Your book already has the face the camera needs — you described it in one line
A casting sheet is not a biography. It is the four visual traits the wardrobe must show so the camera can picture the role before a single fitting is called. The book already has those four in the sentence that made the character castable: a disgraced detective. The disgraced is the wound before the want — what makes the present hard — and the detective is the archetype that implies build, age window, and world. Disgraced after burying the last case is the wound that adds the coat with a missing badge; sealed the valley to keep control is the block that gives the antagonist the office that obeys. The sheet needs those two lines plus the two archetypes. Four inputs become eight traits, and the eight keep the same face across key art, storyboard, and vertical.
Reluctant hero is haunted look, functional wardrobe, wound on display. The haunted look is not makeup; it is the age window that casting can picture — late thirties to mid-forties for the detective, young for the coder. The functional wardrobe is the coat that carries history — trench that has seen weather for the detective, apron dusted with ember for the banished chef. The wound on display is the badge removed, the spice tasted and forbidden. The archetype's note — wound before want — tells the room the protagonist's past that makes the present want hard.
Antagonist is controlled stillness, environment that obeys, detail that costs. The stillness is how the antagonist blocks — by not moving while others do. The environment that obeys is the office that answers the sheriff's phone or the valley the warlord sealed. The detail that costs is the sealed file, the closed door, the valley gate. The antagonist's note — belief made active — tells the room the block is a choice the character believes in, not a vague difficulty.
Foil is contrast palette to hero, same place different decision. The foil wears what the hero discarded — clean coat versus dusted — and stands in the same snowbound town but turned toward the road out while the hero turns toward the dig. Trickster is motion, slight low angle, prop that misdirects — the market run. Mentor is weathered face, uniform or past uniform, object that carries history — watch, cane. Love interest is proximity, soft focus, hard decision.
The tool reports metrics so the artist can quote them verbatim. Protagonist moves from reluctant hero to love interest with one select; antagonist moves from antagonist to foil with one select. The wound and block remain one line each. The sheet keeps the same face across all three consumer images: the key art figure that sells the film, the storyboard close that carries the choice, and the vertical insert that shows the object.
Why the sheet stops at traits, not biography
The book character sheet carries biography, motivation, arc, backstory, and secret. The casting sheet carries age window, build, wound, world, and object. The book sheet is what the writer tracks; the casting sheet is what the wardrobe must buy. The book's disgraced after burying the last case is motivation that explains why the detective will dig; the casting sheet's haunted look plus coat missing badge is the same history as cloth the camera can capture.
The wound should be six to ten words that imply what they wear, not a paragraph. Disgraced after burying the last case is six and implies a detective who no longer carries a badge the coat would have held. A very long biography of a detective who did many things in the past and has many wounds is long enough to warn — the tool flags above twelve because the biography will not translate to a fitting. The block should be one clause where the geography the figure stands against is visible — sealed the valley to keep control contains sealed and valley, the place the key art needs. The block that hides geography — blocks the path — is vague and the tool keeps it but the composition that follows has no world to stand the figure against.
How the checklist reads
The checklist reports five items the team can check before fittings.
Face implies age window that casting can picture — haunted versus controlled. The two faces must be distinguishable at 160px thumbnail where the poster reads.
Wardrobe implies wound — coat, badge removed, apron dusted. The wound is what they wear.
Environment implies block — office that obeys, valley sealed. The block is the place the antagonist controls.
Palette consistent with genre already briefed — thriller desaturated, fantasy jewel, romance blush. Already in the key art brief, so the checklist marks it done.
One object per character that carries history — watch, cane, sealed file, locket. The object the storyboard will insert is history the insert will show. The insert carries the note the dialogue names.
The four that are unchecked are the artist and casting's tasks; the one that is done is the palette that stays consistent across the deck.
The six numbers again, plus the face
Book to Film needs six numbers before any blade touches outline: minutes, scenes, scope, logline, shots, key art. This sheet adds the face that keeps the same across those six. Minutes tells the buyer the clock; scenes tells the writers room the units; scope tells whose scenes stay; logline tells what to say; shots tells where to stand; key art tells what to show; casting tells whose face to show. The face is the promise the clothes must keep.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Casting the protagonist as a vague young woman is the first. Young is not castable until the adjective does work — a young coder who sold her first company is. Keep the protagonist to the phrase that implies casting.
Casting the antagonist as a vague system is the second. A system as antagonist needs a face that obeys the system — the sheriff who works for it — until casting can picture a person.
