DEEP (CASTING) THOUGHTS…

Going out to lunch this afternoon, the manager of the office building I am in said that I looked “so Hollywood!” I was wearing blue shorts and a white cotton shirt I bought five years ago in Mikonos with a black t-shirt under it. Basically, I got out of bed and found the nearest clean thing to wear. I didn’t think I looked “Hollywood” at all; in fact I was kind of embarrassed to be seen by anyone in public, because I hadn’t planned on leaving the office with so much going on. But I was hungry, so there you go…

I got to thinking; am I Hollywood? And, what does that mean if I am or if I am not. I don’t think I am, but not because of any bad connotations or lack of trying. I think I could be more social with my work friends; maybe I should make more of an effort to be out and about.

I was at the gym on Monday (Memorial Day) and ran into an actor I know. He told me all about his career and that he got a manager. I was happy for him. That was about as Hollywood as I got over the weekend.  I need to try harder.

I saw “Indiana Jones.” So many things to say about it, but really what is the point? It’s not really art; it’s a lot of money going into a lame story, with very intense lighting, wigs and a lot of accents flying around. But, I did enjoy it; I didn’t have to think so hard about what I was seeing. It was what it was – a tent-pole movie for the masses. It did its job. Not really my kind of thing but after the week of casting my brain needed to down-shift, so Harrison Ford did the trick.

I had a dream last night that I was in the movie “Cloverfield.” I loved that film. That was a smart film. I have high blood pressure and after that film was over I was like, “Take my fat butt to Cedars, I need a heart transplant!” I mean it is genius the whole, Godzilla in NYC bit, and all of the actor’s dying. Trouble is, it is now my stress dream. I dream that I am in the movie, looking at the actors and while we are running all through New York City trying not to be eaten by giant bugs that pop out of the big monster’s butt, I am thinking, “That actor is with Gersh,” or “He is with William Morris, call Theresa Peters call Theresa Peters.” I don’t even really know Theresa Peters.

Obviously the dream is about more than work, but I am still working on figuring out the meaning, so any help is gratefully appreciated, and no, I checked my phone sheet…no call from Theresa Peters to return…M

THE JOY OF CASTING

What a week! I got hired to cast a film on Monday night, had to have casting sessions Wednesday to Friday. My partner is on vacation and I was doing everything. I feel sorry for the day that I actually have an assistant. When I say everything, let me be more specific:

630AM Wake-Up

635AM Go back to sleep

645AM Wake-up, force my dogs to wake up (he likes to sleep in to at least 11) take him for his morning constitutional.

700AM-735AM Take a shower, eat, drink, get in car and turn on the radio and listen to Stephanie Miller for the next 25 minutes as I wind my way to the office.

8AM-1PM Get to the office — Turn on computers, check messages, check emails, respond to emails, call back agents, managers, whomever, set up the audition room, make sure the camera is working, set up the chairs outside the office, make sure there are pens, clip-boards, staples, the lights work, type out the session sheets, confirm auditions, call out auditions for the next day, return the hundreds (I am not joking) of phone calls from agents, managers, my mother, put out the breakdown, scan the sides, post the sides, post the screenplay, email the sides and the screenplay to the agents and managers who can no longer afford to pay breakdown services (ummm…hello ICM sort it out?!), check-in with the producer, the director, make sure they are coming to the casting session, download previous days casting session into IMovie and send to IDVD then burn the DVD, make the DVD table of contents slips, burn 3 DVDs, post audition links selects on-line to all the producers (pray that the computer doesn’t burn out), make sure there is enough ink and paper in the 2 printers in the office, print out a sign in sheet for the actors, print out sides for the producer and director to have during the session, print out pictures and resumes for the producer and director to have for the session (lots of tress are killed in this process), make sure the audition room is clean…

1PM-145PM LUNCH – probably go to Subway – feel sick about it later…no time

2PM – Casting session. Pray that the Director, Producer and the Producer’s assistant all show up 5 minuets early so that we can start on time. Hope that all of the confirmed actors show up and that there are no long gaps in the casting session.

