Why waiting is hardly ever a good idea

The longer you wait the harder it is to get going. Inspiration and the first excitement of that initial motivation ebbs away like an outgoing tide and you have wait sometime for it to return in full force. Other people you have got involved begin to lose interest where before they were brimming with enthusiasm at the thought of helping you out. Like mostly everything in life, there is a moment to act and if you let those moments pass ‘Murphy’ or ‘Sod’s law’ will make you wait even longer the next time you are ready. Use that beginning energy to seize the moment and throw yourself into the process. Start moving forward from your ‘eureka’ moment and much of the time lots of the things you need will fall into place. But you have to start with drive and energy.

Nobody wants to fail

If you put off making your film it is probably because you don’t want to fail at it. That’s understandable. But so what if you do? Fear of failure or fear of making a mistake keeps a lot of potential filmmakers frozen in place.

• I’ll never have another idea as good as this one.
• I’m too young to write/direct
• I’m too old to write/direct
• I’d better wait till I know more about filmmaking
• I don’t know how to work with actors
• My script isn’t perfect yet
• I don’t have the confidence

Recognise any of these? These are some common fears which keep us stuck where we are. We can only learn by doing; there’s only so much reading you can do before you reach a brick of wall of knowledge. The rest must come experientially, by doing. Confidence comes by doing too.

Don’t get obsessed over the first film

So many film-makers I have met become obsessed over their first movie script. It’s their baby and everything about it has to be just so. The problem with this is that these guys think when they turn it into a film, it is going to be a masterpiece and propel them into the film stratosphere. Don’t try and make your first few films into masterpieces…they are highly unlikely to be and all you will do is waste precious time tinkering and fussing over irrelevant details when what you should be doing is cranking out decent movie after decent movie. When you work like this you are learning your craft all the time. You are laying the foundations of future great works! You are building a show reel, making contacts, doing deals; you are developing as an individual and as a filmmaker.

Do your best but its not life and death

The trick to all this is too not hold on too tightly. Don’t be a perfectionist in the very early stages of your career. I’m not talking to the artists here, I’m talking to the guys and gals who want to work in the industry at whatever level. Getting it right, details and timings are crucial issues no doubt but don’t let them become an excuse for not moving forward to your movie goals.

“I think with an ultra-low budget film I would be happy to recoup my investment and break even. To me this would be a success. If I made a small profit, I would view it as a bonus. Do you think your projects have the potential to do this? If you have three in post, it suggests you are already pro-active and probably have plenty of ideas for future films. Ideally, you would want everyone to pay a little to see your movies and for all the hard work that you and the team will have put in. But, that just isn’t the reality right now, in some instances, with all the download sites available.

For a lot of film-makers operating at the low to no budget level, the rewards will not be financial but will come in the form of experience, confidence, knowledge and maybe reputation, with the added possibility of being offered future ‘paid’ work. Tying yourself up in mental knots about how much money you won’t be making, will only stifle your creativity and your problem solving ability.
For a film to be downloaded 42,000 times is, arguably, a form of success? No? Then how do you combat this situation? Mm. Tricky. There are a lot of people thinking about it, with better brains than me. Swallow it? I think the least you can do is splash your website name (I assume you have a website for your movies?) all over the credits, both beginning and end. If you get downloaded a lot, that should drive some curious traffic to you. But then you need something there to hold people’s interest. Think of ways you can monetise your website to add extra income. Posters, T-shirts, DVD’s, advertising, other website exclusive pods. How about a film for watching in instalments? What about a donation box if they liked your film?

“Please help hungry and soiled film-makers”

I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat knowing that film-making and film distribution is going through important changes and we happen to be stuck in the middle of it. Interesting times. Maybe we should have been born twenty years ago? But then, no digital, no internet, no film-maker forum. We’ve got to be forward thinking.

Why bother you ask? Don’t, if you want to make money. At ultra-low budget level, It’s a distraction. It’s the wrong focus.

