Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Actors Research - Main Task

Since our film opening only required one character, a 17 year old boy, it was fairly easy to fit the role since we were not planning to have them being explicit acting, nor have their whole body on screen. However, we chose a person, Tom Downey, who did have experience in acting and in fact took media studies themselves, so they knew what to expect (in a way) when it came to shooting day. As a director, I wanted to be able to communicate effectively with the actor so that we could shoot effectively and efficiently, in this way it helped that I already knew the actor previously. It also helped that our narrative did not rely on his acting and so he was not heavily required other than just sitting and typing in the scene in which we wanted to conduct. We mostly wanted to rely on the message created by the note he was typing out as well as his surroundings, in order to create appropriate meaning about his character in a coherent way.

However, I thought that Tom was perfect for the role as being a 17 year old boy himself he could relate to his character, Peter (except the school shooting plot-line...hopefully). The only thing that was perhaps different would be relating to being an American boy however, the social issues tackled in the opening are perhaps thing that many people have been affected by. Mental issues being a serious problem in today's society. 

We also wanted the character to have quite a small frame, since the main character is no 'soccer' player but rather one of the kids who sits in the library and reads throughout his breaks to stay away from all the people who bully him for perhaps being 'different' or just a target. In this way, Tom was the perfect size to portray this character in the right way, displaying his vulnerability. 


Tom also reminded me of the character 'Charlie' from 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' and 'Oliver Tate' from 'Submarine' due to their character's having similar in vulnerability. Tom also came across as quite quiet and thus fitted the role perfectly. Not to say that he is the kind of person who would be bullied, he just had a sense of perhaps hiding things behind the surface as with the character 'Oliver' and 'Charlie' who also share traits which Peter (the main character of Nineteen Minutes'). In this way,  think this drew me to the character more since I love those films so much.

Charlie from the 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' was quite influential in creating Peter's character initially since the characters were very similar and both struggle from depression. 





Similarly, 'Oliver Tate' was an influence due to the character being portrayed as isolated due to the affects of bullying and perhaps not being perceived as 'normal' by other people the same age.



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