How Great Casting Can Either Make or Break Your Branding Video? One thing you should always remember when casting your company’s next testimonial, product, branding, or other video is that actors play the most important role in telling your story as well as the video marketing of your brand.
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How Great Casting Can Either Make or Break Your Branding Video
You might have a great script, excellent set design, and an amazing concept, but if the actor fails, your message will fall flat and your video will inevitably fail. It is due to this reason that the casting process should always go far beyond a beautiful headshot to reveal the true potential of the actor.
How the actor performs, his/her ability to follow direction, and the genuineness of their performance are some of the factors you should always keep in mind when building your cast or choosing a great actor.
The following is a quick breakdown of 5 of the most important qualities that you should be looking for in the actors that you hire for the next video:
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Headshots
Actor headshots should always be professional, natural, and only lightly touched up for discoloration, blemishes, or other imperfections. Simply put, anything that on-set makeup would do.
If the actor’s headshots appear completely filtered, over-edited, or dated, ask for unedited or more recent headshots. The last thing you want is to cast for a long-haired brunette, only for the actress to come with a blonde pixie-cut.
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Personality
The actors that win roles in your videos need to fit the demographic and personality that matches the viewers that you are reaching out to, also referred to as the target consumer. If your target audience is moms between 30 and 40 years of age, it is best to cast within that range.
Familiarity will help your audience bond with the actors, which is why they often tend to trust them along with the messaging that they represent.
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Versatility
It is always advisable to hire actors capable of playing a wide variety of characters and types since it keeps you in a safe space should you choose to modify the delivery, tone, or brand personality of your video. Actors with amazing improvisation skills may actually bring something to the table that you might not have thought of yet.
Improvisation can also help if you come up with a better idea on the spot or want them to try reading lines a few different ways. If an actor is stuck on a single note of a character, there’s a great risk of the video feeling one-dimensional too. Hiring an actor capable of delivering a wide range of moods, characteristics, feelings, and voices gives you options on the day of the shoot.
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Auditions
Having actors read the script for the video they are auditioning for is an important step for a variety of reasons. For starters, you need to see and feel what certain direction sounds like for your brand. The actor may obviously have a reel of characters similar to what you want, but your message and company is completely unique.
If you have the time to get actual auditions, whether digital or live, you need to ensure that the actor reads the script whenever possible. If the copy is not yet finalized, give them the latest version to get a good feel of what they are capable of doing.
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“It Factor”
You might love how great an actor comes across in their headshot, but smart casting always involves testing candidates to find out how they fit into their specific roles as required by the script along with what they can bring to the table creatively.
Impressive headshots are in plenty, but unless you are casting strictly for print, it is best to get all your actors in a room to find out how well they perform for the camera. Look beyond appearances, challenge them with different directions and see what comes out that’s capable of making the video a hit.
In that process, you will discover numerous amazing actor attributes such as personality, charisma, accents, clear pronunciation, and body language that are almost guaranteed to ensure that characters in your video truly come alive.
Need a video for your business? Call Orange County Corporate Video Company at 951-848-3950 or visit our website https://www.burnmediagroup.com/
