A little while ago I found this place…

Our 2 month hunt for a protagonist for our feature film “Lullaby for a Lunatic” has come to an end. After sorting through over a thousand applications, holding open acting workshops, working closely with agencies & scouting at acting schools we have finally found our protagonist. His name is Leif Nygaard.

A LITTLE ABOUT LEIF

Leif graduated with a bachelor in modern/contemporary dance and has studied acting at the Actors Foundry in Vancouver BC. Leif is passionately dedicated and works in great depth with his preparations for roles. His short films, to name a few, have been to Slamdance, Brooklyn International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival winning awards along the way. You can see the trailer for his recent short film “Fish in Barrel” Directed by Randall Okita below.

Initially we conceptualized Leif as a supporting character for the film. He came in and read for a challenging part that we were having a hard time finding potential candidates for. Leif impressed all 4 of us at the casting table and we quickly came to a unanimous “yes” decision to call him in for a callback.

A few days later I was doing some prose storyboarding and trying to visualize the different candidates in our protagonist’s role. We had about 5 strong candidates for this role. Each actor was very different from the next and each one would color the film differently. I was visualizing all 5 of the actors in the final film. But who would our protagonist be?

I remember holding an acting workshop in my studio last year and I invited Assen, a method acting teacher from Methodica Studios  to help give instructions and guidance to the actors. At one point in his lecture he told the actors to “pity casting directors”. What he meant by this was that as the casting process continues actors get increasingly stronger. By the time a casting director is doing their 1st or 2nd round of callbacks, great actors are fighting for their shot at the role. Directors don’t come out of this process with 1 clear choice. There are usually 2-5 top contenders for each role. Each great in their own way. This really complicates a casting director’s life.

I kept running different scenarios in my head with the top candidates. Laying on my floor with my storyboard finding the major narrative beats of my scenes and running the potential actors through my head. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. Drinking coffee. Pacing. Almost coming to a conclusion. Drinking more coffee, then coming to a different conclusion. Pacing and more pacing.  Then doubting myself. Trying to start from scratch…. Then while I was visualizing one of the scenes with one of the other actors, Leif an actor for another character peaked his head around the corner in my imaginary set. “How did you get past security” I asked (becuase of course I have and need security in my imagined set). He just stood there in front of me and asked “Do you mind if I just try this and you can see what you think?”. For me this was a step in the wrong direction. I didn’t answer. I just stood there and stared at him blankly. Even if I liked him it would make the other part we initially cast him for open which means we would need to re-open auditions. Not only would it be a logistical nightmare but his look wasn’t what I had imagined. If we go with Leif we would be totally casting against type and both imagined Leif and the real me knew it. But I let him run the scene in my mind becuase I needed a break from seeing the other actors anyway. Leif ran the scene and all of the sudden everything felt very different. He looked great and his performance (although different from what I expected) was very strong.

I needed to go for a walk. I asked Leif to sit down with the other imagined actors in the audition room while I go for my walk. Apparently, even though I could afford security in my imagined set I couldn’t afford trailers for the actors.

The actors sat there reading their sides and trying to not be distracted by one another. My heart was racing and I was overwhelmed with excitement. But part of me caulked it up to too much coffee and a short lived manic episode.

I came home from my walk and started studying the scenes of the film again. This time instead of running it with 5 actors, I ran it with 6. The other imagined actors didn’t like that when I got back from my jog I threw in another competitor, but they all grinned and politely said “whatever is best for the film”. I sensed most of them didn’t mean it.

What was it that was drawing me towards Leif? Well for starters, Leif is the intellectual antihero. Good looking, fit and bohemian. He can play the brooding poet, the romantic dreamer or the self-destructive artist and both his emotionality (i.e. femininity) and masculinity serve him very well.

The next day (in the real world… not in my imagination) I called Leif’s agent and asked if I could get his contact info to workshop a few scenes with him for a couple of hours. I thought it would be helpful to stop running the scenes in my mind and do it in real life.

I meet with Leif a few days later. Immediately I was struck with the thought “this is right, this is right, this is right”.

