Tuesday 22 February 2011

News

Today marked the first day I have worked upon the film again back in Cornwall and it has been a busy one. I am in the process of getting everything together for another casting call on Saturday up at the university campus. I hope to see a lot of faces for the auditions for a variety of different parts. These are for William (Main part) and all of the villagers.

I spent a good portion of the day perfecting the letters and posters that were sent to various organizations and put around the university campus. The only thing I really overlooked is that getting hold of anyone this week, especially colleges is going to be difficult because it is half term for schools and colleges, which means that a good portion of potential actors are not going to see the casting call, which is a shame.

I also had a meeting with Kamilla about everything that needs to be sorted out, with all indoor locations still needed to be scouted for and found. But this will hopefully progress over the next few weeks. I will also be able to put up the majority of the people that will be in my crew once it is finalised by next week. Other than that, there is nothing major to report but will blog in the next few days once things start to pick up again.

Thursday 10 February 2011

London Auditions

So yesterday (09/02/11) marked the London auditions which took place at the The Actor's centre in Covent Garden, London. I have to admit that it felt a little intimidating being in what can be said to be a very professional environment but it was a great experience and was a nice to finally meet people that were interested in the part of William. They were all great and it was really nice to hear people bringing the character to life from the pages that I wrote just over a month ago. At this stage it is not for me to say how exactly things will turn out in terms of who has the part as I still think that it is early days yet.

What I really need to do is to audition a few more actors, not necessarily from London but in Cornwall as well. That isn't to say that the actors I auditioned were not right for the part and it could be that one of them may end up with the part, but with only seeing three actors that day, it's really hard to make a decision based on so few people.

As well as meeting three great actors I also got the chance to meet the person that I have had in mind for the part of Thomas since I started writing the script. Me and Kamilla have been in contact with his agent since just before christmas, trying to get an interest early on and then after sending the script in early January, it was nice to hear that he was definitely still interested.

But yesterday was the first time that I had actually spoken to him and it was nice to meet him in person. That guy is Ed Gaughan who is best known for the role of Davis in existential black comedy Skeletons, whose director is up for a Bafta next week. Skeletons was also my introduction to Ed who did a Q & A at the Cornwall film festival in Falmouth after a screening of Skeletons that I was lucky enough to see.

Here's a trailer for Skeletons:






We spoke generally about the project and his commitment to it who is definitely up for the part. For me, this is exciting news and makes me happy to know that the person who I wanted in the first place, loved the project enough to want to commit to it. All we need to do now is to sort out the dates with agent and to make sure to work out all of the paperwork that goes with it.

This is all I really need to say at the moment, other than it will be nice to see and work with Ed over the next coming weeks and months to develop the character of Thomas and to work on the script a little bit more, if time allows it.

In terms of finding the part of William, I think I am going to sit on it and hold some open auditions in Cornwall, so that I am able to see a wider range of talent in order to make a final decision. Yesterday was definitely an eye opener to the talent out there and every actor gave a very different reading to the character, bringing something new to William each time.