When commercial casting director Craig Colvin gets the word to start the casting process, it's feet to the ground and a sprint for all concerned. The process begins as soon as Colvin and his Los Angeles-based casting company, Craig Colvin and Company, get a call from one of his clients that an advertising spot has been given the thumbs-up.
Colvin sometimes gets only one day to complete his work, then it's on to another casting project. So if you're interested in working in commercials, in addition to having the necessary acting chops you'd better be amenable, flexible, reliable, and pleasant. The rest is up to whether you're the type needed. Back Stage follows a casting session at Colvin's offices, from the time the CD gets the call to the booking of the actors.
On Your Marks: The First Call and the Prep
The casting "day" begins when one of the production companies that Colvin deals with has been awarded the commercial and places the go-ahead call to him. That conference call may include the director and/or producer of the shoot, the art director, the writer, and the wardrobe stylist, among many others.
This time the ad is for Hardee's, to promote its hand-scooped shakes and malts. During the call, the production company feeds Colvin the specs for each character. Hardee's is seeking women, early to mid-20s, attractive and sexy, all ethnicities. The scripts and storyboards (if any) are meanwhile being emailed to Colvin.
He immediately prepares a casting breakdown: the somewhat detailed character descriptions (this one asks for Midwestern-sexy, in personality and in attire), the shoot information (location, dates), the extent of the commercial's run (national/regional, network/cable), any exclusivity issues (geographic area, conflicts with other similar products/services). He sends the breakdown out through Breakdown Services to all the agents and managers he customarily deals with. Or, only if the job permits, he will look at actors who self-submit via one of the online services. The breakdown indicates when he needs submissions — usually well within 24 hours. "Everything is on the Internet, so usually I'm getting submissions within five minutes," says Colvin. "It's unusual not to have almost all submissions in within three hours, unless the town is overwhelmed with jobs and agents have an overwhelming amount of breakdowns to submit on. In the busy periods, there can be over a hundred a day coming out."
If Colvin gets the approval in the early morning, he might set up the casting session for that afternoon. Sometimes, however, the go-ahead comes in at 4 p.m. To make sure the agents and managers remain at the ready, he'll give them a call to warn them to expect breakdowns that evening. This way, he says, they'll check their emails or PDAs after hours.
So actors need to be at the ready at all times. At many points in your career, you'll get a call to be at your audition in two hours, says Colvin. "This is because of the last-minute nature of the job and spec changes and additions nowadays. We would like to give people more notice, but sometimes it's not possible, so it's either be there in two hours or miss out on the job." So have a current passport for overseas shoots. Keep your calendar with you, with phone numbers so you can rearrange your schedule. If you're a member of SAG, be certain your dues are up-to-date. If you're SAG-eligible, have at least $2,000 at the ready so you can quickly join the union if it's a union shoot. If you're the parent of a child actor, be certain you have work permits.
For most commercials, Colvin gets a minimum of 1,000 submissions per category of character. For actors in the 20s age range of all ethnicities — such as for the Hardee's commercial — he gets about 4,000 submissions. He will bring in about 40 actors per day. "I don't do cattle calls," he says. "So I won't bring in 200 per day." If allowed two or three days for auditions, he can see 120 at the most. And only one will book. "But do a good job, create a relationship, and you'll get more opportunities with us," says the CD.
Colvin must select from among the thousands of submissions for the Hardee's commercial. "The most important thing is the headshot," he says. It must give him a sense of a personality. If it's a posed yearbook photo, it won't behoove you to even send it in, he says. And now that the photos appear as thumbnails on the Internet, the face is even more important. "It's not the wardrobe, not the background," he says. Unfortunately, he admits, the process means that he misses actors who otherwise would be right for the role.
And, says Colvin, if you come in and look nothing like your headshot, you will probably be erased from the audition tape — wasting the time of everyone who got the actor there, the session director, and Colvin, not to mention preventing another actor from getting that chance.
