Must Keep Her

Finding the right actors to give life to characters is a difficult process. Sometimes, producers have a talent in mind on whom the project will be based. By having the storyline revolve on the talent, he/she gets to be endeared to the audience as well. In other circumstances, the storyline takes priority and talents have to audition if they want to be part of the cast. Still, other talents end up in their projects because higher management has specific instructions to include them.

When higher management steps in, the production has no choice but to work with the said personality even if he/she does not really embody what the crew had in mind. Thus, the director will do his/her best to make the forced choice to fit in the project.

The casting call for one of the projects of a network was heeded by talents coming from various locations. While the network has a rich pool of talents, the production team decided to open the auditions. Although they had names in mind, only those who went through the process would be considered for the sake of fairness.

However, as early as the look test, a Production Head (PH) noticed that Network Talent (NT) could not match the other cast members in terms of acting. PH felt that NT lacked the needed projection to give justice to the role. The acting was so poor in terms of the standards PH required. What PH found intriguing is that NT’s contemporaries were far better, but were just relegated to the cold. By contrast, NT never ran out of projects.

The production team was tense because they already had a scheduled playdate. When the final cast was announced, PH almost fell off his chair: NT was part of the cast, and was playing a major role. Given that this project was very important for PH, he had to work with NT. However, the airing date was drawing near, and PH could no longer allot time to train NT. Having reached the end of his patience, PH scheduled a meeting with the executives and presented to them the situation. He threatened to remove NT and just reshoot with a new face. He even went as far as threatening to leave if NT was retained.

Unfortunately, NT had to grin and bear it. He was told that NT could not be removed because Her Backer (HB) is very influential. HB happens to be a highly respected individual in the industry and in the network. Therefore, his word was like that of a ‘God.’ NT knew that because she was not that talented, she had to hold on to someone who could assure her future in her network. Rumors have it that HB was a very generous benefactor, that is, he has given NT a house. When things were revealed, PH finally understood the reason behind NT’s never running out of projects. NT is untouchable.

‘Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.’ – Charles Eames

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