Script
Cast and Crew
Overview
My cast and crew are the usual group of 6 of us from the same group College, who work well together as a team, plus Leo Humphrey who is our bubble at College. We have been used to supporting each other’s film projects throughout the 2-year course. We are all hardworking, professional in our approach, and reliable. We all learnt on our first film project just how important being reliable is, when other people weren’t as reliable as we are. It is also an attribute that is very important going into the Industry, since whatever size of filming you are involved with, if you are not reliable then you won’t get more work since many jobs rely on people who you have worked with recommending you. If you are not reliable then you won’t get recommended.
Because of Covid, I have asked my cast and crew to do a covid test either the night before filming or the morning of filming. I explain my approach to Covid safety in my Effect of Covid Section, but briefly, if any of us had Covid and met up with the others then it would not just affect the person with Covid, it would also affect all the others since the others would need to self-isolate, which would affect all of our ability to film our Year 2 FMPs. We are all taking Covid seriously, as we would need to if we were working in the Industry.
I have gone into more detail about my characters in the Diversity and Characters Section of Pre-Production,
Actors needed – Casting
“Sam” – I need a main actor to play 4 characters based on “Sam” (probably an 18-year-old teen age boy, but as I detail in my Diversity and Characters Section, they don’t have to be):
- Sam P (Sam from the present time)
- Sam F1 (the first version of Sam who travels back and gives Sam P the first set of lottery numbers)
- Sam F2 (the second version of Sam who travels back and gives Sam P the second set of lottery numbers)
- Sam F3 (who travels back from just a few hours into the future to try to stop Sam P getting a splinter)
I need an actor to play “Anna”, a friend of Sam’s, of similar age.
I need an actor to play “The Stranger”, a mysterious stranger who, it is implied, brings the first hat that enables Sam (and Anna) to time travel. The Stranger can be any age.
“Anna “– “Although I have put that Sam P is a boy and Anna a girl, as I explained in my Diversity and Characters Section, I have deliberately written this script in a way that Sam could played by a male or female actor, of any age, race etc. So the key 2 features of Anna are
- that it has to be clear that Anna is not a version of Sam.
- Anna has to be believable as being a friend of Sam’s, so probably about the same age.
“The Stranger” – again, as I detail in my Diversity and Characters Section, can be any age, gender, race etc. Also. we never see their face.
I have considered asking actors at College or some of my friends from my old Drama School. But I realised that there Covid issues if I do that. These issues are
- Covid – They would be in a different Covid bubble to the rest of us, which would increase the chances of the rest of my crew either getting Covid, or, if the actor got Covid, of my crew having to self-isolate, which would affect their abilities to complete their own Year 2 FMPs.
- Reliability – At this time of year, they would probably be in the middle of “Assessments” since most of my friends are. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue in a pre-Covid year, but everyone is a bit more stressed about these “Assessments” since they are much more unknown than the usual GCSEs and people are having to do them earlier and with less preparation. I was concerned that anyone I ask will understandably have other priorities, which would unfortunately lead to them being able to be less reliable. In the Industry, you still can’t guarantee 100% reliability, actors get ill or hurt in the middle of a shoot (Tom Cruise broke his ankle during Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)) or even die (sadly Heath Ledger died during the filming of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)). But these are not common, and generally when an actor commits to a role in the Film Industry, they have a contract to be available. This is not something that I can insist upon for my Year 2 FMP, and I need to be aware that, as important as this film is to me, anyone who is my cast and crew probably has different priorities.
- Scheduling – anyone not on my course, from a different school/College, or who is working, will have a different schedule and commitments to me. Ordinarily, and in the Industry, this is just something that you would work around. I remember that Henry Cavill had a commitment to Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) to keep his moustache, which caused continuity issues for his role of Superman in Justice League (2017) when reshoots were needed due to the change of director from Zack Snyder to Joss Whedon. Henry’s moustache had to be removed in Post-Production, at a huge expense. Ideally, Henry Cavill’s commitments to these films wouldn’t have overlapped. These things do happen, but there are often the budgets available to fix problems like “Henry Cavill’s moustache”, or the shooting is scheduled around the actors’ availability and once a commitment is made it is a legal contract. I can’t make my actors sign legal contracts, I am relying on their goodwill, at a time when many people’s schedules are starting out different to mine and are changing too.
