By Amanda B. Strauss
Los Angeles, CA.
What is a casting director?
Casting directors are hired by the producers and directors to audition talent for roles. Then their job is to show the best of the best to the producer and director for the final decision making. They also know how to negotiate and finalize the talent's contracts. The agent's job is to get the actor's photo and resume in front of the casting director while they are actively casting projects.
Casting is one of the most important jobs in the entertainment industry. Typically, casting directors offer a range of services, from drawing up lists of prospects to screening candidates on videotape to conducting nationwide searches and overseeing auditions. Demands vary from negotiating a bit player's fee to populating a director's vision with the right faces and voices. Casting is the only trade not recognized with an Academy Award; the Casting Society of America honors outstanding achievement with its annual Artios awards, the profession's equivalent of the Oscars.
The person who auditions and helps to select all of the speaking role actors in film, television shows or plays. The CD must possess a vast knowledge of the actor pool and be able to match a variety of actors with just the right role. Directors and producers rely on the Casting Director to assist them with assembling the perfect cast for their production. Casting Directors are also responsible for serving as the liason between the director, and the actors and their agents. CDs negotiate the deals with agents once the actors have been cast and are also responsible for the contracts and SAG of each actor.
Most casting directors operate in Los Angeles or New York, but there are still casting directors in other states as well.
A Busy Job
Casting directors probably have the most busiest job in Hollywood, Paris, Londen. It’s their job to find or “cast” all of the roles for any given movie or television project in a limited time. They are the ones that send out the “breakdowns” (see what an agent does to find out what a breakdown is) to the agents for specific roles they are looking for. So for example, in a movie script, if there is a little Asian girl who is eight years old, it will be up to the casting directors to let all of the talent agents know that they are looking for an eight year old Asian girl for that particular movie project, get it? Now as you know, there are many characters in a single movie or television show so you can now guess how busy it would be for the casting directors to find just the right actor…a good enough actor to fit the right roles. So to sum it up, the casting director spends most of the day looking at tons of theatrical pictures from various agents. Once they see someone with a good resume’ or experience and someone who may look like the character described in the script, they request an audition to the agent for that particular actor.
Casting directors are hired to cast talent for:
- Movies
- Shows
- Original Features
- Commercials
- TV Programs
- Print Work
- Fashion Shows
- Runway
- And much, much more
The Audition Process
Next comes the actual audition. After the casting director feels you may be right for the role, you have to audition. Ha, ha, ha, you don’t get the part yet. You don’t expect the casting director to just give you a part after only looking at your picture do you? Now here’s where all of your training and knowledge of acting has to come through. The competition is fierce so you’ll have to be prepared for this part--the "audition process". One mental breakdown during the audition process can mean you not getting the role so you’ll have to pretend that you’re not as nervous as you feel inside. Pretend, see? You’re acting already---even before the audition! It typically involves a series of auditions before a casting panel, composed of individuals such as the producer, director and/or choreographer. In the early stages of the process, candidate performers often may present prepared audition pieces such as monologues or songs. Later stages may involve groups of candidates attempting material from the work under consideration in various combinations; the casting panel considers both the talent of the individual actors and the chemistry of their combination.Depending on the prestige of the role, casting calls may go out to the public at large (typical for community theatre), to professional and semi-professional local actors (for supporting roles in theatre and film) or to specifically selected actors (for leading roles, especially in films).
Did You Get The Part?
If you think you did great on the first audition, hang in there, you’re not done yet. If you did good the first time, you’ll have to most likely audition again but this time in front of the director and producers of the project. So, your first audition would have been with just you and the casting director. The second audition will be with the casting director, director, and producers. The casting director is basically taking you in to show the top people what they found for that particular role for the television or movie project. This process may vary at times and sometimes you may even have to audition a third time but this is basically how it goes. You shouldn’t be afraid of casting directors though. They actually want you to do good on the audition because it makes them look good. They’ll be praised because such a talented person like you so do good on the audition! Once you do get the part, they let your agent know and then your agent will call you with the good news!
The History of Casting
Casting was born in the early 60's when the studio system collapsed and power shifted to the stars and their agents. Previous to that actors were under contract with the studios and negotiation was nonexistent, since the studio owned the talent.
In the production of film and television, a similar process is followed.
However, especially for major productions, the process of selecting candidates for sometimes hundreds of parts and possibly thousands of extras may often require specialized staff; while the last word remains with the people in artistic and production charge, a Casting director (and/or Casting Assistant, Casting Associate) may be in charge of most of the daily work involved in this recruiting process during pre-production; in addition the "CD" may also remain as liaison between director, actors and their agents once the parts have been cast.
At least in the early stages and for extras, casting may be decentralized geographically, often in conjunction with actual shooting planned in different states, e.g. in Hollywood , Dallas, New York (studio) and one or more exotic locations (e.g. Hawai, the Far East) and/or budget locations, e.g. Canada, Ireland. Another reason may be tapping in to each home market in the case of an international co-production. However for the top parts, the choice of one or more celebrities, whose presence is of enormous commercial importance, may rather follow strictly personal channels, e.g. direct contact with the director.
