Tag: Filmmaker Tips (Page 1 of 2)

This 20-part series, written by Team J’s Bjorn Munson, covers the lessons learned during the casting of The Broken Continent web series pilot in 2012. You can find the full Table of Contents in Part 1.

This series is meant to help other independent filmmakers, primarily those who are casting a large ensemble (10+ speaking parts, multiple background actors, etc.). Individual articles may be useful to production companies looking to cast other work such as commercials. There are also a number of articles specifically for actors on how to better submit for auditions, do the auditions, and deal with the statistically inevitable rejections.

The lessons learned have been applied to Team J’s Stonehenge Casting service, an online tool for producers to find actors and actors to find work.

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Making the Final Casting Decisions

Now comes the moment of truth.

By the way, “final casting decisions” may be a misnomer. As you’ll see in Part 17, your first choice may suddenly be unavailable, which leads to your second choice.

But this is still decision time. You can do it. And by ‘you,’ I mean the same creative team who was behind the callback decisions.

As before, the director or showrunner should get the deciding vote. However, the decision may not be obvious. The director may appreciate some perspective from the rest of the creative team.

Before meeting, all of you should try narrowing actors down with these questions:

Who’s the top choice for each role?
Yeah, this is the question some of you have been wanting to put off for the longest time — especially if the the casting director has given you a lot of choices.

What does ‘top choice’ mean? Ask yourself who’s going to be best at that particular role.

Remember any role has some essential attributes an actor needs to sell. That’s what you were testing in your auditions. Among all the contenders, you had the “green, yellow, and red” candidates, but like as not, there were one of two “green” candidates that you and your creative partners raved about. [1]

Sometimes you’re aided by the fact that one actor was good in Role A, but great in Role B, and you can’t see anyone else in Role B.

This realization is critical to building your cast — and one of the reasons you often don’t get the cast you were expecting, yet all your hard work results in a strong cast at the end of the process.

If you’re truly stuck on two different actors for one role, it’s probably because you found both actors were very strong at selling those essential attributes. [2] Now’s the time to step back and consider not just that character’s essential attributes, but how they relate and must relate to other characters. Understanding those key relationships and how the two actors sell that relationship can be crucial, which also leads to:

Will the top choices work with each other?
Don’t ignore this question! This is more than chemistry, though that’s a big part of “working with each other.” One of the biggest issues I find consistently arise in indie film productions and smaller theater productions is uneven casting. By this, I mean that it’s clear some actors are more experienced than others — or their acting styles are remarkably different and aren’t meshing.

A veteran actor can be generous and give younger actors a great deal to work with in a scene, but that sometimes depends on the temperament of the actor and skills of the director.

Who are the next choices?
You won’t want to do this and it hopefully won’t be important, but it’s all part of risk planning.  You want to think about other actors now versus when you suddenly need a replacement for your lead.

The reasons for this are multi-fold. Not only may your preferred actor be unavailable when you first contact them, they also may suddenly need to bow out because of an emergency.

Will those choices work with one another?
Don’t worry about figuring out every iteration of who will work with whom. There’s no reason to go through a neverending thought experiment on this. However, if you have a key relationship, especially between leads, it’s worth while to spend a moment considering if the new match will be uneven in any way (for the same reasons mentioned above).

Is everyone happy, or at least comfortable, with these choices?
If you’ve gone through all questions above diligently, this particular question should be answered. Nevertheless, it’s good to ask yourselves this question at the end. Nagging doubts and tingling spider senses should be voiced and addressed (though perhaps not always resolvable in that same meeting). Does one of your creative team really feel you need to call in more actors for one role? Do you all agree that you have the strongest cast you can have? [3]

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can move on to who will be contacting actors and what information to be conveyed, but that’s the focus of the next article.

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FOOTNOTE # 1: If you recall in part 11 about running the auditions themselves, I recommend always taking a minute after each audition to discuss the actor who just left the room. This is because, yes, you can remember the actor’s audition and, yes, you can review the tape — but you absolutely remember if you raved about a particular actor to your creative comrades. This happened for various actors for all of us while casting The Broken Continent. Enthusiasm counts.

