Casting – Extras

Now I have my main cast booked and ready for filming, I needed to find 3 more people to film. Here are the positions and requirements of each character:

Mother of Phil: Hold hands with Phil and smile in a close up

Bully (Male): Point and laugh at Phil

Friend of Lisa (Female): 4 Close-ups of face, hands, both girls and sat on bench

                                      Talk to Lisa, however no dialogue will be heard

                                      Point and laugh at Phil with Bully

I knew that the Mother of Phil needed to be between the ages of 35-50 to ensure that it was clear to the audience that she was his parent. I was successful when asking my own Mum (Yvonne) to play this part. For the Bully I asked a close friend of mine; Adam Cartwright. I have used him in previous films and his acting skills were very professional. Finally, for the ‘friend of Lisa’s', I asked another friend of mine who lived very close to me, therefore it would be convinient to use her for small amounts of time. Chloe was also acting for someone else, therefore she has some experiance.

                                                             

Casting – Main Cast

This year, I decided to use Theatre students for my main cast. For my AS coursework I used friends to act in my film introduction, however this required re-filming 5-6 times due to laughing and looking at the camera without me realising .

Today, I visited Lincoln College Theatre Studies students. I wrote this breif to hand out to those who were interested:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Brief for Casting

For my A level coursework; my task is to create a 3 minute music video. I’m going to include a comical element, structured by a narrative style. After picking apart the lyrics, I came to the decision that the song represents an everyday romance. Therefore, I’m going to match the lyrics with visuals and keep to the story which my artist sings about. 

I want to include a male and female character both between the ages of 17 and 19. The reasoning for this is that it’s stereotypical for this age group to find first love and often naïve to its connotations. I want the young male to be displayed as someone who doesn’t conform to the stereotypical motions of the popular teenage (unpopular/uncool). The girl in the narrative is however the opposite of him, and he feels he will never be good enough for her. I want to subvert from the cliché of stereotypical ‘romance’ by not including heartaches and happy endings, instead I’m going to replace it by involving comical naivety of teenagers falling in love. 

Inspirations  

Billy Liar – The visual display of external monologue reflects different views on a situation. Represents what the character would rather be happening, or what could be happening.

Napoleon Dynamite  – A close link to how I imagine my male characters personality and looks, however not so extreme. 

Filming

Filming will take approximately 3 weeks, on random days. Once I have chosen my cast, I want to be able to fit filming around their personal timetable and my own

I have several locations in mind; internal and external. Props and some costume will be provided, however the main costume is every day clothing.

No dancing required, just acting. I would like my male character to lip sync, however this is only for the chorus’.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

I had 4 people who were interested, 2 boys and 2 girls. I chose Phil Atkinson and Lisa Greenwood as they had worked together in the past, and were highly recommended. I made sure that I went through everything that I required them to do thoroughly, and asking them if there was anything they were not happy to do. Luckily, they accepted to everything and we went ahead with scheduling. Phil lived 2-3 miles away from me and had no work commitments, therefore he had alot of free time for me to use him for filming, however, Lisa lives half an hour away and works on a Sunday, so I was limited to two Saturdays to film with her. Fortunately, I only needed Lisa for 3 scenes, and Phil for all 7.