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Fall Externship with simon max hill '01

By Dan Pogust on November 28, 2014 11:03 AM

            I learned in early September that simon max hill ‘01 was sponsoring an externship over fall break. After reading his interview on Works & Days, I knew I wanted to apply. I had just switched my major from biology to English, and I felt that I connected with simon on several levels with regards to his experience at Reed. I was very interested in his work in film and advertisement casting, and as someone interested in media and advertising, this felt like a logical next step.

            Nine days later, I found myself lying in bed and checking my email before French class, when my sleepy eyes read the subject line, “Dan, meet simon, your fall externship sponsor. simon, Dan Pogust!” I was so incredibly thrilled for the learning opportunity ahead of me, that I accidentally made noises of excitement that startled my roommate. 

            I began my externship early, on Saturday October 18th, with Liz Vice, a freelance casting director who was helping simon cast extras for the movie Green Room. This process began by working five and a half hours contacting roughly one hundred extras via email, text, and repetitive phone calls. The whole process was an excellent lesson for me in casting extras, and an excellent introduction to the externship as a whole. 

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Interview with simon max hill '01

By Madeline Wagar on July 16, 2014 01:35 PM

Madeline Wagar ’16, Assistant Editor with Works & Days, interviewed Simon Max Hill '01, a self-employed Casting Director working in Portland, OR.

Tell me a bit about what you do.

I have a small casting company that does casting of all kinds. We don’t cast theater, but we do commercial, film, T.V., print, any kind of advertising or entertainment. Say you are a producer and you have a project that requires an actor or model. You come to us and say, “I need a guy who looks like a college basketball player. He'll have some lines, but not a lot, but he must be able to play basketball. What can you get?” And then we have a conversation about payment. In a way, we are a human resource company. For a very specific kind of human resource.

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