We started to workshop a handful of scenes at noon. An hour passed, two hours passed, we’ve had coffee and talked a lot about our character’s goals, dreams and expectations. We filmed a few scenes. Another hour passed. It was soon dinner time. We had more coffee. We experimented with a few more character ideas. We searched for a voice, we talked about relationships. The sun went down. We filmed a few more scenes and then watched them. The next thing we knew it was midnight. We kept digging for insight into our protagonist. We experimented with new ideas and we came up with some details for our character’s backstory. We ended the evening by projecting Leif’s short film on an 8 foot canvas. 14 hours and 16 minutes later, with only half a meal in our stomachs, wired from all the coffee and inspired by all of our ideas, I knew I found our protagonist. We were done. I also realized that I’m the reason that Unions exist.

It took an audition, a callback, many imagined scenes and a 14 hour and 16 minute workshop for me make a decision… but I got there in the end.

Welcome aboard Leif.

“Leif’s an extraordinarily strong actor – very committed and very hard working. I was speaking to Dorothy about his huge potential and called him her “Norwegian Johnny Depp”. His work in last class was heartbreaking and very high end. I also think he’s a superb guy – soft spoken and earnest, but witty and charming…a really nice presence to have in class or on set…”

-Matthew Harrison
The Actors Foundry

Life in Bosnia

When I recall my life in Bosnia the first thing that comes to my mind is Edgar Alan Poe’s verse: ¨All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream¨. To feel strongly about certain experiences in such a way they have to exist within realm of the past; distant enough so that we are not able to claim them as real or unreal. This, I would say, is a dream.

Therefore, Bosnia is a distant past, a dream that I purposefully don’t want to forget. Because forgetting it would mean, among many other things, ignoring a valuable writing resource. Living afterwards as a refugee in Slovenia, under different circumstances, going through challenging experiences, being compelled to see the world in a different way brought out many fears, opened the floodgates and allowed  confusion and conflicts to settle in. But it was here, for the first time, that I dared to think, and then write, about the relationship between now and then.

Obsession in symbols / Magic / Tarot Cards

Obsession with magic. I would not say I have one. Magic as a deceit or magic as a story about the magic of deceit. It would be very interesting, it would be magical, to write story about a person ( A fashion designer ala Karl Otto Lagerfeld lets say) who thinks he found an elixir of eternal life. He wants to live forever and thus perpetuate his stupidity, because it is usually those kind of people who don’t want to grow old and die (myself not excluded).

But then one day, just before he is about to drink his elixir he gets a letter from Count of St Germain dated from 1754. In this letter St Germain is expressing his desire to meet with Karl Otto and have a little chat with him. Eventually they do get together and then the story evolves.

When it comes to astrology and Tarot cards I still wouldn’t call it an obsession. In those I saw a tool for story telling. Why do people go to astrologer or Tarot reader? Why are people interested in reading a cup of coffee? Simply because… you want to hear a story in the form of the truth about yourself and others or lies about yourself or others; it depends how you look at it and how much you believe in all that.

What makes these things interesting is where are you looking for the story or the reflection of ourselves, of what we are and what we are not. In Astrology you are looking for the story in signs positioned in certain planets, houses and fields. In tarot you tell the story by deciphering various symbols depicted in the cards. In a coffee cup you are looking for shapes, lines and “accidentally” formed figures to help you tell the story. What makes it even more interesting for me is that their origins trace way back into a distant past. You see, it is all about past. That is why I could never be a Buddhist. Or is that so; because why teachings, whether conveyed orally or read in centuries’ old scriptures, if not to preserve them, if not to preserve the past. You see, it is all about now and then.

Biggest challenges

The biggest challenge is to recognize the chaos, to give a form to that chaos and then tell the story clearly.

Your writing process:

It would be the best If I could write in accordance to Kurosawa’s suggestion; `”One page a day and within one year you would have 365 pages.” But we both know that in our case that is not possible and so I have to write at least five or more pages a day or every second day.

I’ll usually go to places where there is a lot of distraction so that I can procrastinate my writing. But once I get into it I move to place where I will not be distracted.

