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Finding Cast and Crew

Finding cast and crew this could be pretty difficult obviously if you just shot starting off if you're trying to do something for very very little money which I've done plenty of this finding a cast and crew could be very difficult but the one thing is have something to show you something always getting asked people won't help me with my thing and I'm like well, what work have you done? None little why are people going to want to give up days and days if they don't know what sort of thing you're going to pull off unless they just love you and will do anything for you, right? But if you don't have a crew to do something, you could just get out there and do anything like do a philip bloom esq piece where you just go out and you shoot the world show me that you have something that's really great that you can tell a story in some way and I'll get behind it. But with cast wearing how local acting club's acting schools look at colleges they always have some kind of drama program online there...

's plenty of forms that you can post once you move past that you're going to move into rehearsal I have now they're done rehearsal before a shoot ever probably should at one point I don't know I've done table reads like once but usually we just jump right into it but meeting up with your actor is mandatory. I don't think rehearsals mandatory. I'm always just so concerned that it's going to suck the magic out of that moment, we've rehearsed it, it's no longer in the moment they thought about it, we thought about it in the scene, especially if it's some kind of confrontation and I don't want them to be comfortable with each other, and I don't really want them to meet up and sit there and have a really good conversation become super buddy buddy, I want that tension that awkwardness so I can actually captured that on camera to take everything up a notch, but meeting up with them individually for mei is absolutely especially especially if you're doing gorilla, you're moving fast. If you have a small crew, you wantto prep them for what this is going to be like, how you work, learn who they are so you know how they work, especially if you're the director, because every personality is different when you're directing, you want to know how to work with this individual personality and howto work with an audition. I actually have a video for this from from a film, right episode, and todd is going to teach you guys now, and he has no idea that he's teaching you live. Okay, so I'm gonna walk you through a typical audition what a casting director would do when they're auditioning and acted first thing is invite the actor in break the ice get him a little bit comfortable with the environment in the whole process come on in hi there what's your name oh, timmy timmy hi, timmy. I'm todd nice to meet you meet you so listen to me tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you get in acting? Uh well when I was younger I want to be a dolphin trainer on dh there's show called seaquest and jonathan brandis played a character who like, talk to dolphins uh and I was just like yeah, I want that that inspired you and s so he's he's a really big inspiration to me. Okay, great. Great. So after I've broken the ice I feel like the actors a little bit more comfortable with me go right ahead into the reading so you ready to re force later? Utah excellent. I'll be reading with you. You got the sides okay? You know I'm gonna be here great. Okay, you'll be reading for a okay s so you have the first line whenever you're ready. Hi. Hi. Can I come in? You already are what in you already are in yeah, I know, okay, okay great. So after the first read and maybe some adjustments I want the actor to make tio see if you can perform it a little bit closer. What the director wants or sometimes just to see if you can take direction. So tell me I want to give you, uh, one little adjustment. I want you to read it again. Is that it? No. That's. Great. Great. Okay, the one on just what I want you to make us put some urgency into it. There's something you came here for something very important. Okay, okay. All right. We're gonna go and start from the top whenever you're ready. Okay, cool. And I'm still reading. I'm sorry for your still read a story high. Hi. Can I come in? You already are. What? No, I got I know and you already are in I messed up, guy. I'm sorry. That's all right, just keep going, okay? Okay, great. I think we've seen what we need to see after the second read. If I've seen what I need to see, I think the actor for coming in and send him on his way. Thanks very much to me. That was terrific. Awesome. I'm gonna be showing the director all of these all this tape and I have been making some decisions very soon great thanks very much we'll hear from you all righty great have a good one so I'm gonna walk you through some no nose for casting director things you don't want to do during an audition number one while you're breaking the ice don't say anything is going to make the actor more uncomfortable than they already are for example hi timmy hardy they're good how are you? Great. Great listen how comfortable are you in the nude you like that in general? I mean is there a dr so I'm in the shower I'm okay with it I guess okay great no, no number two don't do anything inappropriate don't ask the actor to do anything that would be considered inappropriate for example uh so have you done any modeling? Uh not really. Well, one thing that's important for this role is body type okay, you know the director is looking for a certain body type for the role so would you mind taking the shirt off like in the movie? Oh yeah well the character has taken shirt off in the movie so I have to be able to show the director what is and what he has in store okay, so get it just right off they go yes pull right off alright got a raid excellent all the way off they're accessible nice tattoos. Thanks very