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We’re taking a break from shooting on the documentary while the winter weather keeps us out of vineyards, and so we’ve started preproduction on a narrative feature film called Vintage. We’re big fans of food in the movies, from Big Night to Ratatouille. This will be our attempt at a classic food and wine film done on a shoestring budget.

It will take us a year or three to make this feature as we simultaneously wrap the documentary, but we’re hoping to shoot the opening scene and some teaser material this winter to help with fundraising.

The lead and key roles will be non-union, paying gigs (incl. meals) while extras will be unpaid. We’ll be shooting from 2012-2013 as funding allows.

• Bruno [lead] – 40s-50s – a washed-up, frumpy restaurant critic and frustrated former bestselling writer who manages to retain some residual charm, and wh0′s about to get one last shot at resurrecting his career
• Anna – 35-45 – Bruno’s estranged wife, trying to hold it together, still has a soft spot for the overgrown child who is her ex-husband
• Sylvie – 30s-40s – French wine grower, hardworking farmer with a touch of class and business smarts
• R. Michaels - 30s-50s – Bruno’s rival wine critic; smooth
• Grovnick – 50s - Squirrely newspaper editor]
• Aleksie - 40s – 70s – Russian restauranteur and mob boss
• Chef  Berteau  - 30s-50s – No bullshit restaurant owner
• Cab Driver - 30s-50s -
• Drizzle – 20s – 40s – loan shark, wannabe rap star
• Waiter - 20s – 50s

Anyone interested should drop us a note. We’ll be casting in January, with auditions in PDX and Corvallis.

Behind the Scenes: A Country Wedding from Three Crows Media on Vimeo.

Country road outside Monroe, OR

We held our last open casting session this past weekend. I’m excited about the talent and what they’re going to be able to bring to this film. We have a mix of theater players, experienced actors and novices. We have two more reads next week and then we’ll be making final decisions. In some cases, it’s going to be a tough choice.

We also took a tour of the location with our Production Designer. He took some photos that captured the colors and textures that will help make A Country Wedding look good.

The old garage

Finding and studying locations is kind of like checking out real estate. You immediately begin picturing how your story is going to inhabit the space. It’s fun. We weren’t quite sure about the church we’ll be using…it didn’t fit our preconceived notions based on our reading of the script. But after mulling it over, it just felt right. Now when I think of the story, this location has taken over and supplanted my earlier images. I’m looking forward to having the actors do the same with the characters.

Jake's Living Room

The great thing about our location is the blend of saturated colors and textures. It’s an old church in a small town in the central Willamette Valley. Many of the interiors of the church will serve for bedrooms and other locations. There are abandoned buildings outside the church that will also work nicely as background.

Casting will take place on the OSU campus in Corvallis, OR at the Valley Library from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 6*, 2009. Check-in will be in room 1832. You must enter the library on the second floor and take the stairs down. Refer to the first floor map.

The short, with a working title of “A Country Wedding,” is being produced as a creative project and is not intended to realize a profit, though we hope that it will give professional experience to the cast and crew. The film will be submitted to film festivals internationally, and will also be used to garner interest in a feature version of the script. Actors and crew members will not be paid, but will come away with reel footage that they can use to build portfolios. This will be a community supported project made up of volunteers, though the producers have real film industry experience and will be focused on running a professional shoot.

The film tells a love story that takes place during a shotgun wedding in a small town. Two young people are forced to come to grips with their emotions while they are rushing headlong into uncertain and divergent futures.

We are casting for the following roles:

Charity – late teens to early 20s female lead – honest, sweet, pragmatic, she’s coming to grips with her pregnancy and struggling to keep her emotions in check

Jake – late teens to early 20s male lead – quiet, thoughtful, emotional; he’s madly in love with the bride but forced to watch the wedding from the sidelines

Billy Ardell – late teens to early 20s; reckless, sarcastic troublemaker; the town punk with a muscle car and a six-pack, and the last person you’d want your daughter to marry.

Jan – 40s – 60s male farmer and father of the bride – stoic, rugged and barely able to contain seething angst about his daughter’s situation

Nevada – 20s to 30s female – hangs around town with a group of locals, drifting through life causing trouble and refusing to grow up

Freddy – Rugged, monster truck-driving good old boy who doesn’t shy away from a day of hard work, but always favors a party, especially if free alcohol is served

Reverend Malachi – Thoughtful, soft spoken clergyman with a new age sensibility; likes to perform weddings and funerals outside without wearing shoes; reads Whitman as much as the Bible

Email us at threecrowsproductions@gmail.com to schedule a time to avoid lengthy waiting.

Actors should be prepared to present monologues and then give a dry read of new material that we will provide.

Headshots and acting resume welcome but not required. If no acting resume is available, please bring a brief bio.

* Note: originally we’d posted August 6…casting is actually going to be June 6, 2009; shooting begins in August.