Why don't casting directors have a category for "Best Casting By" at the Academy Awards?
To comprehend this issue, you have to have a deep understanding of how the casting process works.
Casting
directors are contracted by production companies and/or studios to cast
specific projects. The casting directors (and their associate casting
directors and assistants) filter through massive amounts of submissions
for specific roles, mainly through talent agents.
The
casting directors then audition actors for the specific roles being
cast. They then choose what actors that they personally deem "right for
the role", at their discretion, and they subsequently advance those
actors to a "call back", to audition for the director, writer(s),
producers, and for major roles.. the studio executives.
Eventually,
the right actor for the role is hired. The actor is not hired directly
by the casting director, but rather the director/production
company/studio.
Other than for small speaking roles on TV
series, the casting director does not have the ability to hire actors,
they simply select a certain group of actors to advance in the casting
process. I am not talking about extras. Extras are cast directly by
Extras Casting Directors/Companies.
For there to be an
Academy Award category for principal actor casting directors, the voting
members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would have
to be able to see all of the hundreds (and even thousands) of actor's
auditions for each role by the "Best Casting By" nominee, to be able to
judge whether or not each casting director nominee did the best job.
And
just to narrow down the casting nominees, there would have to be a
massive amount of that material available to the Motion Pictures Arts
and Sciences nominating committee. That is a logistical impossibility.
Directors,
producers, writers, and studio executives have the final say in who is
cast in specific roles, not casting directors. The best casting
directors do a great job, and they have a great collaboration with those
who do hire the actors, however there is no definitive way to establish
a criteria for an Academy Award category for "Best Casting By".
I
can elaborate much more about the casting process, however that would
require much more than I can post here, it would be a complete eBook. I
do want to elaborate about why casting directors are never credited in
films as a Casting "Director", but rather credited as "Casting By".
The
Directors Guild of America does not allow, by contract, any other
persons on a film being credited with the word "Director", unless they
are actually a "director" i.e. 1st AD (First Assistant Director, etc).
That includes the Cinematographer (widely called "DP" or "Director of
Photography" on the set).
Casting directors are some of
the hardest working people in the entertainment industry, but there you
go, that is why there is no Oscar Award category for "Best Casting By".
