project: Day in the Life - Casting
Finding the right person to play a role that you made up in your mind is harder than I initially expected. When I was taking Digital Storytelling and was asked to find a cast, I didn’t know what I would do. Eventually I did what any other college student would do, procrastinate and figure it out like a week before the project was due. It was my Final Project for the class and I had all semester to figure it out. So suffice to say I dug my own grave. I was stuck with casting people that I was talking to the most that week, and pitched it to them. They both said yes, but it was more of a pity yes. Looking back, I think that was a good launching pad for my path. Even if it was a mess.
With this film that I’m calling Life… I am learning from my past mistakes and typecasting my actor, rather than doing whatever just to get something done. Which was a big reason for my excitement for the film this time around, because not only was my person completely invested into the film, but because they were the most ideal person to be in it. I’d hate to discourage people with their dreams of making it on the big screen, but directors are very judgemental, but that’s because they want their film to work. They don’t want it just to work, they want it to blow people’s expectations. I know for me, I want it to blow people’s expectations.
If that sounds picky and rude, I would highly disagree. So many well known actors today were denied roles in films, because the director didn’t think they fit the role. Think about “The Amazing Spiderman”. An amazing movie on its own, the actor Andrew Garfield did phenomenal, but he could not have gotten the role. Josh Hutcherson could have been the spider-man we learned to love. He didn’t get the role because the directors said that he looked too old for the role. That didn’t discourage him though, because when he didn’t get that he got another role. The movie that got him famous, Hunger Games. So what I’m trying to say is that although directors might not pick someone who really wants the role, there are other opportunities for them to get something else.