Get Set: Choosing the Actors
Appearance gets actors past Colvin's first round of practiced glances through the thumbnails. For commercials that include lots of dialogue or an acting challenge or two (an unusual physical skill, perhaps), he'll pull up the résumés that accompany the headshots he likes. In addition, Colvin may remember and call in actors he has seen before, and agents may call and particularly pitch a client or two. But then, says the CD, "You go with your gut." Colvin has gotten a feel for likes and dislikes of the directors he has worked with over the years, which helps him winnow the submissions.
The next step after selecting from among the submissions is to prepare a schedule, which Colvin also distributes electronically. The schedule allows actors to be slotted in on a tightly packed lineup. Usually the casting sessions are set for the day after the schedule goes out. Colvin has found that if he puts the schedule out too early, actors show up on the wrong day.
Then he speaks with his audition-session directors. He gives them his notes from the various prep phone conversations, and he turns over the director's treatment — which sometimes consists of as many as 16 pages on the director's vision, ideas for locations, types of people he or she imagines in the role, thoughts on blocking and interpretations, and the like. Colvin and each session director decide on the setup for the audition.
Go: The Audition
As the actors are getting the calls and possibly the sides, the CD's office is preparing sign-in sheets, a bulletin board full of instructions for the actors when they sign in, and cue cards.
Despite these aids, says Colvin, he finds that 60 percent to 75 percent of actors haven't looked at the instructions or even any dialogue that may have been sent through agents before the audition. "They don't even memorize the first and last lines," he says. Another of Colvin's pet peeves is lazy acting choices. "Rehearse, make choices, and bring something to the table for us," he says. "If you're too big, we can adjust you down. Bring anything to the table. If you give the director nothing, he doesn't know if he can take you up or down." Also, he begs, please fill out a size card (available at the audition) before you're called into the room.
The Hardee's audition consists of three parts, each including a brief activity — waxing a car, sewing, working at a pottery wheel — and each with two brief lines of dialogue. The script can be given a naive reading, it can be read extremely salaciously, or it can be read with a bit of seductiveness.
On the first morning of Hardee's auditions, Colvin is in the room with each actor, as is his practice, while he and the session director are getting the feel for what will work, which usually takes an hour. So isn't it better to audition later in the day? It doesn't matter, says Colvin. Sometimes the client loses patience and has watched only the first half of the auditions. Sometimes the actors get longer auditions in the morning because the CD and session directors are still ruminating on the approach.
That evening the clients are given a disc with the day's work on it. Colvin gets the word that the women are being too sexy: The optimal readings are an innocent, matter-of-fact one and a slightly more flirtatious one.
On the second morning of the Hardee's auditions, it's 10:30, time for the first actors to arrive. Stephen Simon is the session director. He has prepared the audition room, including the cue card and activity stations so the women can be engaged in the tasks described in the script. Simon is an accomplished actor — with stage, film, and commercial credits, in addition to being half the physical-comedy duo Ten West. But this day he's giving all his energy to the young actors auditioning. When they finally show up, that is. Despite all Colvin's work in tightly scheduling the auditions, the first few scheduled actors don't show up until late afternoon. Fortunately the 11:30 is early, and she's ready to step into the room immediately.
She is cheery, friendly, and asks good questions: how many different readings for each line, which lines Simon wants differently. She slates. She takes a quick glance at the cue card, then looks into the camera and plunges in. Each reading is different, each is playful. She gets the double-entendres, even if she doesn't punch them up.
"What's my frame?" the next actor in the room asks Simon, so she can understand what the camera will be seeing. After her first readings, she gets a note from him: "warmer and friendlier" on the first, more straightforward version. She warms up the read.
But some of the next few actors are having trouble leaving the comfort of the cue cards behind. Simon kindly urges one, "Establish your eyeline with the camera before you give the line."
The women are starting to fill the waiting room. Now is the time the waiting-room etiquette should start kicking in.
Speaking of which, says Colvin, another of his pet peeves is audition-crashing. "I don't mind if somebody asks," he says. "That's 'permissive crashing.' But if you sign in without an appointment, that backs up my schedule." As for the future of crashers, Colvin says, "When caught, they will not be given the opportunity to audition. Either way — caught at the moment or later — they will not be brought in to audition for another job and at times are banned from our casting facility, and no casting directors that work out of our building will bring them in, as we share a list of crashers."
