Paul is a frustrated but likeable Casting Director who has dreams of finally making his own feature film. His girlfriend Chloe has broken up with him and he is frustrated by his job, although he has great colleagues at the agency in Rueben and Janet. He lives in a flat with his friend, the computer nerd Nic. To get his life on track again and win back his girlfriend he decides to make a film about his job, love life and all the funny things that happen behind the scenes at the casting agency!
Cast:
The cast of well known South African actors and comedians is lead by stand-up comedian and actor Paul Snodgrass who was just invited to the world famous Comedy Festival in Montreal/Canada. He also appeared on many radio and TV-shows. The female lead role is performed by Roxanne Prentice who starred in Operation Kranich and Getting Out Alive. Lots of guest stars like Colin Moss, Louw Venter, Andy Lund, Claire Dante, Michael Everson Bjorn Steinbach and FHM-model Jenna Saras complete the illustrious supporting cast with Jonathan Hearns (“Hansie”) and Raph Kossew (“Charlie Jade”)
Budget:
Yes the budget is tiny. Our shooting budget is actually closer to R25 000, but by the end of Post-Production it will probably get to around R35 000. Myself, Darren and our producer Joerg Mika put up the main R30 000 budget with Assegai Lube & Condoms giving us an extra R5 000.
Our main expense was feeding the crew and also covering expenses for some of the cast and crew that needed it, for petrol and stuff. We got great help from many of our sponsors, Assagai Lube and Condoms supplied us with cash and product, Lee Jeans gave us great wardrobe for our 3 leads, Media Film Services and Visual Impact helped us with gear, Buzz Cafe, Butlers Pizza and &Union helped with food, MycameraSA helped us out a lot by letting us buy extra batteries, cards and Lenses for our camera's with 30 days to pay, so we can try sell them when we are done and get some budget back. Then Traffik Studio, &Union, Buzz Cafe, Armoury Boxing, Labia Theatre and Rikkis Taxis helped us with locations.
So we basically pulled every trick in the guerrilla filmmakers book to help keep our budget as low as possible. For crew we got people who we had worked with before and knew we worked well with and they worked for deferred pay over 21 days. The cast also worked for deferred pay and graciously gave up their time for the film. I terms of shooting this kind of film, i don't think we in South Africa have much option but to shoot on low or no budgets. And i think its a good thing, it forces you to be creative and work with what you have.
Shooting Style:
We ended up shooting the film on two Canon 7D's with 50mm, 35mm and 20mm prime Canon lenses, with sound being recorded on a Zoom digital recorder. So very low-budget stuff. We shot the film in black and white as we felt it suited our shooting style then when we cut into the Casting camera, that will be in cheap video camera colour. Most of the film has been shot hand held with a few moments on a Kessler Crane cineslider to give us a smooth track for heightened moments. It is also a film very much steeped in Pop culture and movie geekdom, so the production design of the film very much speaks to that. It's a comedy and the framing and lenses we chose try to enhance that as much as possible, but still keeping it very real world. We wanted to make an entertaining film, but also a film that was very real.
