AUDITION!! AUDITION!!! AUDITION!!! OPEN CASTING CALL FOR HOUSTON TEXAS U.S.A!

CAST AND CREW CALL!!

Executive Producer Susan Nwokedi on set in Abuja Nigeria

TopLine Production is casting for a project to be shot this summer in the Houston metropolitan area. Please submit your head shot picture, a body shot and a 1 page acting and/or crew resume and demo reel to skedi_k6@yahoo.com. (It is okay if you don't have a demo reel or resume). We are casting for both lead and supporting roles, minor roles, extras, we need adults of all age, children ages 5 to 18, also crew call.

Production Title: SWC
Studio/Independent/Student: Independent
Union/Non-Union: Non-Union
Project Type: series/feature/pilot
Project Format: Red One Camera/HD
Production Location: Fort Bend, Houston, Texas
Other/Additional Location(s): TBD
Production Start Date: June 2013
Shooting Schedule: The Shoot will last approximately 5 days
Production Wrap Date: TBD
Production Company: TopLine Production & Entertainment/TopLine Films
Producer: Susan Nwokedi
Writer: Susan Nwokedi
Director: Susan Nwokedi and U.M. Chikuemeka
Audition Location: La Quinta Inn & Suites on Westheimer and Shadow View Lane: 2451 Shadow View Lane, Houston, TX 77077
Time: 11am to 3pm
Date: Saturday, May 11, 2013
Contact Susan via email: skedi_k6@yahoo.com
Paid/Deferment/Non- Paid: Depends on Role
Other/Additional Compensation: Film Credit


All interested please send your head shot, resume and demo reel to: skedi_k6@yahoo.com

Additionally, you may send direct message to me on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TopLine.Producer?ref=tn_tnmn or to the TopLine Production Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/TopLine-Films-a-Division-of-TopLine-Productions-Entertainment-Co/116870931662238 if you are interested.

No experience necessary…we want to discover the undiscovered. ******************************************************

Log line/Synopsis: How far will Jodi and her beautiful professional friends go to save their sanity?

Character list and breakdown:
Ashley Hispanic/Indian/Asian - late 20s to 40
Patrick - Black, White Male, other race (very handsome, built)
Tony - black male 18 years old college student
Justice - 15 high school student black
Junior - black male 8 years old
Funmilola - biracial female 12 years old
Blessing - female 6 years old
Jonathan - Nigerian Male 30s to 40s
Chikudi - Male 30s
Maya - black female 5 years old
Pastor Kinsley - black male 60s
Auntie Yvonne - Black female 50s
Ted - Nigerian Male 30s to 40s
Several very hot looking male of all ethnicity 20s to 30s
Several young children of all ethnicity 5 to 18
Several men and women of all age, ethnicity and look

Executive Producer Susan Nwokedi

Executive Producer Susan Nwokedi with actor Van Vicker on set

Blow is an extremely short survey; please take a few seconds to answer it. We value your opinion greatly!

Should African films shot in the U.S. or U.K. be classified as Nollywood movies?

** Don't worry, the following survey is confidential. **

No one (including "Nollywood Spotlight") will be able to see your personal information.

ALTHOUGH THESE CELEBRITIES WILL SEE THIS SURVEY, THEY STILL CAN NOT SEE THE NAME, PICTURE, OR INFORMATION OF THE PERSON WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS SURVEY.

SPEAK YOUR MIND AND HAVE FUN!!!

Public OpinionPoll Results

By: Unknown On 07.30

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Audition! Audition! Audition! In Houston Texas USA!

Characters needed for a short pilot: “The Widows Heart”. Quick rehearsals MIGHT be on set, therefore, we need EXPERIENCED actors/actresses; we will NOT teach you how to act, however because your time will be greatly appreciated you are welcome to be an extra. Secondly, this pilot is on a LOW BUDGET project, therefore major characters are only getting a small compensation for their time. Bring with you A HEAD SHOT, to better help us with our pick. You have to be flexible and able to give 5-8 hours of your time for two straight days if chosen for a major role. Thank you in advance and we look forward to working with you on set.

