Hello members of The Dark Alliance;
I have some exciting news to relay to all of you members that I hope will be of great interest to us all. I just finished a phone conference with LFL concerning upcoming character castings.
You ask, what is a character casting?
It is the opportunity for you the individual to submit your costume (to include pictures and information) to a data base of costume characters (at LFL) for possible use at official events.
You may ask; where do I go to get this done?
The ability for most individuals to come to a specific location for photos could be potentially expensive for the individual to afford. LFL is suggesting that individuals take their own pictures and is working on the details for what will be required of the individuals to submit and where.
What is an official event you ask?
It is the opportunity to be paid for appearing at a public event (or even a commercial). These events are arrangements with The Walt Disney Office, Licensees and promotion partners.
Did you say I could be paid for this appearance?
Yes you can, those details will have to be worked out between the organizer and the selected individual. Additionally you will be responsible for making sure the income is reported to the IRS.
I can say at this point that some of the requirements will be yearly updated photos, pictures (with a height chart visible in the pictures) and shots of you in costume and civilian clothes. Again, all the details for the casting have not been completed and LFL does have a tentative plan to put the information out sometime after CVII.
Also LFL is attempting to collect as many different character costumes as possible for the data base and encourages all Star Wars fan to submit them (you don’t even have to belong to a club to submit your information). If you know somebody with a great SW costume tell them about the opportunity.
Ok let’s talk about what types of costumes will be cast.
Some of the more cast-able costumes are the more easily recognizable ones such as Darth Vader, Strom Troopers, Princess Leia with a good chance of generic/customable Sith and Jedi being used. This is not to say that Sith witches, bounty hunter, or any other costume that is within our club charter (or Star Wars universe) will not be considered. LFL wants as much selection/variety as possible to choose from.
How will I know when a casting call is issued?
LFL usually issues casting calls for a particular area so, these calls won’t always be worldwide. LFL will send the casting call to the clubs and they will push it out to their members, and since TDA is growing then our members chance to be exposed is increasing.
Finally, being invited to the conference call is a sure sign that TDA has become a recognizable club within the S.W. universe. This is all do to you (our members) involvement with TDA. As more information is received we post it to the forums.
FOR THE FANS BY THE FANS
MAY THE FORCE SERVE US ALL
NOTES FROM MS. FRANKLINS CONFERENCE CALL (POSTED 2/17/2015)
Upcoming Star Wars Character Casting Plans
Thanks to everyone who could join us on the series of calls we had last week, to talk about new character
casting plans for the worldwide territories. We apologize to those who could not get on the calls – we
maxed out the conference call line, which we didn’t think we could do!
To help communicate next steps, please share this broadly in your groups. Thank you!
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To better streamline the process of Star Wars character casting worldwide, and to help Star Wars fan
organizations have more time to do what they do best - having fun and helping their communities and
favorite charities – we will hold casting calls and auditions in locations around the world. These casting calls
will provide a roster of performers with Star Wars costumes that the local offices can contact directly after
Lucasfilm approves their events.
How casting will work. Please read all the way to the end, carefully:
• Do not contact your area Disney offices. They are not yet ready for casting, and this process
will likely take many months.
• Direction, when casting is ready, will come from the Lucasfilm offices.
• Worldwide Disney offices will receive casting requirements from our department in the Lucasfilm
offices.
• When they are ready and able to do so, they will set up audition locations. These auditions will
happen on different timetables in different countries, depending on when they are ready.
• Invitations to these auditions will come to you from the Lucasfilm Event Team.
• Different Disney offices might set priorities on casting certain characters first, depending on their
time and budget constraints. The Lucasfilm Event Team will encourage them to hold casting for all
characters, however, including Imperials, Rebels, and EU. This might not all happen in the first
round, but we will continue to encourage them to do so.
• At the auditions, the character photos will be taken from all requested angles, up against a height
marker, and a photo will be taken out of armor, too, to show true height in stocking feet.
• All photos will be sent to Lucasfilm Events for character approvals.
• Characters will be approved for different levels of appearances. More characters will be approved for
general events, while a smaller subset will be approved for high-profile events like TV.
• Do not worry about height restrictions going in. For most characters we can work with
different heights. Stormtroopers can be matched at events with other troopers of similar heights.
• Do know we are looking for movie-real body types.
Once the auditions and selections are complete, here’s how event casting will work:
• Disney offices will turn in event plans to Lucasfilm for approval.
• Once approved, the offices can reach out to those on their roster of approved character directly.
• If you receive requests for appearances directly from Licensees or Partners, and not through Disney
or Lucasfilm, the request is not approved. Please circle them back with us.
• Events requiring large numbers of characters will likely be cast in the way we have been.
More to know:
• We will continue casting just as we have been as this process rolls out.
• Open invites will still come through Lucasfilm.
• When you have questions, ask us!
Your internal reporting:
If you want to require your members to report to your command when they are doing events, that is totally
up to you, and something you should ask of them directly. We will not be responsible for reporting.
