience, 10 years in cinema - you can Google my name) so it's not because I'm not cutting the mustard as an applicant. Besides, if Mandy was designed well, it would show a 'reply rate' for people/ orgs posting jobs so you can see which ones actually reply to applicants. It creates a culture of potentially fake ads (created by Mandy's own staff, to make the website look like it's full of well paid exciting gigs which you can only apply for when you subscribe) and I get responses of any kind to about 2% of my applications. I can't believe it's taken me almost 3 years to cancel my membership; I think I just kept thinking it was me not making strong enough applications, but then continuing to get loads of work elsewhere.
Avoid like bubonic plague.
PS. I've raised these concerns with Mandy.com and after 3 years of paid membership, Mandy can't be bothered to even reply to any email I send.
Not even sure if they're legal.

With a 1 year membership coming to a close I can safely say I have applied for approx 3457 jobs (average 10 per day) with 2 low paid student jobs.

Today I received an email alert for a Flight Attendant Role@£100 only to discover when applying it was for a female and not a male.
The other email i received today was a requset for 'Extras' (how derogetory) when I have an Actor's Membership - not an SA profile.
And then when you get jobs offering NLW £70 per day advertised to professioanl actors it just p*sses me off. This is what Starnow offers and Mandy was meant to be Professioanl - thats the membership I paid for.

Fed up with this, going back to Spotlight for real job opportunities.

Think it's a scam. Why would a company only choose to have their listings with Mandy which is a paid service and means that very few crew members will sign up for. Companies want to have access to as many people as possible. Mandy can easily advertise on Craigslist, Indeed, which doesn't charge people to view submissions. Meaning they will get a lot more candidates than Mandy. The listings also seem fake. No one I know has every gotten a job from paying the subscription. I have tons of experience and have never received even an interview request. Ever. There's no way to even know the company's name that's advertising or if it even exists (it doesn't) because they don't give out the company's name. Legitimate companies advertise the name of their company because they want to get the best candidates.

Through Mandy, I could never get any decent job that pays over $200/day. I'm a professional sound mixer, by saying this I meant it - I have SD664, multiple DPA/lectrosonic lavs and timecode sync. There is no decent job here, the on-site email system is preventing your employer to contact you becuase I also tired to hire someone through Mandy.com - it is absolutely not a pleasure experience.
Also last week I got an email from a guy claims that he is from Mandy.com and trying to offer me a job which later discovered as a scam, or a drug dealer becuase he asked me to "move money to his vendor".

I'm a successful industry professional that's been using Mandy for 10 years. The new site is so disappointing. Mandy is allowing numerous Shoe String Budget and Amateur Project Postings with SUPER LOW DAY RATES to be listed in the Standard JOBS section, instead of forcing them onto the LO/NO PAY Opportunities board. This is highly unprofessional of Mandy and will gradually crush the already stagnant day rates of experienced production professionals. Please, Mandy, just enforce Low Rate/No Pay postings and ensure Mandy stay within the correct lo/no pay "Opportunities" section, not on the "Jobs" board! Ex: $14/hr for Experienced Editor and $125/day for DP w/Camera are not standard industry rates for pros! Those are intern rates. I don't mind paying for highly professional industry sites, but allowing amateur/shoe string project postings in the Experienced/JOBS is inexcusable. In addition, Mandy now forces applicants to submit their Mandy profile as their "resume," when applying, instead of the option to only send a PDF resume and PDF cover letter. Experienced pros have too many credits to use a simple profile as a resume. Ugh! If these Low Rate and Resume Issues continue, many long term Mandy users will drop the membership and $15/mo dues, and move permanently to more professional job sites.

I have been using Mandy on and off for a few years whenever I am looking for casting notices or production work. The site used to be entirely free online; you could search and apply for jobs for free. However, Mandy have switched to a subscription-based model. It is still a handy tool and has the possibility of helping people find work. However, I wish the free version of the site allowed more opportunities to search and apply all jobs. Perhaps they could try a tiered system where "premium" or "featured" gigs required a fee, and general calls for PAs and/or extras were free.