CHARACTERS NEEDED

MAJOR ROLE

ROSLYN (ROSE)- AFRICAN(A PLUS), (40-50 years or looks like) Beautiful, Brown Skin tone or lighter in complexion, classy and sophisticated looking, 5’5inc-5’9inc in height and 160-190lb or looks like, clean and clear fair easy to understand accent.

CHARLES JR- AFRICAN(A PLUS), (30-33 year or looks like) Handsome, light in complexion, intimidating and fit, 5’8inc-6’2inc in height 160-174lb or look like, clean and clear proper accent.

BERNARD “BOE”- AFRICAN AMERICAN (30-35 years or looks like) THUG, ROUGH, mean, braids or bald (optional), tattoos or scars a plus, 5’8inc-6’2inc in height. Build in body (a plus) 160-190lb or look like. Dark in complexion

SUPPORTING

SHIELA- AFRICAN AMERICAN (40-55 years or look like) DARK in skin complexion, MUST BE SLIM OR THIN (a plus). 5’5inc-6inc in height 130-145lb or look like. A thick African American accent or should be able to pull off a GHETTO accent.

DICK- CAUCASIAN AMERICAN (35-40years or look like) BLOND SHORT hair (a plus) or dark (optional), SOPHISTICATED and very well spoken, size doesn’t matter.

EXTRAS NEEDED

MIMI- AFRICAN AMERICAN (26-30 years) Dark or light in complexion. BEAUTIFUL. 5’5inc-5’9inc.

BERNARD “BOE”- AFRICAN AMERICAN (6-8 years or look like)dark in complexion.

GRANDPA- AFRICAN AMERICAN(50-60 years). 5’7-6’2 in height.

All races males/females for extras all between the age of 25-45 needed for executioners, Judge, prison guards and jury.

LOCATION: The Whale Church: 1371 West Gulf bank, Houston, Texas 77088.

DATE: 5/5/2012
TIME: 10am – 4pm
Click Here to RSVP on Facebook!
Forward any questions or concerns to: nollywoodauditions at gmail (dot) com

By: Unknown On 01.54

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SAG Injustice: When a Nomination is Still a Snub

In the afterglow of the SAG nominations, when publicists, stars and pundits are all aglow with congratulatory messaging of every sort and critics are bemoaning the fate of talented but snubbed performances, one annual dismaying group of snubs always slips through the cracks. I'm talking about the people who contributed to the movies nominated as Best Ensemble but weren't actually included when the nomination was awarded.  The nominated ensemble casts of The Fighter, The King's Speech, Black Swan, The Social Network and The Kids Are All Right do not, in all cases, fully represent the acting achievements within the film.

The following actors were not nominated in "ensemble"

Black Swan ~ This nomination includes all those demented raven-haired beauties: Natalie Portman, Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder and the man fucking with their pretty heads: Vincent Cassell. Noticeably absent: Benjamin Millepied, the principle male dancer should have also been listed. While it's true he doesn't have a lot of "acting" to do, he gets some in, and actors sometimes get nominated for a lot less; he is one of the chief contributors to the film being its choreographer as well.

The Fighter ~ This nomination includes only the principle Oscar seeking cast: Wahlberg, Bale, Adams and Leo and one more for good measure. That's Jack McGee who plays Melissa Leo's husband so beautifully. Noticeably absent: cameo players like Sugar Ray Leonard (remember that Gwen Stefani got nominated for dressing up like Jean Harlow in The Aviator), the entire gaggle of big haired comic relief sisters, Mickey O'Keefe, the cop/trainer who Bale loves to mock (name?) and everyone else who contributed to the film's invaluable local color and weird but hugely enjoyable tragicomic bent.

The Kids Are All Right ~This nomination includes only the immediate family: Moms Bening & Moore and kids Mia Wasikowska & Josh Hutcherson and "Interloper" Mark Ruffalo. Noticeably absent: Yaya daCosta, who so deliciously handles her role of Ruffalo's fuckbuddy and employee. Seriously now, she delivers fantastic line readings in this movie and underlines some of the movie's more subtle points about Ruffalo's character as well as contributing to its randy high spirits. I consider it an egregious omission. Also absent are Mia & Josh's friends and the gardener who Julianne fires who each get more than one scene.

