Casting How-to

[Porkchopelliot]

I work with a small, collaborative production team. We have completed one short and are in production on another. Next year, we hope to start work on our first feature. We are working on scripts right now for that project.

After financing our first two projects with credit cards, money from grandma, and blood sweat & tears, we have been fortunate enough to impress a wealthy friend with our work and we have funding for our feature, about 250k. By now, we know how to stretch dollars on the production side and we are interested in putting a lot of that budget towards paying well-known actors.

The thing is, we have no idea how to get one of these well-known actors. Should we hire a casting agency and tell them what we want to pay a lead actor? Should we try to get our script in the hands of agents who represent actors we love and would like for the part? I'm not going to say that we have best indie screenplay in the world; that's ridiculous. We simply want to make an offer to an actor: we will pay you X dollars per day and we need you for Y days. What's the best way to get that offer to someone?

We are located in Wilmington, NC. For convenience, we would love to find someone who may be filming here, and simply offer to extend their stay here after they are done with whatever they might be shooting here for TV or screen gems or whatever. Do any of y'all know how I can find out who is shooting here, what they are shooting, when, and for how long? Google has failed me on this.

Thanks, this is my first post, apologies if I am posting in the wrong forum or something.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Before you start casting you need to work out your entire budget in detail - preproduction, production (don't forget to treat the cast and crew lavishly), post and marketing. Once you have costed out the logistics you'll know how much you have left to pay your actors and if you will (or will not) be paying for transportation, lodgings, etc.

Lining up your key department heads - Cinematographer/DP, PSM/Boom-Op, Editor, Sound Designer, etc. - before you cast can also be a selling point to the actors if your key department heads have respectable credentials.

BTW, don't be too proud to get your script looked at by a "script doctor," or at least someone with a fresh perspective.

 

[Porkchopelliot]

Before you start casting you need to work out your entire budget in detail - preproduction, production (don't forget to treat the cast and crew lavishly), post and marketing. Once you have costed out the logistics you'll know how much you have left to pay your actors and if you will (or will not) be paying for transportation, lodgings, etc.

Lining up your key department heads - Cinematographer/DP, PSM/Boom-Op, Editor, Sound Designer, etc. - before you cast can also be a selling point to the actors if your key department heads have respectable credentials.

BTW, don't be too proud to get your script looked at by a "script doctor," or at least someone with a fresh perspective.

Thanks for the reply. I promise you that our "key department heads" are not going to impress anyone, unless they watch our previous work and like it (we are proud of what we have done, but we are not "names"). Our money is pretty fluid right now and we basically know that we can pay an actor 1k-3k per day for 20-30 days, it really just depends on who we can get. I just don't know how to start looking. We have about a 150k budget for actors, and are prepared to deal with all of the sag bullshit...the problem is that I don't know how to get to them to see who might be interested. Im handling all of the legal and let's just set aside transportation, food, etcetera issues and just focus on how to get in touch with these people.

 

[Sweetie]

Do you have a list of who you're considering?

I'm not sure if you're going to get to book a name for $1k-$3k a day for 20-30 days but you never know, you might get lucky.

Your best bet is to first work out who's been in similar films like yours and have a quick talk with their agent.