6PM-8PM – after seeing 30 actors (60 were scheduled) and running an hour late (I didn’t anticipate that 30 actors would show up), wrap up the session with the Producer and Director, make sure that they are happy, confirm with them that they will be at the next session. Clean up the audition room, bring all the chairs from the hallway back into the audition room, download the session from the camera into IPHOTO then import into IMOVIE and edit the session, then burn onto DVD the following morning. Return phone calls, emails and schedule actors for up-coming sessions.

8PM – LEAVE THE OFFICE, because if you don’t you will get locked in the building (happened to me on Saturday)!!! Get dinner, go home watch TV and try not to be to pissed off with the fact that you haven’t been to the gym all week and feel fat!

REPEAT THE ABOVE until the film is cast…

Oh, and try to get in new work, not ignore your other directors and producers for the three films that are almost cast and are starting production at the same time…BREATH, POOP, SLEEP…

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job…seriously, I do. When all is said and done and I am “in the zone” nothing makes me happier than the sense of accomplishment I feel knowing that I am able to do all of this and get a great cast…it is fun, just crazy…

Hobbies

I was at a party this weekend for “Cinco de Mayo” and we were having a really pleasant time. There were a lot of actors at the party and I love getting to know actors and where they are from and who they train with and learn about what classes they are taking. All of this is interesting to me, because I like to know who to recommend to other actors for coaches and head-shots and all things actor related. I used to feel really weird telling people what I do, especially in L.A. as I perceived that this would make the conversation all about what I do and while talking about myself is great (hence the blog), I am genuinely interested in other things besides casting and acting. Now when I am in a social situation, I let my “freak-flag” fly and hope once all of the actor/casting director getting-to-know you questions and formalities are talked out, I can get to know more about a person besides who their agent is and they can get to know me beyond what I do for a living.

L.A. is a city that is entertainment oriented. In this industry you can isolate yourself amongst those who work in the same industry as yourself. I pride myself on the fact that I have friends who have nothing to do with entertainment. I appreciate that having relationships with people outside of my world is very important to my own personal growth. But more than that, I realized that I needed an activity outside of my work that would fulfill me in ways that my job could not. I decided that I needed a hobby to take my mind out of the world of casting. I wanted to do this because I was feeling a lot of pressure to make a success of my business and the pressure was making me unhappy. When you are freelance and don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from, there is a lot of pressure to make work happen and this made me feel only focused on the business of getting business.

I took up flying. I always wanted to learn how to fly a plane and secretly, since childhood, wanted to be a pilot. Weeks and weeks of getting into a Cessna 172/A and learning to pilot the plane made me so happy. After ten months of going to the airport once a week, I was ready to fly on my own. It took me several minutes to be able to accept that my instructor was ready to sign me off, but once I drummed up the courage, I got into the airplane and took off! It was an amazing sensation. I was all alone up there and the shear concentration that it took for me not to freak out and realize the magnitude of what I was doing and accomplishing took a lot of inner strength and fortitude. Upon landing, I got out of the plane, hugged my instructor (secretly wanted to faint) and went home. I soloed three more times after the initial solo.

Unfortunately, I have not been back to the airport. When I set my mind to something, I know that I will accomplish what I set out to do. My goal with the flying lessons was to solo. After I accomplished that, my next goal was to pass the FAA exam and become a pilot. But then I thought about it  more and the real next goal would be to become an airline pilot and give up casting altogether and go to airplane school (yes there is such a thing) and become a commercial pilot (I tend to go to extremes when it comes to things like this). As I have not come to that point in my life, I put my pilot wings on hold for the moment and head to my office on Wilshire to keep on what I realized I love doing – casting.

The point of all of this is that sometimes you have to try something so outside of yourself and your daily routine that you appreciate the value of where you are in your own life. Flying made me realize that I needed to have another activity not related to casting, but in turn, I learned to appreciate the job that I have and the opportunities that I have created for myself…which I do! After all, I made this casting thing up, it just sort of - happened. I don’t want to look back on my life and only see the casting, I want to see the relationships and the experiences that life has to offer all of us. So, now I am looking for a new hobby, one that doesn’t involve potential structural failure at 10,000 feet….

