Staring at People's Faces for Ages.

 This has been a bit of an odd week. I've been doing film things. Zoom meetings with prospective DOPs. Location recces. Attempting to cast people based only on their spotlight photos. 

I'm trying to cast young Northern Ireland based actors for a new short, but most of their show-reels are useless, particularly the boys. Every single one of them appears to have only been in short films about gangland violence, like Lock Stock was still a viable cultural force. They're all nervy and glitter-eyed, hoodied up and holding the gun sideways. And always swearing, because swearing is real, swearing is authentic. Swearing is the raw untempered poetry of the streets. Calling somebody "a fucking bawbag" is what Chaucer would be doing if he were chronicling our times. 

The women's tapes are marginally better, but it's still mostly earnest monologues about "havin' no money fer nappies or no'hin'" I understand why, Christmas in Walford is still the height of dramatic writing, but after sitting through fifty identical tapes I'm desperate to see something, anything else. I feel very conflicted about judging people solely on their looks, but I will be getting a few to send in tapes so I can see what they do, how they sound, the way they move, whether or not they get it. My scripts often involves lines of dialogue. I'm funny like that. 

It's all very exciting of course. I'm having so many Zoom calls. I'm making decisions, sometimes even difficult ones. I'm making a film. That will never not be an absolutely incredible thing. Who gets to do this at fifty? 

It's pissing down constantly. When we went to look at locations it was a bright beautiful day. I fear we may be making this in December by the seaside in Northern Ireland. I may need to invest in shoes that are not suede.