Casting

Casting the pilot was a tedious process, and I highly commend the Casting Director and her assistant for putting up with multiple auditions, call-backs, hirings, and firings. The casting gods were not always nice to this team; we fired our two main leads, one of them right before we began pre-taping last Saturday. However, being a part of the casting process was really eye-opening, given that I'm going to have to be an essential part of this one day--not to mention that I really want this casting team to work for me in the future. But let's deal with the present for now.

Helping out with auditions was definitely one of the highlights of working on this project. As the crowd control person, I had the opportunity to meet a plethora of people who waited anxiously for their turn to perform. A lot of them were fun to talk to. Others... let's just say they were in their own worlds. Working camera during auditions was a lot of fun as well because I was able to sneak footage of my classmates goofing off between auditions. It also gave me a chance to relearn the camera because I'm a "techno boob"; I'm just not meant to operate equipment no matter how many times people show me. Thankfully, I'm more of a creative type. But I digress. The best part was actually sitting in on the auditions and taking notes on the actors. Some were really good while others fell flat. I feel bad because some of my notes were really harsh. Yet, writing those "reviews" made me feel more like a producer because I was being so nit-picky. It's definitely a good trait to have.

I performed the same jobs during callbacks. Some of the actors improved while others failed miserably. Callbacks were intense because we only had a select number of actors we wanted to consider, and at one point, we didn't have anyone to cast for one of the roles! We also had to run all our choices by Kevin, and he didn't always agree with them. As frustrating as that was at times, he was ultimately right. I'm happy with the actors we finally chose, and I'm going to take a moment to toot my own horn because I suggested one of them for the role of T-Vor--the one role that we didn't cast until the night of the table read.

Overall, I enjoyed the casting process and learned so much from my experience. It's a very difficult component of working on a show because multiple circumstances affect an actor's chances of landing a role--and even after that happens, that same actor is often fired before, during, or after taping and replaced. Luckily for us, the actors we ended up casting were a fantastic bunch and were great troopers for lasting in the cold for our 12-hour post-shoot. No one should have to deal with a prima donna, but it sometimes happens. Just remember that everyone is in the same boat regardless of his/her position, and every single person involved has the same goal: to end up with an aesthetic, creative, flawless product that they are all proud of.