FOOTNOTE # 2: It’s not uncommon for an actor to discover something about the character that you –even as the writer/director– may not have realized that still rings true to what you intended. You may find that actors sell a character’s essential attributes in much the same way OR you may find two actors find two ways to play a character that are different, but you find equally compelling. So long as the chosen actor’s approach meshes with the other actors and their approach, that’s fine.

FOOTNOTE # 3: Every project has a different timeline, so answering the question of if you have the strongest cast you can have is constrained by how soon you need to move into production. There have been many projects where I would have loved to have audition or outright cast certain actors and the schedules didn’t work out. You need to be prepared for that unhappy possibility.

This 20-part series, written by Team J’s Bjorn Munson, covers the lessons learned during the casting of The Broken Continent web series pilot in 2012. You can find the full Table of Contents in Part 1.

This series is meant to help other independent filmmakers, primarily those who are casting a large ensemble (10+ speaking parts, multiple background actors, etc.). Individual articles may be useful to production companies looking to cast other work such as commercials. There are also a number of articles specifically for actors on how to better submit for auditions, do the auditions, and deal with the statistically inevitable rejections.

The lessons learned have been applied to Team J’s Stonehenge Casting service, an online tool for producers to find actors and actors to find work.

Previous Casting Notes Article | Next Casting Notes Article

Don’t Mind Me – Casting Background Performers

Just as with the fight auditions, not every project –even an indie feature or web series– is going to have background performers (aka “Extras”)[1].  The good news is that most of what you’ve read so far about getting the casting notice out and processing the submissions holds true for casting background performers.

Good background performers know how to re-create their actions precisely, take after take, as well as take direction just like the speaking roles you’re casting. This is not to say that you shouldn’t pack an audience scene with friends and family. Indie projects by their nature have a small budget and may need bodies for crowd scenes. Just remember that you do get what you pay for and the allure of “working on a film” can make the bodies of those friends and family restless as you press on into hour four of the shoot.

Here are some things to consider when casting background performers.

Consider always having some background performers
I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but background performers are a great way to expand the cinematic world you’re creating. Just as I always advocate having a variety of ages, body types, and so on in the cast (like you have in the real world), the real world is full of people in the background. [2]

Even when the world you’re portraying is far from real, you often want people in the background. For The Broken Continent, we had committed to some form of “epic” fantasy. Having a couple people with swords on camera wouldn’t do. Wherever it made sense, we wanted to have additional soldiers, advisers, or denizens in the background to fully realize the world.

Even in an indie project set in modern times, you may have characters in offices and stores or walking in hallways or sidewalks. Unless it’s apocalyptic setting, there might always be one or two people in the background (and even in apocalyptic settings, c’mon: zombies!). [3]

Getting the word out for background performers
The method for getting the word out for background performers is essentially the same as for your regular cast. In fact, you might find some potential background performers among the actors submitting for regular roles (more on that below). So when you’re crafting your casting notice for background performers, try and find a way to make them want to come and stand around for hours at a time. Ask yourself these questions:

• Can you describe the background role as exciting? (“We need background performers to portray a crack SWAT team.”)
• Can you describe the scene where the background activity is exciting? (“We need 20+ background performers to be mystified, befuddled, and ultimately entertained by a street performance by our two female leads.”)
• Can you evoke memorable, archetypal crowd scenes from other movies?  (“Be part of the frightened masses fleeing mutant snakehead fish as they emerge from the Potomac River!”) [4]

You will not have an enticing hook for every project and every type of background performer. In some cases, you might honestly just want to make sure this office or that street corner isn’t completely deserted. But you don’t lead with that. Remember, in part 4 of the Casting Notes series, we talked a lot about crafting your casting notice with a mind to woo the performer. Don’t stop wooing when it comes to seeking out background performers.

Create a separate casting notice for background performers
Now, using Stonehenge, I would both create a different casting notice for background performers and make sure to note whether or not the performers had checked the box on the site that they were open for background work.[5] To explain that reasoning, I should explain what we did for The Broken Continent.

