I'm looking for seven- to nine-year-old boys and no, I'm not a perv.

I'm not a terrorist, either.

You know that camera rig I mention occasionally? The one I've been working on for almost a year? Well, I finally got it to do what it's supposed to.

Most directors, when they come up with something as potentially mind-blowing as this, they shoot a test. But I think we can all agree I'm not like most directors. I have to go and do something spectacular. Like a piece that involves a big cast, a ton of specialized equipment, intricate choreography, a porn star, huge lights, smoke, wind, and a crew of at least 15.

Could be fun. Could be a disaster. 

To raise the stakes just a teeny bit more, I'm going to need some seven- to nine-year-olds to be in it.

The good thing about working with seven- to nine-year-olds is that unless the acting requires them to do something that seven- to nine-year-olds don't normally do, you don't need a seven- to nine-year-old with a ton of experience. In fact, brains, demeanor, and enthusiasm are way more important than any kind of training. 

Which is why I'm posting this on my blog. 

If you know of a kid in the Portland area who might be interested in getting a taste of acting, let me know. Send me a headshot or a picture, along with stuff it might help to know about him: how old he is, whether he has any acting experience, how long of an attention span he has, his height, weight, and hair color. You can send it all to jobs@belefant.com. If you hit the spam filter, just try and convince it that you are indeed a real person. 

We're aiming to shoot on the 24th and yes, we'll have all sorts of things in place to make sure that the kids are not abused or distressed in any way. 


Can't say the same for the director.

The Old Spice guy, part II

Did you realize that the Old Spice guy is African American? 


I did. But only recently. 


This is relevant. First of all, because I'm old. And second because I grew up in the South. So I'm keenly aware of the prejudices I've worked so hard to overcome. Or at least I used to be. The fact is, the man's race wouldn't have even occurred to me except that I overheard someone describing his dark skin the other day –– and not in any disparaging way.


And even though I'm speaking for myself, I think it's pretty clear from the chatter that this campaign has generated that I'm speaking for the vast majority of people who have seen it. There is no uproar. Sure, there's controversy. Anything this popular is bound to have its share of detractors. But when I was coming up, the negative comments would have had more to do with the man's race than the advertising's message.


Ten years ago, a campaign like 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' would have been considered audacious had it starred an African American. Twenty-five years ago, casting like that would have been inconceivable. 


Today –– and I know this because I've spoken to some of the people who work at Wieden + Kennedy –– Isaiah Mustafa got the part not because he was black and not in spite of the fact that he was black, but because he was the right person for the role. Period.


I'm not an idiot. I know we still have a lot of racial stuff to work out in this country.


But we've come a long, long way. 

Sometimes it pays to work with amateurs.

I just finished shooting a job in New Brunswick.

A lot of people I work with couldn't find New Brunswick on a map, which isn't to say anything negative about the place, just that it's not exactly giving Hollywood a run for its money as a hotbed of film production. Let's just put it this way: Ambitious filmmakers in New Brunswick generally move to the big city, and by that I mean Halifax.

I've worked in New Brunswick before, so I know how to adjust. The crews are great. But most of the people who come in for an audition don't bother putting together an acting resume because the only experience on it would be 'Football Player 3' in their high school production of 'Grease' twenty years ago. 

If that.

The spot I was working on called for four roles: a father, mother, son, and daughter.

The father I cast was an absolute pro. He'd worked in larger markets and moved back to New Brunswick because he preferred the lifestyle. But the rest? Two of them hadn't even been to an audition before.

For the son I cast a brash 11-year-old who tagged along to his brother's audition. He talked the casting director into letting him read –– sold her, really –– telling her that even though he was too young for the part, he'd work really hard and do a great job. Our mom had been on one shoot as an extra and thought acting might be fun. And the daughter had taken a few acting classes at the community theater.

Not that there weren't plenty of other, more "qualified" people. Actors with a ton of professional experience, some of it in huge markets like New York and LA. But what I saw in these three was magic. The boy's confidence; the girl's awkward innocence; the sparkle in the mom's eye. Of course, I'd have to work that much harder –– not just in directing each of them, but in educating them to the process.

But I was creating a family and a family –– at least a family of my creation –– is made up individuals who have personality.

