A voiceover casting director plays an instrumental role within the voiceover industry. Many fail to understand the mass responsibility and sheer workload that goes into the role of a casting director. As well as this, so many voiceover artists fall short when interacting with a casting director. In this article, we will look at the role and relationships of a casting director.
A Day as a Casting Director
Away from the usual admin such as replying to emails, the role of a casting director can feel never-ending. Managing relationships left, right and center can often be a juggling act. Working with both the agents in respects to the talent and the directors in respects to the project, there is little to no margin for error. Being a casting director in voiceover comes with a massive responsibility. Imagine this, you are making a movie that is going to exist in perpetuity and will be seen by billions. Is it an unfathomable thought right? This is such a huge pressure and it is rarely recognized.
Agents and the Casting Director
Agents can be a casting director’s best friend or the biggest frustration day to day. Deadlines are often insanely close so a casting director needs complete trust that the agency will deliver a strong core of talent by the deadline. More to the point, the files need to be labeled properly, organized well, and to spec. Agents can sometimes test the waters a bit with what they produce, but really it is just not helpful. The role of an agent and the relationship with the talent is a whole other subject. Relationships remain strong and workflows fluidically when the agent consistently makes the casting director’s job easier. How do they do that? Make sure the spec is followed, deliver on time if not early, and go over and above with the content. No shortcuts allowed!
Voiceover Project Planning
Jobs range from hundreds of dollars to millions of dollars. The process of bringing in the talent often remains the same though. The process can be longer as a whole with a bigger project but ultimately the role of selecting the talent remains the same. Some projects may take a few weeks to map out, whilst others a few years. To put it plainly, an indie content creator might not have the budget, time, or resources to spend years developing a project. Meanwhile, Dream Works on the other hand might invest that time and effort into a movie.
Voiceover Casting Director – Next Steps
Keeping articles short and sweet is important and really this is just the beginning of this topic. If you want to learn more about the voice actor and casting director relationship you can read our next article here. This article also talks about the audition process and the casting director’s workload when it comes to looking through auditions. One final top tip in this article, remember, casting directors are people and thus should be treated with the utmost respect. They have a very important job to play in the industry and on occasion, actors are known to fall into an entitlement mentality – don’t do that.
Voiceover Casting Director by Alan Shires
