Casting
Welcome to the Casting Page!
Video from Director
Character Descriptions
Boyd Chatham
13-17 yrs old
About the Actor
We are looking for an actor who will be at least 18 years old in June 2027 and can look like a high-schooler on screen. Previous acting experience is great, but not required.
About the Character
The Snipe’s Screech follows Boyd’s journey through grief, revenge, and redemption across ~4 years. The earliest flashback shows Boyd at 13 years old, while most of the film centers around his actions as a 17 year old. He’s one of three brothers living on the Oregon Coast in the 1970’s. He’s the middle of the three. His brothers look to him as the “smart one”. His intellectual strengths are in his ability to strategize and think logically. He and his brothers are under constant stressors and threats to their safety. His brothers are often more eager, charming. and capable of combating these threats, but they lean on Boyd to plan their next moves. He’s cunning, strategic, and detail oriented. Unfortunately, he’s not as quick to think on his feet. His genius needs time, so he can be easily caught off guard if he needs to act in the moment.
The film focuses on Boyd’s internal struggle with grief and existential quandaries. His older brother is murdered by a classmate and family friend. The teenage murderer is sentenced to a few years in juvenile detention, instead of a life sentence or death penalty. Boyd can’t wrap his head around the existential meaning of this. This completely shakes up his understanding of the value of human life, justice, and his own mortality. After careful consideration, Boyd decides that revenge is the best solution.
About the Role
Boyd is the central/main character of the film. He is in all but a couple of scenes. The film revolves around Boyd’s journey and POV, so this role requires a firm commitment to the project and several days of shooting. If you’re just casually looking to get involved in a filmmaking project, this is not the role for you.
The Snipe’s Screech
The Snipe’s Screech
The Snipe’s Screech is a proof-of-concept project for a much larger story of tragedy, revenge, redemption, and resilience.
Synopsis
Synopsis
A teenage Boyd Chatham makes a dire decision to take action after tragedy strikes his family. Set on the Oregon Coast in the 1970’s, The Snipe’s Screech follows the childhood events of the Chatham family through the eyes of Boyd Chatham.
This film centers on his seminal decision to meticulously plan and execute the murder of his family friend, Devlin Smoots. This decision comes after Boyd believes his brother’s death saw no justice. Just a few years prior, Smoots killed Boyd’s older brother, Myles, in cold blood when both boys were just 13 years old. Boyd and his younger brother, Taggert, will go to any length to find closure in this adaption of the semi-autobiographical novel.
“I’ve known that my siblings and I were the only people on the planet that had lived our story and the commensurate context to write our story. The murder of our brother is the catalyst of The Snipe’s Screech. I recognized that if our story was to be told in a fictional narrative, then I would be the one to write it.
Our story did not end with a shotgun blast. We trudged on. We adapted. We evolved. We laughed. I wanted to document that resilience and do so before our mother passed. I was further motivated to write this fictional tale as a gift to my wife, our inspirational sons and their fabulous cousins.”
Dean Clemons
The Snipe’s Screech’s origins begin with the real events of Dean Clemons’ adolescence. He turned a traumatic upbringing into an artistic expression of resilience, camaraderie, and perseverance. The story depicts the triumphant surpassing of numerous near-death experiences, family abuse, sexual assault, and untimely death. The fictional story is a retelling of events, taking direct inspiration from reality, with some notable creative liberties. Each character is inspired by a real person. Many of the events of the book are retold exactly as Dean remembers them.
The core plot of the novel is a fictional exploration into “what could have happened”. He and his siblings were under immeasurable circumstantial pressures. The novels depicts abuse from their alcoholic step-father, economic pressures, dangerous child labor, sexual abuse from a church pastor, the murder of a sibling, and many life threatening adventures. The novel depicts the hypothetical retaliation from the siblings. The siblings collude together under the leadership of Boyd, the fictional version of Dean. Boyd’s cunning nature and exceptional attention to detail makes him the perfect sibling to plan a murder that will end their problems permanently.
Setting