Author writer's fantasy casting

I'm at another weird place where all my characters are visually developed in illustrations. Now I have to make the leap from there to real life. Or stick with the pictures. Advice?

edited 7th Jun '15 8:50:25 AM by Tartra

Usually unless the comic is a superhero or realistically styled comic, it's safer to stick with illustrations.

I'm sorry that my bad attitude evidentially made someone Rage Quit, but to explain to anyone who didn't get my lengthy first post here: Many people heard that exact thing from hordes of well-meaning or very naive people. "Focus on personality, not just looks!" completely ignores the realities that acting is a white-dominant industry and we need SOME restrictions as to who can play what, or else actors of color will have even less chance to get roles that aren't stereotyped or bit parts.

edited 7th Jun '15 11:17:58 AM by Sharysa

I try not to have fantasy casts after having my heart broken a few times back when I was still writing plays that got produced, but I still do it.

For my Band of Questionable Efficacy stories, I prefer to imagine them being adapted in animation, with lead heroine Nioba being voiced by Naomie Harris, her love interest Lihiri being voiced by Hynden Walch, Jonard being voiced by Alexander Siddig, and Jessifer would maybe be Sophie Turner. For the villains, Femme Fatale Ronda would be voiced by Christina Hendricks, the Grey King would be Frank Langella, and the Karnegian would be Jean Reno. Also, the Very Helpful Ring would be Ellen McLain and Sotto Stimme would be voiced by Rob Paulson (mainly because he can do a good impersonation of Peter Lorre's voice.)

edited 14th Jun '15 11:41:38 PM by StrixObscuro

How exactly did the casting break your heart? Just wondering.

Back when I was still in college, we had a "New Plays Festival" every year where students from the scriptwriting classes were allowed to submit short, ten-minute scripts to be produced by student from the directing seminars. I managed to get three of my plays produced (two during my junior year, and one in my senior year), and while the first one came out almost perfectly, the second one had one of its crucial roles recast for no other purpose than because the festival coordinator promised his assistant a role in exchange for her work (and it later turned out that the assistant wasn't a very good actress), and then with the third play, the cast kept changing until finally they brought in two actors from one of other plays who only agreed to appear in my play in order to get extra credit; apparently, the extra credit did not buy their enthusiasm.

I've only written one short play since then, and I don't know that I'll ever have it produced; after that third play went to shit, I was told that it was all my fault for writing a script that was too big and incomprehensible for a student director to stage properly, which has made me doubt whether I ever actually had any writing talent to begin with...

edited 15th Jun '15 10:29:21 PM by StrixObscuro

That is HORRIBLE. Not just for writer the confidence of writers, but for assuming that student actors can't handle more than the standard stock of plays.

My high school did Angels In America. They just had to cut a few of the extraneous scenes.

edited 16th Jun '15 6:46:42 PM by Sharysa

In fairness, that third play was written in an advanced-placement script-writing class where the professor encouraged us to go as far out there as possible and experiment with styles (my play ended up with some kabuki elements to it, while the only other student in the class wrote a severely minimalist drama that had almost no stage directions that I can recall), and we had almost nobody outside of the class looking at the damned things before they got submitted (and because we were advanced-placement, it was practically assured that our plays would get accepted as long as we submitted them on time.) In hindsight, it was a great way to get creative plays, but maybe not the best way for creating plays that could be staged by theatre students...

edited 16th Jun '15 11:07:20 PM by StrixObscuro