The Master Guide / 04 The treatment and presentations · Writing the treatment
Casting the faces
Three to five faces per role, one of them a bold reading, chosen on six points.
Three to five faces per role, one of them a bold reading, chosen on six points.
Make the candidates at the treatment stage [proven]: 3–5 per role, written from the casting sheet's decisions.
Each candidate is one identity close-up in flat light on grey, plus one casting still in the film's light (see Photoreal anchors (Nano Banana Pro) → Close-ups and casting stills).
The smiling close-up. Option: use it when the script has a smile or laugh in a close or medium shot [single strong source]: one for the character who smiles or laughs.
A real person's face comes only from photos you pick.
Vary age, build, origin and asymmetry across the cast. Never "beautiful" or "perfect features".
At least one candidate per role is a deliberate bold reading [proven]: against the obvious type, yet true to the brief, the city and the class, and never a caricature.
Estimate the batch before you make it, and check every candidate at full size.
The casting rubric [best available, not yet validated]. Score each candidate "strong" or "weak" on each point:
Specific: the role, the city and the class read at once; nothing a stock photo would give.
Distinctive at thumbnail size: one feature that survives a phone screen (a brow, a gap in the teeth, a jaw).
Not the AI-average face: asymmetry, real skin, an age that shows.
Carries the film's light: the casting still holds the treatment's key without turning plastic.
Fits the cast: contrast with the others in age, build, colouring and silhouette.
Plays the register: the face tells who the person is before a line (comedy), or holds a thought without acting it (drama). For comedy: could this face get the laugh before a line?
Recommend the candidate strongest on the most points, naming the point that decided it and the runner-up. Say which candidate is the safe choice and which the bold one. Record the choice. The face motion test then checks each chosen face moving; a bold face may drift more.
The casting additions to the sheet:
Lived-in body [proven]: one line of what their life has done to their body (hands, posture, skin, habits), written as visible fact, never a group stereotype.
Skin and make-up tell the day [official guidance]. Write two or three skin conditions the life and the scene would cause, and make-up as worn (what, how long it has been on, where it has moved). Flawless skin appears only as a written choice (the rule's home: Making it feel real → Skin, make-up and wear with a history).
Arab casting (how it plays in motion: Performance → Arab roles: dialect and gesture):
each speaking role's dialect and region, checked by the native reviewer;
recognition, never caricature ("a real {job} from {place}") [best available, not yet validated];
a gesture written physically, one per shot, confirmed by the native reviewer as Egyptian or Saudi, never Levantine [best available, not yet validated];
how broad a Saudi comedy plays, decided per project and never by default (decided; see Genres → Comedy and dialogue).
Movement register [official guidance], only when the treatment names a heightened or stylised register: 3–5 countable rules (tempo, how heads turn, what arms do, who stays still, how people walk), pasted into every performance block. Naturalistic films get none.
Why: casting directors and juries reward casting beyond the obvious. Bryan Buckley always looks for two candidates: "one risky pick and one safer one".