Casting and recording

It's been tougher than anticipated, I managed to nail down minor cast roles easily enough. However, the lead proved tricky, the man I had in place said he couldn't commit as much time anymore, and other actors I approached said they could only do one or two days a week. Which is not nearly enough time. Luckily, I was talking to a guy at my work and he offered his services, although he didn't rate his own acting skills, his voice sounded right for the part. Also, on the acting front, I'm still struggling to pin down an actor to play Mrs. Shaker, an older woman, though I have one person in mind, she has yet to confirm a day to ready the few lines for the character. I also had to swap a couple of roles over, I initially had a friend in Scotland down to play Mike, also an older character, but he lost his laptop on a train and cannot record the lines for another couple of weeks. So, I swapped the actor playing Snakes to play Mike and recruited a new actor in to play Snakes.

On the recording front, I've made good headway, I think. The monolgues are proving tough to get through as some of them a quite long and are proving a stumbling block for the actor, but we're getting there. I've recorded almost all of the other characters lines, I just need to record Lou and Mrs. Shaker. Then, from there it'll just be a matter of pinning down a few stray lines for the lead character, Jack, and getting the monologues done. I was feeling pretty stressed about all this the other day, along with people being sacked from my work and trying to find a new place to live once all of this is over, I've felt a lot of pressure. However, work has settled down, I'm finding some lovely, potential new homes and this project is plodding along, so I'm feeling a bit more confident about it all.

I've always disliked this part of making a radio drama, having to rely on other people, putting your potential grade in someone else's hands, if they turn up late or not at all, or if they can't commit the time you need, it can be very stressful. And I don't have the money spare to be able to pay actors, so they're all acting as a favour to me. But, the end is in sight, soon I'll have all the audio I'll need and it will just be a case of getting the perfect edit, flying through the paperwork and writing a strong evaluation, all before the 5th of October. When I say October it seems like an age away, but it's really not!