We’re starting to narrow down our choices, but we’ve had difficulties casting for a couple roles within the film so we stopped by a couple of acting schools in Vancouver to scout for talent. We were invited to both Shoreline Actor’s Studio and Austin-Tuck Studios.

Michael from Shoreline Studios was nice enough to let us sit in on one of his audition rehearsal classes. Having just held auditions ourselves, it was great to see a school that preps their students for audition etiquette and strategy. They taped each student’s performance which allows the students to look at themselves from a casting director’s perspective. What I loved most about sitting on this class was that Michael firstly, has an incredible amount of energy, but secondly and most importantly, he gives each student, no matter how strong their performance was, detailed and very constructive an honest feedback. We sat in on their full time program led by Brad the next morning which was an equally enjoyable experience.

The day after we visited Austin-Tuck Studios in Gastown. The class was very different from the other classes we sat in on. Deb began her class with complicated voice exercises and then some of the funniest improve I’ve ever seen.
She then had her students perform very long scenes, from what I assumed were stage plays. This allowed her students to really dig deep and stay in a scene for a long period of time. The scenes she chose for her students were really challenging and fun to watch. And as icing on the cake  her students were consistently talented and a pleasure to scout.

We got out of our acting classes around 11pm both nights. However, the time spent scouting at two of Vancouver’s most respected & popular acting schools was worth it. We found an additional dozen actors we want to call in for an audition for our film. Definitely worth the investment in time.

Most feature films have somewhere between 40-60 scenes. For example, Igor and I recently deconstructed the French film “La Haine” and we found out that the film had 47 scenes and 40 different locations. Yesterday Igor and I broke down the scenes from our own film and we had 43 scenes and roughly 35 locations.

Some of our locations will be very small and won’t require a lot of design work. For example one of our smaller locations is the back of a taxi cab. We also have an assortment of medium sized scenes such as living rooms, bedrooms and hallways to name only a few. To ensure our film doesn’t have a claustrophobic feel we also have an assortment of larger locations such as party rooms and large landscapes.

It’s Tim’s and my responsibility to find these 35 locations by scouring the city. Our gaol is to find the best interior and exterior environments for all of our scenes.

DESIGNING OUR WORLD

As Tim and I walk around Vancouver we’ve been surprised to find the such interesting locations. Because we don’t have the money to build elaborate studio sets we’re going to be relying heavily on locations that are already built that have unique characteristics. Essentially we need to find locations that:

1. Fit into the overall design standard of our film

2. Our locations also have to have a strong and naturally occurring sense of design. This means we’re looking for locations that have naturally occurring patterns, a strong sense of symmetry,  interesting lines, shapes, a simplified color palette, depth and so on.

For example. Here are a few daytime exteriors. We’re considering this visual idea of using aged, highly textured and somewhat run down exteriors.

For our night shots we’re considering shots with deep, rich shadows and small color highlights. We’re considering using  “line” and “pattern” as two of our primary design elements.

Other than the aesthetics of the shot we also have the following production considerations to take into account before deciding on a location. Just becuase an environment has the right “look” it doesn’t mean it’s “film friendly”. Here are other considerations we’ll need to consider.

1. It’s helpful to find locations that are in close proximity to each other
2. Convenience of parking
3. Is there space to set up and do make up / hair?
4. Electricity
5. Natural Lighting / direction of sun
6. Permission from location owner to shoot on premises

OUR LOCATIONS RELATIONSHIP TO OUR STORY

Tim and I have been walking around the older parts of Vancouver and we’ve been thrilled with our findings. As we walk through the city we slowly begin to visualize the “world” our protagonist lives in. We want our protagonist to inhabit a city where anything can happen, a city with a loose moral code,  a city that suffers from neglect and  has a dramatic divide between rich and poor.

It’s not only our protagonist’s relationship with his wife but also his relationship with his environment which has driven him mad. We need to shoot our environments in a way that create a sense of chaos, conflict and stress. This will help us feed into and support the tension of our film. We’ll also use the sounds of the environment to help support the visuals. For instance we may use the obnoxious sounds of trains, the undecipherable murmur of crowds, fire alarms, the sound of an old man spitting, police sirens.

