1. Practice meeting casting agents with your child
In order to make a good impression on casting agents, your child needs to learn how to communicate well with adults.
Teach your child about making eye contact, good posture, paying attention, speaking clearly and confidently and giving more than one word answers.
Practice interviews, but don’t over coach them, as their responses need to sound natural.
The most common questions that casting agents might ask your children are:
- Name
- Age
- Agency
- What have you been doing today?
- Do you have any brothers or sisters?
- Do you have any pets?
- Do you like school?
- What are your favourite things to do at school?
- Do you know any jokes?
- Do you like Cadbury Chocolate? (or whatever the product may be)
2. Practice various facial expressions in front of the mirror
Quite often casting agents, particularly when casting for TV Commercials, will ask your child to portray different emotions in front of the camera. Have your child practice various facial expressions in front of the mirror so that they are comfortable doing this at a casting.
Some of the different facial expressions your child can practice are: sad, joy & happiness, anger, excited and whinging (most kids are good at this one!)
3. Communicate with adults
Casting agents also look to see how well your child interacts with adults, especially those that they don’t know. Practice with your children and have them talk to your friends and colleagues etc. so that they get used to talking with adults, other than their family members.
4. Wear appropriate clothing to castings
One of the most common and worst mistakes is to dress a child in the wrong type of clothes and apply too much make-up (children under 14 should wear no make-up at all and older teens should keep any make-up to a very subtle, bare minimum).
As a general rule, clothes should be neat, smart casual. Your child should not wear any glitter, frilly dresses, little suits, bow ties or costumes and for older teens and make sure they don’t wear anything too revealing.
5. Relax before a casting
Make sure your child is comfortable and relaxed prior to a casting, remind them to be enthusiastic, to stay focused and to be happy and smiley throughout the casting. Casting agents are very experienced and friendly with children.