‘Mandy" Is An Aesthetically Pleasing Callback That Feeds On Vengeance Within A Nightmare. Strip a man of everything that makes his existence whole and pure and what do you get? A binary, feverish, and focused entity dead-set on one goal. Director Panos Cosmatos's overall intent with the '80s style-influenced Mandy is to answer that very question. Mandy is set in a very particular space of time within a very particular space of emotions. It's an experience that is meant to appeal to the viewer at both the sensory and visceral levels.

Set in 1983 near the Shadow Mountains, Red (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) live a quiet and simple life confined to the lush landscape of the wilderness. The tranquil settings of their environment codify their rocky, individual history. It's hinted that Red has trouble with alcoholism. Mandy tells a story about her father and the killing of baby starlings. Where Mandy have emotional and physical scars, they find solace within each other. More so Red, in how their story is set up. When they first have a discussion in their bedroom, you see a full galaxy.

This all changes once The Children of The New Dawn pass through and their leader with Buffalo Bill like tendencies, Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) sees Mandy and becomes obsessed with her. Without going too much into her backstory, the movie conveys that Mandy has a magnetism to the men around her. It goes from love to outright toxicity. Riseborough does a great job in showing this with her facial expressions during the slow camera shots.

There are parts of the movie that reveal themselves like acts that have animated titles. When you get to the 2nd and 3rd acts, that's where the real depravity of this cult starts to show itself and its sinister motives for the couple. The cinematography by Benjamin Loebis conveys this in two ways. Loeb works together with Cosmatos's vision to show the vastness of the wilderness, often in wide shots. Mandy does not have many characters, so they also make the movie very personal and restricted. It's a confined story. You'll see this in the over-the-shoulder shots of Red driving his car or how the camera focuses of Red's non-verbal cues.

One of the standouts of this movie is the performance of Nicolas Cage as a man who has lost the thing that's dear to him. Red's descent into vengeful madness is a journey that takes us to one of the most powerful scenes. You don't get to hear Red's reaction as Mandy spoiler gets killed. Only the aftermath is shown, first with exhaustion and shock, and one of sadness and rage as he's in the bathroom. It's a very human transition that Cage does convincingly.

Mandy becomes the focal point for Jeremiah. His position as the head of this cult based on his telling that he was chosen by a higher power is very built on hyper-masculinity. When Mandy mocks that, Jeremiah begins to briefly doubt himself and he kills her to keep that aura. Before the execution scene, Roache executes a monologue with himself in a mirror where he portrays the human and "god complex" sides of himself which was subtle, but great.

There's a real question of what's real and what's not. The drug use, LSD in particular, makes you question the validity of what you're watching. Are there really bikers from hell? Are we in a hallucinogenic journey of something as simple as the casualty of loss and the internal makeup of cults? Cosmatos plays with the fringes of reality to where you can determine which route you can go.

Color is used in a spectacular way as an atmospheric plot device. When the Children of The New Dawn arrive in a scene, especially with Sand, they are engulfed in red light. As Red is going on his murderous recourse of revenge, red is usually trailing him. Strobes of color are utilized when the cult or the Black Skulls are doing something or arriving somewhere. The real instances of light are used in fire—a motif that comes up in two key parts of the movie. Fire is a "cleansing" agent. Jeremiah uses fire to clear the "instance" where his power was questioned. Red uses fire in the accumulation of his journey of retaliation.

Plot-wise, it's two sides of the coin. You want to get more backstory on how The Children of The New Dawn came to be. You only get information on the Black Skulls briefly from Red's friend Caruthers (Bill Duke). Other than that, motivations are very streamlined. Where the story of the movie is very straightforward, the aesthetics are there to try to fill in the grey areas. The score from the late Jóhann Jóhannsson does a great job in keeping the tension and also heightening the importance of the battles that Red goes through.

Mandy is a love letter to a time where horror movies had a combination of otherworldly visuals and contemporary special effects to show the sheer brutality of either revenge or evil. It's a story of idolatry gone unchecked and a man's fever for rage burning ever so bright on a collision course.