nice. Okay, good. Drop the shirt there on the floor just going to, uh beautiful. Very nice. Okay, uh didn't turn around for me a good go ahead keep going. Excellent. Great, great grace to say they're facing the wall the back wall that is yeah, now we're going to a little roll plane you just drop something. You dropped something on the floor. Oh, my goodness. What happened? You just drop I need that thing. I think you just drop something on the floor. I'm gonna need that good. Bend over, pick it up. Pick it up. Uh oh. What happened? Great. Got it. Excellent. Okay, very good. Number three no nose for casting director. Don't leave the actor with a negative experience of the audition. For example, timmy and I think that's about as good as it's going to get uh we've seen all we can see from you and, uh, show the director your tape. You don't need me to read anything. No, no, no, no, no, no that's about enough for today. Listen, good luck trying to beat jonathan brandis. Uh, we're done instead do this, tim a really good job. Listen, we really appreciate you coming out and read for us. I'm going to show all this footage to the directory could be making some decisions regarding callbacks very soon wow! All right, great thanks again, tony. Thank you are you should have a good one, so that's it that's how traditional casting audition is held different people do it different ways, but that's how we do it here hope that was helpful, but the guy auditioning with my brother in law and he doesn't know I was showing that which makes me so happy in my heart. Ah, way that I've been doing auditions lately is skype, and I love it. I find that the actors are so much more comfortable and I'm able to get them further tau where they're going to go on set when they're sitting at home or wherever they are on skype. Instead of being in some weird cold room in front of all these people and said it's just me and them usually todd, as a casting director on the side, we talk to them, get them comfortable and that's the thing if someone comes in and they look right for the part, I immediately tried to get them as comfortable as possible, setting an environment where it's awkward and they're uncomfortable is not helpful for you at all. Obviously, if they come in and they don't look the part you know, don't be rude, but obviously this person is not gonna work out, however. Don't always read a book by its cover because todd I did not initially want for tell hey didn't look like the initial character that I had him in mind I had this like skinny wimpy character in my mind, but I ended up being totally wrong because todd's a bit more intimidating and that made it way better if it was this wimpy guy, I don't think we would have gotten a lot of attention from some of the moments that we got to keep that in mind as well, but skype is a great way to do it uh it's just there's so much more comfortable and you're so much more comfortable because it is always awkward to do that stuff finding, cast and crew very similar has something to show for yourself show them something anything at all, even if you put together like some kind of trailer piece for what you're trying to do to show the tone like a lot of professional directors will put a sizzle reel together they'll grab other films that looked like the film they want to dio and they'll make a trailer out of those piecing them together. There's one from what joe carnahan right online for daredevil he wanted do daredevil and made one which is great and I wish they would let him do it but you grab some music put something together just a show I understand tone, I understand story understand editing and that could even get people excited enough to get behind you. So for your crew wearing how online if you don't know anybody online family friends obviously free free labor is always good but online one of the gps that I'm gonna be working with pretty soon I found online which is on video shoot searching texas cinematographers and then I already knew who he was and I'm like oh my god, he was in houston what up? Andi? I contact them through video and now we're going to be working together so that's a great way to do it just go online and search stuff start reaching out to like minded people and you'll be surprised what happens on ly get who you actually need on the day you're gonna be really mad at yourself if you get an extra ten people who are bored and if you are doing guerilla filmmaking ur new you're getting people who probably don't know set etiquette that well, so they're gonna be over here whispering and you just called action and that's not helpful you're gonna get pissed off yell at them it becomes awkward daddy hit mommy that sort of thing uh so on lee who you absolutely need people that are going to be working or that you need all hands on deck don't go above beyond that location and logistics location family friends again, obviously I like go to think, man, who every hey, can I use your apartment? Local businesses are great everything's filmmaking is cool in this year in, like california and new york, and they're just, you know, jaded by it, and they're like, please go away, but anywhere else, for the most part, everybody is like you do what that's awesome so local businesses will be really open to that I've only ever paid for a local business location once and that's because it was nicely paid gig for a big client and, you know, it's not right for me to be doing that, not paying them so, you know, but most of time will work with you, you give them some kind of advertisement and they'll be good to go with that. Doing bigger places like a starbucks is almost always impossible unless you're doing a bigger show because they have to go through corporate all sorts of things, they can't give you an answer and there's a lot of legal involved and it's usually not gonna happen. Film commission is great, your local film commission get involved with them. They always have somebody that can help you out