Sure, there are times when a line needs to be delivered in 3.2 seconds or a mark hit precisely. But if I have a choice between personality and perfection, I'll take personality, thank you very much.

As it turns out, I got lots of both.

Casting trick #8. Treat your actors like professionals.

I read somewhere that the average cost to make a television commercial is well over $400,000.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a lot of money. Although it goes pretty quickly when you have to scout locations, build sets, get permits, hire crews, rent equipment, and all the other stuff that goes into a shoot.

But when you think about it, most commercials come down to actors interacting. All the other stuff is there to support the interaction. And putting it that way, you'd think the actors would be the most important factor.

Only they're not treated that way.

It's not unusual for actors to get a phone call or email at midnight telling them they have an audition the next morning. They're given a scheduled time for their audition that's totally arbitrary, without any regard for the fact that they might have jobs or children, and even when they show up on time, they're often forced to wait for an hour or more for a chance to read for a part.

That waiting time is usually a good thing because many casting directors don't feel the need to provide any information the actors can use to prepare for the audition.

What's remarkable is that the same people who give the actors no notice, no information, and no time to prepare are often the ones who deride the actors as flaky when they don't show up and talentless when they don't have the script memorized. And not just behind their backs, either.

It never occurs to them that acting, by its very nature, requires an incredible ability to compartmentalize: Actors need to be able to respond with full emotion while performing, yet deal with the daily rejection that comes with the pursuit of work.

You want to be a better director? Of course you do. Well, take some acting classes. Go on some auditions. If you're lucky enough to land a gig, pay attention to the way you're treated. Walk a mile in your actors' shoes.

Trust me, you'll never take your actors for granted again. And your work will be much, much better.

Another reason it matters what order you see people in.

Remember, oh, about three weeks ago when I went on about how actors who come in early in the day are at a disadvantage, while those that come in toward the end have an advantage? (If you don't, click here.)

There's a mitigating factor, but before I get to it I have to talk a little bit about what you're looking at when you're evaluating an actor's audition.

There are two parts to an actor. There's who the actor is. And there's what the actor does.

Who an actor is involves not just his looks, but the way he carries himself, how he connects, how he moves, and that weird, undefinable thing, charisma. Who an actor is comes from genetics and habit and upbringing and instinct and while some actors actually work on developing this stuff a bit, you can only make yourself so tall, thin, good-looking, or charismatic.

What an actor does means the choices he makes. Is he angry or sad? Interested or bored? Turned on or turned off? A lot of actors give less thought to these decisions than they really should, trusting that their instincts will lead them to the most interesting performances, but I like the actors who take apart a scene and figure out what's really going on. These are the people who can perform a conversation with their mothers about where to park the car, but make you understand that what's really going on is a seething resentment over Mom's not intervening when Dad molested Sis twenty years ago.

In actor-speak, what an actor does is called making a choice. And when the Academy gives out awards, a lot of the praise you'll hear is about the "interesting," "brave," or "powerful" choices made by the nominees.

You don't have to see an Oscar-nominated film, though, to see choices. Actors make them in auditions. Sometimes, you'll see a really neat choice in an audition. Even in, yes, commercial auditions. Auditions where the housewife has to decide which paper towel will clean up the spill or the pizza delivery guy gets a door slammed in his face.

Which brings me back to the point I started this blog to make:

Sometimes, two actors will make the same unusual choice in an audition. When that happens, it's easy to give the first person you see doing it more credit than the second. The first time you see it, it's new. The second time, your tendency is to feel that the actor is copying somebody else's good idea.

But remember, each actor made the choice independent of the other. If what the actors do is more or less equal, then you can always make your decision based on who the actor is.

Casting trick #7: The order you see people in is important.

When I schedule my casting sessions, I keep a couple of important things in mind.

The first person to come to a casting session is at a disadvantage. No matter how dialed in I am, there are still adjustments to make, so they're auditioning while I'm settling in, tweaking the blocking, setting up my papers, and figuring out exactly how I'm going to get what I'm looking for.

The last people to come to a casting session are at an advantage. I'm looking for The One, and if I haven't found him or her by then, I'm hopeful that I will.