This site promises a lot and delivers little. Nothing worthwhile as far as casting goes unless you pay a premium and in that case, I would rather go with Backstage, Actors Access, Playbill, or Showbill. Site is not nearly as intuitive as it could be and some steps are not clear, although that could be said of other casting sites. Suffice it to say, I have wasted valuable time on this site building my profile and trying to upload files only to find that I can't apply to any real jobs. Disappointing but not surprising. Really, Mady should be paying me for all the time I wasted on it.

Hello Mandy. I wanted to created a profile and started doing so. The amount of your "stars" and many of the reviews available on your site worried me a great deal. So I submitted a question and it has been 2 days you cannot answer it. I obviously quit an idea of registering with you not speaking of paying for any of your services. People seem to be right, you guys are not even serious and you want "customers" to pay for premium package?... Good luck finding customers with this approach!

I've used Mandy for some time now and it's the perfect resource whether you're just starting out in the acting industry or if you've firmly got your feet in the ground. Having emails coming directly to you with relevant job links is a brilliant way to keep an eye on potential jobs without going on to the site every day. There's a real mix of work on there too from small scale, short form jobs to long running plays and everything in between. It's a great resource that makes you feel in control of your career rather than relying on other people and organisations.

In the two years or so that I've had a Mandy/Film & TV Pro profile, I've had three jobs, none of which were paid well or professional. Too many jobs being posted by amateurs who are demanding expertise, years of experience and loads of very expensive equipment that barely meets minimum wage at the hourly rate, then Mandy want you to do extra work outside of the daily rate which ends up breaking the law.

If you want a platform that doesn't rip you off and only deals with professionals, use Production Base.

I first got on to Mandy several years ago.
My story is that I wanted to break into the business and had a friend suggest me this website for Jobs and Auditions.

Like is our nature as performers, I had a slight apprehension of its reliability, yet quickly proven wrong. Right away I began to at least get noticed and called in to rooms.

Look at it this way, if you get just ONE job off of it, it will more than pay for your subscription fee.

That's it, I was hooked and it's an Immensely useful tool for an unrepresented actor to start working and gain experience. It has grown as a site since I joined and become very User friendly.

It's worth the money because it makes YOU money.

Carry on Mandy :)

Well designed and well laid out. I'm about to try to the premium upgraded service to see if I can get work in my area. I heard that a famous local NYC audio engineer got his start on Mandy so I figured I need to get on there. I wish you could apply for at least 2 or 3 jobs a month for free, sucks I can't do a single thing with an unpaid account but I guess Mandy get you by making you sign up and then realizing you can't do a thing with a free account...? Either way I'm excited to see if the work is out there. I'm good at what I do and hungry to work. You get a free 1 week trial when you leave a review here, good or bad. Here we go!

Back in the day, Mandy used to be an OK free casting site with a few jobs on. Nothing special, but free. Then it bought out Actors Pro and Voices Pro and charged subscribers in the same way as APro and VPro always had done.

It advertises itself as the No1 casting website for UK Actors. It isn't. Spotlight is.

People say it must be a scam. It isn't. It's a simple P2P (pay to play) website. You pay to get access to castings just like you do (and your agent does) on Spotlight and Casting Networks.

It used to feature jobs that paid Equity rates. Now it rarely does. Pay rates are now likely to be closer to those of extras and supporting artistes.

Very occasionally you get some high budget commercial castings on there. Mandy don't reveal who the casting director is, and often omit exact casting dates and filming dates, but you can always find these same jobs already featured on Spotlight or Casting Networks with more information. Such jobs are often for ethnic minorities, specific language skills, or specific physical skills that possibly are harder to find on Spotlight.

I don't think any high paying commercial casting job that I've ever applied for on Mandy or Actors Pro has resulted in my audition even being opened which leads me to suppose that Mandy is kind of just-in-case fallback option, an if-all-else-fails type thing.

In the main, the jobs are low pay ones either posted by students, low budget film producers or cost cutting media companies. They are genuine jobs but mostly serve only to drive performers' rates of pay down and down.