they have a big list of people. That are filming friendly so there's people you know, with ranches and things like that and they're like we'd be totally down with somebody coming to work here usually that's going to be paid there's not going to be any freebies through that, but you can always negotiate and then always leave the set better than you found it not like you found it better than you found it it should be a no brainer but I've seen the opposite you'll never be let back by those people word will get around specially if it's local like a local business always leave the set better than you found it not even just selfishly just don't be a douche bag it's somebody else's place we'll treat it like it's your house treat it like it's somebody else's house logistics, transportation food, bathrooms make up areas and parking all that seems like a no brainer but I put it in there because I've done this I forgot to think about bathrooms you got there there was none there's times people gotta go when you gotta go you gotta go so production got shut down and they had to be drove down the street to get a bathroom to come back it was a nightmare, so make sure you're thinking about all the little things food for god's sake food uh finding the budget this is very difficult. We're in a totally different landscape now, right? Like everything smaller, so it's a lot easier to find people toe work with but it's really difficult for me to tell you how you should do it, because every single person is totally different till it depends on where you're at, what sort of thing you do, what sort of connections you don't have a kind of audience you have or don't have. So all these things matter, but a few ideas is one investing yourself. Obviously, I'm not the one to say max out your credit card, I'm the one to say do not max out your credit card if you need two thousand dollars to make something and you have five hundred dollars, don't make the thing, make the five hundred dollars and work towards the two thousand dollars don't kill yourself over this stuff, that's not to say don't believe in yourself, don't bet on yourself. Don't invest in yourself absolutely do that, but be smart. We all have families don't be irresponsible, beg, borrow, steal but don't steal uh, again, this is a great family and friends I totally burnt my mom's wallet tell I think that's in the behind the scenes, isn't it is this is big burn mark. We put the someone I don't know who put the light too close to the wall and then spotted the thing, and they were all like what's that smell and there's this big, dented black mark on the thing, we also broke her tile and I think bent a drape, thinking, whatever. I don't know why I just told you that this is honesty time with ryan kickstarter, I really like kickstarter, I think it's great, but it definitely can be abused. We'll talk about that later, but that's definitely a good place to go and sponsorships are awesome, they're great and you don't need an audience to start out with sponsorships. When I first started out before film riot lens lettuce direct rather was my first sponsor ever hooked me up with a bunch of gear and I had zero audience to speak up. We hadn't started film right yet, but I pitched my idea I had something to show for myself. I show what I showed, what I did before I showed what my plan was, uh very professional with them sent them a whole, you know, business plan, they were they were beginning, they weren't super huge there a little bit bigger than well, they're a lot bigger now at the time they were not that far into it, so they were more open doing if you go to secure itto it's not gonna happen, but if you go to somebody just starting out somebody looking for an end, somebody looking to use their stuff in the way they want it used there's a lot more potential for a partnership there if they like what they're doing and they see potential in so you don't have tohave an audience unless you're going for the big dogs. If you have no audience and going for the big dogs, they're just going to think, why not do it? However I tried anyway, because the worse they're going to say it's no, right? You never know eso about to jump into another segment for new questions. Last time you said, are you kidding? Is that the thing I said, are you joking? Ok, ok, ok, lots of questions ryan question came in about the question is, I have found that it tends to be a bad idea to have a director do the job of dp as well. What job should people be assigned to when you're working with, say, five people? That is from crazy mike, that totally depends on if you have a dp, if you don't have a dp than and the director is good. Well, then that's, what you're doing isn't so I mean, it depends on what you have available to you if I have a dp available to me, I don't want to be doing that I want to focus on what my story is I want to focus on my actors I want to focus on what my cameras doing, not the light obviously the cinematographer is definitely focussing on the cameras well, but I want to be focusing on where I'm putting it and what my actors doing my blocking make sure we're getting everything we need for the day for me to be editing later because the way that I do things the way they do when it's like proximity or tell morning five hats at once and that's very difficult and the projects suffer tell suffered because of proximity suffered because of it there's stuff in both of those I mean there's always stuff in anything that you do where it's not quite what you wanted but you know things would have gone a lot better in certain areas if you have those people. So it's always great to have those people but it depends on what a strength is if someone's just terrible its cinematography I'm not going to put it on put them on it just to free me up s oh it's always about what do you have available to you and then you go based off of that so if you have somebody that's better than you release don't be horrid over everything