Value of good casting director...

begezinum21

begezinum21

I'm sure you've heard this before. "90% of directing is casting".

And to some extent I agree. It of course starts with a killer script, but once you have that, then your actors are gonna make/break your film. My question to some of the vets, have you ever used a casting director? Did you feel they were worth the money? And if you answered yes to both of those, would you have any recommendations for a casting director in the greater L.A. area? With limited to no connections, the odds of me getting a cast I'm happy with are slim-none. Especially a cast with any kind of name that will help with distro. I will hopefully be working in the 100-200k range budget wise. Will go SAG if I am able to get a few names to make it worth the hassle. Thanks in advance for any and all replies
 
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Thanks for the response. And if you wouldn't mind a quick follow up, what is the number one thing she brought to the table? Getting access to talent you wouldn't normally have access to? or was it more of just a time saver thing where she corralled a bunch of talent that fit your character description?
 
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Number 1 was access to talent that we would not have had access to. We saw amazing actors, and those who we cast include Phyllis Somerville, who was a regular on The Big C, on Showtime with Laura Linney; Vincent Pastore, who played Big Pussy in The Sopranos; and Billy Magnussen, who was a regular on the soap opera As The World Turns, and has had major supporting roles in many indie movies, including Damsels in Distress, which is out now. There were a number of other terrific actors who were interested, but we couldn't work out logistics (schedule not money).

Number two was that she was a major help in getting the attorney who we used to actually get the deals done. There's a gap between an actor wanting to do a role, and getting the deal done with their manager. And that gap can be brutal without help.
 
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You're very welcome!

One other thought - I didn't mean to suggest that the casting director wasn't helpful in putting together a group of talented actors who fit the casting description, because she definitely was. That's just something that we could have done ourselves, although probably not as well.

To give you a little color on our casting challenge: my movie (see www.survivingfamily.us includes 4 generations of the same family, and some characters who appear as both kids and adults. So putting together that many "related" actors was a tremendous challenge. She also managed to replace for us an actor who was no longer available due to a schedule change on our part. It was a small role, but it was a kid version of a major character, and we needed him in 18 hours. And we got him, even though she (casting director) was on vacation in London.
 
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I use a regional (MN) casting service that caters to productions of any budget ( http://www.samaritancasting.com ). They're really cool to work with and there are auditions through them and everything. Our last shoot had fantastic actors who were a blend of folks we knew before and ones we found through this casting service... fantastic shoot and we're able to expand our net farther for finding actors, which is nice.

This is one of the pieces that is helping grow the MN film cottage industry from dead in the water / non-existant to something visible and real.
 
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