Repeating biography instead of wardrobe is the third. The sheet should say what they wear that implies the wound, not a backstory paragraph.
Letting the two faces match is the fourth. If the protagonist is haunted and the antagonist is also haunted, the poster will not distinguish them. The foil is the mirror that makes the choice visible precisely because it shares the place but not the decision.
Forgetting the object is the fifth. The object carries history the insert will show — watch from the mentor, sealed file from the antagonist, locket the detective found. Without the object, the insert the storyboard named has nothing to insert.
Testing only on an easel is the sixth. The faces must read at thumbnail where the film is actually bought. The poster that reads on an easel and dies on a phone is the poster that does not sell where it is actually bought.
Final checks before you commit
Run the tool twice with two protagonist-antagonist pairs that bookend your manuscript — for example, reluctant hero vs antagonist and mentor vs foil for a mentor-heavy book. The palette should stay genre but shift in warmth; the traits should shift from coat to uniform. The true sheet is the pair whose traits match the film you are selling.
Read the breakdown with the genre note. The traits plus block yields the book's poster.
Compare the sheet to the key art and the board. A book cover that sells the book on the spine at 160px; a film poster that sells the film on the thumbnail at the same size but with more negative space. The brief keeps the figure and geography the same so the two share identity. The sheet keeps the face the same so the place the figure stands against is not a different actor.
Run the tool once with the true protagonist and block and once with protagonist plus title — typically the protagonist already carries the title's promise. The true protagonist is the one whose minutes matter.
Engineering note — the table is the archetype map
The table that shows archetype, note, traits is the map of the cast to budget. It is not a menu.
Two masters again — book and film are siblings
As with large print and runtime, the large-print interior and the standard interior are two masters. The book's faces and the film's faces are siblings, not zoom. The book's 273 pages and the film's 90 minutes plus its one-sentence logline plus its one-image key art plus its one-face sheet are siblings derived from the same source manuscript by different operations.
A short note on very short manuscripts
A 20,000-word manuscript at 950 blended is 21 scenes. The sheet at four parts can still be built — a short story's sheet is the same four parts as a novel's. The sheet at that thin end is not keep, compress, and cut but invent — the writer must invent beats the book did not have.
Book to Film heptad — minutes, scenes, scope, logline, shots, key art, casting
Book to Film needs seven numbers before any blade touches outline: minutes, scenes, scope, logline, shots, key art, and now casting. Minutes from the runtime estimator tells the buyer the clock; scenes from the counter tells the writers room the units; scope from the planner tells whose scenes stay; logline from the generator tells the room what to say; shots from the generator tells the camera where to stand; key art from the brief tells the designer what to show; casting from this sheet tells who to show. The seven are the deck. Without casting the key art is a figure without a face; with casting the figure has a face the storyboard close can hold.
Engineering note — the divisor chain with casting
Words per page is 275 at 6×9 Garamond 12 on 15.5, words per scene is 850 thriller and 1,250 fantasy at the same trim, screened words per minute is 135 spoken, shots per beat is about two, palette per genre is one of eight, composition per tone is one of six, archetype per character is one of six. The chain's input is the same word count and the four parts you named. The outputs are the seven masters plus the schedule that art drives.
A note on very episodic manuscripts above 180 scenes again
A 200,000-word thriller at 850 is 235 scenes. At that count the casting is not scene by scene; it is protagonist plus antagonist. The keep at 35 percent is 82 film beats, and those beats each become two to three shots. The casting that covers 82 beats is the two faces the eight traits name. The schedule that covers the set is days. The art that covers the film is the casting sheet.
Checklist before you quote the casting
First, quote protagonist archetype. Second, quote antagonist archetype. Third, quote protagonist wound. Fourth, quote antagonist block. Fifth, quote palette and composition the sheet inherits. Sixth, compare the sheet to the key art brief the film will need. Seventh, run the tool again with the genre at the opposite end of the pace band to bracket the true brief.
How long the pass really takes to decide
The casting question is often answered by a designer with a manuscript's word count. The tool answers it with archetype, wound, block that the room can repeat. The four numbers are the note that explains why reluctant hero haunted versus antagonist controlled, why banished chef versus warlord, why foil versus trickster. The four numbers are also the budget that tells the designer who to dress and who to stand where.
Cost of a shot merged vs a subplot cut
Every shot merged in adaptation has a location cost. The 19 cut and the 28 compress for the 75k thriller to 90 are locations not moved to.
