||How did you find the guys who help you in the production and the cast? I mean, were you all friends before the show or you just put an advert online/on newspapers? How long did it take this process?|SubTitle|||
Out With Dad is made by a mix of friends and new friends. From the get-go, Eric Taylor was the producer – he’s been a very good friend of mine for several years now. Kara Dymond, a consulting producer is another good friend of mine (read her Q&A here). The two of them, plus my wife Natalie O’Brien, were major contributors to helping me write the story. Those are just a few key players, there were tons of other friends who helped out early on.
Once I started building the crew I looked to friends. One of my oldest (and best organized) friends Rebecca Rynsoever came on as production manager/assistant director. Adrian Ellis, the composer, is someone I greatly admire and consider a very good friend. He and I met in 2001 when I was the director of photography on a music video for a band he was in. Brendon Smith is another friend who is an actor and illustrator. He’d never worked on a film before and was keen to learn. Finally, Will Conlon, who plays Nathan, someone I’ve known since high school days, though we lost touch with each other until recently. He and I first collaborated on an installation project called Mobius (www.jleaverpresentations.com/mobius). We didn’t know each other especially well, but now we consider each other very dear friends – we speak nearly every day!
Mark Devine is a friend of my sister, he was kind enough to lend us his home to stand in as Rose and Nathan’s ground-floor home. Rose’s bedroom is actually Kara’s bedroom on the other side of the city!
As for everyone else involved, I would call them a new friend, thanks to this production.
For the cast, we posted a casting call on mandy.com in February 2010. We got loads of response for the parts of Rose, Vanessa, Kenny and Angela. Not as much response for Nathan… though Will still had to audition for me – he didn’t get the part just because we’re friends. Kate Conway was the first person cast, and she helped us with callbacks for Vanessa and Nathan. Corey Lof was second. Kate had her say in who was to play her dad and best-friend. Kate had awesome chemistry with Will and Lindsey Middleton. After Will was cast, he helped with callbacks for Angela, and then Kelly-Marie Murtha joined us.
The rest of the crew is mostly people I didn’t know well, but I knew I wanted to work with them. Or, they were people I’d met by chance who were interested in the project when they heard about it and offered to get involved. Now we’re all friends – actually, we feel like family.
I should also mention that my real family helped me quite a bit. Many of the homes we filmed in, extras you see in the background – they’re all related! I’m very lucky!
I guess you could say the building of the cast and crew was from January to March. But new members came on board along the way. Like Amanda Mitro, who joined the team in August and took on sound recording duties. Or Wendy Glazier, who was cast as Vanessa’s mom shortly before filming her scenes last September.
Hope that answers your questions!
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