I'm also more confident in my approach. I've seen what's working and what actors aren't responding to. And I have a better sense of how the scene is going to work. (That is, unless I'm running way behind schedule and have a plane to catch, in which case I want to be done and out of there.)

These things may not be true for you, but they are for me. And as much as I may try to compensate for my weaknesses, I'm smart enough to know that it's an uphill battle.

So I work with them.

If there's someone I hold out a lot of hope for, I schedule him or her to come in toward the end. If I'm seeing someone as a favor, or if an actor is pretty clearly not right for the part but I want to give him or her a shot, I'll have him or her come in toward the beginning.

No, it's not fair. Fair would be doing the opposite. Tilting the playing field to favor the ones that I don't expect to do well and to put the ones I get a good feeling from at more of a disadvantage. The thing is, after running hundreds of casting sessions I've seen patterns emerge, and while I can't tell going in who's going to get the part, I can usually tell who's going to be a contender for it.

Besides, I'm open to being surprised.

It happens, too. Often enough for me to know better than to check out at any point. Or to rely too heavily on the people I schedule toward the end to come in and knock it out of the park.

Casting trick #6: Think of performance not in terms of right or wrong, but rather in terms of true or false.

My wife has an audition for a Gus Van Sant movie this morning, which is especially neat for me.

For one thing, I love getting a glimpse at how other, more famous, directors work. For another, my wife is amazingly good at breaking down a scene and constructing an entire world from the clues she finds hidden in dialogue or screen direction.

This time, though, I see the scene one way and she sees it another. And the reality is, neither one of us has a clue how Gus sees it. For all we know, we could both be totally off.

How is that relevant? Because your actors can't know what's in your head.

You can tell them. And you should. But even the most detailed explanation will leave them loads of room to interpret. This is a good thing, by the way. It's what actors get paid to do.

What that means for you doing casting, though, is that you need to think of performance not in terms of right and wrong, but rather in terms of true or false.

One of my wife's lines is, "Mind your business." Is she saying it with anger? Sadness? Frustration? Is she lashing out or muttering? Is she even speaking to the other actor or is she saying it to herself?

Who knows? At this point in the process, I'd be surprised if Gus Van Sant even knows.

My wife needs to fill in the blanks the best way she can, and if you ask me, the way to do that is to have a clear picture of her character first.

I like the idea of her character feigning ineptitude in order to avoid having to confront reality, but my wife is leaning more toward her putting on a false front of optimism in the feeble hope that she can control her fate. Whatever she decides will inform the way the line comes out. That, along with the way the line that precedes it is given to her.

If Gus is any good, and I happen to think he's pretty good, he won't care whether she lands squarely in his headspace. If he were me, he'd evaluate the decisions she'd made given the information she was provided and if he respected her reasoning, would then consider how she executed. Did she listen and react? Was she believable? Did she find the emotional beats?

In other words, was her performance true to the character?

Every once in a while you're going to have an actor walk in and nail exactly what you're thinking the first time at bat. When that happens, suppress the urge to high-five yourself. See what else he or she can give you first.

If you get another interpretation that's just as believable, then by all means, head to the nearest bar for a celebratory cocktail. But if you get the same thing again, you need to realize that if you cast this person, you're going to get what they want to give you, not necessarily what you want to get.

You're the director, after all. That means you're supposed to, you know, direct.

Casting trick #5: Look at one person at a time.

Funny thing about dialogue: you need two people to have one. That means if you're shooting a conversation of any kind, you're going to have to cast more than one person.

This sounds terribly remedial, I know, but it's important.

So let's say you're running a casting session for a scene that requires dialogue and you have two actors come into the room together. They slate –– one at a time, of course –– and then they go through the action.

Which one are you looking at?

See where I'm headed with this?

If one of them sucks and the other one's great, what do you do?

I'll tell you what you do. You go back in time. Before you even begin working with your actors, you take your video camera and point it at one of them –– doesn't matter which. Frame the other person completely out. Then as you're watching the performance, you make notes only about that one. And since you're a conscientious person and don't want to give one of the actors the impression that you're ignoring him, you tell him that once you're done working with the one guy, you're going to concentrate on him.

When you've got the first person's performance to a place you like, tell your first actor to keep things right there and turn the camera on the second actor. Then work with him.

