It lives

Hey.

Long time, huh?

I know.

I never write, I never call. I'm a bad friend, blog.

There hasn't been much of note going on through May. Trying to work a ton, because I'm poor, and have a zillion weddings that I might have already complained about already. (But I'm REALLY excited for them! Good people, but all at once!?)

This week started filming of Very Small Rooms. Good people with a wickedly good sense of humor. Should be a good month.

Been working on a series of shorts with a friend. We'll be preproducing through June and most likely July. We hope they'll do good things.

Other than that, everyone, not much else.

But this is something I've been thinking about for a while. Hopefully this will get me to write more often. Time will tell.

A Letter to Directors/Filmmakers from the "Talent"
Note: This is for first-time, low-no budget, and student directors and filmmakers, based on several experiences I've had in the past few years.

Part I: Casting and Rehearsal
First, thank you for having me at your casting. I'm sure you're very excited about your project, and I'd like to join your enthusiasm. This should be easy to tell since I must have found out about your audition and contacted you in some way. Maybe you've seen my headshot and resume. Maybe I walked in off the street. Either way, I'm here, so that says something, right?

Now I know different directors like to audition in different ways. Some have sent me the entire script to read and asked me to choose a role I feel would be appropriate. Personally, I favor this approach. Having read the script beforehand I can know what kind of project I'm putting myself up for, and what I where I might best fit. Sometimes I'll get a few pages highlighting dofferent characters. Sometimes I'm asked for a monologue, sometimes it's a purely cold read. I'm not against any of these, sometimes they're even fun. If you like what you see, I'd sure like to hear that. Go ahead, ask me to do it again. Ask me to give you a different feel. Direct me, if you'd like. I want to show you what I'm capable of. Let's shoot the breeze for a minute if time allows. We can get used to each other, maybe even get a feel for how well we'd work together. But please, don't say something like, "you almost definitely have the part." Then I know someone will walk in after me and do a better job. You don't have to be mean if you didn't like the audition. A polite thank you is fine.

Now let's say I had a grrrrreat audition. We all clicked, I read well, I took direction, we had a good talk. Or even a decent audition. Or a horrible one. You know what I'm gonna do when I get home? Expect to hear from you. You've probably given me at least a rough idea of your production schedule, so I'm going to eye my calendar and try not to put anything in those days. That anything could be more hours at the day job, time with my family or friends, another acting gig. But I got to you first so I think it's only polite to wait to hear from you. I gotta tell ya, it stinks when I hear nothing at all. Even auditions I've felt badly about, it's be nice to get a call. Email is perfect if you feel uncomfortable telling someone they didn't get it. It can be as simple as, "thank you for auditioning, we couldn't find anything for you." You could even say why you didn't cast me if you feel it will help me as an actor. Some of us would like constructive advice. Either way, those days on my calendar can now open up, and I won't feel silly for holding them right up to the end. I've gotten some great emails and messages about why I didn't get cast and there were no hard feelings at all. I can tell you one thing, if I don't get any word from you, I'm most likely not going to audition for you again. Also, if someone I'm working with asks me, I'll be honest.

Now let's say you cast me. YAY! Good choice on your part! I must say, you have good taste. What would I like next? Well, a script would be just about awesome. You know you can email one of those, right? No? Well, you can, usually as a PDF. I'm sure someone can walk you through the steps. The other thing I'd really like to do is rehearse.

Now when I say rehearse I don't mean right before the shot. I mean before we ever put anything to film/tape. Let's get together, have a cup of coffee, chat about the script. I know as a writer that a solid actor will attempt to understand his or her role far better than I as the writer could. The actor will delve into much more detail, get immersed in the role. This I will promise to do to the best of my abilities but I might have some questions. A little one on one with you would be great. Plus getting together with the other actors will really help me. Let's all sot and talk about it. Unless there's an artistic reason for it I think it's a really bad idea to put a cast together for the first time on the shoot day.

I'm just sayin'.

Coming soon (i.e. when I get around to it) Part II: Production