Artist Files Online (AFO)

Procedure

You see a single main screen.

The user creates a search based on characteristics such as gender, cultural identification, and age range. Within each group of options only one can be active at a time. You can pick one from each group, or omit selecting from some groups. If, for instance, you omit the "Experience" group, you will search resumes from all areas of experience, while if you select "Musical Theater" from the "Experience" group, you will only see resumes that indicate musical theater experience.

The user may also enter his/her own terms (general expressions) that will be searched for throughout the text of the resumes. If you enter expressions in both text boxes, for instance "Shakespeare" AND "Cosby", you will be limiting the search to only those who have both words on their resume.

The more narrow the search, the quicker the search.

It is very difficult to select by criteria that were not indexed by AFO, such as height, weight, and eye color. For instance, if only green-eyed actors are sought, then the casting director can try entering "green", but that will also get all the resumes that have the word "green" anywhere in them, including titles of plays. And many actors may have omitted eye color on their resumes.