In general, we need to start thinking differently. Mini-studios, our own equipment, red-cam’s, green screens, web-distribution, our own t.v channels, more brainpower devoted to marketing but that’s up a level or two. How serious do you get? I’m going on too much. You’re a producer, I’m sure you know all this and were probably feeling a little dispirited when you mailed. I sympathize, I do, so I apologize if I’ve stated anything too obvious.So why bother? Because you love it, you know you do! Keep working, keep making films.”

First and foremost, ORGANISE YOUR MATERIAL. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how much difference it can make. You will become familiar with the material much quicker if you have it separated into different bins as opposed to everything in one huge bin.

Mark up your script accurately. Draw a line down through the portion of the script covered by each different slate; it’s also handy to make notes on which take contains the best bit for each slate.

Once you have done the first assembly, FORGET ABOUT THE SCRIPT. When the film is assembled from beginning to end, the script is now irrelevant – the end product is constructed from the shot material, not the written material. Don’t attempt to crowbar pieces of business into scenes just because the script dictates it – if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and it needs to come out.

The cardinal rule for editing is MAKE IT INVISIBLE.
Unless the style is particularly tricksy, the audience should never be aware of your cutting points.

THIS IS THE BASIS OF ALL GOOD EDITING.

Most editing – particularly action editing – is done on some sort of movement, which helps to disguise the cut. When a character turns to leave the room, for example, you can use the turn of the head to cut from one angle to the other.
But don’t feel bound by what seems to be the obvious movement. It is the motion itself that carries the eye across the edit, and quite often – if you are having trouble getting out of one shot and into the next – the slightest amount of movement in the same part of the frame will make the edit work.

Also, do not leave “dead frames” when you have action entering or leaving.
If a person is entering/leaving frame, always try to cut on the first/last frame of movement; even one extra “dead” frame can make the action seem stilted. An edit is working when it feels like a smooth curve as opposed to a jagged corner.

The exception to this rule is if you need a character to cross a certain amount of time or space off-screen, in which case you hold an extended amount of “dead” frames to make the point.

[Further to this, try to learn importance of the single frame. That may seem obvious if you’ve done a little bit of editing already, but if you’re just starting out, that single frame – that tiny one 24th of a second – can often be the difference between a cut looking horribly jagged and a cut looking totally seamless. Experiment.]

Learn the principle of the “mean sight-line”

At any given moment, there is a point on the screen at which the majority of the audience will be looking; most often it is in an actor’s eyes, but movement is also a key draw. This is very useful if you want to direct the audience to a particular area of the screen ahead of the cut, so their eyes are in the right place for information coming in on the other side of the edit.
By the same token, if you are cutting into an image where the audience will have to adjust their eye across the screen to the next area of interest, allow them the time to reposition. Bad editing often doesn’t take this into consideration, and by the time the audience has worked out where they should be looking, they have missed what they should be looking at.

If you want to sell your feature movie or get it seen by anyone then you’ll need to do some thinking about marketing strategy, no matter what the size of your budget. If you have no money and you are shooting a no-budget 75 minutes then your marketing strategy could be as simple as finding somewhere, like the local bar, to show your film. But whatever the case, it is good practice to start thinking about these details so you have experience and ideas when it comes to a bigger project in the future.

Let’s see how big movies go about marketing at different stages of their existence:

1. Script development and Pre-production: This is where the idea is developed into a script, which is then written, redrafted and polished and the initial excitement is generated through the use of concept posters and artwork, internet buzz, word of mouth, forums etc.
2. Production: The shooting of the film produces still photographs, cut sequences, early teasers, and on-set interviews for later broadcast on television or inclusion in the DVD.
3. The Post-production period sees the emergence of a coherent trailer, show reels, preliminary poster elements for publicity campaigns and festival strategies.
4. The finished film stage: Early screenings take place at festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Sundance to generate publicity and awareness.
5. The distribution process: This includes press junkets, poster campaigns, theatrical trailers and national and international releases at specific times of the year. Here the public is allowed to see the film for the first time (test audiences will have already been used) and this audience and critical feedback will then influence any further marketing plans.
6. Continuing distribution: All other markets such as in-flight entertainment, internet downloads, DVD and blue-ray are brought into play.

