Thursday, December 17, 2009

Talent Signed: Raney Branch

In any noir film, it's the baser, seedier motivations that drive the morally-ambivalent characters to their self-destructive acts.  And by "base" I mean those lusty, primal drives that we all struggle to keep under some semblance of control. Or not.


Though the primary motivator of all of the characters in Sixufus is greed, we need to see other motivators too, just to flesh out the universe a bit.  And when you think about it, most noir films show sex as one of the paths to destruction (Body Heat, Double Indemnity, etc.).  


This was the original purpose of the Hillary character; a young woman who's amazing physical charm and diabolical scheming fouls things up for Darwin.  


But as the story unfolded, I found she had a much better purpose than mere sex appeal.  And in fact, I ended up picturing her as something less charming.  Less made up, more shrewish and isolated, with her own problems to overcome.  Which is why her name is Hillary; something we hope snags on some previously-existing associations


And of course, what happens?  Our director Maurice Moore ends up casting a beautiful young woman with amazing physical charm to play Hillary.  Ah well.  Never hurts. 


The actress of which I speak is Raney Branch; who was one of the leads in Maurice's Lovely project:


A little about Raney:



While studying at Emory University - where she received her BA in Environmental Studies and minored in Arabic - Raney performed in the regional touring company ENACTE Repertory Theatre.  Upon moving to New York to teach science, Raney returned to her musical roots, performing in local blues, hip-hop, and neo-soul bands.  Since returning to her hometown, Raney has performed in several theatre productions including Hair, Anything For You, HUE , and the multimedia production Twenty-1: The Age of Ultimate Change.  In film, Raney starred in the independent feature Family Curse. as well as the shorts Freakin' Funny, the aforementioned Lovely, and LA Sales.  Raney also guest-starred on the House of Payne TV show  ("I Got the Hook Up" episode). 


Having read all that, you should now head over to YouTube to see her demo reel:  Raney's demo reel