THE CASTING DIRECTOR

Matthew Lessall is a freelance Casting Director based in Los Angeles. His work includes several award winning independent feature films including: “Rocket Science” (Picturehouse) & “Mean Creek” (Paramount Vantage).

 

In addition to Independent film, Matthew has cast film & television projects for Warner Brothers/Legendary Pictures, The Hallmark Channel, WB Television/John Wells & NBC. Matthew has been nominated for three ARTIOS awards for Best Casting – Mini-Series (“Frankenstein”) & two short films: “The Act” & “Starcrossed.”

 

From 2005-2006 Matthew was Director of Feature Film Casting at 20^th Century Fox .

He is a member of the Casting Union (local 399), the Casting Society of America & BAFTA-LA.

 

www.LessallCasting.com

 

Making $$$ Offers to Actors…

This week, offers have been going out to actors for a film we are casting. I am happy to say that everyone seems really happy with the cast. Personally I am very excited about the actors we brought in and I think the film will be really good. When it comes time to negotiating deals, sometimes the producer deals directly with the agents/managers/lawyers instead of going through a third party, like myself, because the producer is going to have to make the important decisions. I can set up a standard deal memo, prepare representation for what the deal is going to look like (trailers, credit, transportation, etc.) but if back-end/profit participation or large amounts of money are involved negotiations have to come from the producer and usually the final discussions are between the production’s lawyer and the talent’s lawyer.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, when closing a deal on a low-budget film the producer must decide what limitations are in the budget and gauge how far they are willing to negotiate before they get to the “deal-braking” point. For example, an actor who negotiating for a film we were casting was insisting that they receive schedule F ($65,000) for the picture. This was more than the producers were willing to spend on the actor and the producer countered at double scale with back-end profit participation. The shooting schedule was for 3 weeks plus one week of rehearsal. If the producer agreed to 65k that would be $16,250 per week plus overages, flights, hotel, per diem, etc… so you are looking at 75k. Double scale is close to 5k per week, so the actor would have made 20k and the overall cost to production would be around 30k a $45,000 dollar savings and 45k that could go on the screen and not to the actor. (Actually, it’s 45k that was never there in the first place, so I don’t really know if you see it on the screen or not.) The budget for the film is 1 million dollars. I thought the deal was fair as the actor involved was not a name, but not nobody either and the actor knew the overall limitations of the production. The deal could have been set up as a “no quote deal.” The actor seemed to really want to do the film. So I was surprised to learn that the negotiations where deadlocked.

There are deal points that a producer can negotiate that make a deal sweeter to the actor and the actor’s representation and they don’t cost anything to the production. For example, “favored nations”: you can agree to favored nations on many deal points so that the actor knows they are getting treated the same as other actors in the film. This helps when talking about, trailers, hotel, travel, car hire and per diem. You can tie actors deals in with other actors or say that their deal is favored nations with the following A, B & C actors but not D, E & F actors. Actors love single cards credits in the main titles and paid ads. Single cards are great but you do have to limit them, as you don’t want a 10-minute opening credit sequence on a 90-minute film.

This month is a busy month for MFA & BFA programs in the United States to showcase their four-year acting students. It is also a time where I get a chance to see many of my colleagues as many casting directors go to the showcases in the hopes that they find new undiscovered talent. I find it interesting that these programs train their actors in acting but don’t train them on-camera or even talk to them about what the expectations are for actors when they come to LA or NYC. It seems to me that while getting your MFA and spending thousands and thousands of dollars on eduction, these programs could also teach their students about industry trends and how to treat their future career as an actor in this business. Many of these future actors don’t feel like they have any control over their destiny as an actor. This is not true. You can be proactive on educating yourself about the industry and learn about the people (producers, companies, casting directors, agents etc…) that you are going to be dealing with in the future. I am also surprised at how physically unprepared these young actors are. Your young! Go to the gym!

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