Casting

What this is about

It starts with a breakdown: age range, look, language, skills, shooting dates and usage. Agents and platforms answer with suggestions, and the first round is usually self-tapes rather than a room full of people. A shortlist goes to callbacks, where the director works with the actors and often pairs them to test chemistry. Commercial jobs add a client presentation, which is why productions place holds on the dates before anyone is approved. Only after approval does a contract go out, and only then is the role really cast.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Casting is not booking: until a contract or a confirmed booking exists, the performer is free to take another job on those dates.
• Send dates, usage and buyout with the breakdown — actors and agents cannot price a job from a character description alone.
• Recall, chemistry read and client casting are three different rounds; budget the fee and the time for each of them.

With TillyGen

TillyGen links each role to the scenes it appears in, so the casting brief already carries the real number of shooting days.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.