How to define your casting

Who represents your brand?

When thinking about your talent you want to identify your target audience. The people in your video should be your best guest, or people who will see themselves in your advertising. If your audience is older, high net worth couples let’s feature people who visually represent that; if your audience is young families, definitely include them in your video.

Think about the location you’re shooting in and ensure the people in the video make sense in that location. Would a family with young children realistically be scuba diving? Ensure the cast makes sense in the environment you are filming.

Consider your brand’s goals with diversity, equity and inclusion and make note of who your ideal cast would be. Think about each role in the video and write a description of that role to send out during the casting process. This work is something Origin’s strategic creative team and producers can work with you on, or handle for you.

What skillset does your cast need?

What is your talent required to do on camera - just walking and sitting, or speaking, acting, skiing, riding a unicycle while juggling? There is talent out there for every role but this needs to be defined prior to casting to ensure you have the right person in the right role. There’s nothing worse than needing a picture perfect skier and ending up with someone whose arms are flailing behind them after dropping in. Likewise, talent who looks great on camera and in photography might not be comfortable speaking and acting. Understanding the skills required for the role is an important step to finding the right talent.

Subjects vs models?

Are you looking for real people who will be themselves on camera, representing their point of view? You’re looking for subjects - those who can speak authentically on a topic. This will likely require more research and a pre-interview process to identify the right people rather than your traditional casting process.

What is your budget?

We’d all love to have Kate Winslet in our video but there’s a good chance the budget doesn’t support it. Casting can work with almost any budget but it’s important to have rates included when you put out your casting notice.

There are two (three) rates to be aware of: 

• The day rate or session fee is the amount of money a talent will receive for their time on the day. 
• The buy out or usage rights fee is the rate the talent will receive if their footage appears in the final video, and is based on licensing requirements for that video. 
• (Sometimes: The agency fee is the percentage that a talent agent will add onto a final invoice, if a talent has representation. This usually sits between 10-20% of the total talent rate.)

Sometimes talent will just be offered a flat day rate that has a buy out fee baked in. Usually this is the case for full buyout scenarios. If session fee and buy out are separately specified, your buy out fee will determine possible licensing extension costs later on.

The rates for talent can vary depending on production size and budget, calibre of talent, skillset required, time on set, licensing requirements, union vs non-union talent (UBCP, ACTRA, SAG-AFTRA etc.), and other factors. Origin’s producers have a lot of experience budgeting for talent, casting and managing talent and can assist with all the questions and all phases of the casting process.

What licensing are you looking for?

Where would you like to show the final video? Licensing rates change depending on where the final video will be shown, and for how long. Some examples of licensing terms are below.

License options

• Broadcast commercial on linear television
• CTV commercial on digital television
• OTT commercial on streaming services
• Paid online advertising eg: Youtube paid placements, Google ads, display, or paid social placements
• Unpaid web eg: website use, youtube streaming, vimeo streaming, unpaid social
• Industrial eg: trade show, instore, film festival
• Internal use only eg: training for employees, business meetings, internal events
• (D)OOH eg: public billboards
• Print Ads (for stills photography)

Term Dates

This is the length of time you’d like to show the video on the different platforms. Generally different platforms have different term lengths as some are more expensive than others. For example, you might only license your video to run in broadcast for three months, but in paid web for one year, and in unpaid web for many years.

Territory

This can also be broken down by platform. Maybe your broadcast license is only required in certain states or provinces and certain stations. Maybe your paid advertising is only running in North America, but you’d like unpaid access worldwide. During the casting process, the talent will need to know where the end video will be played and their contract will need to include the licensing covered by their buy out fee and/or day rate.

What does the casting process look like?

Talent can be cast in a variety of ways depending on the scope of the production. At times productions will be working with local, specialized talent (for example ski resort shoots), and local contacts and social platforms will be used to cast. Other times, with productions in cities, a casting agency may be engaged, or a casting site will be utilized by the production team.

The production team will supply a short list of possible talent for each role that fits your criteria and has been vetted by the director or creative director in advance, you would then prioritize your preferences for each role and the production team would negotiate on your behalf to secure that talent.

The short list might be a selection of photos and a description of the talent and their abilities, it could be videos, or it might even be an in-person casting session where you meet the talent and have them read the script. The casting process is flexible based on the timeline and budget of the project.

Origin can assist with casting for any project and any budget, if you’re interested in knowing more please contact us to set up a call.