Casting Management Software for Film Pre-Production
The Story Maker's Cast Rates tool tracks casting budget and department costs alongside your script's actual cast list — pulled from the same script breakdown used for scheduling and budgeting, so casting numbers and production budget stay in sync instead of living in separate spreadsheets.
Before you upload anything
Nothing changes until you Merge
Every edit opens an A/B compare — nothing changes your scene until you Merge.
Your script is never used to train AI
Zero Data Retention on every model — your script is never used to train AI. Zero Data Retention means the model providers we send your pages to are contractually barred from storing them: your script is processed to produce your result and then it is gone from their side. Read the policy.
You stay the author
These tools read your script and tell you what they found. Where they suggest a change, it arrives as a proposal beside your original, never in place of it.
Your work stays yours, and you can delete it
Your projects stay in your account for as long as you use it. An account left completely inactive for 2 years is notified before anything is removed, and you can delete a project or your whole account at any time. Full terms in the privacy policy.
What “A/B compare” means in practice
- Character Voice
- “Rewrites only this character's dialogue — action and other characters stay untouched.”
- Alternate Takes
- “Two contrasting rewrites of this scene, compared side-by-side — pick one, or blend the best of both.”
Both quoted from the editor itself. Every suggestion lands next to your original with a Merge button; declining it leaves the scene exactly as you wrote it.
What's included
Cast list from your actual script, not manual entry
Because your cast list comes from the script breakdown, casting costs update automatically as your script changes — no separate spreadsheet to keep in sync with the latest draft.
This matters more than it sounds. Cast lists drift constantly during development: a character gets merged into another, a two-scene role expands to twelve, a nameless “Security Guard” becomes a speaking part with a hold requirement. Every one of those changes moves money. When the cast list is a spreadsheet maintained by hand, the budget reflects the draft it was built from rather than the draft you are shooting.
Speaking roles, day players and background — costed differently
Casting cost is not one number. A lead on a run-of-picture deal, a day player on a single scene, and forty background artists for a crowd day are three different budget behaviours, and the thing that drives them is not headcount but hold pattern.
The breakdown distinguishes the cast types the script actually contains, and Cast Rates applies the appropriate rate band to each. A day player who appears in scenes shot three weeks apart is not a day player in budget terms — they are a hold, and the schedule is what reveals that. Casting numbers that ignore the schedule tend to be optimistic in exactly the expensive direction.
Regional rate bands and the currency you actually pay in
Cast rates are regional. A supporting role in Chennai, Mumbai, Madrid and Los Angeles are four different numbers, governed by different union or association frameworks, and a budget that quietly assumes one market is not a budget anyone will finance.
Cast Rates supports regional rate bands so the figures reflect where you are casting and producing, and budgets are built in your own currency rather than converted from a foreign default at the end. Checkout and budgeting support 110 currencies for the same reason: a production plan denominated in the wrong currency is a rough estimate wearing a suit.
Where casting sits between the breakdown and the budget
Casting is one of the few departments that touches the whole pipeline. The script determines who exists, the breakdown determines where they appear, the schedule determines how long they are held, and the budget absorbs the result. Managed in isolation, casting is where those four documents most reliably disagree.
Keeping cast in the same project as breakdown, scheduling and budgeting means a casting decision is visible in the schedule and the budget as a consequence rather than as a surprise discovered later. That is the argument for doing it here rather than in a spreadsheet: not that the spreadsheet cannot hold the numbers, but that it cannot know the schedule changed.
Availability is a scheduling constraint, not a casting note
The most expensive casting decisions are usually availability decisions. An actor who is perfect but only available in two separated windows forces the schedule around them, and that reordering has costs in company moves, location returns and other cast holds.
Because cast sits in the same project as the schedule, that tradeoff is visible as a number rather than discovered when the 1st AD tries to build a stripboard around it.
Frequently asked questions
Does the cast list update if I revise my script?
Yes — since the cast list comes from your script breakdown, a script revision that adds or removes characters flows through automatically.
Can I track region-specific casting rates?
Yes — Cast Rates supports regional rate bands so costs reflect where you're actually casting and producing.
Is this a casting-call or audition-submission platform?
No, and it is worth being clear about the boundary. This is the budgeting and management side of casting — who is in the script, how long they are held, and what that costs. It does not post breakdowns to talent agencies or collect audition submissions; tools like Casting Networks and Breakdown Express exist for that part.
How are cast hold days calculated?
Hold days come from the shooting schedule via the Day Out of Days report, which maps every cast member's work, hold and travel days across the shoot. That is what turns a list of roles into a cost — an actor idle between two distant scenes is usually still being paid.
Can I model different casting scenarios before committing?
Yes. Because rates and the schedule are connected, you can see what changing a role's rate band or moving their scenes closer together does to the total, which is the practical question when a budget is over and something has to give.
What about background artists and crowd days?
Background is costed separately from speaking roles, since the driver is headcount and days rather than individual deals. Crowd days tend to be where an optimistic budget and a real one diverge most sharply.
Does it handle union or association rate frameworks?
Regional rate bands reflect the market you are producing in. For a specific union or association agreement, treat the output as a working estimate and confirm the governing rates for your production — the frameworks change and vary by territory.
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