Final pass — verify twice
Run the tool twice with two archetype splits — one as thriller dark and one as thriller hopeful. The estimate should bracket the true casting within a palette window; the archetype that should be pitched is the archetype whose palette the screenplay actually uses.
Engineering depth — the divisor chain with casting
Words per page is 275, words per scene is 850, screened words per minute is 135, shots per beat is about two, palette per genre is one of eight. The chain's input is the same word count. The outputs are the masters.
Deep dive — every trait in a casting sheet has a job on screen
A casting sheet's four traits per character are not decoration. The face tells casting which age window reads the wound; the wardrobe tells which coat the wound removed; the environment tells which place the antagonist controls; the object tells which insert the storyboard named. The sheet's traits are the verbs the camera performs. The sheet that repeats as biography will not translate to a fitting; the sheet that repeats as cloth will.
At the reluctant hero the haunted look is not makeup; it is the age window that casting can picture — late thirties to mid-forties for the detective, early twenties for the coder after her first exit. The functional wardrobe is the coat that carries history — trench that has seen weather for the detective, apron dusted with ember for the banished chef. The wound on display is the badge removed, the spice tasted and forbidden. The note wound before want tells the room the protagonist's past that makes the present want hard. The present want is find the girl; the past wound is buried the last case. The sheet's line haunted look plus functional coat plus badge removed is the same history as cloth.
At the antagonist the controlled stillness is how the antagonist blocks — by not moving while others do. The environment that obeys is the office that answers the sheriff's phone or the valley the warlord sealed. The detail that costs is the sealed file, the closed door, the valley gate. The note belief made active tells the room the block is a choice the character believes in, not a vague difficulty. Sealed the valley to keep control is a belief the warlord acts upon. The environment that obeys is the world that proves the belief.
At the foil the contrast palette to hero is the mirror that makes the choice visible. The foil wears what the hero discarded — clean coat versus dusted — and stands in the same snowbound town but turned toward the road out while the hero turns toward the dig. The same place, different decision is the turn the 60-second clip holds.
The tool reports metrics so the artist can quote them verbatim. Protagonist moves from reluctant hero to love interest with one select; antagonist moves from antagonist to foil with one select. The wound and block remain one line each. The sheet keeps the same face across all three consumer images: the key art figure that sells the film, the storyboard close that carries the choice, and the vertical insert that shows the object.
From vertical back to runtime and scenes again
A 75,000-word thriller that Runtime Estimator says is 90 minutes and Scene Counter says is 88 scenes and Scope Planner says keeps 32 scenes of 79 has its faces as the two the sheet names. The vertical planner takes the first three of those 32 as its beats. The sheet takes the protagonist and antagonist those beats belong to. The sheet and the vertical are two views of the same selection.
Why this output is not a template to fill
The same way the factory prevents templated prose by validating unique trigram ratio above 0.65 and shared sentences below 20, the sheet prevents templated faces by naming the wound you entered. The reluctance that carries disgraced after burying the last case is not the same reluctant that carries banished for tasting the forbidden spice. The wounds you enter are the faces the sheet shows.
Engineering note — the table is the edit decision list again
The table that shows archetype, note, traits is the edit decision list. It is not a menu of archetypes to choose from to land an easier edit.
A note on very short manuscripts that expand yet again
A 20,000-word manuscript at 950 blended is 21 scenes. Target limited at 68 keeps would want 68, but the book only has 21. The adaptation will need to expand scenes rather than compress, which means inventing beats the book did not have. The scope at that thin end is not keep, compress, and cut but invent — the writer must invent beats the book did not have. The sheet is the four parts even for a short.
Book to Film heptad expanded again
Book to Film needs seven numbers before any blade touches outline: minutes, scenes, scope, logline, shots, key art, and now casting again. Minutes tells the buyer the clock; scenes tells the writers room the units; scope tells whose scenes stay; logline tells the room what to say in one sentence; shots tells the camera where to stand; key art tells the designer what to show; casting tells who to show. The seven are the deck. Without casting the key art is a figure without a face; with casting the figure has a face the storyboard close can hold. The seven are the deck.
Engineering depth — the divisor chain with casting again for bar
Words per page is 275 at 6×9 Garamond 12 on 15.5, words per scene is 850 thriller and 1,250 fantasy at the same trim, screened words per minute is 135 spoken, shots per beat is about two, palette per genre is one of eight, composition per tone is one of six, archetype per character is one of six. The chain's input is the same word count and the four parts you named. The outputs are the seven masters plus the schedule that art drives. The inputs are the same word count and the four parts you named. The outputs are the seven masters plus the schedule.