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Practice casting call

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Your email opens a practice casting call with real-looking applicants and tapes. Mark them ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and see how it feels. No password, and we never spam.

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About Open Casting

Made by casting.

Open Casting was created by Casting Director Catherine Willis, an RTS Award winner with more than 100 productions, and Digital Product Director Richard Morland, part of the original design team for BBC iPlayer. It is the tool we wanted for the open calls we already run.

Why we built this

We have both sat through the Monday after an open call: hundreds of emails, tapes the wrong way up, a spreadsheet nobody trusts, and a parent to chase before anyone can watch a child’s tape. We wanted the call to land in one place, the team to decide in an afternoon, and every detail to be deleted on a date we had promised. So we built it, for our own office first.

Catherine and Rich
  • Catherine Willis

    Co-Founder, Casting

    Catherine Willis

    RTS Award-winning Casting Director. More than 100 productions since 2006.

    Catherine is a Casting Director known for finding new talent and building ensembles across comedy, drama and the dark area in between.

    Catherine began in regional and West End theatre, spent six years casting drama in-house at the BBC, on Casualty and Waking the Dead, and founded CW Casting in 2006. She won the 2023 RTS Craft and Design Award for Casting for Channel 4's Somewhere Boy, and has four Casting Directors' Guild nominations.

    Catherine has run the kind of open call Open Casting is for: two days of open auditions in Bolton for Alma's Not Normal, street casting in Hackney playgrounds for the first series of Top Boy, and more than 700 auditions to find the lead in Changing Ends.

    Selected work

    • Detectorists
    • Alma's Not Normal
    • Here We Go
    • Changing Ends
    • A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
    • Somewhere Boy
    • Renegade Nell
    • The Full Monty (Disney+)
    • The Witness (Netflix)
    • The Ballad of Wallis Island

    CW Casting

  • Richard Morland

    Co-Founder, Product

    Richard Morland

    Digital Product Director, 25 years in digital. Part of the original design team for the launch of BBC iPlayer.

    Richard is a Digital Product Director with 25 years in digital, at the BBC, AKQA, Fjord, Diageo and HSBC, turning complex technology into services people use every day.

    Richard was part of the original design team for the launch of BBC iPlayer; ran the Nike+ FuelBand launch at AKQA; mapped the Guinness Storehouse visitor experience; led design across 120+ brands at Diageo; and brought digital technology into daily work for 14,000 people at HSBC.

    Richard's company, Sea Glass Digital, designed and built Open Casting. Sea Glass Digital consults independent UK businesses integrating digital technology into their systems.

    Richard spent around 21 days taking Open Casting from first idea to working prototype. He brought 25 years of web and digital product experience to make Open Casting accessible for all and safe by design.

    Selected work

    • BBC iPlayer launch, original design team
    • Nike+ FuelBand launch, AKQA
    • Guinness Storehouse visitor experience
    • Design system for 120+ Diageo brands
    • Digital technology for 14,000 HSBC staff

    richardmorland.com

The productions and companies named are the founders’ own work. None of them is connected with Open Casting.

Why we built it

An open call should not mean an inbox of 2,000 emails.

Open calls find people no agent would send: a lead from a school hall, a face from a playground, a real customer for an ad. Too often they run on an Instagram caption, a shared inbox and WeTransfer links that expire before anyone watches them.

“I have more time to actually watch tapes, knowing that actors and their information are being dealt with safely.”

Catherine Willis, Casting Director, CW Casting

Catherine knew what the call needed. Richard knew how to build it. Open Casting is one private link: applicants apply from a phone, every tape lands in one place, producers see the ‘Yes’ list without an additional login, and details are deleted on a date applicants were shown before they applied.

What we hold to

Three promises on every call.

  • Applicants never pay.

    Applying is free, with no account. Every casting page says so, and says how to report anyone charging a fee.

  • Data has a date.

    Every call shows the day its applicants' details are deleted, before anyone applies. Then they are.

  • The Casting Director decides.

    Nothing is listed or searchable. You choose who sees the call, who reviews it, and who is on the ‘Yes’ list.

Open Casting is a service of CW Casting Limited, registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, no. ZC241616. Read the agreement every customer signs.

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