MovieExtras 10 Years

Have you always wanted to stand around in the background behind Matthew Macfadyen murmuring “mumble, mumble, it be Jack the Ripper”? Well, here’s your chance!

MovieExtras is celebrating 10 years with an Open Casting Weekend, Friday 13th and Saturday 14th July, in Dublin’s Westbury Hotel on Grafton Street. The open casting hours are 10am-7pm for both days. All members of the public are invited to sign up for membership, have their make-up done by MakeupFablicious.com, and have a photo-shoot with an award-winning photographer.

MTV’s Laura Whitmore began her career with MovieExtras.ie, finding out what the behind the scenes world of TV & film was all about. So, for those who want a walk on part beside their favourite celeb or, like Laura, want to feed their curiosity about what really happens on set, MovieExtras.ie is for you. Over 550 companies and casting directors have access to the MovieExtras.ie members profile and can contact them for work as an extra, model, actor or for promotional work. Based in Ardmore Studios, MovieExtras.ie was founded in December 2002 by Derek Quinn and Kevin Gill and has become Ireland’s leading agency that provides extras and background artists to the film, television and advertising industries. MovieExtras.ie has won various Irish Internet Association Net Visionary Awards.

Recent Irish productions include TRIVIA, Asterix and Obelix, Titanic: Blood & Steel, Republic of Telly, Amber, and Ek Tha Tiger (where Bollywood met Dublin). MovieExtras.ie members have also starred in adverts for Bank of Ireland, Heineken, AIB, An Post, Budweiser, Aldi, The Referendum Commission, Dairygold and Paddy Power. And for football enthusiasts, members were part of several Euro 2012 promotions. Currently MovieExtras.ie are working with high profile productions including Ripper Street (starring Matthew Macfadyen), An Crisis, and Stay (starring Aidan Quinn and Mercy heroine Taylor Schilling), which is being shot in the West of Ireland. Previous notable productions include Camelot, The Tudors and Shadow Dancer.

“Our members have been involved in over 1,200 productions and adverts, and have had great stories to tell about amazing experiences and meeting some wonderful people, including lots of international stars including Pierce Brosnan, Colin Farrell, Glenn Close, Anna Friel, Bob Hoskins and Kiera Knightley,” says co-founder Derek Quinn. Members have received over €8m in fees and have been involved with well over 1,000 productions including films, movies, documentaries, adverts (TV, billboard & print), theatre, soap operas, idents, photocalls and reconstructions since the company was set up 10 years ago. All are welcome to attend the open casting weekend. The cost for an individual one year membership is €99.95 and for a special family package is €299.95 (for up to 6 members) and includes 3 professional photographs. Those who are unable to attend the Open Casting Weekend can register online at www.MovieExtras.ie.

 

‘Talk It Out’ Needs Your Votes!

Do you want to support a potential new sitcom for RTE that might actually be funny? And not just funny, but really, really funny? Then vote for ‘Talk it Out’ at http://www.rte.ie/drama/featured/storyland/talkitout.html.

Regular readers will remember my praising to the skies of A Film with me in it some months ago. What’s not to love in the prospect of its deadpan star and writer Mark Doherty appearing as a psychiatrist who’s going slowly bonkers as a charlatan hypnotherapist sets up next to him and starts stealing all his customers? Especially when the next step in his decline is to start taking advice from his patient, played by the Republic of Telly’s Bernard O’Shea.

Screenwriter Darach McGarrigle has taken part in prestigious screenwriting programmes including the Berlin Talent Campus at the Berlinale and BAFTA’s Rocliffe Forum at the New York Television Festival. The opening webisode is a delight and the prospect of more to come should whet comedic appetites. And this is where you come in. RTE’s Storyland competition, like nearly everything else in the world these days except economic policy, is based on a public vote. Viewers vote online for their favourite webisode, and the series that gets the most votes is commissioned to make the next episode.

The first episode of ‘Talk It Out’ went live yesterday on the RTE site, you can watch it here: http://www.rte.ie/drama/featured/storyland/talkitout.htm.

Voting has already started and lasts a week. At the end of the week the 6 programs with the most votes get commissioned to make another episode. I think we desperately need to see more episodes of a comedy with as great a cast as Mark Doherty, Bernard O’Shea, Peter Coonan (Love/Hate) and Aoibhinn McGinnity (Love/Hate) More information about the makers can be found at http://www.facebook.com/talkitout.storyland where you can also vote.

Voting lasts for one week. Make a difference while you can!