Casting: Unsung Parts of Entertainment Industry

One of the unsung aspects of the filmmaking industry is casting the film. The actors get accolades for their roles, but how did they end up in that role, in that particular film, to begin with? It’s because of the men and women who go through what must be thousands of headshots and reels, who meet with them for a few minutes to nail down their essence that would show up on the screen. The documentary Casting By highlights the great casting directors and their work through the trenches in a vastly under-appreciated field.

Focusing mainly on the queen of casting, Marion Dougherty, we learn the history of the profession as it shifted from television in New York City like the Kraft series, to the studios before and after the contract method of acting, all the way to today. Marion was instrumental to the shift of casting someone based off looks alone to actually looking at their talents and skills to match them with characters. Instead of trying to find movie stars, she found actors. She went to the NYC theater, Broadway and off-Broadway and even off-off-Broadway to meet new talent and get them in to the TV shows she was casting. This lead to discovering some big actors you have may have heard of before – Jon Voigt, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Glenn Close, and Clint Eastwood just to name a few.

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To learn more about casting calls please visit the International Truffles Casting Fair