Casting

By Nishat Hossain & Fahad Miah

Actress – Shannon Hussain

After choosing our song and establishing that it was a hybrid of the folk indie and country pop genre we decided that we needed to find our main singer. We knew what kind of image we were looking for as we gained inspiration from Taylor Swift’s, Carly Jae Jepson and Echosmith. We wanted to fit in with these female singer conventions which required them to be:• Preferably white (not Asian)• Confident • Loud• Brave• TeenagerSomeone who was willing to give up free time was our biggest concern as we know that Media requires a large amount of time and effort. After looking through possible people to choose we thought of a friend in the year below. Her name was Shannon and we thought she would be exceptionally perfect for the role, because not only did she fit the above criteria, but she also did a combination of A level subjects such as Drama and Music. These subjects fit well with media as they are considered ‘creative’ subjects. Drama requires acting skills therefore this was yet another reason why she was perfect as she would be comfortable in front of a camera.Additionally, because Shannon was friends with us, this immediately made it easier as we already had a good healthy relationship with her. She ticked all the boxes, therefore we were overjoyed when we asked her and she said yes!

Actor - Gabriel

Now that we had found our main singer and actress we needed to found our male actor and love interest. From watching music videos of the chosen genre we realised that the men are usually:• White• Teenagers• Handsome/good looking• Wavy hair • TallThe most important thing for us was that there had to be a natural chemistry between the male and the female. It had to look effortless and not awkward at all. luckily, Shannon’s boyfriend fit exactly the imagine described above and he was also willing to act for us. We were overjoyed because they are an actual couple therefore they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable in front of the camera at all. One slight problem was that, because Gabriel is still in secondary school his timetable was much different to ours, as he wasn’t free when we were and vice versa. However we were able to work around this by scheduling more weekend shoots which he was always available to come to.