They used to have a really useful feature where they showed you when your audition had been viewed and even at what time of day (so you could even tell if the employer had looked again the same day). The time of day was then removed, but you could still tell if your profile had been viewed AND if your reel had been viewed by that employer. Then it became harder to see if your audition clip/demo had been watched or not. Finally they gave us all the chance to see how many non human bots had viewed our profile in a given time period, as if that was some kind useful tool!

It's not very expensive, and you get a discount if you're already a basic Actors Guild member, but to be frank, it really is pretty much a waste of time becoming a Premium member unless you just want to up your credits or pay some bills, or work for low rates, in which case, fine, but don't expect to hit the big time there.

I'm am an aspiring actor from Toronto with very little experiences and been looking for some really good training just to get in the business but when I try checking out some of the classes in the website, I ends up wasting my time and money with these so called acting coaches that couldn't teach me anything to improve my acting ability. All I get from there was some stupid silly improv and pointless mind games where I had to think of things in my personal life to force out emotions which has nothing to do with acting or the scene I suppose to work on (I do not believe this is how to acting and that "true acting" is about storytelling and put yourself in the situation by really feeling whatever is happening in the story. These people who I wouldn't mention any names don't even own theirselves a real acting studio but instead runs the so called classes from their either homes, hotel, basement, etc. I haven't been to all of the classes in the website just to let you know since I was trying to find good affordable training but couldn't find an actual teacher that own a real studio and have real teaching experiences. I don't understand why this site have these people around as I can see this could be a good resource for any aspiring actor like myself to find real training to get the acting industry. I know this place is good for getting involve in short film to gain experiences and places to audition seem legit since there are run by colleges out there but what's the point of that when you can't get good training to prepare yourself to audition for these films. I am very disappointed and lost some hope of getting in the industry but would like to see some changes to improve the site by preventing anyone from being scammed from these frauds I had encounter so far...

I'm a Canadian VO artist and my review will be based on my experience using the Canadian VO Premium version.

1. You are only allowed to see auditions for jobs in the Country in which you live. This makes NO sense for VO work, as most of the advertised auditions are for performers with home studios. In other words, Mandy could hire anyone, anywhere to do the job. My current and past freelance VO clients are all in the US or the UK.
2. Most of the jobs posted pay less than minimum wage or want you to work for "exposure". There are never any union gigs up for grabs.
3. Most of the jobs posted in the VO section are for Radio Announcers/Hosts. These are usually the kind of jobs that are posted under "journalism" as they usually require at least 3 years experience in the Radio Production or Journalism fields
4. Most of the auditions are widely posted elsewhere for FREE.
5. Their Support claims that they post about 200 VO auditions monthly. The number is closer to 20-30
6. I got creepy messages from randos who liked my photo.
7. They have a feature so you can see how many people with Mandy accounts are viewing your profile and how many times you come up in searches. In theory, this is a great feature. In reality, 9 times out of 10 the only people viewing your profile are other VO artists looking for work.
8. You cannot view the profiles of potential employers, EVEN IF the send you messages or make you an offer.

Sorry to say, but Mandy.com reeks of scam. I don't think it's intentional, the platform is just badly researched and ignorant of how the VO industry works or the kinds of features that VO artists need. Save your money.

I opened an account hoping to get some (voice) acting gigs, but only AFTER I opened an account and tried to apply for a paid job did Mandy mention there's a little something called Premium account, which is required to apply for paid jobs! As someone said, I shouldn't have to pay to look and apply for jobs, what the hell? Also, I got an offer for short voice acting saying my phone recording sent through messaging will be fine, and I have no means to verify if the guy is serious about it, if he'll just take a recording without paying (bad scenario) or if he'll misuse my voice (in worst-case scenario)? How does Mandy protect people in such cases?!

I think its a great site if you can afford it. This is an investment like anything in life. I personally can't at this time which I think is the main issue, as well as many of the posts require that you have a super high end camera such as a cinema camera and your own audio gear and lights. If we can barely afford the membership, how the heck would we afford the gear?
Had the gear been provided in most of this and the client take care of the cost as well as transportation and a per diem, then perhaps it might be more appealing.
I would love to rejoin if I had the equipment, or even if the above was provided that all I had to do is show up, do the work, get paid, go home. Then I could definitely see investing more into this.

