DIY Guide For Actor Analysis
+ shortcuts for finding who moves the needle for financing your film
Thanks to everyone who weighed in on my Monthly + Quarterly Retrospective last week. It was great to hear from everyone and what you’re getting up to this Quarter.
By far the most commented aspect from that dispatch was about Actor Analysis, as it relates to specifically who can move the needle for financing your film. Ooof is that a pain point or what! lol.
Since I mentioned I’m doing this on a regular basis these days here’s a few tips to get you started on your own Actor Analysis….
👉🏼 Additionally, this month I’m going to offer it free for anyone who joins FS Pro.
*So if you want me to run Actor Analysis for your film project click that button above to join my private coaching group FS Pro and leverage my twenty plus years of expertise in this area and shortcut your process.
Mini DIY Guide For Actor Analysis
Here’s the steps I follow when navigating the process with clients
List out your realistic wish list of actors for the lead role(s) within your budget range - when I say realistic, I mean it lol.
Narrow that wish list down to your A list and B list based on creative choices, and include 10-12 actors on each of those two lists
Now take your A list and here’s where your network comes into play because you want to run that list by a handful of sales agents or distributors you have existing relationships with who would be willing to weigh in on current market viability for your project and cast list at the proposed budget level. To do this properly they will want to probably see the pitch deck and know who the director and producing team are in order to impart accurate intel. I usually email anywhere from 5 to 10 contacts during this step and hope for engagement from half - enough engagement so they’ll go back and forth with me a bit on the cast I’ve listed and then hopefully offer up alternatives for us to consider based on a market-first approach. This piece is key and often leads to cast breakthroughs!
3.a. If you don’t have direct relationships yet with a network of sales agents or distributors either bring on a Producer or EP who does, get yourself to the next film market so you can go door to door yourself and make relationships, or even cold email and hope for the best 🤷🏻♀️ Or if you’re an FS Pro member, you can tap into our Resource Vault for my hand-picked lists with contact info and shortcut it a bit.
Armed with this market intel, reshuffle your A list of cast choices and prioritize once again based on creative. Now you want to look each actor up on IMDB Pro and start to prioritize any reps whom you’ve worked with before, or know personally or even tangentially. This is where the real strategy begins and where you want start with the actors and reps where there’s the least amount of friction and best chance of getting a read without being a fully funded project. Reshuffle the decks again 💥
Finally you’re ready for outreach - one by one email each rep with a succinct summary of what the project is and would they be willing to take a look? Rinse, repeat, get reads and hopeful cast attachments 💪
This step can drag on for weeks/months while you wade through the list, wait for responses, reads, etc. but it’s where the rubber meets the road so keep going. Repeat the process for your B list if necessary. You can absolutely hire a casting director to help execute on the outreach or a hire a consulting producer whose expertise is Packaging. I get hired for a lot of this heavy lifting as well as advise FS Pro members who are DIY’ing it and utilizing my custom outreach/letter templates contained in the FS Pro Resource Vault.
5a. If I were starting from scratch, I’d make a point of going to either upcoming market TIFF or AFM in the fall to invest in relationships for myself for long term success ✈️
So what do you think of this DIY guide to Actor Analysis and on which step do you get tripped up?
Let me know in the comments below so I can point you in the right direction or help you get unstuck….💡
Have a wonderful day ahead and I’ll speak to you again soon!
Stacey
PS: If you found this helpful and would like more content like this, please let me know in the comments below! 👇
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