Simon gives group preps in the waiting room, so the actors get standard instructions and more time to work in the audition room. The prep outside the room takes two minutes. Each actor takes about a minute to set up in the room and slate, about three more minutes for the on-camera audition.
Around noon, another woman auditions. Her cute personality doesn't emerge until after the audition is over and the camera stops rolling. As we later learn, however, something caught the attention of the client, and she will book the commercial a few days later. Simon asks several of the actors to slow down. They merely drop the volume of their voices. But others, particularly those who are SAG or AFTRA, show professionalism and aptitude from the start. Simon asks one if she heard the group instructions. "I heard a little, but I figured it out," she replies. There's a huge difference among her readings: All are real, all are fun. She asks, "Was there enough contrast for you?"
Later in the afternoon, one of the actors is not sure when to slate ("Now?" she asks Simon when he tells her to); her hair covers her face, and she complains about being required to sew ("Can we have something more modern?"). But again, the clients see something in her; indeed, she is glowing with "old-fashioned" charm during her callback audition. She, too, books one of the roles.
The Final Lap: On the Callback
After the first round of auditions concludes, Colvin either sends the edited DVD to the client with first choices and backups, or he posts first choices and backups online. Sometimes only the first choices will be shown to the client, while backups are held aside on a separate DVD or link.The ad agency and production company watch and make their selections — sometimes with notes for the callback, even as ordinary as "Let's see a different hairstyle."
Colvin compiles the callback list. If there are only a handful of actors chosen, Colvin lists them all. If everyone agrees on a particular actor, that actor of course makes the list. Otherwise, Colvin's final selection is based on an intangible part of his talent for casting. He puts calls out to the agents of these actors, also letting them know about any changes in script, wardrobe, or the like.
At the callback, it's no longer just the actor and the session director. Interested parties sit in; they can include the CD, the director, the producer from the production company, and several reps from the ad agency — possibly including the writer, art director, and/or creative director. The shoot's director works with each actor after Colvin has done the slate and first take.
Each person present is keeping track of the work. They confer and narrow down the candidates to the top two or three per role.
The Finish Line: Avails and Bookings
Next step is to put all the selected actors "on avail," which means they're asked to confirm their availability and keep their schedules clear for the shooting dates. Colvin says there are two ways CDs do avails. "Some seem to think if they put talent on avail first, they have the first right of refusal. So they'll put everyone at the callbacks on avail.
There's actually no such thing as the right of first refusal [in this situation]. You can pay to hold somebody, but you're basically paying them a shoot fee for the day. When we do avails, it's basically checking your availability — asking if there are any possible problems you could have. Some people are afraid to tell us. We're saying just let us know if you have anything else on the shoot days, so we can alert the production company, so if they have to change the schedule, they can. If they love the person, they'll move the shoot."
After the callbacks, Colvin puts the avails out. "So if you're on avail, you have a one out of two or three chance of booking the job," he says. So it's important you confirm the avail with your agent. By this time the client usually gets involved in preproduction meetings and approves the actors, whom Colvin books, taking on the paperwork tasks and negotiations.
The process has taken less than a week. The commercial shoots the following week.
Colvin's final pieces of advice:
o Assistants have power. Treat them like you would treat the casting director. They can easily make sure you don't remain on the day's casting tape or get a callback or even another audition, as they are usually the ones overseeing the schedule and running the lobby. If you are rude, they can report back to your agent — or even take you off a callback sheet.
o Don't listen to what actors say when they come out of the room. Do listen to the person running the room.
o Don't be afraid to ask questions. Says Colvin, "I'd rather somebody take a minute to ask, 'I'm not getting the way you're saying it. Are you saying it's this way?' as opposed to being afraid to ask the question, just doing the audition, and tanking it. Same with callbacks. Don't spend all day talking, but if it's an important question to help your performance, ask. Be aware, and participate in it. It's your audition."