Niamh Kinsella – when Niamh auditioned for the role we were hesitant as to how she would perform in the role of a serious character as she is well known for her comedy status and roles within the film industry and almost all of her major film roles involve a comedy aspect; however we were very surprised as to how dedicated and commited she became to the part straight away - she engaged herself within in the role of the character easily and also developed certain trates of her own to add towards the character. Niamh was very confident within herself and embedded this within her character, she had a clear voice and her diction was perfect when asked to recite some of the chosen dialogue. The main aspect that stood out about Niamh was her ability to work well with other actors - she produced amazing chemistry with both actors going up for the main role; Niamh made it an easy decision for us when choosing our female young actor lead role.
Harry Craven – although Harry isn't as much of a well known actor as our other auditionees he became a clear contender form the start; he was punctual to his audition, unlike some of the other more professional actors, he was very good and very quick at getting into character - providing various different scenes for us to work with. The main aspect that stood out about Harry was his ability to take direction extremely well from all three members of our group; he took direction from three different directors with three different views and was able to commit and produce various excellent scenes for each of us, helping us to develop a final scene together. Harry had amazing chemistry with all actors on set, especially Niamh Kinsella, our favoured female young actor.
After an in-depth discussion within the group and a 'trial run-through' of our trailer, we decided that we would use the male member of our group, Lewis Robinson, as the male lead in our trailer; we used our 'trial run-through' as simply a basis to decide the story line, plot and dialogue that would be featured in our trailer and we felt the easiest way to do this was to use Lewis and myself, Ciara Walton, as the lead roles - however we didnt anticipate that the chemistry between the two of us would be so good and after being let down so many times with previous films, we came to the conlusion as a group that the best possible solution for our film would be to use the two of us, Lewis and Ciara, as the male and female lead roles within our film. Due to time schedules for other actors and constantly being let down, we decided to attempt it on our first draft and the aesthetics of myself and Lewis together was appealing and the chemistry was very noticeable. So with the help of Beth our director, we decided to remain as the roles.We felt that the fact we were in a group together added to our chemistry, commitment and reliability; it was also easier to take direction and constructive criticism from Beth, our director. It also gave us the opportunity to direct ourselves when looking back at takes and filming, however; we did decide to audition other male and female actors, including the last member of our group Bethany Reilly, to make sure that we were making the best decision for our film trailer. Overall we came to the conclusion that Lewis and myself were best suited to the roles and I will explain in an unbiased opinion below stating the reasons of why we were successful and why other auditionees were unsuccessful.
Lewis Robinson - after doing a brief 5 minute filming session with Lewis, we were pleasantly surprised as to how well he adapted to the role of an actor as his usual proffession is dedicated to the behind-the-scenes work of a film. Lewis was punctual, reliable and a pleasure to work with; he understood the needs of the director and was able to work well with any actor we presented him with, even the younger actors which most other auditionees struggled with. When faced with the decision of capturing the right angles and getting the best location and lighting, Lewis was on board and happy to lend a hand within the directing aspect - he stayed hesistant enough and let us as directors do the main decisions but as he is one of our co-directors, we were happy when he lended a hand and gave a contribution. When we gave Lewis a section of dialogue to learn he was able to adapt and produce a character within minutes; giving us a different perspective on the story line altogether - allowing us to create more in-depth characters. The main aspect that confirmed Lewis' place within the film was his amazing chemistry and likeable disposition; overall, Lewis was a clear choice from the start.
Ciara Walton - Ciara arrived on set with a happy disposition and this continued throughout the audtioning process, she was willing and able from the out set and provided a unique approach to the character. When asked to perform a section of dialogue with other actors she was more than willing and created different and likeable chemistry with all other auditionees; she coped well under pressure and was one of the best of the day when working with the younger actors. Ciara was punctual and always arrived on set with a positive attitude - being part of the group and one of the directors, she was also able to contribute to that factor of the trailer and apply different skills within the proxemics and vocal range of the actors within the trailer. Overall, it was a clear decision from the start that Ciara would be our chosen lead actress for our trailer.
Unsuccessful castings:
Daniel Watts – we were unhappy with Daniel from the outset as he turned up over an hour late to set, and when we questioned him and stated that this was his audition and we weren't going to just hand him the role, he became very defensive and moody; after finally agreeing to audition against other actors, Daniel wouldn't take the role seriously and was prone to acting up and joking about on set - trying to get the other actors in trouble, possibly trying to sabotage their chances. We felt that, due to his previous roles in various major films, Daniel was a very good actor; however it was his ego and non committment to the part that let him down.
Keeley Ryan – a very unexperienced young actor, however we felt Keeley could pull it out of the bag, just as Harry had, but she lacked in the confidence department and just wasn't good enough for the role when compared to other actors. Another aspect that steered us away from Keeley was the fact that she let her confidence get in the way of developing chemistry with the other male actors - she was very immature when it came to co-acting; we decided to use Keeley for our second draft alongside Daniel but we felt they just weren't good enough for the final film.
Aisling Byrne - at the start of the auditoning process we were very excited to have Aisling on set and she soon became the 'life of the party' so to say, however after a couple of call backs she became negative towards most aspects and didnt agree on many decisions that we were asking her to do - after two days Aislings attitude became unsatisfactory and her tardyness became a huge issue; other auditonees were having to wait hours before Aisling arrived on set. The positive aspects of Aislings audition was the chemistry she provided towards other cast members and the short time it took her to learn the dialogue we had provided, however, although we were close to seriously considering Aisling for the role, we decided as a team that she would be to unreliable to hire.
Niall Moore - when Niall came to us for his first audition for the lead role we were very positive that he would be able to deliver; he surprised us in many ways and was very good at character developing. He fast became one of our favourites and made it to the final stages of auditions for the lead role, however, althought Niall was very impressive and had amazing actor credentials we felt that he had just been beat to the post by one of our other actors. Instead of completley losing Niall, we decided to use his talent to add in the character of 'boyfriend' - we created the role of 'boyfriend' purely for Niall as we didnt want to lose him and we were very aware as to the amount of effort, time and committment he put into landing the lead role. We cast Niall for the first draft of our trailer and he worked exceptionally well with all the other actors, building great chemistry; however he did turn up on set very tired and it made us reconsider the presumption that Niall may be a very big socialite - after talking to Niall and understanding that he did tend to go out most nights and would usually come into work very tired, we were hesitant on whether or not to keep him on for the second and final draft of our trailer. We are still undecided on whether or not we are going to keep Niall on but for the most part he was a delight to work with.
Jack Dooge-Johnson - we were very pleased to hear that Jack D-J would be auditioning for the lead male role as he is such a big 'of the moment' Hollywood star, however, we were very dissapointed to witness how the height of Jack's fame had really gone to his head - he turned up over 45 minutes late to set, didn't agree with the dialogue he was given and asked for it to be either changed slightly or completley re-written for his benefit, he was completley un-ready for the tasks and trials of the auditioning process as he came dressed as though he had just gotten out of bed and threw on a pair of sunglasses; which he never took off, adding to his rude manner. Jack was rude to all 3 directors throughout the entire day and the only reason we tolerated his un-called for behaviour throughout the day was because of his recent big acting jobs. Jack didn't even make it through the first stage of auditions and we regret his audition altogether.
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