Option

An option is a provisional reservation: A production holds you for a specific date because it wants to cast you, but its planning is not yet complete. The option keeps the date free without any fee being owed or contract having been concluded yet. It ends either with a booking or with a release.

Why productions place options

A shoot day depends on many factors: location, crew, several performers, and sometimes weather or permits. As long as one of these points remains unresolved, the production does not want to commit, but also does not want to risk you accepting elsewhere. The option is the compromise. It gives the production time and signals to you that there is serious interest.

Several people are often optioned for the same role, for example after a callback. In the end, only one of them receives the booking. This is not unfair as long as the production resolves the options in good time.

First and second option

In the industry, a distinction is made between a first and a second option. The first option means: This production has priority. If another production asks about the same day, it can receive no more than a second option. If the first production decides to make a booking, the second option becomes void. If it releases the date, the second option moves up.

For you, this means: You do not lose other inquiries because of an option, as long as they are properly managed through the agency. However, you should know which production is in which position.

What an option does not mean

An option is not a booking. It does not obligate the production to pay if it releases the date again. It does not obligate you to do the shoot as long as no booking has been confirmed, but it does require you to inform the agency immediately if anything changes regarding your availability.

Nor is it an exclusive commitment. An option concerns one date, not your entire professional activity. Anyone who wants to bind you beyond that needs an exclusivity contract with its own terms and separate compensation.

Keep deadlines and your calendar in view

The most common problem is options with no end date. A production holds a date and then stops responding. You keep the day free, perhaps turn down shifts at your main job, and ultimately find out that someone else was cast.

• For every option, ask by when the production will decide.
• Record options in your calendar separately from confirmed bookings.
• Contact the agency when the deadline has passed instead of continuing to wait.
• Release an option yourself as soon as you can no longer hold the date.

Anyone who shoots alongside a main job is particularly dependent on this clarity. The article Shooting alongside a main job explains how to reconcile shoot dates with a regular job.