ABSTRACT
A casting brief will then be issued and circulated by whoever is responsible – a casting director or production assistant – either to selected agents, or more widely, via one or more of the casting information services. Availability checks may also be made for suitable artists already known to the creatives and casting personnel. An availability check is made by phone and, as the name implies, is a call to check whether an artist will be available for certain dates. That is all it is at this stage, so if you receive one, it does not mean you have
got a job, or even necessarily an audition, so don’t get excited (most agents will not consider it worth mentioning to their clients). If a casting director has a list of artists in mind who they want to bring in for each part, they may not bother advertising the project if all the artists turn out to be available and interested. The person in charge of casting will schedule the necessary auditions and the short-listed artists will be invited to attend – this may be a great many or just a handful for each character. I always aim for the latter approach – quality rather than quantity – bringing in a few selected artists who fit the brief and can deliver what is required, rather than vast numbers, many of whom will not be suitable for the part, or even good actors – this practice is known derogatorily as a ‘cattle call’ and can waste everybody’s time. If necessary, there will be one or more rounds of recalls (callbacks), after which the director and fellow creatives will go through the lists and put their choices in order of preference (there may be several choices for each character, which can sometimes change as time goes on). Then artists may be pencilled in to keep them available for the dates – this will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 19 – and offers made to the first choices. If the first choice declines, the second choice will then be offered, and so on, if needs be. If there is no second choice, further auditions will have to be held, which can also happen if the casting requirements change during the process. Once all the offers have been accepted and deals negotiated, contracts are issued and signed and then the fun really begins. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?!
