Download DEATH METAL Casting Breakdowns

DEATH METAL CASTING BREAKDOWNS
SHADIA (female, 19). Shadia is a talented and beautiful young woman. She grew up in
an abusive household, but was able to escape with help from her boyfriend, Ivan, with
whom she now lives. She manages his band, and is determined to repay his kindness
by helping him achieve his goals, while developing her own career in the music industry.
Shadia sometimes doubts herself, and her past haunts her. But Shadia possesses
incredible inner strength, and tries to find the best in every situation.
IVAN (male, early-20s). Ivan is the tall, rail-thin guitarist and leader of his death metal
band, Abyssinister. His parents died in a drunk driving accident when he was a teen; he
first met Shadia in Al-Anon. But, with talent and hard work, he was able to earn a fullride musical scholarship to Juilliard. Ivan’s a very intense guy; he's ambitious and
driven, but also overly serious and single-minded. He can only relax when he’s hanging
around with Shadia, for whom he has a fierce love. His greatest fear is dying forgotten.
He feels that, if he can find greatness through music, then he’ll be immortal. But while
he has technical mastery, his stiff personality keeps him from good songwriting. He
lacks the spark, and it kills him.
DEVIN (male, 20s). Devin is Abyssinister’s bass player. He’s an ironic, sharp-tongued
guy who doesn’t take anything too seriously, including the band, his prodigious drug
use, or his relationship with Anya. He loves to get under Ivan’s skin. Devin enjoys
playing metal because he thinks it’s ridiculous fun. At heart, he’s a decent guy, but he’s
cynical, and needs to test people and situations with humor to see if it’s for real before
he commits himself.
FLEMING (male, mid-40s). Fleming was a teenager when the Second Wave Black
Metal scene got serious, and was at ground zero of that scene. His own bands never
quite hit, but he found his real talents lie with producing. Years ago, his live-in girlfriend
tried to murder him; he accidentally killed her while fighting her off. The death was ruled
in self-defense but, from that point forward, Fleming became deeply cynical. He’s seen
it all, done it all, and doesn’t give a fuck about anything but his own career. However, he
still loves the music (when it’s good), and gets excited when something special catches
his ear.
RAMSEY (male, 30s). Ramsey is the kind of guy who fell into the industry through
friend connections, but everyone likes him, so he’s stuck around and made a career out
of it. The bands dig him because he’s actually relatively honest (though he still has to
pass along bad news at the behest of his bosses), and he does his best to stick with the
acts he signs. He likes the fun aspects of the job; to him, this whole gig is about hanging
out with cool people, scoring free booze and drugs, and hunting for good music. Not
bad, huh?
KATON (male, 20s). Katon is the lead singer of Abyssinister. He’s at core a solid, blue
collar guy who got into music mostly because Ivan needed a vocalist for his high school
band, and Katon was one of Ivan’s few friends. He loves metal (he has a huge
collection), but the whole band thing is more of a hobby; he mostly just enjoys
performing and hanging out with his friends. Not that he’d mind being a working
musician, but he doesn’t have anything near Ivan’s ambition. Katon has recently fallen
madly in love with Devin’s girlfriend, Anya. They’re secretly seeing each other, and
Katon hates the fact that Devin seems to care very little for her.
BA’AL (male, 20s). “Ba’al” was born Jimmy, but he officially changed his real name to
his stage name, as it’s the persona with which is more identifies. He’s a very intellectual,
well-read guy who teaches at a community college when he’s not on tour. Ba’al is the
band’s resident Satanist, though he’s a skeptic and an atheist, and ascribes to the
Temple for philosophical (rather than religious) reasons. He’s a bit distant and cynical,
with a wry sense of humor. As evidenced by the name change, though, when Ba’al does
get serious about something, he devotes himself 100%. He loves black metal and, in his
own quiet way, is star-struck by Fleming.
ANYA (female, 19). Anya recently lost her mother, with whom she was very close, and
since then has been somewhat adrift. She has become interested in ghost hunting and
hauntings, mostly as a way to explore the possibility there is an afterlife. She likes
getting wasted and hanging around with dudes in bands because it’s an empty-calories
distraction from her grief. Anya isn’t a “bad” person, but at this moment in her life she’s
somewhat nihilistic, and isn’t averse to doing stuff like dating two guys in the same band
because… Why not?
JOE (male, 30). Joe is a very logical, tech-smart guy, with a particular affinity for A/V.
He’s the guy who grasps the math and science of recording, and can identify, tear down,
optimize and repair any piece of gear. He recently took a job as Fleming’s right hand
man in the studio. Joe is a stolid, dependable guy who never quite left his small town
upbringing behind. He enjoys doing community service with his church, hunting, fishing,
watching sports and drinking Coors. The nature of his job means he’s often the odd man
out in a room full of creative types, the square guy who catches some ribbing. But he’s a
good dude who has a way of winning people over. He originally got into audio thinking
that he’d end up on Music Row in Nashville. But jobs were tight, so he grabbed this
metal gig with Fleming to tide himself over.
THE COMPOSER. The Composer is an earlier version of Ivan: incredibly talented, but
lacking that certain something that would bring him the fame and fortune he craves. He
made a deal with the darkness in exchange for immortality, thinking that would mean his
music would echo through the ages; instead, he’s a nameless ghost trapped in the
music’s curse until he’s able to find a replacement: Ivan. Once, he was just a kid from
the French countryside who came to Paris with nothing but a violin and an artist’s heart;
now, his soul has been thoroughly corrupted by evil.
BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (female, 20s). The ghost of Fleming’s dead girlfriend appears to
him. In life, she was an addict with mental health issues. While she was in the midst of a
drug-fueled freakout, Fleming was forced to kill her in self-defense. In death, she comes
to him in an idealized state, angelic but for the bullet in her head. She’s Norwegian.