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- I believe that 50% of directing and a significant portion

of the quality of your production

is properly casting to begin with.

If you are thoughtful and thorough

with your talent selection you will save yourself

not only time, but possibly money and frustration as well.

The casting process begins by carefully articulating

what you want in and need from your talent.

Let's talk about something called writing your breakdowns.

Breakdowns are complete synopses

of the characters contained within your scripts.

This is where you're going to describe each character

and what you're looking for in it.

What breakdowns do is they maximize communication

and minimize unwanted response.

A breakdown typically looks like this.

Your character name, its gender,

age range you're looking for, ethnicity if applicable,

and usually a one line character description.

And then if you require any special skills,

you can list them there.

This is an example from a web series

I produced called The Broken Continent.

We were looking for about 65 different types of actors,

so we had to be very specific.

Each one lists the characters and what we're looking for.

For example, the first character's name is Cedany.

She's a 20s to 30s female.

Young, empathetic healer of the Woman of the Wood

who urges the group to take sides in the war.

Stage combat experience is preferred.

While Tybalt is a 30s to 40s male,

who's self-assured and permanently smirking,

who's a military advisor to the King.

He's eager to earn this own glory.

And we'd rather have stage combat experience than not.

When you're casting you want to let go

of any preconceptions you have.

Don't look for the perfect actor

who fits with that vague ideal in your head.

Stay open.

You never know who's going to walk through that door

who will be perfect for your role.

Appearance is always secondary to whether or not

they have what it take to play the role you're looking for.

As an actor, I was called to audition for a television show.

I walked in the audition room and it was five

5'5" blond women and me, a six foot tall redhead.

I didn't know what I was doing there.

But I talked to the casting director later,

and he had called me in on a whim as a control subject

to see if the director would pick me.

And they did.

I can't emphasize how important it is

to think about casting relationships versus individuals.

I work with some of the same people over and over again

because I can trust them to do what I need.

This isn't always going to be possible due to your material,

but you want to do it whenever you can.

These are three actors I've worked with multiple times

on multiple productions, and been happy every time.

Do it when you can.

It's important to build up an ensemble of actors

that work well together and you get along with.

Having those relationships that work well on set

will mean you save time, money, and trouble later.

Now that we've established what you need to look for

in your actors, let's talk about

a couple of specific casting scenarios.