Casting is working, PR, sound decisions, and composing

Casting is working! We have over 1,000 applicants!

We tried a new tactic – Craig’s List (online classifieds). I tried it a while ago, but my posts were deleted because you cannot post the same post twice, and you cannot post in more than one city. To make a long story short, we circumvented the spam filter and can now post all over the country. So far we have contacted only 60 cities. There are plenty more cities around the US, and we can always re-post, so needless to say, the doors are wide open for casting!

Fenix and I have developed a more streamlined audition process and means of auto-responding to applicants. We would prefer to be personable, but it’s simply not possible at this point.

Along with inquiring actors, we have had many telephone calls and e-mails from people who want to help the project (casting assistants, production assistants, make up artists, more composers, sound designers, equipment company owners… even a trick rope rodeo person and a craft services provider!)

The celebrity casting is moving forward as well. Will’s package design is finished! It’s attached below. My parents printed it out, and my mom is cutting and folding each of the packages.

Christie finished her second draft of the celebrity letter and is working on the third. It’s coming right along.

Amanda (PR) is working on the public relations campaign. She is very busy this week, but she contacted two newspapers and will get back to me soon with phone interviews for journalists. She will also respond soon with the proper contact information to get in touch with celebrities so we can send out the packages.

This week, we are ordering the Red Camera! It should arrive in a couple weeks. John has his first hands-on experience with the camera this week in his cinematography, so at least we aren’t buying blind. We are making more ‘buy’ decisions every day.

Our sound consultant, James Lunsford has been working full-time on the project for the past month. We have not mentioned his involvement as we were not certain if he would be able to be the sound designer. He has developed the equipment purchase list for audio and is working on finalizing our purchase decisions (taking from quotes from five sources – including Sennheiser).

A very talented and pro-active composer, Richey Rynkowski won’t listen to my plea to “wait for composer auditions.” He is taking charge of this project and composing music anyway. He sent two songs based on the online cues at www.kentonbartlett.com/script. They sound GREAT! I’ve attached them below so you can listen. He put two days of work into these songs knowing that composing was premature. He is also well connected with a conductor and a performing orchestra and offered to pay for live recording of his score. Even though we can’t promise anything at this point, this is the kind of determination that stands out.

After the first two songs, he said he wanted to compose more original songs. If he’s going to go against advice of waiting for auditions and work on the music full time, then I feel it’s my responsibility to give him instruction. I sent over several musical references, and he is working full-steam on some new songs. He is obviously very determined, and we are very excited to hear more of his work!

We keep sending out more e-mails to ask for help from a variety of places, and we will keep you updated on any leads.