Recently, Jake and I began the casting process as we set out to find our stars! As you may recall, one of the lessons I learned from the trailer project was to cast good actors because they help bring characters alive with a better sense of realism than most people. We had a goal: to cast actors instead of just regular students. Because “they are a different people, a multi-talented people, a people that need people, and who are in many ways the luckiest people in the world” [Spamalot]. Luckily, being theater kids, Jake and I have lots of actor friends! So we went to the place where you can find theater kids, a faraway land where few dare to venture into. A kingdom of endless rehearsals in a semi-lit freezing high school auditorium ruled by one they call Cynthia (our American Musical Theater Director). And true as dogs bark they there were the theater kids, in all their broadway belting glory. Jake and I hopped on a FaceTime call late a night and began mental auditions were we contemplated who would be best for what role.
What we focused on:
The first question we asked ourselves is “Do they feel like the part?”. We need the audience to believe that these aren’t just high school actors, we need to sell them as actual students with the characters’ distinct personalities who attend this fictional high school we've created. To do that, the first thing we thought of was if we could imagine them as the characters in real life. This time that thought was purely based on physical attributes including looks, tone of voice, and paralinguistic features. We are trying to convey accuracy, but we also have a short span of time to introduce these characters, meaning we need to critically think about them being recognizable on-screen; for example, can you always tell where Charlie is on screen? What about Miranda? Would you get them confused if they looked too similar or had a similar profile? If you only heard someone speak out of frame, could you tell who it was?
Some people we cast into roles early on when we developed the characters, we knew what they’d look like or based them off the looks of real people. Most notably, we based Isabella off of our friend Dani, so we knew we wanted her to play the role right off the bat.
After we had discussed a few candidates, Jake made a list of at least 3 people to contact per role. Jake’s theater background really helped us approach casting more strategically and be more efficient at finding the right type of people to cast. After we had our list, it was time to make a couple of calls. I have to give Jake the credit for this part, he coordinated all of the casting processes while I coordinated the shooting equipment (that’s a post for another time) and his choices left nothing to be desired; they were great!
A day or two into casting we had a majority of the characters already cast and we were ready to make a shooting schedule. However, some people unexpectedly pulled out, others were too busy on the days we were planning on shooting, which meant revisiting the casting drawing board. We’ve kept most of the original cast members as of right now, but we are struggling to find our two leads. We’ll continue to work towards casting the remaining roles and start writing the script tomorrow. For now, here’s the cast list so far!
Dani Dugan (Isabella)
Dani is a senior at CBHS and an AMT vet, she’s been in American Musical Theater all of her academic life and loves acting. She’s a professional voice doubling actress and has started on shows in Telemundo and Univision.
Jakob Binnings (Bryce)
New to South Florida, Jakob is a Junior at CHBS and a supporting male lead in Lighting Drama’s AMT 2 production of Monty Python’s Spamalot. He’s been in productions such as Legally Blonde and has done show choir for the past 3 years.
Ameerah Adetoro (Riley)
Ameerah is a senior at CBHS and is staring as an understudy lead in Lighting Drama’s AMT 3 production of Rock Of Ages. Ameerah has been in productions such as Mamma Mia! and is heavily involved in SGA.
Taylor Stark (Courtney)
Taylor is a senior at CBHS and is currently in Lighting Drama’s AMT 3 production of Rock of Ages. Taylor has been the female lead in musicals such as Newsies and Legally Blonde.
Jack Sussman (Z)
Jack is a freshman at CBHS and a rising star in the AMT sphere at the bay. He started as Gaston in Lighting Drama’s AMT 1 production of Beauty And The Beast and he participated in theater in middle school.
Jake Fretwell [yeah, Jake as in my partner Jake] (Garret)
Jake is a senior at CBHS an AMT vet, he’s been in American Musical Theater all of his academic life and loves performing. He’s been the male lead for a multiple of his MAT shows including the Lion King and Mamma Mia!. He’s also been in musicals like Newsies. There’s is no one that could play Garret like Jake; he IS Garret. We created Garret together for another school project about a year ago and Jake played him. Having the character in this project is awesome and means a lot as it symbolizes our growth as filmmakers and as best friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment