Transform Your Ad Audition!: An Actor's Guide to the Commercial Casting Process

By Gabriella Maselli McGrail

Actors need ads! But how do you get your foot in that studio for a casting, let alone be confirmed for the job by the director, advertising agency and client? There are only a handful of accomplished actors that book ads time and time again in such a competitive industry.

Transform Your Ad Audition! offers actors a unique approach to preparing and auditioning for commercials to maximize their chances of success. It includes a first-hand account of the casting process, transformative audition methods, and advantageous studio technique. Any beginner or seasoned actor looking to land a TV Commercial will find this practical insight career changing.

There is an art to commercial acting, it is not based on looks and luck!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483532257

Book preview

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PART 1: THE CASTING PROCESS IN ADVERTISING

Chapter 1

How an ad is born

The people and agencies involved in initiating an ad.

The Client, a company, wants to launch their product. They may hire a media agency and use market research to determine the consumer demographic to target for this product. They devise the most effective advertising strategy to promote this product and an accompanying budget.

If it's a commercial for TV and/or Cinema, also referred to as a TVC (Television Commercial) or Ad (advertisement) the client hires the services of a creative agency, an Advertising Agency. Advertising agencies have to bid for contracts in a highly competitive industry, where accounts are worth millions of dollars. The job is awarded to an agency based on budgets, competitive accounts, previous campaigns, and creative affinity. When an agency wins an account it is generally for a certain length of time, so pleasing the client is crucial. Sometimes a larger company hires different agencies for access to particular demographics. A smaller company may hire an advertising agency on a one-off basis for a particular promotion.

Within the advertising agency there are teams such as Account Managers and Producers, as well as the Creative Team headed by the Creative Director, with Copywriters and Art Directors, each assigned one or a handful of clients or accounts, depending on the size of the agency. This team of people liaises with the client to determine the nature of advertising required for their product based on the client's research and objectives.

The Directors develop the look and feel of the ad and the Writers put together the script, words and dialogue. Copywriters need to take into account all the criteria presented by the client, and heel their creative ideas to suit. They bounce ideas around until the client is satisfied with the result.

The advertising agency handles the budget and is the company that contracts the performers (talent) and pays the actors' invoices. They discuss quotes and fees with the casting agency, and liaise with the clients for the life of the campaign or contract, in terms of its usages: for example, whether it is going to play nationally or just in one state; be sold to another country; air for a standard 12 months or for 3 months; involve options like print and cinema and ensuing rollovers. The advertising agency bills the clients for all these costs, and their own healthy fees.

Once scripts are approved, the advertising agency needs to choose a Director and his/her Production Company to make the ad. There are thousands of production companies all around the world, ranging in size, and representing any number of directors. Every director has a Producer, who can be attached to the production company exclusively or on a freelance basis. The production team offers a more technical service. It consists of the hands-on people who actually make the commercial. They are all constantly pitching for jobs, in commercials, films, TV, music videos, documentaries. The majority of production companies and TVC directors work exclusively in advertising, as this may be their preferred media and creative expression, and/or has a higher turnover of work, and therefore more profits.

Generally, the advertising agency will brief three production companies, again in a competitive bid for the job. The production company will be given the script and schedule to be shot and delivered a ballpark budget that the agency wants to spend on talent. Mostly these directors are invited to pitch for the job based on their prior work. So directors get typecast too; they pitch a hole and it's the vein of their career … they might get stuck doing children or food.

The director compiles a Director's Treatment, based on the script and briefing, which is a document ranging from 4 to 30 pages outlining how the commercial will feel and look, the tone and style, details on design and casting – their vision for it. This is presented by the Production Company to the advertising agency along with a budget, terms and conditions, and schedule, ideally in a meeting face to face. The director sells his/her vision and the producer constantly monitors the budget so that ideas don't become unrealistic: It might sound awesome hanging 10 guys from a cloud, but it will cost an extra $100,000 …

The Creative Team ultimately selects the production company based on the director's treatment of the script. However, word is that the Art Director, Copywriter and Creative Director above them already have a pretty good idea which director and production company they want, for any number of reasons, such as they have worked with them before; they have seen their reel; they are winning awards and have done breakthrough work … or they are mates! But observing due diligence, they need to offer the client options, as they may have a particular opinion and they need to approve it.

