Assigment: Casting and Representation

Jennifer Peepas, Columbia College Chicago

Assignment outline: https://web.archive.org/web/20170501155651/http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/08/23/step-into-my-film-school-the-importance-of-casting-in-breaking-open-movie-stereotypes/

Sample headshot sheets: HeadshotExercisePics
Individual headshots: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r79ASS9-1QXUi06gTEvyV-ZraFPwdDtT 

Sample scenario:
A dramedy in which a struggling singer/songwriter with a day job in a corporate office seeks to become a star with the support of his friends and family.

Cast the Following:
The protagonist
The protagonist’s boss
The janitor at the protagonist’s company
The boss’s live-in housekeeper
The protagonist’s love interest
The protagonist’s neighbor/friend

From Peepas:
“I wanted my first-year film students to understand what happens to a story when actual human beings inhabit your characters, and the way they can inspire storytelling. And I wanted to teach them how to look at headshots and what you might be able to tell from a headshot. So for the past few years I’ve done a small experiment with them.

It works like this: I bring in my giant file of head shots, which include actors of all races, sizes, shapes, ages, and experience levels. Each student picks a head shot from the stack and gets a few minutes to sit with the person’s face and then make up a little story about them…

Once the students have made their pitches, we interrogate their opinions. “You seem really sure that he’s not the main character – why? What made you automatically say that?” “You said she was a mom. Was she born a mom, or did she maybe do something else with her life before her magic womb opened up and gave her an identity? Who is she as a person?” In the case of the “thug“, it turns out that the student was just reading off his film resume. This brilliant African American actor who regularly brings houses down doing Shakespeare on the stage and more than once made me weep at the beauty and subtlety of his performances, had a list of film credits that just said “Thug #4.” “Gang member.” “Muscle.” Because that’s the film work he can get. Because it puts food on his table.

So, the first time I did this exercise, I didn’t know that it would turn into a lesson on racism, sexism, and every other kind of -ism. I thought it was just about casting. But now I know that casting is never just about casting, and this day is a real teachable opportunity.”

Keywords: casting, representation