It's In The Eyes

    In the last post I mentioned that me and my producer had scheduled to post the Casting Call on Instagram in search for actors. I admit I've never done this before for a couple reasons. Commonly in High School whether it'd be for my TV program or for AICE Media Studies, people were generally pretty busy. For as much as counselors will promote the idea to "take classes that will be best for you", the modern day college application process as well as said counselors' hypocritical advertisement for AP and AICE level courses. In one annoying examples, I had finished my required 4 math credits by the end of my Junior year and wanted to take a digital art/animation class my senior year, but my counselor refused to let me leave the room without picking a math class since "colleges want that". Regardless of the fact that I was clearly an TV/Film and arts oriented individual, I was forced to agree and she put in Pre-Calc even though there would no Calc class that this would prepare me for. Oh and did I mention that this Counselor didn't offer me the option to take Statics, a class which math teachers promote as an easier alternative to Pre-Calc; a class that my Pre-Calc teacher would regularly make comments throughout the entire year for being an easier alternative than the literal class that she was teaching. But I digress.

    Generally for projects I'd be very difficult trying to get people on board since many of the projects had quick turn arounds, long hours for filming, and were simply a lesser priority for certain people who stacked up their course load. Often times it was simply easier working with people within the class, since they understood the importance of the project and were willing to help. If you were to skim through my films, you'd have a difficult time pointing out people who were not in my TV program nor my AICE Media Studies class. Also if we're being honest, another factor is that some people are good actors for film; a comment that surprised me when working with theater actor and musician, Connor Lirio for my film "What You Watch" was were he told him that he's never really had to act for the camera. Luckily the character he was playing was supposed to be a showman, so it wasn't too foreign for him. Flash forward about a year, and I have this script for a performance heavy film where there is little to no synchronous dialogue...

    When we posted the casting call, thankfully many of my friends and fellow classmates shared the casting call; this simple eventually got the post shared my a nonofficial yet popular FSU BA Theater account which put a lot of eyes on the project. Over the next 2 weeks, Sam and I were re-share the post on our stories to remind and spread the word about the project. It was pretty nerve wracking since the few DM's we'd get about questions and few people who said they might audition. The moment it hit March 5th, we had a grand total of TWO auditions for the role of Asher, no Levs...

    While we only got two auditions for Asher, both good, but in different ways. The big issue we had was our lack of Lev, and a lack of a way to test chemistry (our main hope of picking out 1 Asher). A friend of ours prior to the deadline had mentioned "if you need help, I can help", so we sent him the sides to send in an audition. During this time we were giving our cinematographer, Marin Hodge, an update about the current state of things. At some point during this discussing, Sam had suggested a fellow classmate, who had acted in his own film, Eddie. This suggestion seemed to trigger a flashback for Marin, who mentioned that the pervious week, she was talking with Eddie before class who had expressed that he "missed acting". Later that night Marin mentioned the film to Eddie, and he said he'd be down to audition. With two potential Levs and the pervious two Ashers, Sam and I scheduled a call back that would focus on the chemistry between actors for March 19th. This would be cutting it close with the filming date, but it was our only window after Spring Break, but before production for "SOLD OUT!".

    Prior to the call backs we had asked our potential Levs to send in a self tape before the call backs for formality, in which we only received Eddie's self tape... on the brightside, it was pretty good, so at this point it was about picking an Asher. For the call backs, we planned to first do individual video tests as a sort of warm up and to get their personal interpretation of the script, before providing some brief direction for my vision for the film. Then we'd do the chemistry pairings. I also invited my buddy John to be the handler for he actors when they'd be outside the audition room. In all the call backs went MUCH better than the actual casting call. Sam and I already had ideas for the final cast, but we reviewed the footage we took during the call backs and solidified the decision. We'd be moving forward with Eddie as Lev and Nico Florez-Ortiz as Asher. The decision between our two possible Ashers came down to two main things: professionalism and subtlety. As mentioned earlier, some people are more suited for a big stage where they must project for people in the very back, where as some people are able to be quite yet strategic with their performance. Also in terms of the professionalism, it the other candidate seemed much less prepared for the call back than Nico, and was unsure about his availability for the weekend of filming we'd have. All in all, both Sam and I were happy with the result of the at times stressful process of having a casting call. 

Below are stills from the final film of the two actors: Nico on the left and Eddie on the right.