Actors - Casting

The characters and cast for our video are:

Guy - Josh Waterman

Josh was reliable which was one main reason we chose him; he was keen to be involved, however more nervous than Gillian or Yasmine in front of the camera; this was advantageous however when filming the exam scene.

We found that Josh had an average indie vibe which fit with the idea that the audience would relate better to a character that wasn't strongly tied to a specific trend, however we did need someone that could represent the genre well; although someone with slightly stronger ties to the genre would have been preferred, the jeans and cardigan combination suggests the indie genre.

Girl - Gillian Mee

Gillian has a different style completely to Josh and this created a nice contrast between the characters, unlike Josh her style didn't represent the genre, however it did create an opening for other non-indie audiences to engage with the video. Gillian has more a chic polished style which fits in well with the "girl next door" style and, again creates contrast between Josh and Gillian. She was reliable and pleased to be part of the video, compared with Josh and Yasmine she felt far more comfortable in front of the camera, which helped the others relax; as a person she is quite bubbly and confident which was another reason we cast her because she was able to bring that to video.

Second Girl - Yasmine Galt

Yasmine was reliable and responsive and keen to be involved. She is also Josh's real-life girlfriend; this created chemistry between them when filming their date scene. Yasmine also has a mysterious look about her, which is why we decided to cast her as this work to our advantage when filming the coffee shop/date scene with Gillian and Josh.

Teacher - Mr Bloomfield

Performance - Ian Currie, Tristan Dunbar, Tom Hartley-Booth, Jon Brasted.

Andy Morris,Tom Stewart, Emily Mullender (hands only).

6 extra exam students - Emma Wilson, Sarah Pooley, Sally Bailey, Ben Pant, Justin Pryce, Theo Elliot.

We decided on these actors because they're friends and we feel they have the right look for our video, considering the type of song used. The most difficult aspect of the shoot was finding the extra students and the teacher, as we needed all the cast to be available at the same time; also we needed to cast someone who was older and realistically looked like a teacher.

We wanted the cast to look as realistic as possible and create a scenario that was accessible to the audience; we thought this would work better if we could have an actual teacher to perform as the teacher in the video because they would have the mannerisms and would know how a teacher would behave in an exam situation. Using students that were also students created a sense of realism as, similarly to the teacher, they automatically behaved as they would have done in an exam - we also found that when the students were filmed it made the nervous, which again added to the naturalism.

When filming the individual date scenes, a different tone was created in each scene - the first scene with Josh and Gillian felt tense and nervous, like a first date which was added to because they felt awkward around each other as Josh has a real-life girlfriend. In order to create a difference in tone between the date scenes, we cast Josh's real-life girlfriend as his secret girlfriend and this worked because Josh and Yasmine were natural together in their scene which suggested to the audience that they had been dating for a while.