For that series, we created one omnibus casting notice. At the bottom, after the 20-some roles, there were clearly plenty of opportunities for background performers listed.

Then, during the auditions, we checked in with people at the end of the audition to see if they would be at all interested in background work. Our director, Francis, cheerfully noted that we were asking this of everyone (which was true) and we would perfectly understand an answer of “Hell, no!” (which was also true). This question was asked with what I thought was about as light a touch as could be done. And we did have a good reason to ask people whom we were calling in for principle roles. As we explained, we fully hoped the pilot would lead to a regular web series — and so it would be wonderful to cast someone as one of the king’s advisers in the pilot who then could be revealed to be a key supporting role in a later episode as if we had planned it all along.

Many of the people we wound up casting were excellent actors, and we had every intention of doing exactly what we said because we knew they had the acting chops to rise to the challenge. That Woman of the Wood you saw in the opening? She could strategize with one of the leads at the eve of a later battle. That courtier looming behind King Eadwyn? He was in league with the scheming Barda to consolidate power. Even some of the refugees were capable of popping up in later episode to add to the epic story. The background actors were a combination of people whom auditioned for us along with some people who we did not initially call in, but had indicated they were up for background work.

Nevertheless, in retrospect, there were a few instances that, despite Francis’ light touch, the actor was surprised and probably a bit uncomfortable at the question. For that reason, in the future, I would do the separate casting notice as mentioned above — and also check the Stonehenge tool to see who was up for background work. However, I would make sure that the check-in staff informed all the actors that their Stonehenge profile was up-to-date in terms of their availability and interest in background work (“Make sure it’s not checked if you don’t want it and make sure it is checked if you do.”)

Consider budgeting for background performers
One thing I would not change with what we did with the Broken Continent was to pay all the actors, including the background performers.

Time and again, I hear from fellow filmmakers who’ve had no end of trouble getting even 10 people to come out and be background for free. That’s because the mystique of filmmaking quickly loses its allure to many a newcomer when they realize just how much hurry-up-and-wait is involved. [6] Background actors hurry up and wait even more than most.

Consider that you could ask for 4 hours’ time for a background performer, pay them $40 and they’d be making well above current minimum wage. [7]

For the Broken Continent, we didn’t pay that much, but we did follow state and federal minimum wage laws — and we paid overtime if actors were hurrying up and waiting for more than 8 hours (like you’re supposed to). We did this, in part, because we knew we needed to make costumes for these actors and, in part, because we knew our shoot days could be long and would be somewhat remote. We wanted the actors to commit to being there.

Now many filmmakers reading this might be running numbers in their head. They might reasonably calculate how they could add 10-20 extras at that $10-per-hour rate and quickly add $400 to $800 of cost. If you wanted a modest throng of people over a couple days, you’d quickly add thousands of dollars to your budget.

It’s fine if background performers are where you want to cut costs. Just don’t pretend that “being in a film” is that big a motivator, especially because you’re asking someone to hang out and not do much of anything — and often they need to be near set and quite quiet. For isolated needs, where you need people for less than a four-hour chunk –and ideally a less-than-one-hour chunk– many family and friends can probably be relied on again and again. If some of your friends are actors or creatives –and the background performers have something moderately interesting to do– you’ve just given creative people an opportunity to play. You can safely bet on an extra hour or so. But if you really want people to commit to being background not simply state that they “should be available,” money should be one of your tactics.

Remember, you’re spending the money on background performers to add production value. Not every shot is a crane shot or needs a Steadicam. Not every set or costume needs to pop. But sometimes, having one of those elements is that special ingredient you want to spice up a shot. Feel free to cut those ingredients from the budget if you don’t need that spice, but plan on adding that to the budget if not having the background performers will visibly lessen the production value or take an audience away from what they expect.[8]

Storyboard the shots with background in mind
Do you need to do this step before casting? Not absolutely. But you do want to do it before the day you’re shooting with background performers. Otherwise, you run the risk of looking at your set, looking at your limited amount of extras, and realizing things won’t look good.