Didn't really find it worth it to pay for premium. No real jobs came from paying premium. Or I would get Job offers from places way outside of my selected locations. Like I get it, you guys want to make it seem like your website job offers are popping, but they're not. Sometimes, moronically, you see a job offer here that says you still have to apply through another site, that is just like this one. No real guarantees. And it is a little irritating that even now that I am no longer paying for premium, I'm getting emails about jobs that sound great, but only applicable if I upgrade to premium again. With no real guarantee. Just send me jobs that I can apply for without you robbing me please. I've heard from others as well that there are other & better platforms available. Thankfully the few jobs I was able to land, were through the classic platform of word of mouth. Not paying for a service that has no real guarantees and instead seem to be more like a "guarantease". If I am not paying for premium, stop sending me jobs only available if I pay for premium, since you can't even guarantee it. This platform "service" is basically extortion. Sorry to say, but mandy.com is not worth it. You have a better chance cold calling.

As a pro voiceover actor with agent representation I usually shy away from online job platforms, but somehow, having had a basic profile on Mandy I have been approached by for a couple of potential situations which have awakened my curiosity. A lot of the jobs on offer are so lowly paid that no serious, self-respecting VO actor would touch them, but THERE ARE SOME at market rates, so I have decided to pay to upgrade my membership, in order to explore those more serious opportunities. I will try it for a bit and then decide and update this review with the results. Meanwhile, I feel Mandy is worth looking into, and the site seems uncluttered and easy to use, which is a great start.

You get free membership for 30 days; I wanted to pay for the Premium membership, only to find it one is restricted to 1 skill genre, e.g. acting. So, if you're an actor, who also wants to get voice-over work, then you have to pay £130. Plus VAT for the acting, AND £107. Plus VAT for the voice-over part. There is no way to 'bundle' both, and Mandy don't have any way offers to enable one to do this. It's completely un-acceptable that in the 'free' 30 days one can apply for any job genre, like singing or acting, giving the impression that is what the full membership will entail. Its mis-representation, misleading, and I will be contacting Trading Standards. Utterly unacceptable. Don't go anywhere near them.

Mandy is really easy to use, probably one of the clearest casting sites out there, so you know exactly what you're applying for. Anyone at any stage in their career can join, so it's good for actors looking to set up Spotlight or attract an agent. I would highly recommend the Agent Database section of Mandy, I found it to be more comprehensive than Spotlight's.

The only thing I would say is that paid credits are very rare, so at times the £20 monthly fee doesn't seem worth it. However, I doubt that's down to Mandy - I just think the industry is oversubscribed and low/no paid work is now common for independent productions. Nevertheless for an actor in the early stages in their career, it's great for new opportunities and experiences.

This set up is all about making money. You register - FOR FREE! But that means nothing. Mandy will send you emails saying people have viewed your profile, you gett all excited; could this be the beginning of my big break? But if you actually want to see who, guess what? Correct! You have to upgrade to premium membership and pay them.
They are just another parasite out there preying on the hopes and dreams of people who want to get into the nasty business that is showbusiness. I have personally given up trying as I don't like what I have seen.

As previously mentioned, it used to be "OK" when it was free, but it's a farce now you have to pay. I've 10 years+ of professional experience on international films and TV but have paid a couple of times for a monthly subscription so I can see the info about a couple of specific jobs.

My negative rating isn't purely down to the fact that it's a particularly bad site because it's alright - you have a profile page, can upload docs like CV, list contact details and references etc - but largely due to the fact that it is, and always has been, populated by arrogant and ignorant wankers who a lot of the time don't actually know what they're doing or anything about the industry.

Even when I was looking for unpaid opportunities starting out, I probably received one reply from every hundred apps if I was lucky. Nothing's changed despite having a strong portfolio now and seeking paid work, which a lot of the time is pitiful - my day rate is more than what's offered for a feature film!