As a production company you are trying to feel out whether or not you are 'the other guy', which can be disheartening but you still have to do it as it's the only way to get jobs – to pitch and hope this one time they will choose you. Sometimes it can swing in an unexpected way: you came up with something fresh or the guy they wanted is busy or does a poor treatment. Most of the time it goes with the guy they wanted though. Occasionally, a director, especially an internationally renowned one, may be hand-picked for a job based on previous work history, industry awards, showreel, and their creative trademark.

Australian directors could be living anywhere, from New Zealand to Singapore to New York: there is far more advertising in the US as the population trumps ours, but we still have a healthy market. Any director is just as likely to get a job in Australia, including overseas directors who don't speak English! I once experienced an Almadovar simulation on an ad …

The producer and production team then begin to assemble a crew and cast for the film shoot.

Chapter 2

Casting for an Ad

Once the production team has the go-ahead, the casting process begins with looming deadlines. The casting director filters submissions down to the best actors for the job in order to present a successful casting to the director and producers.

The casting agency

Most of the time, the production company (in association with the advertising agency) will enlist the services of a Casting Agency to find the right actors and/or models for the job. A production company and director may ask for a particular casting director, subject to the advertising agency's approval, though they would be open to the agency's choice too.

As it is the production companies that are pitching for the job, they include the casting director's quote for casting and talent fees in their budget. As such, casting directors are invited to quote on jobs, which they may or may not get depending on which director wins. They are usually contacted because the director, producer or advertising agency has worked with them before and were happy with their service. A producer and director who have the contract can offer a casting agent a job straight up, and together they will nut out the casting fees to fit the budget, much of which has been determined by the advertising agency anyway.

The casting fees tend to be standard, based on the number of roles to be cast and the complexities of the script. (Though a big job has been known to go smoothly and what appears to be an easy one drag out and run into all kinds of delays.) Within this quote it is also the casting director's job to determine how much an actor should get paid, by taking into consideration the kind of commercial it is, whether it is visual or 100% speaking, its media usages and the overall production budget (therefore the production quality of the ad).

Of course there is an understanding across all teams about the going rate for each level of talent, or how much performance you are going to get for how much you pay. A general perception is that a good actor will cost $8,000 plus for a standard buy out, a mid-range actor who is touch and go will be down at the $4,000 range and under $4,000 they may just hit their mark, but of course there are exceptions to the rule and surprises along the way!

Many actors do not realize that the casting director is looking after us as best they can, as well as trying to please the advertising agency and work within budgets. If, for instance, the casting director under quotes the fee for actors and the commercial requires a really great natural performance, they might find it challenging to get the top agents to send their actors in for it, as the fee wouldn't be high enough. Casting directors would love to always have the actors' fees on the high end, as this gives them a wider pool of actors and makes their job easier. Note that casting agents do not pay actors: they just put a casting budget together for the advertising agency to administer.

In Australia there are dozens of casting directors in each major city. Most of them work in commercials, as well as TV and film – some focus only on commercials, and some only on TV and film. There are well-established ones that have been operating for decades, and there are new ones popping up all the time, as well as those that have merged or jumped ship. There are casting agents who work from home and hire a studio for castings, while others work out of larger premises with offices and studios.

In the US there are hundreds of commercial casting directors, and a four-floor studio house might be hosting five commercial castings at once. Arriving at these places can be overwhelming as you scan your barcode rather than give your name, but once inside, an ad casting is an ad casting anywhere in the world!

Unless a casting agency is contracted to a TV show they are technically freelance operators. They promote themselves and build on relationships with clients (producers, directors and advertising agencies) through industry events, networking, marketing, referrals – and work history. They can have permanent staff or hire casting assistants and camera operators on a casual basis, as jobs come in. This is a tricky set-up, as they need experienced, reliable staff that will be given a lot of responsibility and independence when it is busy, but then not have much work for them in slow periods. Casting directors are regularly quoting, losing/booking, briefing, casting, wrapping up jobs. It can be an energetic, chaotic and challenging environment, as deadlines in this industry are crucial and hundreds of thousands of dollars and many jobs depend upon a smooth sail.

So actors, bear this in mind when you approach a casting director for an introduction, or a go-see, or when you attend an audition. Sometimes it can be a lovely calm and creative experience but rest assured if you don't feel the love it's probably not directed at you. In one of my first casting sessions in studio as a casting assistant, I led a massive casting all day long only to discover at the end of the day that I hadn't turned the microphone on. About 100 screen tests were mute! OK, so the wonderful casting director blamed herself for not having checked the studio in set-up, but the damage was done. If you had walked in the door that very moment, unsolicited, we had an urgent issue to deal