Storyboarding with a realistic notion of the final number of background performers you’ll have therefore becomes critical to ensuring that you’re maximizing your production value — and also not looking too cheap in key shots. In general, you want enough extras so that they can fill out the edges of the frame indicating further people off camera. Sometimes they’re integral to establish motion and activity of a location by cutting in front of the camera or passing in back of the main action. You can do a lot with just a few background actors and careful framing.

I counsel many indie filmmakers to take a look at television shows, especially those from more modestly budgeted days of yore. Nowadays, TV shows may have show-stopping cinematic setpieces with a lot of background performers (though some of them might be CGI). Modern TV directors also know that they can get away with more cinematic compositions because of both expectation and the rise of huge home theater screens. But older TV shows wanted to give the impression of bustling Western towns, hospitals, space stations, and police precincts without having anything close to a blockbuster budget or epic-sized audience expectations. The camera framing and number of background performers in these shows reflect those constraints. [9]

Regardless of how average or ambitious your shot list may be, you want to take the time to know how you’ll use background actors to your best advantage. Depending on what location you wind up with and the number of extras you get, you may need to adjust your framing.

Have at least one crew member manage the background performers
This may come as an absolute shock to some industry folks, but not every production has a Second Assistant Director, let alone a Second Second Assistant Director or Third Assistant Director. Heck, many an indie production I’ve been on hasn’t had any assistant director. That’s okay. [10] However your crew is organized, make sure someone on the crew is responsible for (and knows beforehand they’re responsible for) checking in and checking out the background performers including all their paperwork especially their release.

Ideally, you not only have a crew member to do the organizing and get the all-important release, but all the crew who might interact with them, from the production assistants to craft services, can be pleasant, but firm as necessary. Remember, for many background performers on an indie production, this is their first exposure to a film set. You need everyone who interacts with background actors know they need to helps them remember such boring but vital things like:

• Where to stand and not stand
• Who to talk to and who is going to be busy [11]
• What activities are fine for hanging out and waiting… and waiting  (book-reading yes, beat-boxing no).
• Who will bring them to set and what to do at the end of the day

In other words: don’t assume your background performers know “the rules.” On an indie set, “the rules” may vary (and that’s okay). But even if everyone on your set knows what “the rules” are for this set and can communicate those rules to extras in a firm, but friendly manner, having a point-of-contact that the background performers report to is a good idea.

In Conclusion
Whether you’re paying background performers to populate your web series world or you’re trying to get people to volunteer their time for short, student film, you want it to be easy for potential extras to say, “Yes!”

Figure out ways to woo your background performers from the casting notice, onward. Knowing that the extras will be doing something interesting or dressing up in costume can often entice people to spend some time hurrying up and waiting.

If you determine that you really need background performers in certain shots to sell the story, consider paying people as one of your tactics to make them commit.

Know what your “rules” will be on set, make sure the crew knows them, and make sure you have a designated point-of-contact for the background performers on set. [12]

Just as with your casting speaking roles, the effort you put in here will pay dividends. I have yet to have a standard guideline for how many people you should expect to reach out to in order to get a minimum number of background performers. Assuming you are paying less than SAG-AFTRA scale, you need to rely on the wooing indicated above and perhaps some novelty for the novice background performers involved — and it doesn’t hurt if you’re shooting in their backyard (proverbially if not literally). Searching by ZIP code isn’t a bad idea (and something you can do via Stonehenge). If you want 10 background actors on the shoot, reach out to 50… unless you can reach out to 100. I have yet to meet a director or D.P. who doesn’t find a use for the right background people (remember Footnote # 2).