There are a couple of benefits to doing things this way. First, you only have to keep your mind on one performance at a time. More critical, if you're like most directors you don't get the final say on casting. Other people are going to have to discuss your choices, and they can't discuss what they don't see.

Which brings me to a rule I try to apply, not just with casting, but with every aspect of production: Never submit anybody or anything you wouldn't be 100% happy to work with. I guarantee you that if you give somebody a choice, they're going to choose the one you don't like.

Casting trick #4. Look at the resumes.

There's a story kicking around about Steven Spielberg which might be true, but even if it's not, it's pretty informative. The way I heard it, a woman approached him in a restaurant and told him he should audition her kids for his next film. He asked if they'd ever been in movies, and she said no. And he said, "I don't put people in their first movie, but I might put them in their second."

Welcome to Hollywood. You can't get work unless you have experience and you can't get experience unless you get work.

There's so much at stake when it comes to making any kind of production that most people are reluctant to take a chance with an unknown. This is true in every department, but today we're talking about actors.

I guess my standards aren't as high as Mr. Spielberg's because I will actually hire actors for their first job. But only on a couple of conditions. One is that they really do their homework, meaning they need to know how to act. The other is that they don't lie about it.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Insist on your actors submitting resumes. And read them. Even if your actor doesn't have a ton of experience, a resume can tell you a lot about how to work with him or her.

So how do you read a resume?

First, I give it an overview. Just a glance will tell you not only how experienced your actor is, but what kind of acting he or she tends to do. There's a huge difference between the grammar of the stage and the grammar of a film, and stage actors generally need a little special care to make the adjustment to film. People with improv experience can usually improvise, but those who do it almost exclusively might not be as comfortable following a script verbatim. I don't care –– in fact, I prefer that my actors find the line that makes the most sense to them –– but there are some situations where a script has been through so many revisions, tests, animatics, and levels of approval that you can't change a single syllable.

Then I read. Usually from the bottom up.

The bottom is where actors put special skills. Someone who has a black belt in taekwando is probably pretty dedicated, whereas listing "likes cats" might mean he or she doesn't really commit to much. If I see a special skill that I know something about, it gives me an opportunity feel them out, to see how much their resume might be padded.

Just above special skills, most actors put their training. There are a lot of acting schools, each of which has a slightly different take on both the business and the appropriate approach to acting. I like seeing actors who have attended a variety of schools because it means they're probably looking for what works best for them. Call me a cynic, but I think finding the perfect acting school right off the bat is about as likely has finding true love with your high school sweetheart.

Of course, once an actor has done enough work to fill out a resume, he or she has probably learned the rhythms of an actual set and the shorthand we use to communicate, so that stuff is a little less critical.

Right above training, actors put their experience. They usually break it up into film, television, stage, and commercial, with the more experienced actors (or the ones who want to appear more experienced –– remember what I said about using special skills to see how much they might be padding their resumes?) putting the line "conflicts available upon request," which means, "I've done too many to list here."

It also means, "I'll audition for your Burger King commercial even though I shot a McDonald's commercial last month and if you want me I'm going to hope that nobody notices." This, by the way, is a really bad move.

One of the things I look for in the experience section is anything that might be interesting or relevant. Believe it or not, there are some directors whose work I really admire. If someone's worked for one of them, it means that he or she impressed that director enough to get the job. I give points for that.

I never take off points for working for a director whose work I loathe, by the way. Work is work, and it's certainly not the actor's fault if the director who hires him or her happens to suck.

All this takes me maybe a minute, by the way.

And what if your actor has absolutely no experience and absolutely no training? Well, unless you're dealing with a kid –– and I'm talking a kid under five or six –– that person has been up to something, right? Whatever that something is can tell you a lot about how to work with him or her.

A lawyer can't be a lawyer without learning to think a certain way. Just as a mother can't be a mother without learning how to deal with kids. Those things are relevant because they tell you how to communicate with them. If I find the perfect person for the role, I'm not going to make a silly detail like lack of acting experience keep me from working with them.

Spielberg has every right to hire only people who have worked before. But if we all did that, he would never have been hired for his first job.

Casting trick #3. Looks aren't everything. In fact, they're about half.

Unlike the Triumph Spitfire, this trick is actually both powerful and reliable, so pay attention.

