For those who haven't heard yet, I'm Matthew Miller, a local West Michigan filmmaker, and I will be directing the upcoming Cities and Saints music video, "Over It". I've spent a lot of time with their frontman, Marty Lamain, and our Production Designer pouring over every piece of this music video, but for a while there has been one thing missing- 'the girl'. But finally after months of creative brainstorming, careful review, and a very selective procedure, we are finally able to announce who we felt was the absolute best choice for the role!
From the very beginning I had a clear picture in my own head of what I was looking for in the eyes, in the stature, and in the very air of “the girl”, but finding and settling on an actress that had all of that was no easy decision. Our Producer, Aubrey, and I reviewed at least 30 different actress that could have possibly been chosen and over a month or so I was able to narrow that group down to just six. Originally my thought process was to go with someone new and fresh, someone who I hadn’t worked with yet, but my gut instinct kept saying the opposite.
So over the course of a month or two I tried to find an actress from amongst those six to play the role of “the girl”, but nothing seemed to work out. Every time an actress would fall through Aubrey would suggest one specific actress as a possibility, one which I had worked with in the past. That actress was originally who my intuition had said to go with, but because I was determined to find someone new for Shadow|Shine first big production, I kept saying 'no'.
That was up until a week ago when it dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t suppose to go with any of the new faces I thought would be so important to choose from, and to perhaps trust my gut and go with the very girl whom I had more or less designed “the girl” from. this talented young actress, who was essentially my muse when designing this character, has been a veteran of the film set live many times before, and she and myself have in fact worked together on three of my own film in the past, including two productions in which she starred in. She has been a dear friend of mine for years now and we work splendid together. She’s a fantastic actress and is always a pleasure to work with, hence why my intuition was so determined to stay with wanting her instead of what I thought would be “best”.
So with all things considered after a time of reflection and prompting, I can say without a doubt she truly is the best actress for the role. I have every bit of faith that she will bring the same energy, the same talent, the same class, and the same emotion that she always does to set, and beyond that I have no doubt that she will perfectly capture the reflection of 'the girl'. It's for that reason that I am happy to announce the face of Over It's 'the girl' will be played by none other than my long time friend and colleague, the wonderful miss Tara Harley Adams! Can't wait to get on set and make this music video at the end of this month!
-Matthew