Tag: casting

SweetArts: Script readthrough and first cast member confirmed!

thegirlinthecafe 8 Comments

Rewrite

If you can’t stand reading about my short film you are going to have a tough time, it will probably be the most written about subject here, mostly because I want to document for my self how this all came about. If I don’t write it down now, I will forget how things went. So bear with me if you want to read about other things, November might be a good time to come back.

But: Things are really starting to happen now.

Apart from my next meeting with M on Saturday morning, I now also have a script readthrough appointment on Tuesday.

M has invited two professional actors over who are going to read the script out loud. There are two reasons why we need to do this:

  • we need to time the script. We need to have a fair idea of how long the film is going to be.
  • it will tell me as a writer if the dialogue I have written works, if it sounds right, if the sentences are natural to speak for an actor, all that kind of stuff. I will probably be cringing hearing my own script read back to me, but it will be a major learning experience. I will make notes of the actors’ comments and improve the script after that so it is in tip top shape for the shoot.

So that is all very exiting.

Just as exciting is that I have my first cast member confirmed! It’s for one of the minor roles but he is very experienced, he has done a lot of film and tv work and he is very, erhm, handsome! So all good news!

SweetArts: Up is Down

thegirlinthecafe 2 Comments

Up is Down is that great moment of revelation in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. What? You haven’t seen that film? What are you doing here, go watch it, go, go, go!!

But Up is Down is also very appropriate when it comes to making a film. Some days you are up, and the day after you can be so very down. I have decided to write about the both of them, just so you don’t get the impression that things are easy. They are not. Today is such a down day.

The good

I had a very good talk with the casting director yesterday. He was very friendly, understood that I wasn’t that experienced yet, and generally he was just nice to talk to. He is off finding actors now, and with a little luck, we will have auditions on Saturday.

The bad

It seems simply impossible to find a producer/production manager. I have had talks with 4-5 of them now, they are all nice, they all like the script, but when it comes to it, they decide not to come on board. I can’t quite grasp what it is that goes wrong every time, but I am getting pretty desperate about it. I can’t do the film if I can’t find a producer/production manager. Simple.

I have put in another ad, have asked the people I know if they know anyone and now I just have to wait and see if something will come out of that.

I am close to giving up today, but let’s see if it also works the other way around, as in Down is Up.

Random notes and thoughts on the film making process

thegirlinthecafe 5 Comments

I know that this is starting to look a bit like the diary of a film maker. Well it’s important for me to write up this process. One year from now I want to be able to read back what an insane time this has been and how things went. So the coming time the focus of this blog will be on the making of SweetArts.

The other thing is that I won’t have any time for anything else in my life for a while. Here are some random notes and thoughts again:

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SweetArts

thegirlinthecafe 12 Comments

Bob called me while I was drinking a juice in the Caffe Nero in Hammersmith. I walked out and tried to spot him. He told me to walk towards the tube station. I walked and looked. He was in his car he said. I scanned the area. Lots of cars around Hammersmith. I saw a man with sunglasses in an MG convertible with open roof. Funky car I thought. I scanned further while talking to Bob. I didn’t see him. I had a closer look at the MG. Really nice car. I looked at the man inside it. He was on the phone. A closer look revealed that his lip sync with the man I was talking to was near perfect. Wait a minute …

“Do you happen to sit in a funky MG?” I asked Bob.
“Yes!” he said with a friendly British voice.
“I am on my way to you now!” I said.

A split second I thought – am I actually going to step into a car with a man I don’t really know? Bob seemed reliable, and a car like this with an open roof, I could always climb out. I jumped in. We drove off, the wind trying to blow the worries out of my head.

And that’s when I met Bob.

Here is your regular short film production update. And really, I can’t quite believe all this is happening either.

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The Meeting with The Actor

thegirlinthecafe 3 Comments

Not That Actor, but the actor who is going to be in our short. It was a joy to meet him as he turns out to be incredibly nice, very relaxed and laid back and very perfect for the role he is going to play (which is a posh distinguished City business man). He has a great voice too (very smooth and voicilicious) and a spot on English accent for this role.

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Things that make my Friday

thegirlinthecafe 4 Comments

Radiohead

I don’t know if this is going to be a returning post kind of thing. I do know that I try to stop running every now and then, to reflect a bit on life and appreciate the good things, however tiny they are.

  1. We are casting for our short (1 minute) short. Here is some detail from the description:

    “Our ‘City Gent’ is aged 50+, distinguished / greying and MUST be able to raise one eyebrow (Roger Moore style).”

    I bit my tongue to not say that the reference to Roger should be replaced by a reference to the master of eyebrow acting (I am in therapy, can you tell). We already got four responses, and tough job to read emails from actors with photos attached. Now you understand why I want to be a film maker.

    As my Cookie film has a protagonist of about the same specs, I am more than interested to see what responses we get. Dan might be among them! We will shoot this short short next weekend, the 21st of October.

  2. There have been some new sign ups for The Girl In The Cafe on tour and both of them are from the state of New York, one from NYC and one from Ithica. Apparently the project has been spoken about on the university of Ithica, which was the reason Michele signed up. She also told me what her professor has said about the project:

    My professor is teaching a class on the emotional and personal effects technology has on people. We brought up social networks such as geo-cacheing and wheresgeorge.com. Then she added that she had heard somewhere (she couldn’t remember where) about this great film that was being passed around the world. She thought it was neat that it created a new forum for people to discuss movies and world issues. She also said that projects like yours and post-secret are the future of social connections in an increasingly technological world. Basically, though, she thought that the fact that this movie can reach even areas where movies are usually unavailable is one of the few productive and positive effects of the new digital era.

    Things that makes my Friday. Ithica is a nice reference to this, I hope her road is a long one indeed.

  3. Bill Nighy reads Eric Clapton again tonight on BBC4, 9.15pm. Tune in and rock on. Missed it last week? Here you go. Next week the new Charles Paris starts, to celebrate that I found the previous Charles Paris files and fed them to my iPod. What can I say – things that make my Friday
  4. 33 days to New York.
  5. When you get great news, and I mean roaringly great fantastic news, how do you react? Do you grab your iPod and start dancing? I do. I did that yesterday and danced the night away. I know you want to know what that great news is, but I can’t tell you just yet. Also because it is not 100% sure yet, but then, what is a 100% sure in life.
  6. I had a breakfast of Tea with biscuits this morning.
  7. I just downloaded the new Radiohead album. (At last, it was impossible to get through to the website the last few days). The rhythem in “15 Step” plugs directly into my heartbeat. In a good way, I love that song. Go download it, you can set your own price. It is currently being played in our office. (Things that make my Friday)
  8. I have slowly started to look around for a potential new cafe. I was going to visit the Regency Cafe which is literally around the corner where I live, but their opening hours are a bit weird. They are closed between 14.30 and 16.00 and I was there, of course, at 14.35. They are closed on Sundays too.

    In stead I went to the Astral Cafe which is diagonally opposite Regency Cafe. This is not going to be my place either (both Regency and Astral are too close to where I live) but I will return there for food. You can eat things like Spaghetti for £4 and a cup of tea is only 80p.

  9. Al Gore wins the Nobel prize.
  10. It’s nearly weekend and this weekend I will be in screen writing class again. I look forward to get comments on both my Cookie script and my 35 pages of feature film.

And how is your Friday going?