Casting for Nonprofit Video

Think back to your favorite stories – what do you remember and love about them most? For me it’s character. In Winnie-the-Pooh, I fondly recall Pooh’s naiveté and Eeyore’s persistent pessimism. As a pair, they were charming complements for the other’s limitations. Quirkiness and the exposure of fatal flaws are what make great on-screen moments, but it’s really action that makes character come alive. What decisions do the characters make that reveal something about who they are? Perhaps those decisions also reveal something about ourselves. If you can achieve both, you’ve achieved storytelling gold.  And that’s what effective nonprofit videos are all about. Below are the questions I ask when casting good characters for a non-profit video:

1. Do you like this person? 

Is this someone you genuinely like and want to spend time with within moments of meeting them? If so, your audience will likely want to spend time with them as well. There’s no secret formula to this, it’s just simply a gut feeling. Likeabilty is key, even if the character is flawed.

2. Is the individual a good storyteller?

How does the person articulate themselves or explain things to you, particularly events from the past? Good storytellers are those that speak emotionally, use metaphor, and include detail only when it illuminates something greater. When we met Willie Carswell, the main character of our Emmy-award winning film Fate of a Salesman, we knew we had a great character.  He was telling the story about his first day on the job: “I got a bucket, a brush, and I went outside and I washed those windows. 40-something years later, and I’m still washing those same windows.” Let’s face it, washing windows is a pretty mundane task. But the import of this detail is that he gladly look on the job on his first day, and he’s proud to continue it 40 years later.  He knew, and we knew from listening, that this small story tells volumes about how he feels.

3. Do you foresee action in this individual’s life?

A good adage to keep in mind is “action is character”; only through action are you able to reveal character. What situations can you film that are happening in the present? These will present you with opportunities to capture action, and therefore to reveal character. This also goes hand in hand with our own mantra, “show don’t tell.” Seek out these opportunities and plan your production around them.

4. Does this individual feel invested in the project?

It’s important that we always find characters who are invested in the vision of the project. It may not be for the same exact reasons as you, but they need to feel that their focus and involvement is critical to the success of the project. We don’t pay our non-fiction subjects, so the feeling of investment has to come from a different place: a belief in the mission, a desire to share their story, or a hope that their story might inspire and help others. Without securing a feeling of investment from your character, you will struggle to get them to commit time to filming or to letting you know about filming opportunities. There’s also a greater risk that they will drop out of the project before it’s complete.

5. Does the individual have screen presence?

It’s difficult to articulate what “screen presence” is, but you just know when you see it. Do you gravitate to the person when they are on screen? Are they hard to turn away from? A screen test helps you to figure it out, and you can even show some footage to others to gauge their reaction to your character.

These are just some helpful questions to ask yourself when you cast a character for a film or video. The most important thing is that you are focusing on character, because character is action, and action is story, and story is impact.