great okay question another question is what is your favorite part of the filmmaking process man that's like who's your favorite baby josh love him um I love right I would I would say directing is definitely my favorite like if that's the one that I could definitely not give up I adore writing you're creating a world from nothing I think that's amazing you're like god over this world I have a big ego you could tell but you're just creating all these things from nothing and again manipulating and on on on on audience too have this experience I just I love it so from the start to finish from writing, directing, editing all of that that's really the three main writing points really uh so those are my three favorite, but if I had to boil it down it would definitely be directing and we have a few minutes, so if anyone has questions, feel free to raise your hand if you're oh, we do have questions go ahead so, you know, for me I'm always filming with cast and crew and actors and stuff noticed my friends or siblings anything so yeah, you know it's just favors that you're pretty much asking them to help you create your vision and when it's, really, since you're you know you're wearing all the hats and it's really your vision, how would you try to keep them engaged and really want to help participate? You know, that can be hard on set because you are doing so many things at once and you got to keep people on board with you sometimes it's really difficult to attend to everyone one it's a attitude is everything I forget the quote, but winston churchill has a great quote about attitude, but you know, your attitude will dictate everything else if you're the captain of the ship it's gonna trickle down to everyone, so if you're excited and you're on point everybody's going follow suit to some extent, but I always have somebody that I know for sure has my back, and we'll whip everybody else into it and to shape if need be that's oftentimes josh he's, you know he doesn't look it, but he could be intimidating when need be, but no, josh usually keeps it fun on set and it's great to have I usually keep, like sort of the class clown on set who knows when to shut up and be professional so it keeps everybody everybody spirits high, it keeps it fun, it should be fun filmmaking, it's fun, it shouldn't constantly like shut up you know the second we call cut is long as the actors a cool of it you got to make sure of that too if you're doing a scene where somebody's crying you don't want to cut and then you know make a fart joke obviously it's going to pretty difficult to jump back in so in those moments you need to make sure everything's really loaded and good but you know another moments if you're shooting a fight scene people just punch each other in the face second we call cut we're usually joking and keeping it fun if you do that if it's a lot of fun do which it is it's exciting and they understand that there's a lot of waiting too uh it's usually not too difficult you just need somebody that you could trust that's a partner to you to keep things moving with you and also setting it up before time getting them excited of what you're pulling off before time and then continually reminding him of it is a great thing if you find people are starting to slip a little from you at the end of every single day I have sort of like you know get together give a little inspirational speech of what you're doing remind everybody what the end goal is what you've done so far how great everyone's doing just as a pick me up every single day maybe even start with that if you need teo anything else? We got one more segment to jump too, but before we do you for when you've written your script and you want to hand it to people to kind of critique uh, at what point do you say if someone gives you like, hey, why don't you have him do this kind of thing? At what point do you take that advice or back off and be like, well, that's write out my vision so that's that's a really good question, because that could be very, very difficult for two reasons. One insecurity and then ego so ego is going to tell you should be wrong and in security is going to tell, you know, they're right, I got to change everything, you have to find a middle ground, it is really difficult and it comes with practice it's a muscle that you have to work and strengthen to know when they're wrong and no one there, right? But always be opened everything I've gotten critiques from a thirteen year old that actually made the film better. The true story and it's happened several times I'm not saying always take the suggestions of, you know, an eight year old or something, but you know, it's my thirteen year old little sister was like, that doesn't make sense you should do this and she was one hundred percent right and we went with it and it was great uh so always take the opinions of people you handed too, but the stage one is being really selective of who you hand it to handed the people you trust if you wrote an action film and you hand it to someone who absolutely hates action films probably not going to work out for you, you know, saying so be really cautious who and educate them on how to re script most people don't know how to read a script script sir formatted weird it's a weird thing to try to read so if they haven't read one, what I always say to do is find out what their favorite movie is get that script handem the hand that to them so they can breed that and understand how to read a script about the end of that we'll be able to read yours ah lot better but it's a matter of don't be egotistical but also have confidence on what you're trying to do and say if it contradicts your story entirely throw it out but something bothered them so figure out what it is that's bothering them sometimes we'll say I hate this but it's not this it's actually what happened right here you know I mean, so you gotta figure out what was it that threw them off and use that to refine your script to make it better