What you’ll learn
- Describe what a casting office does from breakdown to cast list, who is in it, who it serves and who you answer to.
- Know a session day and a desk day hour by hour, the documents and systems (Spotlight, Equity, the deal memo, the contact sheet) and the phrases, and have scored yourself against the skills a casting director hires for.
- Have found three real routes to experience this month and know the rules on pay, unpaid work, hours, tax, personal data, children and safety that apply to them.
- Have a Stage 1 CV outline titled Casting Assistant, a four-paragraph approach email to a named office, and know what a reference means in this industry.
- Have a saved plan from Stage 1 to Stage 2 and be able to say MFJF's five Stage 1 statements honestly.
Where this leads
By the end you will have written your own Stage 1 plan, checked yourself against MFJF's five Stage 1 statements, and know exactly what to do next: a mentor clinic, an Academy workshop, and Stage 2, the HotList.
Finish the course and you can build your personal plan: MFJF's three-stage planner for this role, ticked from Your Profile and your CV, with dated next steps and the CV line each one becomes.
The role and the casting office
20 minWhat casting does for the director and the producer, how a UK casting office works, who is in it, and what a casting assistant's day contains hour by hour.
- readFrom script to signed cast: how a casting office works8 min
- readWho is in the office, and what you actually do all day8 min
- checkCheck: the office and the role4 min
Before day one: skills, systems and language
20 minThe skills a casting director is actually hiring for and how to get each one before you have a credit; the documents, systems and phrases to be fluent in; and an honest audit of where you stand.
- readThe skills a casting director is hiring for, and how to get each one now7 min
- readDocuments, systems, phrases and the ten tips7 min
- taskTask: your skills audit, with a score6 min
Getting experience at Stage 1
20 minWhere casting experience really comes from when no office will hire you yet, the rules on pay, unpaid work, hours, tax, personal data, children and safety, and a task to find three routes this month.
- readWhere experience really comes from8 min
- readThe rules: pay, unpaid work, hours, tax, data, children and safety6 min
- taskTask: find three routes this month6 min
Your CV, cover letter and first approaches
20 minWhat a Stage 1 CV for casting contains and leaves out, the covering email that gets an office to reply, how to approach casting directors without annoying them, and what a reference means in this industry.
- readYour Stage 1 CV, your covering email, and how to approach an office8 min
- taskTask: draft your Stage 1 CV outline8 min
- checkCheck: CVs, emails and approaches4 min
The industry around the role
20 minThe wider map: the productions that hire casting, the agents who supply it, the bodies that govern it, the ladder from assistant to casting director, where else the same skills get you hired, and what the people in the case studies did.
- readThe industry around the casting office8 min
- resourcesThe casting assistant's library8 min
- checkCheck: the industry around the role4 min
Your plan: Stage 1 to Stage 2
20 minTurn everything you have produced into a saved plan, then check yourself honestly against MFJF's five Stage 1 statements and decide what you do next on the site.
- plannerYour Stage 1 plan10 min
- readHow you know you are ready for Stage 26 min
- checkCheck: are you ready for Stage 2?4 min
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Sources and references
Where this course comes from. Open any of them yourself.
What this course was written from
- MFJF careers guide: the production office the MFJF careers guide this course was built from
- MFJF careers guide: the director the MFJF careers guide this course was built from
- The Three Career Stages MFJF's Three Career Stages, the spine of every Foundations course
- Case study: Aimee, office production assistant
- Casting Directors' Guild of Great Britain and Ireland (CDG)
- Equity
- BECTU
- PACT
- ScreenSkills
- The CDG: Statutes (with updates as of April 2024) The Guild's rules on who can join: four nominations from full members, and for probationary membership two years as an assistant to casting directors.
- The CDG: Membership Application The Guild's application form says extras casting, casting research, modelling agencies, theatrical agents and other industry work do not count towards the experience it asks for.
- The CDG: Becoming a Member The Guild asks would-be members to email it first to check they are eligible and to ask for a membership form.
- Bectu: Ratecards Bectu's rate cards by grade; none of the public cards has a rate for a casting assistant.
- Bectu: Agreements and Grading Schemes Bectu's agreements with Pact include the Scripted TV and Major Motion Picture Agreements, both covering crew, and a Construction Crew Agreement.
- The CDG: Code of Conduct Members should ensure assistants and associates are paid appropriately and in line with industry standards.
- GOV.UK: Who gets the minimum wage Workers are entitled to the minimum wage for their age.
- GOV.UK: National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates The minimum wage is an hourly rate that depends on your age and on whether you are an apprentice, and the rates change on 1 April every year.
Check it yourself
This course is written from our own experience of the industry. These are the authorities that set the rules, so you can check anything here for yourself.
- Bectu: Unscripted TV Rate Guidance 2024-2025 Its only casting roles are 'Producer (including Casting/Archive)' and 'Development Executive/Casting Executive', and it has no casting assistant.
Every link checked 19 September 2026.
