Bottle Rocket: Auditions

Ah, auditions. Fun fact, I’m actually an actor myself, so I’m fairly familiar with the process. While I haven’t really been through any student film auditions, I imagine the process is pretty similar. You’re given a script to pore over and familiarize yourself with, you enter a small, hot room while 2-3 bored strangers point a camera at you, and you leave five minutes later, wondering what the hell you’re doing with your life, and why you keep subjecting yourself to this humiliating past-time!

                                     Haha, kill me!

Or maybe that’s just me. In any case, after hating (there’s a lot of rejection) and loving (you get to explore new characters, films and TV series) the process for so long, I now had the pleasure of actually running an audition – a new, exciting experience! While Steph’s initial foray into Starnow proved immediately fruitful, our list of interested actors quickly dwindled – women far outnumbered the gents interested, and it seems like it’s going to be pretty difficult to cast Liam, our older ticket inspector (most of our Starnow applicants were a bit younger, which works for our other parts). In the end, we were able to have two auditionees – Alexandra and Maia. To let these actors have the chance to prepare, we sent them an ‘audition pack’ – a collection of excerpts from the scripts that we’d all written, with their particular parts highlighted for their convenience.

I was pretty proud of these packs, and they actually worked really well. Both actors came prepared, and in an interesting twist, were full of questions and observations about their characters. This came as something of a shock to me, because in my experience of auditions, you generally get in, get out, and cross your fingers for a call back. While I was initially taken aback, I actually really enjoyed their observations, because it gave us a good chance to wax lyrical about our characters and their lives, and enabled us to look at them through new and fresh perspectives.

The auditions themselves went really well! Alexandra was very well put together – a little haughty and uptight as Valentina, which was absolutely perfect for the character. She was quite natural and spontaneous, which was nice too, she seemed willing to just go with whatever felt right in the moment. Maia was very prepared – she knew all her lines and had lots of observations about her character, but I felt that her performance was just slightly … overperformed? Not a word, but I’m running with it. Anyway, we asked her to read for Kerry, Liam’s date in the dinner scene, and this time she knocked it out of the park. Without the benefit of previous preparation, she was much more natural and low-key, which really suited the character!

https://vimeo.com/142492540

A quick discussion after both women had left, and we came to a group conclusion that Alexandra would be a great fit for Valentina, while Maia would be good for Kerry, once we actually find our Liam. The casting process was brilliant – it was actually really fun to organise, to give little tips and suggestions for how we’d like to see a certain line performed, to watch our characters come to life through a performance, and see someone else enjoying the scripts that we helped create. A rewarding experience, for sure!