Diary of a first-time film­mak­er: Part 2 – Casting

The thing I’ll nev­er under­stand about film­mak­ing is the fact that, after years in devel­op­ment, every­thing still feels like it has been – and gen­er­al­ly is – left to the last minute. Mon­ey has to be moved, con­tracts have to be signed, actors have to be cast, Heads of Depart­ment have to be inter­viewed and vet­ted, but it’s nev­er done in the great parental tra­di­tion of ​‘leav­ing plen­ty of time’. No, no. In film world, we may have had four years but we’re still not going to move on things until we absolute­ly have to and they’re giv­ing us insom­nia. Until the fear is real.

Para­dox­i­cal­ly, on a low bud­get fea­ture like Sick(er), prepa­ra­tion time is your best friend, per­haps even more so than is usu­al for a direc­tor. On Sick(er), we are look­ing at 16 days of shoot­ing over three weeks in total. It trans­lates to about five pages (or five min­utes) a day. This is rough­ly what they do on tele­vi­sion soaps, but in that sce­nario the crew is a well-oiled machine, the sets and lights are already up, and there’s no demand for exper­i­men­ta­tion in terms of style choice. Not so on a lit­tle indie film, which I have pared down to a mere 72 pages with the goal of both dis­till­ing the sto­ry to its purest ele­ments but also of mak­ing our job some­what less difficult.

Cast­ing is near­ly com­plet­ed. We have been work­ing with the very tal­ent­ed cast­ing direc­tor, Aisha Bywa­ters, and she had some advice on the cast­ing process for new film­mak­ers. The first piece was sim­ple; ​‘Do your research. Watch as much as you can of actors that inter­est you so you have an under­stand­ing of their act­ing style and range.’

Giv­ing away your lead role is very much like the process of mak­ing a film itself. You can see what you think in your mind is going to work, and then in real­i­ty some­thing else entire­ly sur­pris­es you because it just works. Sian Brooke, who we have cast, came to us as a sug­ges­tion from Aisha. I imme­di­ate­ly clicked with her on a per­son­al lev­el –in this busi­ness, the pro­fes­sion­al is always a bit per­son­al – plus the woman is seri­ous­ly bloody tal­ent­ed. I realised I’d seen her in a lot of pro­grammes and read about her exten­sive stage work. I watched clips of her again but was large­ly very tak­en with her inter­pre­ta­tion of a role that is incred­i­bly chal­leng­ing in a num­ber of ways.

Giv­en that Sick(er) focus­es on a woman who is com­ing out of an Eat­ing Dis­or­der clin­ic, the lead actress has to embody that ​‘look’. This is some­thing we have been dis­cussing since very ear­ly on in the devel­op­ment process, and hav­ing observed the reac­tion to oth­er films that explore the top­ic we are keen to get it right. Sian has been work­ing with a trainer/​nutritionist to make care­ful changes to ful­ly embody the role. I feel lucky that we have been able to find a very tal­ent­ed actress who is tak­ing the role as seri­ous­ly as it demands. But I am also sen­si­tive to the reac­tion that it might cause from some quarters.

While we found Sian rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly, I found the more chal­leng­ing role to cast was the actress to play her teenage daugh­ter. There are so many teen actors out there, and while there is a lot of tal­ent I was look­ing for some­one with a nat­u­ral­is­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty. This role could eas­i­ly become too histri­on­ic in the wrong hands, plus the actress had to be a believ­able and potent foil for Sian.

When cre­at­ing the char­ac­ter, I drew large­ly on my own expe­ri­ences of being a teenag­er. This most­ly involved try­ing to slip into the back­ground and do my own thing rather than be the cen­tre of atten­tion – a trait which, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly go hand in hand with the path of the young thes­pi­an. I was ini­tial­ly keen on street cast­ing but even­tu­al­ly felt that the chal­lenges of our tight shoot­ing sched­ule neces­si­tat­ed some­one with expe­ri­ence, who could come up with the goods under pressure.

So we went down the tra­di­tion­al route, watch­ing scores of tapes and doing two recalls which includ­ed a chem­istry test with Sian before mak­ing the deci­sion. I was down to two girls of quite dif­fer­ent styles but equal­ly tal­ent­ed in their own ways. In the end, I have trust­ed my gut, which is all you real­ly can do. As Deb­o­rah Hay­wood, whose stun­ning debut Pin Cush­ion is get­ting every­one ter­ri­bly excit­ed, has said to me, ​‘Bel­ly knows best, trust the belly.’

The main thing I found was that in trust­ing Aisha to come up with sug­ges­tions and lis­ten­ing to her, I have end­ed up mak­ing choic­es that I feel con­fi­dent in. For writer/​directors in par­tic­u­lar, it can be hard to let go. As Aisha says, ​‘You will have usu­al­ly worked on this project for a long time before start­ing the cast­ing process. Be open to sug­ges­tions from the cast­ing direc­tor. They are here to help and advise you so let them. Be hon­est with them about your opin­ions so they can find the right actor for your project and facil­i­tate what you are look­ing for.’

After years of liv­ing as a file on your com­put­er, through the cast­ing process the script sud­den­ly has voic­es, it has tones, it has angles. While it is a beau­ti­ful priv­i­lege to see it on its feet, in those moments when I real­ly don’t know what the fuck is going on, I go for a lit­tle walk, lis­ten to the sound of the city and remind myself of the big­ger picture.

Oth­er­wise, the pace con­tin­ues afoot. Like I say, the fear is real. I’ll see you on the oth­er side.

Aisha’s cast­ing advice:

1. Do your research. Watch as much as you can of actors that inter­est you so you have an under­stand­ing of their act­ing style and range.
2. Don’t get dis­heart­ened some­times it can take a while to find the right actor for the role but they are out there, trust the process.
3. You will have usu­al­ly worked on this project for a long time before start­ing the cast­ing process. Be open to sug­ges­tions from the cast­ing direc­tor. They are here to help and advise you so let them. Be hon­est with them about your opin­ions so they can find the right actor for your project and facil­i­tate what you are look­ing for.
4. Last­ly always trust your instincts.

Fol­low Lucy’s jour­ney on Twit­ter @brydon_lucy