playing ages
Jan. 25th, 2012 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've been poking wiki to find a cast for my imaginary TV show.
... I do this. I have no excuse.
There's the usual variety in detail, from the full profile with filmography and pictures to the two line sad lonely note about someone's time in panto.
There's also a lot of links to agents pages. And when I poked the internet for pictures I found some people's showreels, or at least videos being advertised as their showreel.
... if one of them was meant to show their range of acting it was a bit unfortunate it mostly showed them making their eyes REALLY BIG while breathing hard and putting the stresses in all the wrong places in a sentence.
See its fun because now random people on the internet can not only play imaginary casting with just as much information as proper casting people, we can be just as harsh too.
*facepalm*
There was a weird thing where wiki would tell me someone was in their 30s and I'd follow the link to their agents and find it said something like 'playing age: 26'. And, okay, I'm 29 again again and some more agains, I cannot throw stones on this one, but that's not even how I mean it. Just, I can see putting a range up there, suggesting that you wouldn't just look at this person for a thirty year old, they can play a whole decade around it. But to just knock five years off and stick with that? For why? Doesn't get them more roles, surely? Also, how come nobody on TV is their same age anyway? It's bizarre and makes it weirdly difficult to read characters. If I guess the actor age right then I'm being wrong about the characters and vice versa. Why not just make the characters be the same age as the actors? Though granted it may involve more research that way, or tweaking character relationships. Mostly though I only wanted my characters to look like people who don't make me feel old. That's a pretty flexible standard. And I had decided two characters were twins, but now I've found two people with a five year age gap, which I can also work with. Or ignore. Either works.
I found myself flicking through going "old, old, old, young, arrrgh young, old, dead, old"
and then I stopped and realised this was a really messed up approach to fellow human beings.
I think maybe casting isn't good for the soul.
... I do this. I have no excuse.
There's the usual variety in detail, from the full profile with filmography and pictures to the two line sad lonely note about someone's time in panto.
There's also a lot of links to agents pages. And when I poked the internet for pictures I found some people's showreels, or at least videos being advertised as their showreel.
... if one of them was meant to show their range of acting it was a bit unfortunate it mostly showed them making their eyes REALLY BIG while breathing hard and putting the stresses in all the wrong places in a sentence.
See its fun because now random people on the internet can not only play imaginary casting with just as much information as proper casting people, we can be just as harsh too.
*facepalm*
There was a weird thing where wiki would tell me someone was in their 30s and I'd follow the link to their agents and find it said something like 'playing age: 26'. And, okay, I'm 29 again again and some more agains, I cannot throw stones on this one, but that's not even how I mean it. Just, I can see putting a range up there, suggesting that you wouldn't just look at this person for a thirty year old, they can play a whole decade around it. But to just knock five years off and stick with that? For why? Doesn't get them more roles, surely? Also, how come nobody on TV is their same age anyway? It's bizarre and makes it weirdly difficult to read characters. If I guess the actor age right then I'm being wrong about the characters and vice versa. Why not just make the characters be the same age as the actors? Though granted it may involve more research that way, or tweaking character relationships. Mostly though I only wanted my characters to look like people who don't make me feel old. That's a pretty flexible standard. And I had decided two characters were twins, but now I've found two people with a five year age gap, which I can also work with. Or ignore. Either works.
I found myself flicking through going "old, old, old, young, arrrgh young, old, dead, old"
and then I stopped and realised this was a really messed up approach to fellow human beings.
I think maybe casting isn't good for the soul.