Public relation companies who specialize in media marketing are brought in to promote and ‘seed’ knowledge of the film, its story and images over all the territories where it will play.

Now, budgets are always tight on independent movies and you don’t have to follow this plan to the letter but there are sensible strategies here for everyone which you should implement. This will give you plenty of material with which to publicize your movie.

1. Try and develop word of mouth about your forthcoming project. Join web based forums, discussion groups and post regularly with relevant and useful info.
2. Develop a website where you can update your progress regularly but only if you can do it regularly and provide fresh content. This can later be a platform where you can have your film available for direct download if you want to go it alone.
3. Produce your own concept poster using some decent software like Photoshop.
4. When shooting make sure you grab as much behind the scenes footage as you can for your DVD extras. This should include director/writer/producer/DP interviews and anything else you can think of.
5. ‘Stills’ photos are absolutely essential for publicity and marketing later. Get a good photographer to come in for a day on the shoot and take some great pictures of the lead actors and main action/dramatic scenes (you should to stage these specifically).
6. Produce several different length trailers for a publicity DVD plus for viewing on your website and for download.
7. Develop a festival strategy and decide which ones you will aim to enter. It’s important to know and be ready for festival submission dates.
8. Produce a brochure with photos, DVD and other promotional materials ready to give to anyone who may be interested.

There are several things you can do to maximize your chances of understanding actors and the process and therefore pinning down exactly what you are looking for:

1. Read books on acting. I recommend anything by ‘Directing actors’ by Judith Weston, who has great understanding of the process but there are plenty of others out there.
2. Try out some acting classes at a local college or evening class. There is nothing better for learning a subject than throwing yourself into it, if you have the courage. It will build confidence too and you will start to get a hook on the language and methods of acting.
3. Watch them work. Live theatre is a great place to study actors in the moment. You will soon start to recognize people who lose themselves in their characters and people who don’t. Good and bad acting will start to shout out to you and you will develop the skill of seeing when an actor is really listening and when they’re just saying the lines. You may need front row seats for this though otherwise it’s the binoculars.
4. Check out nearby drama schools that often have regular free or cheap performances of both well known works and more experimental stuff. It’s a great place to find local talent and possible collaborators.

Working with actors is about you as a director being able to draw the performance you want from another person. That other person is not a robot or a machine but a human being who is making themselves vulnerable every time they go up for a role in a film or a play. To put oneself in that position time and time again takes a lot of guts and stamina. In order to protect that vulnerability, most actors will need to feel ‘safe’ working with you so that they can fully express their emotions and do a good job. It is up to you to generate that ‘safe place’ and the freedom for them to create. We are not talking about a physical place as such; it’s simply means having their director’s (that’s you) confidence and trust.

Directing actors can be frustrating at times like any human interaction, but it’s mostly rewarding, exciting and an incredible learning experience; of which you will probably become aware of much later. For the most part it’s a short term relationship, but a relationship nonetheless and if you go about it the right way, it could lead to much longer, mutually beneficial collaborations.

The audition itself:

When you’re assistant brings in the auditioning actor for the first time, introduce yourself. Don’t hide behind a table all aloof, get up and shake hands, bow, curtsey, whatever is your thing, but interact. You are the charismatic director after all and you want to create the right impression.

Introduce your own assistant actor, if you have one. Run through the process or you’re assistant might have already done it.

What is the process? It’s this:

The actor, having read the script pages, will have begun the process of interpretation of the material. They can now begin to audition for you. You can explain that you want to see what their initial impression is and what they bring to it. Explain also that you will run through the material at least three times so you are not going to kick them out after the first attempt. This will help Bob or Meryl to relax and steady themselves. Bob will need to hold the pages in his hand too as no-one can memorise that quick.

Watch the first attempt.