The first thing I do when I get a casting log is draw a line from top to bottom, halfway through the area designated for comments.

That's not what makes this trick so powerful (or reliable). The part that makes it powerful (and reliable) is how I label the sections. One side is "Look"; the other side is "Performance". What this does is allow me to evaluate each actor for both how well he or she suits the role superficially and how convincingly he or she plays the part.

Sure, the guy may look like the quintessential matador, but if he's a lousy actor we're better off going with someone who doesn't look quite as convincing, but can actually perform. (I'm amazed that in 16 years of working with casting directors, producers, copywriters, art directors, and creative directors as a director –– plus all those years of working as a copywriter on shoots with other directors –– I never once came across anybody else who broke it down like this.)

I encourage the ad agency people I'm working with to break down their evaluations the same way. This does two things. The first is to keep the conversation focused –– if we don't agree about a particular person, we can more easily figure out why. The second is a bit more subtle, and that's so I can get a clearer picture of how the agency people see their spot. We all have our own pictures of what a shaman looks like, and it's often only when we each respond to the actors who come in that I can see clearly what the art director and copywriter had in mind when they came up with the concept. Which, by the way, are often wildly different from each other.

I'll give you another tip. The evaluations are relative, not absolute. What I mean is that you could go insane trying to find the perfect space hooker when all you need to find is the best space hooker.

There's a neat implication to this that I discovered about ten years ago. I rate each actor on a one to ten basis, with ten being the highest, so the first person –– no matter how good or how bad –– gets a five for both look and performance.

If the next person is better, he or she might get a six. Nobody ever gets a ten because I always want to leave open the possibility that somebody else better might come along. I've passed on people who scored 9.875. And I've cast people who scored a five.

Sometimes, I can't help but give a zero, because I can't imagine how anybody could possibly be worse. Invariably, somebody is, which only goes to show that my system, as good as it sounds in theory, is pretty hard to put into practice.

At the end of the session, I take the top scorers for both looks and performance and figure out which contestant meets both criteria the best. If the ones that look the best aren't the same as the ones that perform the best –– and this is the case a lot –– I make a judgement call.

But then, that's what I get paid for. To make judgement calls. My particular way of evaluating casting is only one way for me to make the best decision.

If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, find another way that does.

Casting trick #1. First impressions count.

Now that I've given an overview of the casting process (http://tinyurl.com/knnno6) and told you how I write a casting breakdown (http://tinyurl.com/ld7dyx), let me give you a trick I use to help make casting go smoother: The first thing I do when I review my submissions is watch each actor slate and jot down my first impression of him or her.

This isn't stuff like "Yuck!" or "Hottie." It's the first thing that comes to mind about the person. On the job I just finished, some of my notes are "Irish cop," "1950s news anchor," and "Al's friend from that New Year's thing."

These aren't judgments. They're impressions. And it doesn't matter if anybody else can make sense of them.

So what's the point?

Most commercials have more than one role and your first submission can be as many as 300 people. So you have to be able to keep them straight, especially when you need to discuss actors with art directors, copywriters, creative directors, and producers. Jotting down a first impression is a way of crystalizing it for me, kind of like a mnemonic device that helps me recall which actor made which impression later.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Brian, how come you do this with the slate and not the head shot?"

Excellent question.

Actors put a lot of effort into head shots, for the simple reason that it's the thing that makes the difference between being called in for an audition or not. That's good, at least in theory. The problem comes when the photograph goes beyond presenting an actor in a favorable light, which a lot of them do.

There's a talent agency in LA that requires its actors to use the same incredible photographer for their head shots. I love getting submissions from them because every single photo is beautiful. But I also hate getting submissions from them because a lot of the actors who come in only bear a passing resemblance to the person in the photo.

Besides, an impression isn’t necessarily based on how someone looks. It could be based on how they move, how they speak, or the way their clothes hang.

You can learn a lot about casting from my ex-girlfriend's pot roast.

I had a girlfriend once who wasn't much of a cook. One thing she made pretty well, though, was pot roast.

I love pot roast, so I asked her to teach me how to make it.

The first step was the one that threw me. "Start by cutting off the end of the roast," she said.

