All systems go for Valoria!

We are slowly but surely gearing up for the start of filming for our six-part sci-fi/fetish series 'Valoria: Goddess of the Galaxy' - here's a few more details on how things stand at the moment:

Casting We are going through our list of potential castings and concentrating first on our lead roles. Following this, we will then look at who could potentially be suitable for smaller roles and then the extras. Once we have a shortlist for our leads and smaller roles, we will ask those candidates to do a short audition, most likely by sending a piece of script and asking them to record the audition on their phone. Following this we would like to have a video conversation to explain the role and the requirements for filming. For extras and background actors, no audition is required but we will need to know your availability.

Filming At present, we anticipate beginning filming late summer this year. To begin with, we expect to shoot smaller scenes, none involving our principal cast. This will allow us the opportunity to test our tech and to see what, creatively, is working and what isn’t, and allow us to adjust accordingly. We hope that many of these scenes will be shot in London, but we are also exploring other opportunities.

What can I expect during a typical day’s shooting? As is often the case with film shoots, there is usually quite a lot of hanging around while camera, lighting etc is set up. While this is happening, you will be getting ‘dressed’ in your character's costume (more on this below) and having makeup applied where applicable. For those with speaking parts on the day, it would be most helpful if you are able to memorise/rehearse your lines as this will save a lot of time and will help other actors in the same scene.

For those of you not familiar with the film-making process, shooting a scene can take quite some time since each scene is often shot many times from different angles. This allows for plenty of editing options when the scene is being put together.

Being a no-budget indie project, there won’t be much in terms of ’set’ or scenery, but quite a lot of green screen! Again, for those of you who may not know, green screen allows for backgrounds to be placed digitally behind (and/or) in front of actors) during the post production process. It’s typically used in many professional movies and big Hollywood productions. It may mean you will have to use your imagination a bit, but we hope that at each filming session we will have some concept pictures for you to look at, to help you understand how the final scene will look.

Costumes We will be providing our main cast with suitable fetish/sexy clothing depending on the scene and the requirements of the script, however, for many of our background characters and extras, we may require you to bring something in! Exactly what will depend on the character you are playing, although much of it will be latex for the ladies, and a mix of anything from loin cloths to ’sci-fi’ type clothing for the men! Some, of course, may not need any clothing at all, depending on the scene/character!

As we are begging and borrowing for our project, if anyone knows of any potential sources for costumes (or perhaps even a company), please let me know!

Some legal stuff... Before anyone appears on camera, we will require you to sign a Model/Release Form and to provide ID. This is standard practice and ensures that everyone is over 18 and has given their consent to appear in the project. This will, of course, require your real name, however, this will remain confidential. 

Communication We realise that everyone has busy lives, but we would really appreciate it if you could keep in touch with us so that we know you are still interested in taking part. If we don't hear back from you via email or socials, we have to assume that you no longer wish to be involved and we will remove you from our contacts list. If by any chance you no longer wish to be a part of the project, please do let us know! 

What would help us right now? Finally (and I know some of you have done this already, so apologies), it would be really helpful if you can inform us of the following:

Name: (real or alias is fine at this stage) 

Age: Location: Travel: Y/N? 

Type of role preferred: lead, smaller lead role, background character (with or without lines), extra 

Acting experience/ability: Y/N 

OK with nudity, if so: topless, fully nude.  

Availability: (we expect to film at weekends and the occasional Friday, although other times may come up with notice)

Please could you email your details to paul.donnelly@darksidemedia.co.uk Thanks so much!

I hope this helps and makes you even more excited to be a part of ‘ Valoria: Goddess of the Galaxy’! Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions. We can’t guarantee that the making of ‘ Valoria’ will be easy - film-making is often a long and tough journey - but we hope to make it as enjoyable and fun as possible! It will be a unique experience and one, we hope, which will forge new friendships and new opportunities for networking and future collabs.