For these reasons, I decided that it was best to keep my cast and crew within my usual 90%Bloopers team. Since we are all in the same bubble, yes there is always the chance that one of us could catch Covid and we all have to self-isolate, but at least we are not bringing someone new into the mix. I know we are all reliable, and also we all have an incentive to be reliable now since we are all relying on each other for our Year 2 FMPs. And finally, our schedules are about as similar as they could be. Yes, some of us have commitments at certain weekends, but it still minimises scheduling issues.
That did limit my acting pool, but fortunately we have a great actor in our group, Jack (Quest) Harper, who has acted in all my previous films, so I was confident that he could handle the 4 Sam’s.
The most different to Sam in our group would be Ellie, so she agreed to act Anna. Again, I was confident that she could do this effectively.
For The Stranger, I knew that there was a good chance that Harley would not be able to film outside of College with us, and Adam is not keen on acting, although he will and has done so when necessary. A key feature of this role is that they have to stand behind the bench that Sam P is sitting on and be tall enough that we don’t see their face. I decided that my height was a benefit here [Update: I actually turned out to be a little TOO tall and I had to lower myself a bit to get the right balance in the frame]. Also, although I much prefer being behind the camera, I have been a member of a Drama School since I was 5, and performed many times on stage, so I am comfortable with acting. I’m not sure how good I am, I know I’m nowhere near as good as Jack (Quest) Harper is, but my friends do ask me to be in their films, so I must be OK. I knew that the shot that I had planned for The Stranger is a fixed MCU 2-shot, so I knew that I could set it up with a stand-in like Adam, and then either me or someone else could start the camera. I wanted to be the person controlling the camera for all the shots in this film, especially those with movement in, however this was a shot that it made sense that someone else could assist with. So, I decided that I would be the best person to act The Stranger.
The only other “character”, who is not really a character but who I wanted to cast, is “Sam P’s foot double”. The opening shot is of a pair of feet walking in one pair of shoes, followed by a pair of feet in different shoes. The first pair are Sam P and the second are Sam F1. I could use the same method as I will use for when we see their actual bodies following each other, ie masking and cropping 2 shots. However, I can see that I could use a foot double wearing the second pair of shoes, and that will save me editing time. The key attribute of this actor needs to be that they can fit in a pair of Jack’s shoes, since the shoes will be the ones that Sam F1 wears later. Leo had the best sized feet for this and is part of our close group of friends and bubble at College, so that was an easy decision.
So, I have all my Cast.
Crew
On the whole, my Crew for filming days should be easier, since in 90%Bloopers we all know the roles that we are good at and work well as a team. I did need to keep it to 6 or below for Covid restrictions as to how many can gather together outside. So, my Crew for Principal Photography are:
Me – Director and Cinematographer
Adam – Sound Recordist
Ellie – Assistant Director, prompting and checking lines.
Jack – Actor
Leo – Feet Double and Runner
(I had hoped that Harley could come too to take behind the scenes photos and footage. He was unsure if he could, and it turned out that he couldn’t. But that was OK, I had made contingency plans – see below)
I have planned to keep all the equipment together in a small tent, for protection from the rain and also so that we don’t have to move everything to all locations in the wood. I have asked my Parents to sit by the tent and guard it, since obviously I cannot just leave expensive equipment without someone looking after it. I am not counting them as part of the 6 since they will not be with the rest of the crew filming, they will be by the tent.
Contingency for behind-the-scenes photos and footage, in case Harley can’t make it – I have asked my Dad to act as contingency for this, in which case he will count as one of the 6. My parents have Covid tests at home, so they can also test for Covid like the rest of us. My Dad can also act as contingency for most other crew roles, since he has been a Sound Recordist for me before, and also assisted me with cameras. Leo can also be contingency Sound Recordist, having done that before. If Ellie can’t make it then Leo can be contingency for her roles, including the acting if necessary.
Basically, I am confident that between us in this group we can cover most roles if someone can’t make it. I say most, since losing my main actor Jack would cause problems. I am sure that Adam would gamely step up, but I don’t think he would be particularly happy. I think Jack’s role is quite challenging. If I was unable to have Jack then I think I would have to do quite a rethink, and maybe even see if I could bring in someone from outside. Another option could be to ask Ellie to play “Sam” (Samantha) and ask Adam to play a different version of “Anna” (“Andy”). As I have mentioned, something that I am pleased about with this script is the opportunities for diversity in casting actors for the characters. It is very flexible.
I hadn’t actually though before planning my cast and crew that an added benefit to writing diversity in this way is the flexibility in recasting if necessary. Maybe this benefit is something that could help my idea of writing for diversity to be useful in the Industry, and thus help make a difference.