In cases when a star talent is being considered for a role, the casting director has the careful balancing act of timing when this information gets communicated to the agents. Some star talent will not audition for animation. This talent is called "offer only." As a result, if a phone call is made to the agent and the actor is interested, the creative team must be willing to greenlight the actor without hearing him or her. Most experienced casting directors know who will and will not read for them. In such cases, the casting director can pull previous work together on an audio cassette for the producer, buyer and director to listen to for some background. Everyone including the casting director, voice director (if applicable), buyer/executive, director and producer should be completely in sync in terms of who they want to go after and what strategies they will use to get the actor to sign on.

On one project that I (Catherine) produced, the casting director took it upon herself to offer a lead part to a very high-profile actor with whom she had a personal relationship. The good news was the actor was very interested in the role. The bad news was that this choice of talent was an offer-only person and the creator and creative executive assigned to the show did not consider him the best choice. Given the stature of the actor, it was impossible for the studio to back out of hiring him. This misstep by the casting director created a great deal of stress on the production. First, we were forced to use a talent that we considered inappropriate. Second, the talent refused to be recorded with the rest of the cast, and we had to spend additional money to record him separately and cater to his specific needs. The casting director had the best interests of the project in mind, but failed to discuss her plans with us. As a producer, I learned that I should have double-checked that everyone was on the same page before the casting director had any conversations with the talent.

In order to prepare the talent for an audition, specific material should be sent to them before the casting session and should be made available on the actual day of the session. For a large project, a casting coordinator may be hired to help the casting director. It is the casting coordinator's duty to schedule talent for auditions (a typical audition slot for animation is 5 to 10 minutes of record time for the actor), process any necessary paperwork, and prepare the following materials:

• Casting bible: The casting bible is a written description of the project and the characters to be cast, including any pertinent information, such as personality, age and vocal quality. Character designs are also included in the casting bible.

• Script: It is important that this is the most recent version of the production script.

• General information sheet: This sheet includes the time of call, location and parking instructions for the recording facility. The actor should also be told who or what character they are auditioning for.

• Sides: Sides are portions of the script specific to a character that best reflect their personality. These sides are read by the actors and recorded during the casting session. The casting director, voice director or producer usually chooses the sides.

• Visual materials: This includes any color artwork that shows the characters and their environment. If the project is based on published material with illustrations that are used as reference on the show, it is useful to have them on hand.

The casting session takes place in a recording studio. Generally, the producer, director and casting director attend these sessions. Depending on the director, there may or may not be a voice director hired to direct and communicate with the talent. Some animation directors are not comfortable playing this role. In feature production, the director usually directs the talent. In this book, we refer to the individual responsible for directing the actors as the voice director. The voice director has the actors read their sides individually or with other actors playing opposite parts. Often on television shows and direct-to-video projects, actors are given sides for several parts as it is cost effective to have a versatile talent that can play different parts. Working with the casting director, the producer ensures that the session is moving on schedule, allowing for extensions with certain actors and schedule changes throughout the day when people drop out or are late.