ABSTRACT
Whereas with theatre auditions there’s often a formula and you can gauge roughly how you have done, commercial castings are not so structured and the outcome can be far from easy, if not impossible to predict. Commercials and photographic stills shoots are in the main about your look and while acting and improvisational skill and style come into the equation, the look of the artists and balance of a cast (in the case of a family, for instance) are paramount. Increasingly, these days, commercials are cast initially, or even totally from photographs, with the casting director showing a selection of artists’ pictures to the creatives instead of live actors coming in for a casting. It therefore pays to have good quality photographs with a selection of ‘looks’ ready for this eventuality.