It will probably be disjointed, rushed, out of rhythm. It’s hard to remember that no-one else is as familiar with these words as you and how the characters sound and act in your mind’s eye. You will have to let go somewhat, of any pre-conceived ideas about how someone should sound or look like as this just limits you and could cut you off from finding someone who is really good but doesn’t “look right”. Of course there are certain parameters for how a character should look but try not to be too stubborn about it. Be open to whatever comes up.

Give some feedback

You’re going to be a director, you’ll have to get used to giving feedback all the time. Be as positive as you can without bull-shitting.Now you will have to come up with a suggestion about how to play the scene. Depending upon your script analysis that you have already spent time doing (right?), you will have an idea on how the scene should go. This idea should now inform your directorial choice. Is the scene tense, violent, romantic? There will be layers of subtlety within the writing, subtext and mood changes that you won’t be able to do justice to in this short period of time but you will need to find a way to bring the essence of the scene to light and communicate this to the actor.

Give ‘playable‘ directions

Depending on your material, give them a playable direction. For instance, the scene is tense with two men who don’t trust each other. The direction is “You’re impatient to leave. You have to get out of this room.”

Obviously you don’t want them to physically leave the room and if the actor walks out the door, assume you haven’t explained yourself properly. So staying in the room, how does the actor communicate that feeling of frustration and of being trapped through his spoken words and his body language?

Don’t use directions such as “be afraid, be nervous.” This is ok if you’re making a cartoon but not if you’re dealing with real people, (check out Judith Weston’s book, “Directing actors”).

Watching the next attempt

Continue to work with the actor, giving feedback and more playable directions. If you are close to what you want, then carry on along that way. If not, try the complete opposite.

In the case of the above example you could say, “Intimidate this other guy, make him leave the room!” Again, don’t use something like “be angry, be aggressive”. These types of directions have no goal, they are just states. They can mean many different things and lead to questions such as “how angry, how aggressive?” Try to combine direction with goals, objectives, purpose. This gives an actor something to grasp.

Remember to have fun with it; this type of collaboration is a creative process and an exciting one.

At the end of each audition thank the person involved for their time and effort.

Summary of the process:

1. First read through: actors interpretation
2. Second read through: with basic playable direction from you.
3. Third read through: observations from the previous two attempts, try opposite direction.
4. Fourth read through: go crazy.

The day of the audition:

1. Arrive early.
2. Set-up the space
3. Camera set-up.
4. Brief your ‘assisting’ actor.
5. Have your assistant prepare the ‘sides’.

Arrive before the actors!

Set-up

Get to your audition venue and set-up. Clear the space you’re using and make room for your candidates.

Do you have a camera?

It is a great idea to have a camera at the location to record the performances. This is necessary for reminding yourself later of each audition and watching for nuance and insight that you might have missed on the day. Ideally, have someone else operate.

The camera should be static and a wide enough angle to capture full body shots of all the actors involved plus all of their movement. You don’t want close-ups; you should be watching faces with your eyes, not hiding behind a lens. Later on you can review whether the actors are using their bodies well, whether they are stiff, uncomfortable with physical closeness, have ticks etc, all this will be on the camera footage.

Just to add, your location should be lit brightly enough for filming and you should state that the footage shot will not be used for anything other than private viewing, i.e. for purposes of reviewing these auditions.

Having another actor present

If possible get another person, preferably another actor or if not an actor somebody with some life about them, who can read well and put some emotion into it. Don’t get a friend who is afraid to read out loud. It is better not to read yourself as part of your awareness is taken up with conscious processing of the lines and you as the director need to focus on the subtlety of performance.

Having another actor there also helps you to direct the auditionees because you can prime your actor-assistant with instructions to make it different, change their lines, move differently and so on. This is all to see how your candidates adapt and react to new, surprise or subtle changes in direction.

Make notes

Make notes on each audition, marking down your instinctive impressions about the person performing, whether they followed your direction and so on. The most important quality for an actor is being able to “listen” not just to you and your instructions but to the other actor they are working with. Really good actors are always listening which is another way of saying they respond in the moment to what’s happening, they react to the people in their environment. So you could say that you want “reactors” not actors.

