Scouting actors.... on the streets of Medellin

Last week we had four different casting sessions for our short film Sin Reversa. We are getting our actors together step by step. But since we are working with non-paid and many non-experienced actors,  we get a lot of "acting" that we aren't pleased with, or simply put, it looks acting.

There was one important role that we still hadn't got the actor for at the fourth and last casting last week. What to do? We have our last blocking rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday this week. I said, "Let's go out on the streets and simply ask people".

Since we are Christians and do our film projects with a spiritual purpose, I thought, "Ok, we'll pray and go out and God will do the rest", just like the disciples of Jesus did, has they held up their fish and bread to Jesus.

So we decided to go to a poor area (a "comuna"), because the role we are looking for is that of a person from such an area. My friend and casting coordinator J-C told me,
"Urban, there is a way, my friend works with this 'perifoneo', a car that drives around the area announcing cultural events with loudspeakers. It would only cost us 25.000 pesos. Do we have the money for it?"
I sadly responded,
"I'm afraid we don't have that money."
I had already spent the double of that on newspaper casting ads the other week and I am just out of money.

Then, after having prayed for God's guidance and protection, we went out on the streets. We started to ask some people. But quite soon J-C told me,
"Urban, I want to pay for that loudspeaker thing out of my own pocket."
"Really? Ok, let's do it".

So we went to this local cultural center in the comuna and asked to borrow a hall were we could do an audition tomorrow. Gracefully, they not only had a space free tomorrow, but they would let us use it for free! J-C would go on and contact the loudspeaker guy.

Then, in case the loudspeaker method wouldn't be efficient, we went out on the streets again. With only a notepad in our hands, we went around and asked the people walking by, "Would you like to act in a short film? You look like the character we are casting" and informed them about the audition tomorrow. Some of them were interested, others were not, or were busy working. Surprisingly, nobody seemed to think we were weird or suspicious.

Anyway, I am excited to see what this can lead to and what can happen as we pray and go forward. Starting with nothing, we now have a new audition set up, one that will be announced by an ambulating loudspeaker car!

We asked somebody "Do you think people here are interested in such a thing? Would they go if they heard the message?" "Oh yeah, everybody here wants to do stuff like that" they assured us.

Tomorrow we will see!