The Casting Process – Part 2 Your Child Actor Gets a Call for a Commercial Audition
ByWhen your child has been chosen for an audition, it is essential that you respond as soon as possible. The more efficient everyone is at responding, the more efficient the audition can go.
Even if you haven’t done this before, you’ve likely seen the long lines of contestants at Open Calls for reality show auditions like American or Australian Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, America/ Britain / Australia’s Got Talent and more. Some auditions will be this big and chaotic, but many are tightly scheduled so you need to respond in a timely manner.
With your Audition Confirmation, you will get information on the shooting schedule. If you are not available on the shoot days, you are better off not confirming the audition than taking up the Casting Director and the Client’s time by taking the audition for a part you won’t be able to take.
The entertainment industry is a really small world. We all have scheduling conflicts, but you don’t want to gain the reputation of being unreliable. In one of those freaky laws of nature – as soon as you schedule something “hoping” it won’t conflict – it does. If you stick with acting for long enough, you will start seeing castings from the same Casting Directors over and over again. You’ll likely never know if your child is missing out on auditions because they aren’t right or because you are being avoided.
You Got the Audition!!! What now?
There is no typical casting, though theatrical and commercial castings generally have a different look and feel.
We’ll concentrate on Commercial Casting for this article. Like above, there is no “typical” commercial casting, though many may look and feel similar. Castings all have their own nuances of which we may not be aware.
The clients may be very specific about their needs and unforgiving of those who don’t give them exactly what they want.
Some clients may have only a vague notion of what they really want and depend on the casting director to magically understand what they need and provide it.
Some clients have a very specific vision, then decide on a totally different direction as the casting process is underway.
Others have a specific vision, but what they want doesn’t exist or isn’t available. Casting agents in this situation have to sell their vision to the client as if it was the clients’ idea. They need to know that the artists they are recommending can deliver the goods.
Your best bet is to prepare your child actor to look and feel like the character in the brief. For a “typical kid,” have them be bright, happy, and fun. Wear bright colors without busy patterns or logos. Learn the lines or actions specified in the brief.
For a specific type of character, sport player, emotional type, nerd, jock, emo, surfer, student, etc, do your best to “look” the type. A Casting Director can better see your child as a “little professor” if he’s wearing at least a collared shirt and long pants than if he’s wearing basketball clothes. You get the idea.
Do your best, but we advise against buying particular “costumes” to achieve certain looks just for an audition, unless of course, your child will wear those clothes again. If your little angel has to look like an equestrian, but doesn’t ride on a regular basis, don’t buy a whole outfit, dress her in light colored pants and boots and maybe carry a strap to look like a rider’s crop.
Remember, Casting Director’s are your friend in this process. The easier you make it for them to see your child as the character in the brief, the closer you are to booking an acting job.
