Media Studies - COMP 3 Star & Casting development

This blog post (Written by me, Maxi) details the development of elements from our music promotion package (specifically the music video), which specifically includes the choosing of our cast, and artist's name, as well as the reasons for choosing them. Ideas were all brainstormed and put together as a team, however individually I refined our teams reasoning and created a clearer outline of the ideas we wanted to explore.

Artist’s name: Since we wanted our artist to be a female of Asian descent, the name of our artist had to match her ethnic background. Thus, we discussed some potential aesthetically pleasing Asian girl names since the way an artists name looks on an album cover or on a song title plays a large part in their branding and how audiences see them. However, since we also needed to cater to English speaking audiences, we didn’t want to extend too far into our artists cultural heritage. Hence, we focused more on more mixed (caucasian/asian) sounding names, with a western first name, and then a more Asian sounding surname. We decided on sticking with a “first name - surname” naming format as it is what the majority of artists in the pop genre, and female artists as a whole tend to have as well. However, we also experimented with shortening versions of these names as well, and seeing how they’d look with different capitalizations, as these are also commonly seen forms of stage names for female artists of the genre. From this discussion, here are a few names we initially thought of:

• Kiara Bel
• KIARA
• Isabel Tan
• Isabel Kim
• Isabelle
• BELLE
• Jasmine Wang
• JMIN
• 伊莎贝尔

In the end, we decided to settle with the name KIARA, as we believed that it was a simple, yet representative name of our artist. It stands out and follows the general conventions of names of female artists in the industry, but is unique in the sense that it is quite exotic and uncommon, which makes our artist stand out and gives her a sense of individuality.

Cast: The idea of what we want our Artist to be like has been stated in our statement of intent, which states that we want her to be a fun, outgoing, and humble individual that fans are able to relate to and feel as if they’re just like them. Since we also want her to be of Asian descent, we discussed potential actors who fit the aforementioned trop, who also look conventionally attractive, as most female artists in the music industry generally conform to modern beauty standards. For this, we decided on the following individuals who we could see being our artist:

Artist (Lead Female):

- Jasmine May Riadi

- Eugene Evelina Nugroho

- Elvina Laurencia Ryanto

As mentioned in our statement of intent, we wanted our music video to follow our artist and a group of her friends as they go out, have fun, and make unforgettable memories. For this, we want to have a primarily female cast, as after breakups, girls will often find solace and comfort in a group of her other girl friends, instead of a group of guy friends. Thus to accurately represent this, we want to cast girls who will fit into the group of our artist, for which we originally decided on this list of names; actors who are already friends in real life and will thus most likely be able to accurately portray the chemistry found in tight knit girl friend groups. The names of these actors are as follows:

Artists Girl Friends:

- Elvina Laurencia Ryanto

- Chelsea Graciella Liem

- Eugene Evelina Nugroho/Jasmine May Riadi

- Keyla Lisgianto Josono

- Nayana Sumaniaka - Laeticia Adidharma Lee

- Giann Fico Suwangsa

Artist’s Ex Boyfriend (Male Lead): 

- Han Hyun Woo

- Nicholas Gerwin Mawardji

- Gede Danny Putra Budiada 

Screen Tests & Finalized Cast List:

After finalizing this cast list, we decided to have screen tests for the possible actors that we've chosen to see who would be the best fit to portray the characters in our music video. The video of the various screen tests from our actors can be seen here in this Google Drive link. After conducting these screen tests, we deliberated on the final list of cast members who we want to star in our music video. After weighing each actor based on their personalities, acting skills, and overall ease of working with them, the finalized cast list became:

Artist (Lead Female): - Jasmine May Riadi

Artists Girl Friends:

- Elvina Laurencia Ryanto

- Chelsea Graciella Liem

- Eugene Evelina Nugroho - Laeticia Adidharma Lee

- Keyla Lisgianto Josono

Artist’s Ex Boyfriend (Male Lead): 

- Han Hyun Woo

Reflection: By creating a detailed cast list and conducting screen tests, we are able to accurately pick the best actors for the roles for the characters in the music video. This helped us ensure that the cast of our music video would work together well and would be able to accurately and effectively represent the people groups and issues that we try to portray. Without first drafting out a cast list, we would have been lost in deciding who we should cast for our actors, but instead we were proactive and planned ahead, which allowed us to secure the best possible actors for our music video, which will help us in the production process immensely. Screen tests were also a pivotal part of our development process as they allowed us to see who would be the best fit for our star, and who would play her most accurately. Comparing this to instead picking a random name from a list without any other consideration, which would have many consequences, I believe we were responsible and made the right choice.