The King's Speech ~ This nomination includes the three principles plus Anthony Andrews, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Guy Pearce and Timothy Spall. It's arguably the most inclusive of all the nominated cast lists but it still manages to diss one key player. Noticeably absent: Eve Best (from Nurse Jackie) who plays the controversial and plot-relevant Wallis Simpson.The royals didn't want her around and treated her like shit. So... did the Weinstein Co decide to follow suit and do the same? 

The Social Network ~ The Facebook movie has the most bizarre and confusing case of the internal snubbings. Obviously the triumvirate of Eisenberg, Garfield and Timberlake are accounted for as are the Winklevi (both played by Armie Hammer) and their business partner (Max Minghella). But what's most curious is that the body actor Josh Pence who helped to play the Winklevi but whose face does not appear in the film was nominated but the following six actors were not. Noticeably absent: Rooney Mara's soulful portrayal of Erica kicks off the entire successful dynamic of the film's rapid-fire dialogue which in turn reveals, comments on and delights in every badly managed personal relationship within the film. The film is smart enough to return to Mara on three key occasions but she was not nominated. All of the lawyers, officials and interns are also absent. You can't include everyone of course but a few people's contributions are very noticeable including Douglas Urbanski's audience-beloved cameo as Larry Summers, John Getz and Rashida Jones as Zuckerberg's council, Denise Grayson as Eduardo's lawyer (great write up of her work at Nick's Flick Picks) and Brenda Song as Eduardo's terrifying girlfriend?

Can someone please explain how these people are not an intrinsic part of the acting network within The Social Network? 

From my understanding, the nominating committee does not pick and choose which members of a cast receive the official title of SAG nominee, they merely vote on the film titles. The studios themselves also sometimes submit For Your Consideration cast lists that already do the omissions (The Fighter's FYC screener, f.e., lists only the five names). Or perhaps the problem is the SAG rules which go like so

"The Cast of a Motion Picture includes all performers whose names appear in the cast credits of the final release print. Motion Picture casts shall be represented by those actors billed on separate cards in the main titles, wherever those titles appear. In cases of special, unusual or non-billing or credit, eligibility shall be at the sole discretion of the Screen Actors Guild Awards Committee. Members of the cast who are not single billed but are credited in the cast crawl of the motion picture announced as the recipient of the Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture shall each receive a certificate."

So by this rule, no matter how great you are in a movie, no matter how large your role, if your agent can't get you single billing, you can't be nominated.
Every year there are glaring examples of actors adding to the texture, tone and overall success of their movie, that are kicked to the curb when it comes time to say "Great Ensemble!"  We think, in a prize meant to honor the whole being greater than the individual parts, that this is a terrible and avoidable injustice. So here's to those snubbed actors inexplicably dropped from the honor bestowed to their co-workers! We salute you one and all.
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By: Unknown On 10.09

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Sam Rockwell and Hilary Swank in "Conviction"

Whether or not you believe the old Hollywood maxim “directing is 90% casting,” you do have to admit that it’s a hefty percentage of the sum of any good film. Tony Goldwyn, who directed the true story exoneration drama Conviction, now in theaters, obviously understands this. Sam Rockwell was Goldwyn’s first and only choice to play the convicted murderer Kenny Waters and casting him was a wise move indeed.  Now, signing Rockwell didn’t leave Goldwyn with only 10% of the work to do but it certainly improved the film before the cameras got rolling.

Read the rest of "Best in Show: Sam Rockwell" at Tribeca Film

...Meanwhile here at The Film Experience

I regret to inform that there's no proper review of the movie coming. (If anyone knows a good free Time Management Class in NYC, do let me know, will you?) But Conviction, which expands (maybe to your city) Friday will get some coverage here nontheless. Some words on Tony Goldwyn (writer/director/sometime actor) and the one and only Juliette Lewis are forthcoming. Many of you have already asked what I thought of the Swankster. So I shall divulge.