I asked her why, but all she could tell me was that that was how her mother taught her to make it. One day, she asked her mother about cutting off the end. "I don't know. That's the way your grandmother taught me how to make it," her mother said.

Fortunately, her grandmother was still around. So I asked her mother to ask her grandmother. The answer came back eventually. "We had a small pot. It was the only way to get the roast to fit."

I know what you're thinking. You're wondering what cutting off the end of the pot roast has to do with casting. Well, I'll tell you.

Everything.

Directing, like cooking, is 75% common sense. Even if you have no idea what you're doing, you (and by you I mean anybody who wants to) can direct something that's 75% good just by following the directions. Just as anybody can follow a recipe and turn out a perfectly good pot roast.

That's kind of reassuring, especially when you've just been handed $400,000 to make a commercial. Even more so when it's $40 million to make a movie.

But if you want to do something better than 75% good, you need two things. You need to practice. And you need to pay attention.

My girlfriend made lots of pot roasts, so she had plenty of practice. What she didn't do is pay attention. So her pot roast never got better. She never figured out what worked and why.

And that brings me to my casting tricks.

Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to be doling out techniques that I've come up with that help me find incredible casts. I didn't pick these up by watching somebody else work. I developed them on my own, over the years, through practice and paying attention. So before I tell them to you, I going to give you the following warning:

Think.

These tricks work for me. That doesn't mean they'll work for you. They probably will. But only only only if you understand why you're doing them.

Do I have to spell it out? Okay, I'm going to. Don't cut off the end of the roast just because you heard somebody say they do it that way. Even if it's me.

Go that?

This is the blog I should have written before I wrote the last one.

You know how actors complain that they're treated like cattle? Well, there's a good reason.

Actors are to film what meat is to cooking.

Really.

Does that mean it's okay to treat actors like cattle? That's not where I'm going with this. The point I want to make is that if you find the best meat, you don't need to throw as many sauces, seasonings, and fancy cooking gadgets at it to make something tasty.

Which means that everything starts with casting.

Over the years I've developed a few really good tricks that help me not only find really great casts, but also work with the copywriters, art directors, creative directors, and producers who hire me. I already gave you one of my tricks in my last blog. I'm not going to give you any more, though, until I give you an overview of how casting works.

How casting works.

If you've never worked with a casting director before, here's how it usually goes down. You send out a breakdown, which is a description of the roles you hope to fill.

The casting director puts out a casting call, which is just a fancy way of saying that they let people know about the role. Depending on the casting director, the budget, the specifics of the role, and the time available, that could mean pulling head shots from their files, calling agents and asking them to submit people that fit the bill, putting a listing up on Craigslist or one of the online casting services, or trolling the comedy clubs, looking for new talent. If there's something particularly unusual about the role –– say you need a paraplegic rodeo clown –– they might contact the rodeo, the VA, local stables, and anybody else they could think of who might be able to connect them.

After a day or two (it used to be a week), the casting director filters through the submissions and asks the most likely candidates to audition.

At the audition, the casting director slates the talent –– which means asking them to state their name, then turn to face profile on both sides. The camera is then widened out to show the actor from head to toe and sometimes he or she will also be asked to turn completely around. If you're using a body part (for instance, if the actor is holding a can of soda), the casting director will shoot close-up shots of those body parts involved.

Then the casting director asks the actor to read the script. Usually a couple of times, with adjustments suggested by the casting director to make the performance more appropriate to what you're looking for.

There's a misapprehension that casting directors are cruel. And yeah, some are. But those are the stupid ones. A casting director is hired to help you find actors for your roles. Those that berate actors, make them uncomfortable, don't provide thoughtful direction, and are generally dismissive are going to have a harder time finding you the right people. Which means you're less likely to want to turn to them to help you find the right people.

On the other hand, the way budgets and timelines have shrunk, it's a wonder casting directors have time to say hello, much less work with the actors. And to be fair, actors have a responsibility to be prepared. I'm always astonished at the arrogance of some actresses in Hollywood who can't be bothered to change out of their yoga clothes or brush their hair when they're auditioning for a role that clearly requires someone attractive. Most of them do it because they want to be taken seriously as actors, not just as decoration. Which is fine. But if you're playing the role of a trophy wife, a love interest, or even a spokesperson shilling a product, you're going to have to accept that your appearance is integral to your effectiveness. Besides, you're going to have a better shot at impressing both me and the casting director with your acting ability if you come in looking the part.

