Tuesday, August 11, 2009

And the casting begins

Full steam ahead: I've put out a casting call for katie55, and with the help of Cake Man have secured a space to hold the auditions. Our co-producer/DP is flying up next week and we'll starting seeing actors next weekend.

It's very exciting to see all of these prospective characters. But, there's a small hitch: Having written the script and being so intimately entwined with it for such a long time, I have a very concrete idea of who the characters are in my head; how they look, how they act. The problem? None of the submissions so far are exactly what I had in mind for the part.

I know I'm speaking way ahead of myself at this point - I'm going based strictly off of headshots. (Very shallow, I know.) I'm hoping that when we hold auditions and see the actors reading for the part that I'll change my mind. I'm hoping someone will bring the character to life before my eyes, possibly changing the way I see the character entirely.

These are questions for any writers who have gone on to direct their own material: how do you shed the image of a character that's in your head and learn to love something that might be different than you'd imagined? Will this feeling go away naturally once the right actors sweep me off my feet?