Auditions

This past week we have been organising the auditions for the short films, at first I received interest from one person, who clearly stated what role she would like to audition for and why, after a couple more days I started contacting other actors, I secured another 2 actors who were willing to audition for 2 of the male leads. I then contacted more and managed to get 6 people auditioning for my short film. I decided to schedule them all together as the audition material was a group scene. On the day, 2 of the girls contacted us explaining that they would be late, I decided to keep the audition at the same time and look at the 4 on time, I learnt lots about the actors - their ability and personality during this. We recorded the audition so that we can look back on it when deciding final casting; the 2 girls who were late were auditioning for another film from my group therefore we kindly asked the first 4 to come back and read with them, we experienced a slight problem here - I started the camera to record however the 2 girls that were late were very nervous so we said they could take a moment outside to calm down, during which we stopped recording. When they came back in, they started the audition however the camera was not recording. This was mainly my fault as I was quite close to camera and could press record easier than others but because I was trying to ensure I had collected their forms and everyone had something to read from I completely forgot.

My auditions, since they were the first, were certainly a learning experience for all of us. Mostly the way we conducted it, prior to the audition we asked the actors to fill out a form that stated their contact info, availability and past experience, also on the form was a comment box which I needed to write in during the audition. Some actors had brought them, some had not therefore they completed the form at the start of the audition, then some had a problem with opening the audition material on their phone. I had printed off 2 copies of the material hoping that I would only have to give one away so that I could use the other to read from for the missing characters however I ended up giving both away which meant the conversation did not flow with the missing dialogue.

From the actors I saw and the accents I heard I believe that 3 were right for the part they were going for, one of the actors I believe is better suited towards a different character, but that still leaves 2 characters without actors to play them. I need to decided whether to ask more actors or possibly look into changing the script and getting rid of a character. The reason I am thinking this is because I have not had any other interest in my script - I think this is mainly because of the accent. I really don't know what to do.