preproduction: week 5 casting

the producer set up the auditions for 6/10 sunday 9am to 5pm. we rented a space at studio-stage in hollywood. i was lucky enough to have 5 people help me: 2 people to sign people in, 1 to run the camera, 1 to read with the actors, and 1 to observe.

out of a couple thousand headshots, we narrowed it down to about 120 people. out of the 120 actors we picked, about 75 showed up for the auditions. that’s still a lot of people to see in one day. we set them up in 5 minute intervals. they would come in, read the sides, i’d give them an adjustment, and then we’d do it again. if there wasn’t a long wait outside, i had them try some improv.

normally i’d rather take more time and chat with the actors a bit, make them feel more comfortable, but there were a lot of people to see because there are about 10 roles to cast for. it was still fun though and i saw a lot of talented people. watching and hearing my script being performed, even if it was just a short segment, got me all excited for my movie. i can’t wait to pick out the cast and start rehearsals.

i went home and watched the tapes and for the most part, the people i had a good feeling about during the auditions looked good on camera. there were some that didn’t jump out at me at first, but seeing them on camera made me like them better.

now comes the difficult part of figuring out what combination of actors to pick for the movie.