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FOOTNOTE #1: Because people can take umbrage about anything and everything, it probably comes as no surprise that some actors object to the term “extras.” However, before you dismiss using the term “background performers,” as actors being overly sensitive, bear in mind you’re asking people to do, in some cases, precise repeatable actions take after take — that is, if you like your editor and continuity. Moreover, these actors are being asked to be this precise for the sake of being unobtrusive “moving scenery.” Just like we mention to actors: when you have a choice that won’t hurt you and might help you, choose to not hurt yourself. (At the same time, any background performer who freaks out or goes into a tirade upon being referred to as an ‘extra’ on set may need to consult a medical professional.)

FOOTNOTE #2: The needs of the story prevail. If you’re shooting a project like “The Wire” and your setting is the proverbial “mean streets,” it’s best that your extras don’t look like they’re about to go yachting. That’s not the problem I see. The problem I see time and again in indie projects is what I call “20-something White Guy Syndrome” where a film has characters and background that is very, very narrow and takes you out of any reality the film is trying to establish.

FOOTNOTE #3: Or mutants. Or Triffids. Or mutant Triffid zombies.

FOOTNOTE #4: Okay, that’s a bit of a dated reference for denizens of the DMV only. As it happens, someone made a snakehead horror film. I have no idea if they had a great pitch to entice people to be an extra in the film, but rest assured, if Team J ever does a creature feature, we absolutely will.

FOOTNOTE #5: I have seen other projects where they do the same thing on the paper form they have actors fill out upon checking into the audition. As has been alluded to elsewhere in this series, we don’t advocate doing on paper what can be done easier and more effectively online. Part of the Stonehenge profile actors fill out is whether they’re interested in background work. Yeah, you can have that checkbox on a whole bunch of paper forms, but this way, you can tally up the actors with a couple mouse clicks. (The results of actors suddenly deciding, no no, they meant “interested in background on the latest Hollywood-budgeted feature” are the same as the paper method, though.)

FOOTNOTE #6: One of my favorite stories to illustrate how quickly the cinematic glamour fades was when one roommate wanted to come out and be on set for the day during one of our shoots. I had no objection, but said he should bring his own car. He looked at me confused and more than a bit annoyed. What sense did that make? We were heading to the same place and it wasn’t like I was hauling a lot of gear. Moreover, this was going to be in the city and parking would be a pain. I insisted and he begrudgingly went along with it.

After about four hours of incremental camera set-ups in a less-than sweet-smelling alleyway, he pulled me aside and mentioned he’d be heading out and, hey, best of luck with the rest of the shoot.

FOOTNOTE #7: At least, the Federal minimum wage as of April 2015.

FOOTNOTE #8: The idea here is that viewers expect some shots to have “spice.” Offices and shops usually have other people in them. Streets have cars and pedestrians. We are used to seeing this in both film and TV. A great example of this was when I was working on a web series which had a series of episodes set at a gym. Part of the script called for a comic scene in a gym class. Even though he knew he could rely on some gym rats to be game to hang out and participate in some of the shots, the director enlisted the help of one of the staff to corral a group of gym goers and they were all paid $20 to participate in a brief scene and ensure the gym class was full. He was thrifty on budgeting the whole series, but this was where he knew for the sequence to work, it couldn’t take the viewer out of the location (or the joke) by having a sparsely attended gym class.

FOOTNOTE #9: I suggest this because many indie filmmakers have great ambitions for the look and feel of their films. I have no problems with this. Personally, I try and mix some Kurosawan elements into anything I shoot. However, we generally don’t have the budget for Rashomon, let alone Ran, so I find it’s good to eat a slice of cinematic humble pie and see what people with constrained budgets did. At the same time, I don’t advocate necessarily looking at indie films or web series. Why? Because network shows of yore, even though they had producers and network execs trying to figure out endless ways to do things on the cheap, they still didn’t want to look cheap compared to all the other shows on at the same hour. Trying to keep your show on the air for several seasons is more peer pressure than trying to get your low-budget movie into some sort of distribution.

FOOTNOTE #10: Assuming you can maintain high amounts of on-set safety and low amounts of sleep deprivation with the reduced crew. Small crews are fine, but remember: background performers, especially on an indie production, can be some of the most inexperienced people on set. Having someone make sure they’re safe and they’re not endangering the safety of others by galumphing into a power cable or messing with rigging is important.

