Rounding Out the Cast

I probably did this in the wrong order, but after I finished casting the three main roles, I let an international distributor I've worked with read the script and give me some feedback and advice. He liked the script and gave the advice of casting actors that have been in other shows - this would give the movie more credibility and make it easier for him to sell to his buyers. The problem is that I'd already cast the main parts and didn't really have the money to hire recognizable faces and have to deal with SAG on such a small show. So I decided to cast the larger supporting roles with some actors that had done some other shows. Since I really didn't know many actors with experience that would work for what I needed, I started watching movies that I knew had been produced locally to see what actors may be around. I found an actress, Lillith Fields, that was in Urban Legends: Bloody Mary and tracked her down through some crew members I knew that worked on that show. We got a hold of her and sent her a script and she agreed to play the part of Jamie, the girl that gets kidnapped in the movie. She was actually living in California at the time, but was willing to come to town to film her parts.

I decided to cast one more person in a supporting role that had been in other movies, so I called up a friend, Chris Kendrick, that I had worked with before and offered him the role of Tom, the next door neighbor. It wasn't a big role, but I figured as long as I could put his name on the cast list with the credits of his other films, it would hopefully help. I also thought he fit the role really well, so I was glad to have him on board.

Now that I had cast all the roles in the movie, it was time to lock down locations and make sure the technical side and the equipment was ready to go.