Castaways

Nothing like a good casting call to scare some of the crazies out of the undergrowth.

Just before heading off to Bollywood for the week, Jake and I scoped out our character biographies, counted scenes and wrote copy. This is actually way too early in the normal film-making process to look for actors, but we’re asking people to set aside a month of the year when they would normally be scheduling a holiday somewhere warm, so we wanted to get in there before the deposit had been paid.

So, on Tuesday the Shooting People and Talent Circle postings went up, and we braced ourselves for a steady stream of emails.

Then the banks burst. The stream turned into a deluge. At this point we’re on 118 submissions, and it shows no sign of letting up. And now, back in the Charmed saddle again for the first full-day’s double-tagged zombie work in a week, Jake and I have been trawling through them all.

There's a massive amount of talent out there. It took a while. It’s a nice problem to have to deal with.

The vast majority of people make the job of checking their suitability against our character needs really easy. Include a link to your Spotlight page and your Showreel, or direct me to your personal website. Three clicks later and I know everything I need to know. I love these people.

Others are less forthcoming with their CVs, and Jake and I tried to chase down examples of earlier acting work by searching for them on YouTube and Vimeo. This takes a little longer and is prone to hitting an ah-sod-it point. We persevered where practical. We gave up where not.

One guy just sent us the link to his Wikipedia page. A rare stroke of vain genius, sir.

And then with the strange. Someone wrote back asking whether the North American rights were still available, suggesting a particularly positive reaction to our tag-line. Another gave his playing age as 30-100. Someone else emailed us asking for our email address.

And as for the woman that sent through photos and biogs of her two children (boasting playing ages of 6-8 and 4-6 respectively), and offering them up as unsolicited child zombies, shame on you. Have you ever watched a horror film? I’m all about getting some veracity in a performance, but I’m not sure I want to be the focus of a discussion between her kids and their therapists in twenty years time. 

In any case, I was always taught that little children should be seen and not horde. Shocked.