Quick Audition set to make Tollywood foray

Quick Audition, a Mumbai-based startup that has developed an online solution to speed up the audition process for the entertainment industry, is gearing up to make its debut in Tollywood (as the Telugu film industry is known), in the second week of December, said its founder and president, Parag Mahalingappa Mulgund.

“We are on the verge of finalising agreements with two film production houses in Tollywood to provide our online database of upcoming and experienced artistes,” he told Business Standard.

The 11-month-old company shortlists promising talent through its in-house casting directors and creates showreels (short videotapes or film footages showcasing an actor, singer or dancer's previous work), which it later uploads to its website to showcase them to potential production houses.

Claiming this to be the world's first web-based acting audition solution, Mulgund said the company was currently charging an annual subscription of  Rs 1,000 from artistes to get exposed to production houses, while the subscription fee for the latter was Rs 20,000 a year to leverage its database and save 60 per cent of their time in talent hunt.

Since its launch in January 2013, Quick Audition has created a database of close to 1,200 showreels of Hindi, Kannada and Marathi artistes, of which 20% have received opportunities in the show business, he said.

“We see a huge potential for online auditions in this market, where thee are 3,500 full-length and short films are being churned out, and 150,000 programmes are being beamed on close to 825 television channels every year, ” Mulgund said.

Quick Audition is aiming at adding close to 100,000 showreels to its website in a year from now and is looking at raising close to Rs 2 crore by 2015 to beef up its marketing exercise, he added.