Today I would like to focus on the Casting Process and how important it is for the success of your Film. Casting is one of the key components of any Film Project. Whether it is a short film, a micro budget feature film or a big budget film, ,casting is one of the key cornerstones of the success of any movie.
I would like to focus on two Different Casting Processes. Bigger Budget Films and then Micro Budget Films.
1 Bigger Budget Films $ 1 Million – $10 MillionIt is essential for these films to be packaged with at least one famous actor. Two is preferable.
Names (Famous Actors) sell Films and bring in much bigger returns. The Script needs to be outstanding and needs to have external Assessments where it is scored 8 out 10 or more. “We Screenplay” have an excellent service for assessing screenplays.
Famous Actors want to act in great independent films and will lower their fees dramatically if the screenplay is good.
Once a film has one or two names attached, then the Casting Process will start.
Please note that names usually do not test for the part as they are the key ingredient in getting a film green-lit. (financed) A Producer will hire a top Casting Director who will take care of getting the Short List for the Director and Producer to see.Actors will bend over backwards to screen test for a green-lit film that has stars and a budget of $3 – $10 million
Finding great acting talent will be a breeze. The hard part will be picking the cast actors from the shortlist. This is because there will be so many great actors in your short list.
2 Micro Budget Short Films and Feature Films – Feature Films 10K – 100K – Short Films 2K – 50 K Budgets
Here you have to do the groundwork for casting the actors yourself. You will have a non union film project so there will either be small amounts of payment or no payment at all. If it is a feature film, you must have a share of gross proceeds for each actor. This is another area and is covered in our amazing Flagship Online Five Month Film School . 
First you will advertise in all of the Acting Websites. In Australia, we have Star Now and Mandys NetworkIn the US, there are many sites including Mandys Network You can also advertise in the Best Acting Schools and see if you can find the next big star. You will have a casting process where you see all of the actors and you will have to see Volume
Get the word out that you are making a really cool indie Film. Actors on the way up will vey much be attracted to this The Secret of low budget casting is to see as many actors as you can, at the casting. Volume is essential.
For example in Tabernacle 101, we saw 160 actors before creating a short list of 24 which was then whittled down to the Six Key parts in the film. When we got to Round 2 we brought the 24 actors back in and tested them opposite each other. As we were making Tabernacle 101 without any budget, we shared 20% of first returns with our Cast and Crew.
Please see our Flagship Online Film School for Details
This meant that over several shoots over a year (30 Days total), we shot the film and everyone stayed with the film as they so believed in the film. You must put extra special effort into Casting 100% Energy to attract the very best actors.
This will contribute dramatically to the success of your film.
