It's important for me to write about my audition process of each applicant. This is because it allows me to get a sense of their potential quality of work and for me to get to know their personalities before Joshua and I reach a decision on who we would like to cast. For this short film we plan on having a cast of between four and six. Due to this, I decided to audition twelve different people separately that expressed interested in being involved as a character. I took a head shot of each actor/actress that auditioned and below I'm going to write a small summary under their photo saying what I liked and didn't like about their believably in a role or, lack of it whilst they were interviewed. As I don't want to show favouritism I'm just going to do their summaries alphabetically and we also took this photo before starting the audition process.
Amber Lily Mason
Although Amber has no previous experience in front of a camera, during her audition she managed to impress both Joshua and I by how natural she seemed. It was obvious she was slightly nervous through a couple minor mistakes that occurred. However, she showed a lot of potential as she could take criticism and build upon it quickly. She also has a natural but, approachable look which is useful to Josh and I as we want to try and represent both males and females in a positive light.
Bradley Michael Plokker
Brad was an interesting candidate as he showed some enthusiasm at first but by the end of his performance there wasn't anything that made Joshua and I believe that he would be a good actor within our film. However, his comedic timing was great as proven in his headshot above after I said "Pose naturally" he said this came to mind at first, this is why I chose to include it rather than ask him to reproduce a serious photo.
Caleb Gabriel Prouse
Caleb managed to stay in character the whole time without breaking focus or professionalism. He's had previous acting experience as he's been studying drama from GCSE to A Level's currently with notable performances in school productions such as: "Oliver", "The Depths Of Darkmoor" and "The Good, The Bad & The Panto". This fills me with confidence that he'd be a useful actor for Joshua and I's short film. Calebs' talent also extends into the music world as he's a musician that has had success within our local area. This to me is great news as it means we can ask him to compose some music to match certain scenes so he skill set he holds is very varied which'll help the film on numerous levels.
David Michael Jones
As David is in my media course I found it hard to not automatically cast him as we are good friends. However, in his audition he showed great potential behind the camera in the ability to remain in character without failing to continue or improvise if needed. He's also assured me that his schedule is free a lot of the time which has certainly made me consider him more for a role (perhaps a leading) as he would always be able to film with me and Joshua which would be very useful as there's no guarantee how smoothly filming will go so we need candidate who are free to do retakes, work late and be available on short notice.
Georgia Emma Dunn
Due to a technical issue Georgia's addition couldn't be viewed back upon and as Joshua and I left this audition process later than we probably should have we have decided to not cast Georgia as we need to hastily move on with our filming. However, she was very understanding of this and in future we would like to pursue her for a smaller role next time as she seemed very good from watch we remember of her audition.
Joseph Michael Buncle
Much like a pervious applicant this student has studied drama throughout his higher years of his education at Tavistock College. Joe was excellent at remembering dialogue and mimicking it back flawlessly. As an English Literature student with the ability to improvise lines with great comedic value Joe is a highly useful person to have in our team as we can use his skill to benefit the script writing process as we'll give him a voice to express his opinions. All of this shows how he's more than qualified to join our production so Joshua and I made the decision to hire him at the audition as a result.
Joshua Samuel Cawsby Coombe
As Joshua is my partner on this project I have no comment on his audition as he didn't have to do one. We simply decided to cast one of ourselves to make it easier/faster to find only five other cast members rather than having to find six. This also meant we could make him the lead/co-lead if necessary as we knew Josh would always be available to film the short as he needed it to be done as well.
Matthew Kevin Chambers
Matthew wasn't a very good candidate overall as he constantly distracted others, couldn't remember his lines when needed to and he was unable to remain in character throughout the audition so we have decided to not include him in our production as he's too difficult to work with and he could be a possible liability to our production as he's ruin too many takes and waste value time. However, outside of the audition he was a funny and competent individual, it's just a shame he couldn't bring that into his acting ability.
Patrick Thomas Ahern
I was unable to attend Patrick Ahern's audition but my co-director on this project, Joshua Coombe assured me that Patrick whilst being a perfectly suitable and decent actor shouldn't be featured in our media project as he didn't match the flow/style of the other actors that happened to bring a little more to the table.
Richard Terrence Montague
Richard much like Caleb & Joe has had a lot of experience in theatre work through being in numerous school performances as well as external productions. This already made me and Josh want to cast his as he's got a good track record as a reliable and talented actor. His audition was near perfect with only one minor mispronunciation towards the first half but, Josh and I simply put this down to nervousness as he was preforming in front of friends. After this superb performance we made a decision that we would certainly be casting him as one of the larger speaking roles as he proved himself to be a great addition to the cast and crew.
Scott Morris
As an actor Scott was good with comedic timing and was able to improvise jokes at the appropriate time with a good effect. However, he was unable to make the cut into out actors list as his timetable and busy lifestyle meant that he was unable to assure us he'd be available when the other actors are because of this we didn't feel comfortable risky our shooting schedule for one person unfortunately.
William Adam Dax
Finally, William Dax was our last candidate to audition for a role in our production but he wasn't what we were looking for in terms of an actor as he wasn't able to produce any funny material on the spot and as we plan on letting our actors improvise after doing the scripted take we thought it's best to give some better suited actors a chance than Will.
As you can see I had a strong list of candidates to pick between. After some consideration and discussion Joshua and I ended up choosing: Amber Lily Mason, Caleb Gabriel Prouse, David Michael Jones, Joshua Samuel Cawsby Coombe and Richard Terrence Montague to be in our production as the student cast and for the narrator we've chosen a teacher at Tavistock College called Simon Hunter. We reached these decision as we thought this mix of actors best suited what a typical college group of friends could consist of. After reaching these decisions we discovered we hadn't cast enough people so on sort notice we employed Lawrence Dobson to be a character as he was always available to us.
Lawrence Rhys Dobson
Simon Hunter
We chose Mr Hunter as he is Joshua and I's media teacher which means we'll be able to contact him to record the voice overs easily as we can do it within lesson time. He also has a clear speaking voice that is easy to understand without having an accent that would cause concern for someone watching. Simon has access to useful equipment that'll make the voice over have a better quality than if we simply had to use our phones or the camera audio so his inclusion has also allowed our overall production to be positively affected.
No comments:
Post a Comment