R+P Post 27: Casting

Our approach to casting our band members was that reliability and accessibility should be placed above everything else: our intended location for the performance shoot and the execution of our conceptual shoot meant that commitment had to be a priority. Therefore we all agreed that casting members of our own group would be very beneficial, though this had limitations. We would need at least one of us to operate the camera during shots with the whole band in, and even with the three of us we would want another member in our group. Therefore we decided that we would cast Shayam and Amber in the band whereas I would manage the camera.

As we only needed two male band members to finish our line-up, we produced a shortlist of everyone we knew who would be suitable for the role. One of our first ideas for the lead singer was Jacob, a classmate of ours who was involved in the music video project from the previous year. This meant that he was aware of the process and commitment required, and since then he had adopted a look more suitable for our music video. Unfortunately, he could not ensure that he would have enough time to act in our video, so we continued with our shortlist.

We then turned to our other initial candidate for the lead singer: another of our classmates called Luke. Not only did he fit the image we were looking for in our lead, but as he is in a band himself it meant that performance and rehearsal would have been much more straightforward. Luke has also done photography work as part of his band, modelling for the promo shots would come more naturally to him. When we asked him, we were thankful that he had the time to commit to the project, so we have cast Luke as our lead singer.

Finally we needed a drummer. This role had less of a concern over performance than the others, so we decided to ask people who we knew would be enthusiastic for the role. A friend of ours, Seb, was one of our first choices as we know him as someone who's always willing to get involved in interesting projects. Though he has little experience with an instrument, he is an avid music fan and was able to pick up a good drumming technique very quickly. Therefore we decided to cast him as our drummer.

We collaborated the information about our actors on a casting sheet, so that we could find pictures of our actors, their necessary personal information and explanations and references regarding their role in the band at a glance.