Casting Call: 'Proof of Concept for Death, Where Is Thy Sting'

Casting calls list

Short Film

'Proof of Concept for Death, Where Is Thy Sting'

Details

Episode:

Union:

Non union

Area of media:

Short Film

Network:

Paid?:

Rates:

Non-Union. This is an unpaid proof-of-concept short film. Performers will receive meals, production credit, IMDb credit, an edited copy of the completed film, stills cleared for demo reels and websites, and travel assistance where applicable.

Deadline:

July 31, 2026

Auditions:

Self-tape only.

Callbacks:

Aug 15, 2026 Consist of paired reads in or near Woodstock, ON

Shooting starts:

Aug 1, 2026

Shooting finishes:

Oct 31, 2026

Shooting locations:

Woodstock & Oxford County, Ontario

Cities for response:

Toronto, Windsor

Comments

This casting call is for a proof-of-concept short film (approximately three pages / three minutes) being produced to support financing for a planned feature film.

Actors are auditioning for the proof of concept only.

There are no romantic or intimate scenes.

The relationship between Eli and Naomi is one of trust, friendship and honesty.

Performers cast in the proof of concept will be the first actors considered should financing for the feature film be secured.

Reasonable travel assistance may be available depending on distance.

Questions are welcome before submitting.

Storyline

When the drug holding back her seizures starts to fail, a dying seventeen-year-old signs herself out of hospice, and the silent boy who thinks he is only worth what his hands can fix drives her to the woods her dead father loved, racing her failing body and the falling light so she can get to her feet once before dark, while her mother decides, alone at the tree line, whether to let her go.

Roles

Role type	Role	Gender & Age range
Lead	Eli Brandt	Male 18 - 25 Years old
Description He has been taping drywall since he was fourteen, doing cash work on his brother's crew, and he has no diploma. Dust is packed into the splits in his knuckles. His mother walked out when he was nine and left a note. His father still lives in the house and has barely spoken since. Eli is turning into that silence and it scares him. He believes, completely, that he is only worth what his hands can fix. So when he cannot fix something, he cleans around it. What I’m NOT looking for: He is not withdrawn. He is busy. He is the most capable person in the room and he uses that to keep his back turned to a girl who frightens him. She frightens him because she is happy, and in his experience happy people are about to leave. Everything he feels comes out through what his hands are doing. If the feeling is not landing in a take, do not change your face. Change what the hands are doing. He spends both scenes not looking at her. When he finally does, he is agreeing to play, and it is the biggest thing that happens to him in the whole piece. Physical His hands are working almost the entire time. On the day you would be taking another performer's full weight through your shoulder for a walk down a corridor, and lowering yourself and her to the floor, repeatedly, across a shooting day. Voice Flat Southwestern Ontario. Short answers. He never tells you what he is feeling.
Role type	Role	Gender & Age range
Lead	Naomi Reid	Female 18 - 25 Years old
Description She is the only child of a widow in Norwich, a small church town where the whole congregation has been watching her die and praying about it. Her dad took her out to the woods on Saturdays. He has been dead twelve years and his brass watch is far too big for her wrist now and slides around on it. She was going to be a musician. Underneath everything she is terrified and she is furious, and she has been for twelve years, and she has never once been allowed to say so. She does not say so in either of these scenes. What I’m NOT looking for: Do not play scared. Do not play angry. And do not play brave, wise, or at peace either, because that is the performance she gives her mother and her town, and she does not give it to him. He is the one person she does not have to be okay for. That is the entire reason he is in this story. In the first scene she is bored out of her skull and she wants his company, so she goes and takes it. In the second she wants him to say yes, so she goes and takes that. Physical She has a tumour on the left side of her brain. Weakness down her right side. Her right leg drags. Her right hand curls and has to be lifted with her left. She cannot grip with it. The steroids that keep the swelling off her brain have wasted the muscle in her thighs. She cannot get out of a chair without her arms and has not been able to for a month. That is what the corridor costs her, and it is not the tumour doing it. Hearing loss in her right ear, so she turns her good left ear toward whoever is talking. And her sentences come apart, and the reason is not breath. It is that the word is not there. She builds the sentence correctly, reaches for the noun, and the slot is empty. This is not confusion and it is not her mind going. Her comprehension is perfect. She knows exactly what she means and she is furious about it. She talks around it, because she is clever and she will always find the road around. If any of that shows up in your tape, I will notice.

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