'A Place of Refuge and Hope' is a piece of graffiti on the estate. It's quite ironic as many of the occupants find that they cannot wait to escape. After many thoughts into where i wanted to shoot the film, it was finally decided that i wanted to shoot it in Southend on the Queensway Estate. After many hours on the phones and emails, Kamilla secured the location agreements, and we were all ready to start shooting on the 18th Feb :D
On Friday 4th February, Me and Kamilla went to Southend to begin our audition process. We had a great turn out due to the help of Michelle Taylor who runs Blah Blah Productions, who supplied us with an amazing studio to have our auditions. We also had a lot of auditions through the website Star Now. In all we had about 25 auditions for 5 roles. the most demanded role was that of little Megan. We had 10 people audition, yet we could only choose 2 for the call backs on saturday.
Thanks to the help of Matt Gibbs and Alfie Thomson we managed to organise a great day. Also Kamilla organised the waiting room and made it a lot smoother for me and the possible cast members. After a 9 hour day we chose 2 of each character ready for the call backs on the 5th. Was a really tough process as there were so many good ones.
The call backs produced some great performances and made it even harder for me to decide. Megan the younger sister had 2 great applicants, and this was definitely my hardest decision, but i think i made the right choice. I chose Pia johnson who impressed with both days of her auditions. Unfortunately i had to let down little Zoe who was a superb character and i really enjoyed working with her. I stressed to her that i would love to work with her in the future.
The two main characters Kerry and Natalie were given too Amy Goodwin and Meaghan O'Neill. They both showed maturity that i really respected, they listened to all my directions and gave very strong performances. I cant wait to work with them. Natalies two friends Kristy and Millie were given to Harriet Moring and Alana Boden. Both great talents and still so young, is going to be really interesting seeing where they go within the industry. Both the character of Dean and Jill will be played by Alfie Thomson and Michelle Taylor. They both helped so much with the auditions and i was blown away by their portrayals of the characters and couldn't help but offer them the parts. A long time friend and past cast member in my previous films, Josh Brown has happily taken the role of the crazed Gang Leader, which i am really chuffed about, as i know he is a real determined individual that i trust fully. Below is the performers who will be portraying the characters i have created.