FOOTNOTE #11: I know this varies on indie sets and the prohibition of extras talking to the lead actors or director may not be as strict. But  know what your version of “the rules” may be. For example, your director might be happy to talk to the extras and not be as distant. Just make sure when she needs to focus and huddle with her assistant director and cinematographer, she can.

FOOTNOTE #12: And don’t forget: if you’re shooting under a SAG-AFTRA agreement, there are certain rules you absolutely must follow in order to not violate the terms of your agreement. Luckily, this mainly means being detail-oriented and actually doing your paperwork… which is an unsexy behavior real filmmakers have accepted for some time.

This 20-part series, written by Team J’s Bjorn Munson, covers the lessons learned during the casting of The Broken Continent web series pilot in 2012. You can find the full Table of Contents in Part 1.

This series is meant to help other independent filmmakers, primarily those who are casting a large ensemble (10+ speaking parts, multiple background actors, etc.). Individual articles may be useful to production companies looking to cast other work such as commercials. There are also a number of articles specifically for actors on how to better submit for auditions, do the auditions, and deal with the statistically inevitable rejections.

The lessons learned have been applied to Team J’s Stonehenge Casting service, an online tool for producers to find actors and actors to find work.

Previous Casting Notes Article | Next Casting Notes Article

Organizing the Audition Space

Okay, so you’ve gone through the pain and suffering of finding an audition space that not only meets your logistical needs, but won’t break your budget.

Now that you’re probably at the stage where you’ve been figuring out who to call in, you need to make sure your audition space is ready. This isn’t rocket science, and many decisions may only be made the first day of auditions, but here are the things you should be doing prior to actors walking through the door:

1. Confirm your staff and staffing needs
2. Do a “Walk toward/walk around/walk through” of the audition space
3. Check the waiting area
4. Check the audition space proper
5. Decide on food for you and your staff

As you may realize, some of these considerations you were at least subconsciously assessing as you were trying to find the right audition space. Whether you did already or not, it’s time to tackle these issues now: a well-organized audition space is key in setting the right tone with actors. [1]

1. Confirm your staff and staffing needs

Understanding the case study we’re working under, that of an indie film or web series looking to cast many roles, the production team is likely wearing multiple hats already.

For the auditions, you need people to wear the hats of auditors, a videographer, and check-in staff.

Your auditors should at least include the director and the casting director. For the Broken Continent, all three of us producers were there because all three of us were invested in the creative direction of the series — and the casting decisions made here could potentially impact our team. You don’t want to have too many people in that room, but you do want the people whom the actors will report to. By having the three of us there, we covered the writer, director, and casting director hats — and on a wider level anyone who should be making hiring decisions for the project.

Having stated that you should look to limit how many people are in the audition room proper, you may want to consider having a separate videographer. The reason for this is they can just focus on the technical aspects of the audition: is the audio and video good? For the Broken Continent, one of Francis long-time collaborators and accomplished camera wranglers was happy to volunteer his time. It’s very possible for your given project, you might already have a crew member who is willing to do this task whether for the promise of free food or part of their overall fee. [2]

If you don’t have a separate videographer, you don’t need to fret: just have your steps down for starting and stopping the camera. Otherwise, the one audition you really wanted to review will be the one you forgot to record.

Check-in staff, on the other hand, are both critical and can’t really be the auditors (though I, as the casting director, would come out and get the next actor during Broken Continent auditions). I’m sure you’ve heard many a tale of good, bad, and ugly customer service. Now you’re providing a form of customer service with the check-in process. Don’t you want to make a good first impression? With that in mind, pick your check-in staff carefully. I’ve seen family and friends often employed in this capacity and that’s fine, just don’t discount their importance in setting the tone you want. Here’s some things your check-in staff should do.

