Spotlight if you don’t already know, is the most prestigious and
oldest casting organisation in the UK – if not the world.A spotlight
headshot is an integral part of the directory. It used to be a series of
huge heavy directories where actors, performers and drama students
would advertise themselves. Casting directors and agents would scour
those directories looking for suitable actors.
When visiting the offices of an agent or casting director it was
always one of the first things you would see – multiple large volumes
broken down into alphabetical sections of actors. Nowadays Spotlight is
online and the book no longer exists though Spotlight is still the
gold-standard casting directory.
To catch the eye of those looking through the directory – of
literally hundreds of actors – every actor needs an eye-catching
headshot. This is absolutely crucial at the beginning of their career,
but why is this so important? An actor at the start of their career is
an unknown quantity – casting directors will not have encountered you
before, you don’t have a 
body of work behind you and your CV is usually filled with performances from drama school or local theatre groups.
Obviously when your acting career is more established and your CV
looks more healthy you’ll be better known within the business. At this
point, even though your headshot is still very important it’s not as
critical as it is at the start of your career.
Ok, so what is a Spotlight headshot?
The function of a classic Spotlight headshot is to appeal to as many
roles as possible. It should allow casting directors to ‘put a
character’ on you rather than your headshot appealing to a specific
character type.
How do you achieve this?
Much of this depends on your headshot photographer and their
knowledge of headshots. Essentially a classic Spotlight headshot should
be warm and friendly. The eyes are the most important part of any
headshot, – without realising it our attention is naturally drawn to the eyes of a headshot. read this article here Instant Headshot Impact? to see how little time an average person takes to form a judgment about a person in a photograph.