'Beasts of the Southern Wild' stars' own magical realism - Los Angeles Times

To find those performers, the "Beasts" casting department followed the canvassing model employed by President Obama (several members of the team even worked on his 2008 election). But even as they spread their net far and wide, the casting agents and producers struggled to land leading players. After looking at some 4,000 children for the role of Hushpuppy, the team encountered Quvenzhané in a meeting room in the main branch of the Terrebonne Parish Library in Houma, a little more than an hour southwest of New Orleans. The audition notice called for girls ages 6 to 9, but Quvenzhané was only 5 at the time. Quvenzhané, who had been a part of a Christmas musical at her elementary school but had little other performing experience, showed up anyway.  

Read the whole article at LATimes.

Inside the Beasts Score

Dan Romer (L) and Benh Zeitlin (R), co-composers of the Beasts of the Southern Wild score. Film and music have always been intertwined for Zeitlin, who spent his teenage years as the singer for a grunge band. "All through high school, every Friday we'd go to my friend Bob's house and make a movie, and on Saturday, we'd have band practice," he said, adding with a laugh, "Music and movies is the way we'd entertain ourselves, for lack of having girlfriends or drug problems."

Benh Zeitlin spoke to Vulture about making music for film.  Read it on Vulture.

Images via BMI and KVIFF.

 

Meet Our Outreachers

I BEAST IT because I love watching and talking about great movies and I believe that awesome grassroots filmmaking deserves just as dedicated a grassroots outreach effort. The more we can put our collective energy behind supporting films that can make a difference outside of the Hollywood machine, the more we're going to see fresh and innovative films like Beasts out in the world! -- Drew, Beasts of the Southern Wild Outreacher We've got a superstar team of outreachers manning the airwaves and fielding your questions & comments.  Meet the bathtubbers!

You may remember Gus and Laura, our National Outreach Coordinators for East and West respectively.

Regionally, we've got Marianna (left) representing the South and Carly (right) in the Midwest.

Jessie (L) & Jess (R) holding down the north east!

& finally, Dema (L) and Drew (R), our NY Outreach coordinators!

Long story short: I was looking at the films that were nominated for Sundance back in January, and stumbled upon the synopsis of Beasts and the vision behind Court 13. Both of them instantly hit home for me -- and I was very excited that a film and production company with such a humanistic and community based values existed. Beasts felt like an oasis of humanism in the film industry and part of a movement I wanted to be a part of. I knew instinctually I had to work for Beasts this summer, so I immediately got in touch with Josh. Now I'm here. -- Jessie Chen, Northeast Outreach Coordinator

We're looking to keep growing our outreach team at our Cinereach HQ in New York and across the globe.

If you're interested in joining our team as an Outreach Coordinator, email us at beasts@beastsofthesouthernwild.com to tell us why you want to get involved and what your schedule is like.