• Be the calm in storm. This is Above All: even if they’re not the most chipper, extroverted soul, they should be friendly and exclude a “don’t panic” vibe
• Have answers to common questions like where the bathroom is as well as the basic stats of the project (who the production company is, who’s the director and writer, when you’re shooting, etc.)
• Feel comfortable saying “I don’t know, but I can check.”
• Be the voice on the other end of the phone. In other words, if you’ve provided a phone number for the auditions, they should have that phone [3]

Besides their invaluable role in being able to empathize with actors without authorizing things, they take care of whatever process you’ve created to check people in. Sometimes they’re taking the headshots and resumes to take to the auditors before the actor comes in. Sometimes, they’re simply making sure the actor has the requisite number of headshots and resumes to provide to the auditors.

Often, the check-in staff have actors fill out an additional information sheet. Given the electronic tools at our disposal these days, I would strongly encourage using a web form — even one developed in Google Drive or a similar resource. For Broken Continent, we used a modified version of the sorting spreadsheet described and shown in Part 7. It worked wonderfully, though in the future, I might see how much Stonehenge can do — at the very least I’ll have the check-in staff ask them if their availability is up-to-date in Stonehenge. We’ll talk more about what the check-in staff do in the next article.

2. Do a “Walk toward/walk around/walk through” of the audition space

Ideally, your hard work has resulted in a space that is accessible by Metro, has decent parking, or both.

Whatever the case, one or two of you should walk toward and then around the building where your audition is, thinking of where the actors may be coming from (e.g., if the Metro stop or bus stop is one block north on Elm Street, look at the approach from Elm Street). Place your signs at intervals where nervous actors can see the next signs — and make sure to draw the all-important arrows in the right direction or have enough signs with printed arrows going in both directions. Do this all the way into the building and to your waiting area. You might even want a bathroom direction sign, though your check-in stuff should be able to handle that. Remember, wherever the Metro or parking is, someone will come from the opposite direction for reasons you will never understand. That’s where you post “[Name] Auditions – Entrance on other side of building” or whatnot and make some stressed actor that much more relieved.

Did you catch that the signs should be printed, not just be some piece of copy paper with some message scrawled on by marker? As you probably guessed, we advocate spending that time, even if you find you need to use the aforementioned marker to get the arrow direction correct for a couple signs. We did this for Broken Continent and several actors were thankful for it. Even if it’s subconscious, you’re telling actors you are prepared and this project will have a level of attention to detail they’ve found sorely acting on other projects they’ve had the misfortune to work on.

You certainly can do this the walk-around as late as the first day of the auditions. After all, we recommend only posting the signs the day of and taking them down after the auditions that day. Especially if you haven’t cased the building first, print at least two more signs than you think you need — and make sure you have duct tape as well as masking tape (duct tape will be overkill and potentially obnoxious on glass doors, but will be very necessary on stone or masonry).

Incidentally, you may be concerned that all these signs might lead some curious passersby wandering into your audition check-in area, perhaps hoping it’s an open call they can audition for — or perhaps even worse, “they’ve always been interested in movies” or “have this great idea for a movie.” Well, that is a risk. Bear in mind, this recommendation is based on the Broken Continent case study. If you have a known audition location (e.g. you’re doing casting for a series over the course of a season or seasons and actors know or should learn where you are) OR if you have a very small group of people you’re seeing (possibly for a smaller project or for callbacks), then perhaps you have few if any signs. However, remember that the trade-off with fewer signs will be that your check-in staff will get more calls.[4]

 3. Check the Waiting Area 

This is more of a checklist. Before the day of the auditions –or at least on ‘the day of’ before the facilities manager disappears to deal with other matters– make sure you have these questions answered:

• How do you control the lights?
• Can you control the temperature? If so, how do you do it? (And if not, what if it’s too hot or cold?)
• Where are the outlets for your laptop or tablet or recharging your phone? [5]
• Speaking of the phone, do you have cell phone reception here?
• While it’s not expected, if there’s WiFi, how do you log onto that?
• Do you have a table/desk for check-in or do you need to bring one in? [6]
• Are there enough chairs?
• Bonus: Is there a place to get water? Either a water fountain or sink? [7]
• Bonus: How do you get to the bathroom from the waiting area? Do you need signs or is it simple?

