New media: "The exposure of Tom King" *



* THE MAKING OF “The EXPOSURE of TOM KING”
Emirates launched a direct flight between Dubai and L.A, the home of movies. To celebrate our arrival we shot a short movie in L.A, with no people in it whatsoever, and people from all around the world auditioned for a role via their webcam.
Auditions closed on 26th October 2008, as the first Emirates flight landed in L.A. Avy Kaufman then chose who would star in the final movie. This selected cast act together in the same scenes via webcam, but have never actually met.

THE EXPOSURE of TOM KING: Tom King is a Hollywood A-lister at the top of his game, but opportunists Julie and Burt have discovered he has a secret and hold him to ransom for two million dollars. Horrified at the risk of exposure, Tom will stop at nothing and brings in a heavy called Simone.

BENTON ROMAN, DIRECTOR: "The main challenge in shooting a film with no one in it was to make the shots as interesting as possible, whilst framing them for the waist up so that people could easily audition via their webcam."

AVY KAUFMAN, CASTING DIRECTOR: "Casting people over webcam was such an interesting experience. There was a vast array of talent, but in the end I chose the people who I felt really understood the characters they were playing".

RAY DUFFY, PRODUCER: "We were in a unique position of watching dailies the following day and still not sure if we were headed in the right direction because without actors the frame was incomplete. However from a producer stand point, it has to be said there are some hea-daches alleviated by having no actors."

JOHN BARR, DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: "The most difficult obstacle to contend with was the uncertainty of who would be cast in the film. Not knowing the exact size and shape of the talent made it tricky when determining the composition. We used stand ins to approximate the frame size, but imagine if the stand in was 5'8" tall and the talent ended up being 6'2", so we had to shoot the scenes a bit wider than we nor-mally would."

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