Taking steps in gathering potential actors

We have the actors to play John, Neville, and one of the council members, but we need three more actors between the ages of 30 and 60 to play the other council members. We need two men and one women. We wanted to find actors who were enthusiastic about acting, could do a job, and are of the right age and look for our characters. We have contacted an amateur acting group in Wymondham called Wymondham Players who perform productions in Wymondham. http://www.wymondhamplayers.org.uk/



Firstly, we called the group then exchanged email addresses to discuss the details in further detail.

Hi Alan, Patrick and Jack here. We spoke on the phone earlier about the possibility of using 3 of your actors for our A2 short film piece. Ideally we would like two men and one woman to play the parts. We're shooting Sunday 11th November at Tacolneston village hall. Flexibility could be a possibility, but that date is best for us and our other actors. Let us know whether you can help us.

Kind regards, Patrick and Jack

Alan's response to our email was encouraging as he seems keen to know as much about the production as possible. We exchanged a few more emails, and have talked a few times on the phone to better explain exactly what we want from each actor.

Hello Patrick and Jack

I assume you mean December!

As it’s a Sunday, I think we need to know the time commitment for the day – are we looking at an hour, two, four…?

And what time of the day please?

Are there scripts available in advance, and what about dress requirements?

Any more information you can let us have would be helpful.

Thanks

Alan Carpenter

Wymondham Players

a teaser, and a pleaser.....our teaser poster!

We've used a very eye-catching, yet mysterious image of the character 'John'. As you can see, I've cut half of his face out from the photo- it's a subtle incentive for the audience to see more (watch our film).

The red eye is the most striking factor in this poster (thanks to photoshop), as i've contrasted it from the grayscaled surrounding facial features and jet black background. This is an implication of an oddity in the story's setting (film's title printed sideways up the poster specifies the oddity). Plus we thought that tinting the eye red would be far more effective than any other colour- It screams pain, passion and power!

The film's title positioning isn't placed horizontally as you would generally see on most film posters. The vertical positioning requires you to tilt your head (not a very conventional design) but, in saying that, this isn't going to be a very conventional film! Out of a selection of font types, we liked the style seen above in the poster the most. It's obviously not a standard 'Times New Roman' font, but it's not a very arty font either e.g. 'Edwardian Script IT'.  Instead it's a very bold and funky 'Arnprior' style. Very superhero if you ask me.

As a whole, we think it's a very effective teaser poster, considering its simplicity!

PES

PES is a stopmotion animation producer, who's YouTube channel is fairly popular, considering it's mere selection of 28 uploads. Probably down to the fact that he makes commercials for a living...

he has produced multiple highly renowned and respected short films, and i too respect these significant shorts. But, at the end of the day, i won't be able to produce clips at the same level. But PES has also uploaded these simplistic, short clips that i believe i can respond to...

Now these clips are obviously a lot shorter than your average stop-motion short, which is great for us! Paddy and I aim to produce a short with a couple, if not a few stop-motion clips, meaning that nothing too intricate is to be produced, but it needs to be effective.

These clips involve very basic objects, but have been used in a wonderfully quirky way, as you can see. We aim to produce stop-motion integrals involving a wooden model (little more human than the above), which may involve more fiddling with, but we hope to create a similar effect with what we have!

Hello John!

We wanted the character of John to be the bait in this story, in that the audience buys into the implications of him being 'super' (very deceiving).  Ram Dunne fits the profile of your classic superhero e.g. muscular build, good looks.

This is why we have chosen him to play John!

THE FILM'S NAME

we thought carefully aboutwhich of the four names would suit the film's story the greates, and we'vedecided to go with 'Atypical Superhero Story'. The story is all in the name, and the play on words should arouse interest!

We've found our Neville!

 

As you can see, Josh Brownlow (a friend of ours) fits the profile we've previously drawn of Neville perfectly! (Paddy genuinely drew this before we had Josh in mind)

he's more than happy to take the role, so we're going through with it.

concept drawings- gathering visual ideas

Paddy and I had gone through a process of trying to visualize how we want certain characters to appear on the screen. And what better way is there to brainstorm than draw up a few concept sketches to try and refine character profiling. Paddy, in response to our collective thoughts, created these rather fine pieces of art...

here, on the right, is a basic sketch of the character 'John' carrying out his duty as the local council's grounds keeper. As you can see, his profile abides to the appearance of your generic superhero e.g. muscular build-Something we should emphasise in order to add to the deception at the end of the film.

On the left, we see the character 'Neville'. Now, Neville plays a very significant role in the film, in that he turns out to be our undercover vigilante. So to create the ultimate twist as a conclusion, we knew that Neville's appearance, along with John's has to be very deceiving. Our ideal profile of Neville was a man of slim build, preferably tall (still a sign of authority) and posesses a very smart, business-like appearance e.g. tailored suit & tie, glasses and briefcase. Imagine the classic 'Peter Parker' alternate identity, but more respectable....Unlike your generic superhero, when 'inactive', Neville still likes to make himself noticed. He is loud and proud- very much a human attribute of cockiness. It seems as though this young man has nothing to hide. Oh how wrong initial assumptions can be....

   This is a simple representation of a Silhouette, displaying John against a bright background. Paddy and I have discussed this image, and wish to hopefully include it within the piece as it would add to the powerful image of our apparent superhero. It may be too hard to shoot, depending on the light situation within the village hall we will be using.





The two pencil drawings below are of the council in the process of discussing recent issues within the local community. It is obvious that Neville leads the council, as he stands at the head of the table, displaying his state of authority amongst the other members.

 

 

Gathering these visual ideas have really helped us refine our planning in preparation for the actual production!