People posting jobs there should also really learn that if they're offering very low if any pay, Mandy shouldn't have the tenacity to list ridiculous demands of applicants to be professional experts with 50 feature film credits, able to provide a Dolby Atmos studio in the heart of Soho for 6 months free of charge, have Scorsese, Spielberg and Tarantino's numbers on speed dial, be able to secure an international release deal and bring Hitchcoc back from the dead to direct their film... but it's OK, because you'll get an IMDB credit and copy of the DVD for your hard work.

If it was free I wouldn't have written this review, but it's cost me money so thought I'd relay some facts. Hopefully it won't be too long before someone provides a solution by setting up a free, user serviced website to provide competition and get film industry staff working a bit more collaboratively.

UPDATE: still not a single job from it since originally posting this.

I started using Mandy 10 years ago, back then it was a useful site to find short-term production jobs.

About 3 years ago it went downhill fast. Users had to pay £30/month or £200(?) a year just to read job descriptions and apply, this should be illegal but Mandy used a loophole in some 'advertising' law. Insulting.

Since then they've managed to make things worse, people now have to pay for the £200+VAT yearly subscription.

This is absolutely ridiculous, I'd understand if I had to pay a couple of quid to apply for a job (although still wouldn't be too happy about it) but £200?!

People need to stop giving them money so they can either disappear for good or rethink their business model.

Like most businesses, it was better when it was good ol' Mandy before they got bought out buy a bigger, more evil fish!

I've been using Mandy for many years and as far as film/video jobs go i find it to be the best site. I have got jobs through them in the past. Mandy have up to date job postings and make it easy to apply its a great place to even just see what's out there. They give good descriptions and always tell you the pay rate which is great for me. They have new listings everyday which makes it easy to be one of the 1st to apply. If you have experience and know what you want go to mandy. I only do film and video however they may have other jobs as well i'm not sure.

I've been working in the film industry for about 15 years now. When I was starting out Mandy.com used to be a really great free resource to find work. My first few jobs came from there and Mandy were high-level festival-quality films, with professional crews. Now, I feel like all of these job listing sites: Mandy, Media-Match, Findfilmwork.com (Below The Line Magazine) are just making money off of the vast amount of people in the industry looking for work. I tried Mandy for two years and was never contacted for any job I applied for except one time. I got one interview for a production that said they were in talks with Netflix, only to find that it was two girls who very recently graduated from film school, had no experience, and no meeting with Netflix. I also never received callbacks from any production on Below The Line Listings, what's worse is that even after I canceled they kept charging me and I had to work with my bank for 6 months straight to get these guys to stop. I think these sites just turned into money-makers, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of listings are false, they put out just enough to keep people interested. The only thing that would keep me interested is seeing results. The sad truth is that not many films are filming in LA anymore, most are going to other states or Canada. The best thing is to contact your states film commission to see whats in production, it's free.

I have only recently come across Mandy but after reviewing all aspects of the site I've found it to be very useful for the average Voice Talent freelancer. The site is easy to use and very well presented. Mandy offers a huge number of Talent that use high grade - professional equipment for recording client scripts of various natures. This is an excellent site for finding just the right fit for your project regardless of it's nature. I highly reccomend Mandy as a solution to acquiring Voice Over jobs and maintaining new contacts.

I didn't take this site seriously a few years before; I had been jaded
By the "others" (and you know who you are) that basically prostitute
The voice market, and had become gun-shy about re-entering into the
Market.

After about a week of not wanting a "full" membership, I began to
Receive free queries about jobs. I actually received responses and
Potential work from producers and ADs. What better promotion for a
Regular membership?

In the words of philosopher Barry Manilow: "Oh, Mandy!"

I'm relatively new to acting in the UK and I have had a difficult time getting any jobs. I don't want to spend more money than I already have on agencies and other sites that claim to get you jobs but don't actually help you get anything. A friend recommended the Mandy website, and although registration is free, I'm upset that I have to pay to get any real benefits from the site. It would be nice if there were more opportunities for free accounts. Don't get me wrong, Mandy is a good site but most actors don't want to be spending money that they're not making. The free time initiative is great but it's so limited. It can be frustrating when all you want is a gig / a foot in the door. I hope this changes soon.