A large city where people can easily become invisible is important to us because our environment also needs to accomplish 2 other technical goals to make our story believable:

1. Our protagonist’s derangement cannot seem overly unusual in group environments. Large cities are desensitized to odd behavior and therefore our protagonist can co-exist with normality in a seemingly ordinary way.
2. A large city also gives him an opportunity to explore experiences that only larger, creative cities can offer.

Our protagonist’s world will be made up  primarily of small pieces of Vancouver. Overall the aesthetic will be dark, moody, worn out, rusted, industrial, aged and at times monolithic and powerful.

However, our film also follows our protagonist through another world. One that is very contrasted to the world discussed above. It’s the world he inhabits with his imaginary love. While the “real” world in the city is harsh, agressive, unapologetic and hedonistic, the world of his imaginary friend on the other hand is a much more beautiful, scenic and gentle looking. Instead of the city sounds of steel on steel, we enter a world with snow capped mountains, gentle breezes, wolf like dogs, spirited forests and empty fields that trail off into the horizon.

SPECIFICS = DIFFICULTIES

As we finalize our first draft of the script we’re getting very specific ideas in our  head about locations. The more specific these visions are, the more difficult location scouting becomes. Let me give you two examples.

We need an elevator for 1 of our scenes. But our vision is an elevator in a small building with an interesting lobby. Not only that,, but we also want the inside of the elevator to match our film’s color palette which means we need the doors to be either gold or silver. On top of that, we have a strong preference for an elevator that has reflective doors.

Another specific example, is that we want our protagonist’s room to be positioned in a way that we will be able to see the full moon out of his window on a clear night. Not only does this mean we’ll be shooting around the schedule of the moon, it also means we need to find an interior that faces the right direction and doesn’t have any other buildings obstructing the view of the sky.

HOW WE’RE USING TECHNOLOGY TO LOCATION SCOUT

Tim and I are using Bing to map our location scouting activities. Each day we make a “route” that shows the ground we covered that day. We can also add “markers” which allow us to make special notes and upload photographs about places we liked the most. You can see a sample of our map below.

RELATED POSTS:

Screenplay writing
How to audition
Nikon D90 for filmmakers
Independent feature film
Feature film Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Writing our independent film Lullaby for a Lunatic has not been an easy task becuase there is a constant battle between story design standards and the more natural growth of our story’s development. This is not the only dilemma we are faced with as independent filmmakers. While story structure remains a concern for filmmakers operating within any budget, we independent filmmakers are given the additional burden of  shaping our story around our financial limitations.

When you’re writing an independent feature film you’re required to limit the scope of your story based on the film’s budget. This manifests itself in different ways, but essentially it means: No car chases, no pool scenes in Italian mansions, no explosions, no special effects and no Gene Hackman.

Independent filmmakers often feel burdened by these limitations that inevitably force them to make creative compromises in their productions. This might mean finding fewer locations and designing smaller spaces (which may give the film a claustrophobic feel). Another creative compromise is made because independent filmmakers shy aware from action scenes and rely heavily on dialogue scenes in an attempt to make their scenes manageable and cheap. The result is often 2 or more people sitting in a room and sharing their ideas about life.

Film is a visual medium where its potential is found when filmmakers “show” and not “tell”. A classic example of a film that relies too heavily on exposition and not enough action is the independent film “Slacker”. Each scene is made up of just two or more people talking in different environments. The action is always meaningless (watching TV, playing hand games or drinking beer to name only a few examples).

You can tell this by just looking at the trailer:

You’ll often hear independent filmmakers say things like “we didn’t have the budget so we sat two actors at a table and filmed them talking and debating for 90 minutes”. However, balancing your action and dialogue is important for a well balanced script.

Another recent example would be the film “Medicine for Melancholy”. Although the two main characters travel through the city, the main purpose of their traveling seems to be only that it allows the filmmaker to change the background so the audience doesn’t get too bored. The entire film is simply a vessel for a conversation on race and gentrification in San Francisco: A message you are hit over the head with.