Sorry. Where was I?

Oh right. Casting.

Picking your selects.

What you end up with is a stack of head shots, a log listing the names of the people auditioning, and a tape/DVD/link where you can see your hopeful candidates performing the role.

Up until this point, your involvement has been limited to waiting. But now you get to watch the magic unfold.

A lot of directors make a huge mistake at this point, which is to eliminate people who don't give them exactly what they’re looking for. They're looking for the exact performance they have in mind, but up until now they’ve been playing a game of telephone: They tell the casting director what they want, the casting director tells the actor what he thinks they want, the actor does a performance that he thinks the casting director thinks they want, and the director watches in horror as one person after another doesn't "get it."

If the project has a substantial budget, they either do another three days of casting,hire another casting director to see if they can do better, or go look in other places.

I've done jobs for ad agencies that are so caught up in this spiral of failure that right off the bat they'll hold casting in LA and New York and sometimes Chicago and Toronto. I'm not saying you can find exactly the right person anywhere. Especially if there's something really critical aobut the role, it makes sense to look in more than one place. It also makes sense to look in the most appropriate place.

I once worked on a commercial involving two Swedish speed skaters. Speaking Swedish. The agency and production company automatically held casting in New York and LA (we were going to shoot in Calgary, so we would have to travel our talent, regardless). It was only after we came up completely dry on both coasts that we were able to hold a casting in Sweden.

I know, duh!

Sorry. Where was I?

Oh right. Casting.

The callback auditions.

So you’ve got your casting tapes/link and your log. Now you get to choose who you bring in for a callback audition.

A callback audition is where you, Aspiring Director, get to direct your talent yourself. It’s an exhausting process because you invariably see more people than you have time for and because you have to develop at least a bit of a relationship with each one before you start working on the part.

Actors often complain that they didn’t get much time in the callback. The alternative would be to bring in fewer people, possibly missing the one who gives you gold.

The copywriter, art director, agency producer, and creative director are often –– usually –– at the callback audition, which creates several other problems and opportunities. One is the dynamic between the agency and the director. Do the agency people defer to the director? Or do they expect him to execute their vision? A lot of agency people aspire to directing themselves, and have no compunction about jumping in and directing the talent themselves.

Another is the tendency for copywriters and art directors in particular to focus in on one aspect of a performer. I’ve had ten minute discussions about an actor’s eyebrows.

But there’s also an opportunity to set the tone for the way in which the actors are treated. I make it a point never to talk disparagingly about actors, or to make fun of any physical characteristics they might have. Sure, if the announcer has a lisp, he’s probably not the guy you want to choose to sell Listerine, but you make the point and move on.

I also don’t allow any discussion of one actor in front of another. It’s just not nice. And there really is no upside.

The biggest benefit is that you get to discover just what the copywriter and art director had in mind when they came up with the spot. Often, they won’t even see eye-to-eye with each other, so having a chance to talk about the broadness of the performances, the physicality of the humor, or the subtextual stuff that deserves to be emphasized will help them see the potential in what they’ve done. And hopefully convince them that you’re working hard to add value.

Making your recommendations.

Once you’ve seen all the people, it’s time to decide on your recommendations. Again, the dynamic with the ad agency is going to have a huge effect on who gets what he or she wants. But I’ve figured out a couple of things that help keep the discussion on relevant points. (I’ll get to those in a later blog.)

What a lot of aspiring directors find disappointing is how little power a director actually wields. You have to come to consensus with the copywriter, art director, creative director, and agency producer. And then you present your recommendations to the clients, who not only have their interpretations of the spot, but generally get veto power on every aspect of its production.

I’ll get to things you can do to help streamline that process later, but in general, you present a first choice with at least one back up choice for each role. If all goes well, you have a cast. If not, you find yourself scrambling, trying to figure out how you’re going to satisfy a client and/or agency person and still create something the way you know it ought to be done.

By the way, that last sentence pretty well sums up the entire process of commercial directing. It’s fun as crap, but it’s also a lot of work that has very little to do directly with putting images on film.

Casting is like dating. Or should be.