The material

Have your assistant hand out the “sides”, which are the one or two pages of material to perform. It would be good, ideal even, to have pages from your own script. The benefit of using your own script is it gives the actors a chance to assess your film for its content, don’t forget they might choose not to do it! Many actors will obviously be looking for good show-reel footage and even if desperate won’t do just anything for the sake of it. Often it is a good idea to use well written, established dialogue material that you’re familiar with. Not that your stuff isn’t well written, I’m sure it is.

(You could send the audition piece to people via email but this only works if everyone gets it. Those that do get it will have more time to work on the lines, if they choose to, whereas some who don’t get it are then put at a disadvantage come the audition. If everyone sees the material for the first time when they arrive then it is a level playing field and more accurate for you to judge.)

1. Advertise the roles.
2. Organise c.v.’s and show reels to watch.
3. Eliminate the ones you can’t use.
4. Short-list your preferred artists.
5. Organise a location for auditions.
6. Contact your candidates.

Advertising your film

Start by advertising your film, with a basic description of the story and the roles offered, in trade magazines, on-line and so on; that way you will have enough choice for your auditions. Be honest about what kind of film you’re making. If it’s independent and with a small budget then say so. It’s better to let people know what they are getting into up front. I mean, if there is no money to pay artists, are you going to feed them, pay travel expenses? You better do one of these, preferably both!

Organise the paperwork

Wait for those c.v.’s to roll in over the next week or so. Some that are posted to you will come with stamped address envelopes for return. If they are not the actors for you, try and return the c.v.’s if you can, because sending professional pictures to directors can be a costly expense for impoverished actors.

Try and find actors with short film or feature film experience as well as theatre; they will know the ropes to some extent. Look at their skills and hobbies, do you need martial arts, horse riding or rock climbers? Stage combat is a good one if you want to shoot simple fights. Most actors have some experience of this. More complex fighting though will obviously need a fight or stunt coordinator.

Eliminate people you don’t want

It is difficult to choose who to eliminate when you haven’t met anybody but the picture and the C.V. is usually all you have. Some more web savvy people are now posting show reels on-line and this trend should increase but it’s not the norm yet. For your film though, be aware that an actor with only credits in theatre will, generally, have no film vocabulary to work with, they will be unfamiliar with hitting marks for camera, sound levels and so on. They may be wonderful performers on the stage but a possible hindrance on a film set.

Shortlist

Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential candidates, sort them into male and female. When casting for roles it is better to see all women or all men at the same time in order to better compare gender roles rather than a random mix of boy, girl, boy etc.

Location hunting

Find a location in which to conduct your auditions. It has to have enough space for your actors to move around. Actors will need to move their bodies to relax and demonstrate physicality during the audition. Without this there will be no life and no opportunity for someone to show you what they can do.

Get in touch

Contact the actors you have chosen and let them know your dates and politely ask if they can make it on these times. If your budget is tight they will have to make the day you suggest. If they can’t, you can scratch them from the list. If you have more flexibility, say two days, then they can come to either and this gives them a chance to make arrangements and you more choice over who to eventually cast. Whether you have one day or two, split the day into morning and afternoon. Keep the morning for men and the afternoon for women or vice versa. Have each actor pencilled in at staggered times such as follows:

Day 1

11.00am: first actor “Bruce”
11.20am: second actor “Marlon”
11.40am: third actor “Al”

Lunch break 12.00-12.30pm

12.30pm: fourth actor “Meryl”
12.50pm fifth actor “Madonna”
13.10pm sixth actor “Julia”

Twenty minutes should be a minimum for you to assess each person, if you can spend more time with each person then that would be better. It all depends on how many people you have to see, how much time in the location, how many days etc.

Note: this is the time you will see them but you will want to tell them to arrive fifteen to twenty minutes before their allotted time as this will enable them to read the script and form a basic idea, opinion and approach to their performance. Without this time the audition will be messy and confused as the candidate will be fluffing lines and stumbling all over the place.
Also confirm these times again with the actors to make sure they are coming, either by phone or email.

Give yourself some contingency time too, as inevitably, someone will be lost, late or delayed.