Well, I've done a fair bit of work on my TVC over the last couple of weeks! I think I shall try to briefly recap on the work I've done here, and then write about Tuesday's presentation in a seperate post.
The main issues that I tackled over the "holidays" (ha!) were casting and locations; and I'm glad I did, because these things take a very long time! Even though Lisa and I worked very hard on them, we are still not locked down.
Locations:
I did quite a lot of driving around in the Waitakeres, stopping anywhere I could find that might have a view or good bush trail. It was a pretty enjoyable experience, although I did get mighty sick of getting in and out of the car. In the end, though, it was actually the first location I visited in the Waitakeres that I turned out to be the best overall. There were others that I would like to be able to take elements from, but it's just not possible for us to have more than one relocation in a single shoot day. So the location I really liked was the Arataki Centre and Plant I.D. Loop on
The Arataki Visitor Centre is on
Advantages from a shooting or visual perspective:
- Absolutely stunning views, including many choices of perspective (multiple decks, plus a lookout 5 mins walk from car park)
- Has decking to look at the views from, which is easier to lay tracks on than uneven ground
- Has very well maintained walking tracks around it (once again, easier to work with than uneven ground)
- Lush green native forest, plenty of ferns
- A "plant ID trail" which already has pre-planted native seedlings along it, which we could pretend to replant
Disadvantages froma shooting or visual perspective:
- All the forest is quite young - there is a lack of large impressive trees.
Even though this is only one disadvantage I see it as being quite important. :-(
Advantages from a production perspective:
- Heaps of car parking
- Toilets
- Picnic tables
- Shelter in case of bad weather
- They have a lecture room which they might let us use for storage/green room?
- The people who run the place are likely to be very sympathetic to the values of our project (ie conservation)
Disadvantages from a production perspective:
- It's 25 minutes drive away
Although, as I said, we have not got this location locked down, it is in fact going very well. Lisa has been corresponding with Auckland Regional Council and they even suggested that we could plant one of the seedlings from their nursery.
As for the city location, we have applied for a permit for the corner of Customs and Queen Streets, which is the busiest pedestrian intersection in Auckland, and possibly the country. It's not going as well, because they have said that we could not film during peak hour; we would have to do it at least an hour earlier. I think we may have to find another place, because we really can't afford to cut our time in the bush short by an extra hour.
Casting:
I have offered the role of the woman to Faye Smythe, a particularly stunning well-known New Zealand actress. I have seen her working with John Callen, and I was extremely impressed with how well she took direction, plus she has a great look and beautiful voice for this character, and a very gentle style of expression and movement. She has responded saying she is very keen to work on it, but we are waiting on confirmation of her shooting schedule for a film she is committed to in May. I have my fingers tightly crossed!!!
In case Faye is unavailable, we have also been auditioning other actors for the part. It's been quite frustrating, because many have cancelled at the last minute and not turned up to the audition. Some of the women have not looked like their headshots (which isn't altogether surprising) and some of them have had very flat, wooden expression. One girl turned up utterly unprepared; she had not read the script or done the preparation I asked, and did not even seem aware that the audition was for a TVC. Another girl -poor thing - had her agent burst into the middle of the audition. I have no idea what he was thinking! We had already been in the audition room for about 5 minutes when there was a sudden loud knock at the door and he barged in, introduced himself as her agent and apologised for being late. The girl and I were completely gobsmacked. I asked him to wait outside until we were done. Despite the disasters, there was one woman who I was very impressed with. She had a lovely voice and expression, and seemed to intuitively connect with the character, and was able to bring her to life. Although we are continuing auditions tomorrow, I will probably offer this lady the role if we don't find anyone amazing. I will just have to add a hair and makeup artist to the team if we do, but I probably should be doing that anyway.
As for children, we only had three come in. One little boy was far too young, far too shy and dependent on his mother. I felt sorry for him being brought in to us, because he was clearly not ready for this kind of thing. His mother was convinced that he was the most beautiful talented child in the world though. She would have been an absolute nightmare on set. Poor kid! Another lady brought her little girl in too. The girl had just woken up from a nap, so was grumpy and not in the mood, but may have been okay at a different time of day - it was hard to tell. It was obvious that she didn't want to be there either though, so I wouldn't have been comfortable casting her. One other little girl, on the other hand, was perfectly happy with it all. She was even happy to come into the audition room by herself, and was not shy of the camera. She was a happy, cheeky, independent girl with a lot of energy, and cute too, so I will probably cast her.
In the future though we need to remember never to audition young kids around the 4pm-5pm mark, as they are definitely very tired at this time. I'll do mornings for kids in future! It's just hard because their parents may not be free at that time, even though the kids are.
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