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Your new webseries Casting Directors - in a few words, what is it
about?
Casting Directors
is a comedy webseries which focuses on the trials and tribulations of the
acting industry, and in particular the casting process.
What were your sources of inspiration when writing Casting
Directors, and is any of the series based on personal experiences or
showbiz anecdotes or the like? I was really inspired by
other comedy webseries such as Roll Safe and also the BBC
programme People Just Do Nothing. In regards to any personal
experiences I would say I've seen my fair share of interesting castings. To put the last question
right on its head: If you put on an audition for one of your projects,
what's this usually like for real? In terms of having the
actors read for the role it usually does bare resemblance to our show. The
characters in Casting Directors are eccentric and slightly heightened but
to be honest there are a fair few characters or shall I say personalities
that are like that in real life and I have come across my fair share which
provided inspiration for this project. You have chosen the
"mockumentary" approach for Casting Directors - to put it
bluntly, why?
At first we had the
title as a documentary but then we changed it to a mockumentary. The
reason for this is because we are partly mocking the industry but at the
same time showing the fine line between what is real and what is not.
Do talk about the brand of humour of Casting
Directors for a bit! It's quite tongue and cheek
humour. My message for the actors was to just be yourself and let your
actions and the story play out and hopefully we find some truth in our
comedy.
You also play one of the leads
in Casting Directors - so what can you tell us about your
character, your approach to him, and did you write Simba Slays with
yourself in mind from the get-go? Simba
(the character I play) is in an eccentric outspoken character. He is one
that feels that the industry owes him something and he also feels that
he's almost above everyone else. With regards to to whether I was going to
write it for myself, I knew this world pretty well and I knew these
characters like Simba so I thought I could deliver the truth. Do talk about the rest
of your cast, and why exactly these people? Well
we have Ashley Rose Kaplan [Ashley
Rose Kaplan interview - click here], who is the lead role of Cindy, and we also have
Lawrence Watling [Lawrence
Watling interview - click here], who is the role of Billy. Both actors I actually met at a casting
workshop and the reason why I cast them was because they are brilliant
actors and they understand comic timing. They work really hard and had
their own trials and tribulations within the industry, so they were able
to incorporate the experiences that they had gone through into the web
series. The cast is completed by other actors who I have worked with
and also who we auditioned and they all gave 110% with regards to wanting
to be in this project. What can you
tell us about the shoot as such and the on-set atmosphere? We
shot the series in a weekend in a rehearsal space in Brixton. The
atmosphere was great and I was very relaxed very focused, and yeah, it ran very very smoothly which was to my surprise. The
$64-question of course, where can your series be seen? This
series can be seen on YouTube - we really had a fantastic response, please
find Casting Directors here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOj2hrUI3u9HEW-UYb4BNXC9CiQNITLmV
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Melanie Gayle, Ashley Rose Kaplan, Lawrence
Watling, Anthony Vander |
At
the moment, Casting Directors is still in the middle of season 1 if
I'm correct - so what can we expect from the rest of the season, and will
there ever be a season two? You can expect a lot of laugh
out loud moments and also expect shock. Whether you've worked in the
entertainment industry or just an office day job you will be able to
relate. (Other) future projects
you'd like to share? Yes I have a film a feature film I
acted and produced called Scales coming out at the end of the year we shot
that on zero budget, and I'm currently writing another feature film which
I will act in and produce at the end of summer. Also my film The Tutor, which i
will direct in late 2017/early 2018.
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Your/your series' website,
Facebook, whatever else? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOj2hrUI3u9HEW-UYb4BNXC9CiQNITLmV Anything else you're dying to
mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? Yes as always I
would like to say huge thank you for this interview and for your support
of indie film in general so yeah thank you. Thanks for
the interview!
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