I would rank this as her third best performance. It's lesser than Million Dollar Baby (able work but the film / character are nowhere near as dynamic) and miles below Boy's Don't Cry. The latter is her peak, her Mount Everest if you will; her other performances can only see it with binoculars. To be fair, many Actresses could only see that particular performance with binoculars. Contrary to popular belief I have never begrudged her that first Oscar.

"It's okay, Sam. You can have one of mine."

It's interesting that Hilary Swank's best work always involves single-minded characters. As you know I've never found her particularly gifted but rather than bag on her (she's good in the film) like the haters always assume I will, I'll just explain my theory about her.

Were Swank to have stayed in television, I think she'd have proven to be a popular and fairly adept lead in procedural dramas or some such with a shelf of Emmys to show for it rather than two Oscars and pockets of haters and minor media backlash. She is undoubtedly capable of hitting her marks, carrying a film (i.e. the ability to hold audiences attention for a good long while -- which is a different talent than "acting" but mandatory for film stardom) and, most importantly, selling the important emotions of a scene. She can sometimes do this with enormous aching feeling and she's been abundantly rewarded for just that. But where I've always found her lacking, and thus the Oscar attention galling, is that she doesn't seem capable of doing that and... Which is to say that she only sells one idea about a character at a time. Were you to define the greatest weapons in the arsenal of any truly gifted big screen actor, I think you'd find that their ability to convey a multiplicity of feelings simultaneously is one of them. The great screen actors can merely look towards the camera and you get not one but two (or several) ideas about the character. They have the gift of three-dimensional sculpting. Some of them, the ones with a penchant for minimalism or an unusual facility with ambiguity especially,  can even cross over into a fourth dimension of...

But I digress. I could go on and on -- I have feelings and theories about screen acting (!) to state the very obvious -- but I do think the filmmakers (and maybe the actress herself?) who have found the best uses for Swank have understood, even if only on an instinctual level, that her limits can be used as strengths to service characters who have only ever allowed themselves one track, one purpose or one guiding emotion. (Amelia, was an interesting failure in light of this. While Earhart was engaged in a singular-minded pursuit, the woman was too complex an individual otherwise for Swank's approach). Swank's key characters,  Brandon, Maggie and now Betty Anne Waters, really have only this single-mindedness to unite them.

Swank x 3: Boy's Don't Cry, Million Dollar Baby, Conviction

Well, that and their coincidental (?) white trash childhoods. I have no explanation for the poverty stricken childhoods -- "I'm just a girl from a trailer park with a dream!" -- and I'll leave that up to your theorizing, should you want to go there.

Do you plan to see Conviction? Do you think Swank can pull off a surprise third nomination (it is a longsuffering bio) or that Sam Rockwell will finally win an Oscar nomination?
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By: Unknown On 15.00

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Familiar Faces. The David Fincher Hierarchy

By now you've undoubtedly confirmed for yourself that Brad Pitt is not in David Fincher's The Social Network... Unless you count that "Tyler Durden" Facebook profile on a computer screen in Jesse Eisenberg's room (blink and you'll miss it but I did catch it the second time through).

A Fincher sandwich. Brangelina brung the bread.

If you foolishly expected Brad to pop up for a cameo, you're forgiven on account of your totally understandable great love of David Fincher movies, in which Brad often stars (Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). They're friends in real life and only one year apart in age. But for now, no new movie collaborations are on the docket. 

<--- Fincher winning an MTV Award for Se7en (1995). It wasn't the first time MTV honored him but more on that later.

Beyond the obvious and uncurious case of Brad Pitt, does the popular director even favor repeat actors?  He's not visibly a creature of habit like Woody Allen, previously featured in this new series, but he does reuse actors, like favorite daubs of paint on his auteurial palette. Let's investigate!

The David Fincher Acting Hierarchy
(Quantitatively Speaking)

4 Films.
There's a three way tie for the top honor, each beating Brad Pitt by one film, albeit with much smaller roles than Brad's movie star status would allow.