As stated above, it isn’t rocket science, but it’s all good to know.

 4. Check the Audition Space proper 

This is markedly similar to number 3 above. Many of the questions are similar, but make sure to answer them too:

• How do you control the lights?
• Can you control the temperature? If so, how do you do it? (And if not, what if it’s too hot or cold?)
• Where are the outlets for your laptops/tablets and camera and lighting?
• Do you have enough outlets for your camera and lighting without tripping the circuit breaker?
• Do you have tables and desks for the auditors?
• How are you going to mark the floor so actors can hit their mark for the camera?

For The Broken Continent, our audition room was one of those classrooms that had two entrances and a partition — so we found we needed to explicitly mark the exit door lest nervous actors got confused at the end of their audition.

 5. Decide on food for you and your staff 

Even with the format of regular half-hour breaks, most likely you’ll find the day is packed, so you’ll want some snack food and drink on hand for all your staff.

Team J’s default is usually some variant of Cliff bars, fruit such as apples, bananas or grapes, and the wonderful combination of protein and sugar that is Peanut M&Ms. It’s easy to overdo it on the carbs though, so be mindful. We just go with water on the hydration side.

Also, in maximizing your audition time, you might not want to go out for lunch. That means you have to decide whether it’s best to figure out delivery or if one of the staff will go (the auditors probably can’t). One advantage of the classroom with the partition was we were able to have a meal on the other half of the classroom. Even if you can’t exit the venue, switching up the scenery from the audition room is surprisingly energizing (well, at least until the mid-afternoon slump).

So there you have it. Compared to the travails required to find an audition space, organizing the audition space itself is not earth-shattering. However, you’ll be glad you did — and it will leave you that more focused on our next topic: conducting the auditions themselves.

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FOOTNOTE #1: Yet again, I will happily point out that an audition is a job interview and a job interview works both ways. The actors you most want to woo will notice the effort you put into a well-organized audition.

FOOTNOTE #2: We have no problem with people being paid, though I understand if producers are being thrifty in this pre-production phase. Still, there’s a reason that them thar money stuff is commonly used in exchange for people’s time, so consider that when you’re considering your pre-production budget. And if audition staff are volunteering their time, do make sure their food and parking/travel expenses are met so all they’re donating is their time.

FOOTNOTE #3: Invariably, some actor is going to be late because of traffic, the hunt for a parking space, or some stranger circumstance. The phone number in this case is an escape valve and here your check-in staff serves their role as the empathetic “don’t panic” person admirably. It doesn’t disrupt the auditions you’re running, and they can update you during a break before the next audition.

FOOTNOTE #4: This is probably an opportune time to mention your check-in staff should be comfortable being friendly, but firm with any passersby. It’s a private event and it’s closed to “walk-ins.” That language alone usually shuts down discussion (needing a headshot and resume usually blunts things too). They may be disappointed, but I’ve never seen anyone become hostile — and if they seem to want to linger, the facilities manager –who’s probably on hand wherever your renting the space from– may also be useful as backup. By the way, if you are planning ahead, you can make the signs a bit more vague and let actors know exactly what the phrasing is. However, then you’ll still deal with that actor that didn’t pay close enough attention. And you can never eliminate the curious.

FOOTNOTE #5: And hey, an actor might have a laptop or need to recharge their phone. Think of good customer service, people!

FOOTNOTE #6: Team J invested in several roll-up camp tables that are roughly 3 foot square when unfolded. They travel easily and have proven to be invaluable investments for our auditions and for film shoots.

FOOTNOTE #7: As mentioned elsewhere, our audition space had a sink/kitchenette space within the waiting area which was really quite nice. As an added bonus to the actors, I made sure to provide little paper cups for water. I had the option of the more expensive Dixie cups or the cheaper, but just as good store brand. Plus, the store brand had dinosaurs on them. As a casting rule I just made up, you don’t want to hire any actor who doesn’t appreciate a dinosaur cup. We went with the dinosaurs (and received complements).