Former Ohio Univerity School of Film professor Jenny Granville never thought the title of book author would appear on her resumé.
Working as the head of enterprise for the School of Film, Music and Performing Arts at Northern Film School, Granville noticed that although there was a high number of books addressing the variety of fields of filmmaking, none of them highlighted the importance of casting actors.
After getting in contact with her longtime colleague and fellow author Suzy Catliff, the two decided to join forces to describe the long and tedious process of casting. After three years of research, interviews and writing, The Casting Handbook: For Film and Theatre Majors, has been published in the U.K. and hits U.S. shelves March 26.
“The whole process was actually very exciting,” Granville said. “I had grown used to the process of writing over the years, having written several screenplays and theatrical plays. Yet this whole experience was quite a tremendous thrill.”
The 214-page book features a number of interviews, including one with award-winning filmmaker Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake), who explains casting efforts.
“Jenny and I had been discussing the idea of the book for several years, built on our experiences of working in film schools and my knowledge of drama schools in the U.K.,” Catliff said. “In fact, a lot of the initial film school workshops happened at Ohio. It took a long while to find a publisher who was prepared to take it on and once we had, a year of writing to find the structure and style of the book.”
While writing the book, Granville said she didn’t quite discover any completely new or shocking elements.
“(Casting) starts so early that you really need to start thinking about it as soon as you can,” Granville said. “Casting the right actors is about as important as the process of writing and other processes in filmmaking.”
After an ongoing search for a publisher, the duo was able to publish with Routledge, a U.K.-based publishing house.
“The authors submitted a proposal to the editorial department for consideration and we felt it would fit with our list,” said Eleanor Pike, textbook marketing executive at Routledge.
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