• Richmond Arquette. Yes, that's the least famous member of the Arquette clan (brother to Alexis, David, Rosanna & Patricia). Fincher always gives him tiny roles but some are key: he makes the dread box delivery at the end of Se7en, makes the first two kills in Zodiac and also appears in Fight Club and Benjamin Button.
• Bob Stephenson, who you might reconize as a series regular from TV's Jericho or The Forgotten, is part of the SWAT team in Se7en, a security officer in Fight Club and a killer in both The Game and Zodiac.
• Christopher John Fields stretches the furthest back with the director, all the way to Fincher's debut feature Alien³ (1992) where he played "Rains" one of the first victims of the acid-blooded beastie. Poor guy. He also appears in The Game as Detective Boyle, Fight Club's dry cleaning man and he's a copy editor in Zodiac.

3 Films.
A man that needs no introduction.

• Brad Pitt delivered his two best performances,  Se7en (1995) and Fight Club (1999), under the director's guidance. Their third union for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), though a substantial hit, didn't deliver in the same way. It's one of Pitt's duller performances, Oscar nomination be damned, and entire scenes are stolen from him by the make up f/x and the supporting actors.

2 Films.
The Fincher filmography is, we hope, just barely starting its second act. He's currently making his 9th feature (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and several people have now appeared in two. It's possible some of the smaller character actors will show up in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but we won't know they're there till the credits confirm their existence. We'll take the two-fers in semi-random order...

• Holt McCallany is the tattooed prisoner who tries to rape Ripley in Alien³ (clearly he had never seen Alien or Aliens) and he's also one of Tyler Durden's disciples/bruisers in Fight Club.
• Jared Leto Remember that Fight Club line "I felt like destroying something beautiful?" used in connection with the destruction of Jared Leto's dreamy face? Leto and Fincher both obviously took that to heart in subsequent projects, too like Panic Room. (What a strange career Leto has had since the teen heartthrob days.) And think of the visual beating Brad Pitt takes in every Fincher film! Fincher definitely wants to destroy his beauty.
  
• Elias Koteas is one of dozens of cops caught up in the Zodiac case and he's also in Button.
• Rooney Mara is onscreen now in The Social Network and so good in it, too. Like "Mark Zuckerberg" we'll be refreshing our screens until she returns in Fincher's version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

• Paul Schulze, is probably best known as Nurse Jackie's pharmacist / lover. He appears in both Panic Room and Zodiac (with hair!)
• Charles S Dutton is the prison colony's spiritual leader in Alien³ and a cop in Se7en
• Andrew Kevin Walker is the screenwriter of Se7en but he also acts in the film (he plays "Sloth" ... shudder one of the dead bodies). He's also in Panic Room as "Sleepy Neighbor". Hee.
• Michael Massee who'd you recognize as a regular on one season of television's 24 or FlashForward appears in The Game as an EMT and in the massage parlor in Se7en. I think he's also in Madonna's "Bad Girl" video, directed by Fincher but I'm not positive on this. (But that'd make him a 2+)
• John Getz is Zuckerberg's lawyer in The Social Network and Templeton Peck in Zodiac. Poor man is always shot sitting behind a desk. Does he have legs?
• John Casini is one of the cops in Se7en and a "man in airport" in The Game.

1(+) Film

• James Rebhorn appears in The Game but he's also in the Madonna video "Bad Girl". Just think. If his date with Madonna had gone well, maybe she wouldn't have gone home with that serial killer!? Fincher sure loves the serial killer trope. And "Bad Girl" sure is an interesting piece in understanding David Fincher; the "angel of death" is visualized as a film director.
• Trevor Wright appears in The Social Network but when he was a little kid he appeared in the Fincher directed Paula Abdul video "Forever Your Girl".

1 Film. Hundreds of people share this distinction but the two actresses we'd really like to see David Fincher reteam with are Helena Bonham-Carter who was so against-type revelatory in Fight Club and Nicole Kidman who was supposed to get locked up in that Panic Room but ended up just being a disembodied voice on a phone in the same film.

To come full circle from his music video days, wouldn't it be fun to see three actors Fincher used there in one of his feature films? Why not cast Christopher Walken (Madonna's "Bad Girl"), Elijah Wood (Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" when he was only 8!) or the egregiously underused Lesley Ann Warren (Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun") in a future movie?

Finally... 
We must dedicate this list to the woman who introduced us to one of our favorite directors. David Fincher famously built his visual rep on a series of gargantuan Madonna music videos (Fincher won an MTV Video Award for "Express Yourself" though the big M did not) before escaping to feature films.

