Casting

The concept for ‘Hands’ was to capture the progression of a long-lasting relationship through a series of big and small moments in a couple’s life. Casting required finding a wide range of people in different stages of that journey. We pulled out all stops using our personal networks, social media, casting calls, and even visiting seniors centers to find the couples and families we needed to tell the collective story. For the locations we often used the homes of our cast, which made for familiar settings to capture truly authentic moments.

We worked with the Amazon Care team to introduce their brand and service to the world, producing multiple videos and photo libraries. Casting work included finding stories from clinicians about their personal journeys in healthcare and from customers about their experiences with the service and how it improved their lives. One film focused on four families living through challenging caregiving situations. Finding those stories required months of research, multiple rounds of Zoom calls, and finally in-person scout trips as we gradually built trust and got to know the remarkable families we eventually filmed with.

For ‘Drive the Conversation’ we wanted to capture the experience and conversation between parents and their teens who were in the process of becoming new drivers. We took a particularly “boots on the ground” approach with this project, visiting high schools, driving schools and even hanging around the DMV to end up with a fun group of teens and parents for the films.

For this short documentary with PEMCO Insurance, intended to promote fire prevention practices in wildfire-prone areas, casting was a pure journalistic pursuit. We started by researching the story of the Taylor Bridge fire and arranging our first interviews with the fire chief, a couple of residents, and a local photojournalist. The rest of the casting was done in the field, as each person’s account uncovered another storyline and led us to more interviews and visuals to cover.

For ‘Love in the Moment’, we were looking for couples in all stages of love who could talk openly about their relationships. One casting approach we use is to look for “Connectors” - individuals or groups who have a deep interest in the subject matter at hand. They can be subject matter experts, bloggers, online groups, clubs or associations who have direct access to types of people and stories we’re searching for. In this case we came across a podcast that focused on relationships and many of the themes we hoped to cover. We reached out to the creator, who was more than happy to help and provide introductions to many of the couples that appeared in the final film.