Our casting brief for a shoot is one paragraph long. It describes a person: what they do on a Saturday, what they would carry, how they hold a cup. It says nothing about the face, the height or the hair.
We started writing briefs this way after a shoot that went wrong in the most polished way. Every model matched the mood board. Every frame looked like an advert for someone else's brand. Nobody in the pictures had ever bought the product, and it showed in their hands.
What goes in the paragraph
Who the person is. "Works mornings at a café counter and drinks the matcha on her break." "Rebuilds bikes in a garage and wears the same jacket every day."
What they would do with the product. Open it, pour it, wear it to work, give it away. Carlisle shoots the action, so the brief has to name one.
Where they would be. A kitchen, a bus stop, a market on a Friday. The place tells the casting agent more about a person than any reference photograph.
That is all. No adjectives about looks. No "fresh", no "edgy", and no age band unless the product has one.
Two of the Dendezeiro cast, on the steps between setups.
A mood board describes a face. A brief describes a person, and only a person knows how to hold the product.
Ruth Calloway
Founder
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Origin®
Who turns up
Briefs like this fill a wider room. Agents send people they would not have sent for a mood board: a baker, a student, a retired pilot, a pair of sisters. We meet them at Lime House, hand them the product and watch what they do with it before anyone picks up a camera.
For Dendezeiro we cast a barber, two students and a courier who rides a scooter like the one in the campaign. None of them had modelled before. All of them could stand in the noon sun without squinting.
The person who opens the box without being told how usually gets the job. In packaging work, hands matter more than cheekbones. A pack held by someone who knows it looks like it belongs to them.
What it costs
It takes longer. A looks brief fills a casting in a day. A person brief takes three, because we meet more people and talk to each of them.
It also asks more of the client. Founders sometimes want the face from the mood board. We show them the casting tapes instead, and they usually pick the person who handled the product best.
We will keep paying for the extra two days. The pictures look like people because they are.