 Most people went to see Alien³ because it was the third in a franchise. I went to see it because I wanted to see if the man behind the frankly incredible images in Express Yourself, Oh Father, Vogue and Bad Girl had a feature career in him. He clearly did though most critics and audiences were not impressed. That movie needs a critical reevaluation because it was plain as day even then that he was already a cinematic wizard. My suspicion is that the shockingly nasty and merciless tone threw people off and he lost them in the opening shots by killing off Newt. It was always going to be roughly received, no matter how well made, coming after James Cameron's untoppable Aliens (only among the greatest action films ever made) but the tonal shift further chilled that inevitably cool response.

The second woman we reluctantly must dedicate this to is Paula Abdul since she's also a 4 time Fincher graduate. His videos for her aren't as good but he didn't have as much to work with, you know?

This series is about director's actor preferences but we'd like to note that Fincher, like most great auteurs reuses behind the scenes personell as well. Frequent collaborators include composer Howard Shore (3 films), editors James Haygood (3 films) and Angus Wall (4 films), cinematographer Jeff Cronenwerth (4 films), and production designer Donald Graham Burt (the past 4 films).

If you enjoyed this article, pass it on to your [ahem] Social Networks. Wink! Nudge!
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further reading? SEE THE NEW BLOG
also... "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" on Se7en
and Oscar discussions regarding The Social Network

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By: Unknown On 16.30

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Unsung Heroes - The Students of "Election"

This is Michael C. from Serious Film  back again to shine a light on a cinematic achievement that has been hidden for too long in the shadows. This week it is a film I've been an evangelist for since it's release over a decade ago: Alexander Payne's Election (1999). Pick Flick!

Is there any setting more misrepresented in movies than high school? Courtrooms, maybe, or hospitals with their staffs four times bigger than anywhere you could actually find. But at least these places use reality as a jumping off point. The majority of movie high schools, with their student bodies straight from central casting and their campuses the size of Ivy League universities, appear to have been fabricated completely to fit the needs of Hollywood producers.

When a movie like Alexander Payne's Election (1999) finally comes along, which rings true in detail after detail, one wonders what they did differently. The success of Payne's film is undoubtedly in large part due to his decision to shoot in a real high school while classes were in session, and to use the actual students of Papillion La Vista High School generously throughout the film. It may seem like a minor decision, but it adds a crucial air of credibility to the movie.

For one thing, they look real high students. It may seem like an obvious point, but it actually makes Election quite a rare specimen. Most movie students look like they're pushing thirty, and dress as if they are on their way to a commercial shoot for Axe body spray. Acting ability aside, the mere act of going through wardrobe and make-up adds a layer of polish that audiences register. In Election, even the more dramatic moments of the story -- Tammy's speech, Mr. McAllister's sabotage --feel less like scripted plot points because the unaffected presence of real students subliminally signals to the viewer that nothing phony is happening.

That realism must also have rubbed off on Broderick and Witherspoon who both deliver performances that stand as career high points. According to the DVD commentary, Payne frequently sent in real students to improvise with his stars. Knowing that their performances were going to be so readily judged against the genuine article must have worked as a safeguard against putting in too many actorly touches. It is especially impressive that Election manages the feat of meshing Witherspoon believably into the mass of ordinary teens, considering she is as glamorous a star as we've got, and Tracy Flick as a role is full of invitations to go over-the-top.

On top of all these benefits, some of the kids are just plain good. Lots of moments that stand out in my memory from Election are the little bits of documentary realism from the students. The kids who ramble through their explanations of morals vs. ethics set the stage perfectly for Tracy and her "Ooh, ooh, call on me!" routine. I also love the boy who delivers that strange cackling heckle when Tammy takes the microphone and the girl who lets loose with a few dance moves when the crowd is chanting Tammy's name. And the kid who ad-libs reasons to Broderick why he needs to retake a test has a naturalism that a lot of pros could learn from.

It's telling that for all its arch filmmaking touches, Election feels more authentic than just about any other high school movies one could name.
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By: Unknown On 08.00

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