Okay, stop it, you perv. This is not about the casting couch.

Get your mind out of the gutter and think about the person you want to be with. (If you're lucky enough to be happily married or in a long-term relationship, think about what you love about your partner.)

What came to mind? Age, height, weight, and ethnicity?

Didn't think so. And you know why? Because those things don't describe a person, they describe arm candy.

Guess what. Same goes for casting.

I'm sure you've heard it a million times –– story comes from character. I know I have. Well, creating a character is not just the writer's responsibility. It's the actor's, too. But mostly it's the director's.

So when you're casting, don't just put a call out for a "Male, 50s to 60s, caucasian." Fill in the details.

Here's the casting spec for one of the roles in the spot I'm casting right now:

CEO: Preston Beardsley III was born to be the CEO of a company like General Specifics. He has silver hair and a silver tongue, both cultivated deliberately over his 50-65 years. He wears expensive, conservative suits well and he’s generally serious –– some would say contemplative –– but he would tell you that his best features are his winning smile and firm handshake. They’ve done more than their share to close a lot of important deals.

See what I did there? I told the casting director and the actors who I'm looking for, not what the person I'm looking for looks like.

If you don't know who you're looking for, then don't waste your time (or your actors' or your casting agent's) bringing people in. Sure, somebody might walk in and hand it to you.

Somebody might walk in and hand you a chicken enchilada, too. But that doesn't mean you cooked it.

Never underestimate some of the things actors will do to get a role.

I once had to cast a commercial that involved a comic misdirection: The spot featured an older man, and based on what he was saying on the phone, his kids imagined he had found a new love. The "reality" was that he'd gotten a dog.

There could be no misunderstanding what was required by the script. The stage directions explicitly stated that the man would call the dog over to him. Still, in order to find the best possible actor, I decided to eliminate non-dog people. Rather than ask whether each actor liked dogs--when you ask a question like that, there's only one answer you ever get--I figured out a more oblique approach: I asked each of the men auditioning the name of the first dog he owned. And just to be safe, whether he was allergic to dogs.

The man we eventually cast was great in the audition. His first dog was named Jerry and no, he wasn't allergic. But when he showed up on set and had to interact with the puppy, he froze. The poor man was terrified.

Silly me. It didn't occur to me to ask the actors whether they were afraid of dogs.

The puppy wasn't stupid. She figured out pretty quickly that even though the man was calling her over, he really didn't want her anywhere near him. Ultimately, I had to take the man through deep breathing exercises to help him deal with his fear. Then I had to smear his pant leg with bacon grease in order to coax the puppy to come over. The performance we finally settled for was disappointing, both on the part of the man and the puppy.

Why am I telling you this? Because some actors will do just about anything to land a role.

It would have been best all around if the actor had declined to audition when he realized he'd have to work with a dog. But I'm sure the allure of starring in a regional phone commercial was just too great. He convinced himself that he'd be able to overcome his fear, just as the woman who landed the role of the cowboy in another commercial I directed figured she'd have time to learn how to ride a horse like an expert between the time she was cast and the day we started shooting.

Over the years, I've developed some techniques that help flush out the liars. I've learned to bring a dog to the audition for roles that require interacting with them. And when it's impractical to have a horse at the casting session, I'll ask questions that only an experienced rider should be able to answer--for instance, about the his or her favorite type of saddle.

But there's another form of duplicity that in some ways is more insidious than claiming you can speak French, rappel down a mountain, or swallow fire.

Flirting.

I can't tell you how many actresses (and actors, too) have come on to me in the hopes of landing a part. Some have gone so far as to... well, I'll let you use your imagination. Let's just say that for an average-looking, kind of scrawny, balding, middle-aged guy, I'm incredibly sexy.

Only I know better.

I know that some actors will do whatever it takes to land a role. And I know that once they've landed it, it falls to me to get the most authentic performance I can from them.

Someday, I'll write a blog about the particular system I've developed for casting. For now, though, suffice it to say that as much as I love to believe that the Victoria's Secret model really would love to meet me for drinks afterward (and yes, this really happened on a beer commercial I directed), the reason I'm in the room is to determine whether she's going to create the most convincing portrayal for the role.

If she is, sure I'll go meet her for a drink. I mean, I'm not an idiot.