I'm working on a short film at the moment, and we are ramping up preproduction.
My favourite part about getting to work on a new project is definitely the moment I get the make casting decisions.
For this particular short, we have 4 roles to fill. The male lead is a young man who has leadership qualities, a kind heart, but who gets bogged down in procedure and abides by the rules too much.
Not difficult to find, and a very standard kind of call.
I trawled the interwebz as I'm doing the auditioning process from abroad (they're in London, I'm in Ireland), and I put a list of dream candidates together.
Emailed them or their agents, put a pitch and the script in there and hoped for the best.
For most roles, I had two or three people I wanted to look at.
But for this character... nothing seemed to fit the bill. No one I looked at seemed to have that perfect balance between charming and kind, and yet with a few flaws.
I could only find one. So I contacted him, hoping he'd agree.
We had a chat over zoom and it was immediately perfect. I realized that I didn't need to find more people, I didn't need to look further. I knew this within the first 2 minutes of the zoom call. His attitude was perfect, his showreel had been perfect, his face was perfect, the way he carried himself...
It's moments like these when the auditioning process is ridiculously easy. There was never a question in my mind, as soon as I knew... I knew.
Do you have moments like that, when it all just... flows?
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All it takes is one! I've had this happen with collaborators, I'd look far and wide for help but all it took was the one person who was believed in the project. Congrats on finding your one!
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Yes, when we were auditioning for My Name Is Sorrow, we had I think 6 actresses auditioning for the role and all were good, but this one actress stood out and was the perfect choice. Her performance was great, so captivating and she responded well to direction and I could just ‘see’ her in the role.
We had a great day, but all we had was the money for hiring the room for the audition. I got home and felt rather elated with our choice, but then the financial reality dawned on me and I sat in our living room with the lights off. My wife came in to see how I was and I told it had gone well, but…y’know, the money situation.
She said, oh, this came for you today. It was an envelope and in it was half the budget for the film. So yes, miracles do happen, when you cast the right person!
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Ronika Merl - it thrills me to no end to read this post. It's amazing to see how you entered the Stage 32 community from Ireland, have gotten your script optioned and are now filming a short. I'm so excited for you! As for your question, yes, those moments when the universe pays you back and it just FLOWS, they happen. I think if you put enough good into the world then in the moments that matter most, it will flow. I'm having that happen with the TV show I just sold. We had high expectations for our casting and I just KNEW that the list was going to come back strong. When it came back, I was blown away. The flow just worked. I loved this post. On another note, what type of camera are you going to shoot your short film on?
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Amanda Toney I’m so excited for you, Amanda. That must be a great feeling. One of these days, I’ll experience what you are talking about!