This is the screen test for component 3. This screen test was filmed on my device, and everyone contributed in filming it, while Kimora edited it, and Tisha uploaded it onto Youtube. This blog post was done by me (Cassie).
⋆.˚ Screen Test ⋆ ✴︎˚
Cassie’s Media Dictionary 📖 𓂃🪶
Definitions by Oxford Languages
Screen Test
/ˈskrēn ˌtest/
noun
a filmed test to ascertain whether an actor is suitable for a movie role.
Why did we create a screen test?
My team and I decided to create a screen test so we can tell who would play the roles of our main characters best. We needed someone who was confident and comfortable on camera, especially when filming affectionate scenes since our music video contains themes of love. Doing this will help us avoid actor-related problems in the future such as an actor having a different vibe than what we are looking for, or an actor’s delivery not being as good as we wanted. By doing a screen test, we hope to find someone with good star quality who can execute our vision properly. Additionally
Our Process
First, we sectioned the lyrics and decided one person would lip sync one section. Once that was done, we first filmed ourselves as we may be possible candidates. Then, during free periods or after school, we looked around for people who were willing to be our actors. We gave them limited instructions: just lip sync to the song/say this line and the rest is up to you. So, body language, delivery, and other factors was purely up to the actor. We decided on this method to allow the actor to have creative freedom over their interpretation of the song, and to see if a person truly fits our vision. After filming enough people, I put all the clips from my device in shared google drive, where Kimora edited it on CapCut. Tisha then uploaded it on Youtube.
⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔ ꒰ ᧔ෆ᧓ ꒱ ⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔
Screen Test #1 - Our Artist
We already had a vision of what kind of actor we were looking for. We wanted an actor that:
✔️ Is female, around 16-18 years old
✔️ Is confident and not camera-shy
✔️ Has charisma and star quality
✔️ Will match the aesthetic we planned
✔️ Is comfortable with love scenes that require close contact
From here, we eliminated those who felt shy or awkward in front of the camera as it would make working with them very difficult. While some were confident and fine with the camera, they didn’t have the emotional and soft energy that matched the song, leading to their elimination. After careful consideration, from our candidates (except the boys, we did that for the laughs), we all agreed and decided on actor #3, which was Kellie, our teammate.
FINAL CHOICE
Kellie was confident on camera, yet was able to interpret the song in the way we had imagined. She often posts lip syncing videos on her TikTok, so we weren’t surprised that she easily picked up the lyrics and was “feeling” the music. She used natural facial expressions and body language which highlighted her charisma, and made her look like a real artist. Additionally, she was comfortable with acting in a couple. Kellie embodied we envisioned, which is why we finalized our actor. Kellie happily agreed to be an actor for our music video, so we started planning the next steps.
Screen Test #2 - The Love Interest
After deciding our main star, we now had to decide the actor for her love interest. We wanted someone that:
✔️ Is male, around 16-18 years old as well
✔️ Is confident and comfortable on camera
✔️ Is comfortable with love scenes that require close contact
✔️ Can act naturally/happily with Kellie
First, we eliminated actors who aren’t comfortable with acting out love scenes because they’re already in relationships. We also analyzed if they delivered the line naturally in a friendly tone, while showing confidence. We eliminated those who seemed camera shy, as it would make their acting stiff, thus making the relationship in our music video seem unnatural, one-sided or made up. Overall, after discussions with my team and Kellie herself, we decided on actor #4, Karl. Based on delivery alone, we felt like Karl had the best interpretation and performance. Karl is Kellie’s close guy friend (now boyfriend!), meaning he is already comfortable being around Kellie which will make filming less awkward. Another advantage is that their chemistry should be better as well since they’re already close friends, meaning an on-screen relationship would look real and natural. Because of this, we decided to not do an additional chemistry test.
⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔ ꒰ ᧔ෆ᧓ ꒱ ⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔⏔
This screen test was actually quite fun to do as we had to walk around and find people we think would be suitable. My role was that I was collecting all the footage on my Ipad, and I was the main camera man present in the whole recording process. We were actually not expecting a lot of people to actually participate, but surprisingly more people participated than me thought. We originally wanted to record the first few verses and the chorus only in our main star screen test, because we thought we couldn’t convince people to join our screen test/be a possible actor. However, since we had more people available to film, we decided to film the whole song. One problem was that this meant we had to find more people, and it was really difficult since we filmed this around the time students usually go home, meaning less and less students were available. We already had some good candidates in mind, so our priority was actually just finding the remaining people to finish the song on our screen test (Who knows, we might find unexpected talents!). One solution was that we just started acting people, even though they did not match our criteria (hence the two boys), or asked people to do 2 verses. This was not the most effective solution as it did not broaden our candidate pool but at least it allowed us to finish the video, as it would be weird to cut it off mid song. For the boys screen test, it was relatively easy and we just asked boys who we thought matched the criteria. To be honest, once we picked Kellie, Karl was the obvious choice due to his circumstances and situation with Kellie, so we did not debate much about the pick for the love interest. Next time, maybe I wouldn’t prioritize having the screen test done in a single day, and I’d just wait til the next school day to film other possible candidates instead of just repeating people or inviting people that do not match the criteria.
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