Casting For Three Films!

For the past month, my partner and I have been casting three films: two features and one short. My brain is going to explode. I have seen for pre-reads over 300 actors and brought to the directors approximately 100 actors. As always, there are all of the lists (the lists!!!) for all of the roles and the negotiating and the setting up of offers and selling the films to agents and managers. I have a lot of stuff going on up there in my noggin and if I don’t remember an audition, it is probably because the actor didn’t make an impression on me. Granted there are casting directors who remember everything – I just have to assume they have nothing else going on in their life. Me, I got bills to pay, an office to manage, I have to make sure my producers are cutting our checks, paying our union dues, buy the office supplies, fix the printer… When an agent calls me at 7pm on a Friday to ask for feedback I want to reach down through the phone, grab their neck and say, “are you serious?!”

In my previous blog I said that 95% of actors who audition will do the same audition and of the remaining 5%, 2.5% will just be bad and 2.5% will be original. Just assume that if you didn’t get a call you are in the 95% (because being in the 2.5% crappy percentile is just too depressing to think about) and figure out why you may have not been as unique as you thought you were being.

Acting coaches talk about “emotional truth” and use words like “objective, super-objective” or some Misner/Uta Hagan-esq technique that they teach you but really, I think acting boils down to sustained energy. Actors do not realize how much physical energy it takes to sustain a character moment to moment. Developing a character takes every thought of every breath of every second of believing and manipulating your psyche into thinking you are someone else. It is already difficult to sustain energy just to be you, but to dig deep down and find within yourself the equal amount of energy to create and sustain another character is — exhausting. And to make it look fresh and natural, takes focus, spontaneity, creativity and fearlessness.

I am not easily impressed. If I like an actor, I believe in that actor’s potential to bring to a role what I believe makes an incredible performance. So, forgive me if I don’t give feedback, because what I am looking for in an actor, whether it is for one line or an entire film is often impossible to find.

I learned this week that the Casting Society of America decided to remove (again) the “excellence in short film casting” category from this year’s ARTIOS Awards. The ARTIOS celebrates excellence in casting achievement to those who are members of the C.S.A. Two years ago I was one of the people instrumental in having the category added to the ballot. But last year the C.S.A board took it off without discussing it with the membership. (I love my peeps, but try to imagine what it is like to be in a hotel ballroom with 400 casting directors eating rubber chicken and sitting through a 4-hour award show surrounded by agents. There is not enough alcohol in the room to make the time pass by fast enough.) I was saddened by the boards decision to not include the category again, because it seems to me that short film casting at its essence, is one of the purest forms of casting. If one were to argue that there is any skill in casting (as I believe there is) one would see it in the short film, where originality, resourcefulness and determination are what get actors into a film that they most often do for little or no money. The boards reasons for not including the category are lame and too boring to go into (there were plenty of potential nominees and a lot of support from the membership for this category), but let’s just say it seems like a political issue and only the upper echelon of the board seems to know why. I say include it in the ceremony. What’s an extra 5 minutes to an already laborious ceremony where the outcome is usually that you are still hungry or drunk…

This year I ran to be on the board and was not elected. I admit my ego was bruised. I believe I have a lot to contribute to the casting community. I was social vice-president of my freshman class in high school, maybe someone did a background check on me and found out it was my idea for the Hawaii/hula-themed freshman mixer? I mean it was a purely innocent suggestion to have the water polo team show up in their uniforms…

If you would like to know more about me go to www.lessallcasting.com. Until next week…M