Sure, they change locations from the back of a cab, to the street, to a museum, to her house, to his house and to an amusement park, but a change of locations doesn’t qualify as action. At one point in the trailer you even hear one of the characters seem to get annoyed by the script’s dependency on dialogue when the female lead says “I don’t want to talk anymore… Let’s do something”. They go dancing. This is possibly the only (memorable) action in the entire film. See for yourself.

We’re working hard to create a film that finds its place somewhere between an epic war film and a dogmatic rant over coffee about life’s troubles. Between those two extremes, somewhere in that gradient of action lays our film: Lullaby for a Lunatic.

Igor Serdarevic is the writer of Lullaby for a Lunatic. He has been working on the story idea and script for about half a year now. While writing this feature film he has had to work with the two major limitations that plague (for better or worse) all independent films: First, our budgets don’t allow us to shoot with expensive actors, in expensive locations, with expensive props (overseas locations, amusement parks, stadiums, Lamborghini’s etc). The cost of renting and insuring these locations and props would be far too expensive. Therefore, it’s important that we work within the realm of more attainable locations (homes, rooms, hallways, basements, streets, parks etc) and try to add as much production value as possible to those environments.

After locations, the second major limitation of writing for independent film is keeping the number of characters to a minimum. Lullaby for a Lunatic will have 2 lead actors that are accompanied by only a handful of supporting actors.

THE STORY’S EVOLUTIONARY STORY

When we started writing this story we started with very fragmented parts that needed stitched together. Igor was thinking in terms of story and I was thinking in terms of visuals. In order to get on the same page we started developing our ideas of who our protagonist was. This was great because it allowed us to broaden our storyline and accent certain details within the pieces of script we had already. But at the end of the day, our story was still a fragmented mess.

Virtually, every good story has a clear beginning, middle and end. We know this. And we also know that by knowing our ending we can properly set up your script’s first and second act. This has been one of the biggest challenges so far. Searching for a strong through-line that guides our protagonist from page 1 to page 90. This is why many independent films are character driven films rather than plot driven films. However, we’re working hard to ensure we embed an interesting plot into our story as well.

AND NOW FOR LESSON 1

When you’re having difficulties finding your through-line you should flesh out your protagonist (in Greek drama terms, your Hero) and get to know them better. You need to find out who your protagonist is. What are their fears, wants, needs and ambitions? When you start exploring these questions you’ll soon begin to uncover their GOAL (hint: ending to your story). It’s important to note, that it’s not necessary to force your protagonist to achieve their goal. They can fail miserably in their quest or even change their mind mid way through your story, but the protagonist’s goal will provide motivation for action which will then naturally propel them through the story in a way that is easy for an audience to understand and relate to.

Examining how our protagonist achieves their goal forces us to think what type of protagonist we’re dealing with. Is our protagonist a:

1. Classic hero: The classic hero archetype generally pursues a positive goal or at least a goal that helps them avoid a negative consequence. The classic hero generally has a sympathetic goal that audiences can relate to. It’s important to note that classic heroes shouldn’t be all good all the time. They also don’t need to be an entirely positive person. They can be riddled with flaws, but it is important that they are unique and interesting.

The “hero” archetype can further be broken down into two subcategories:

• Willing: Takes on the goal of their own will
• Unwilling: Is forced into action against their will

2. Anti Hero: The anti-hero is the type of protagonist that pursues a negative goal. Audience’s are not drawn towards anti-heroes becuase of their goal, but usually because of some other defining characteristic. For example in the film “There Will Be Blood”, the protagonist is so persistent and hardworking (two admirable personality traits) that we attach ourselves to that part of his character.

In the film “La Haine”, the protagonist’s goal is to kill a police officer (Any police officer will do), yet we sympathize with him becuase we can understand his political angst, his sense of disenfranchisement, his desire to take politics into his own hands, his kamikaze approach to life. At the end of the day, he’s still a likable character with a goal. it’s just that his goal is a little misguided.

3. Tragic Hero: A tragic hero is a type of hero with a tragic flaw (i.e. hateful, inferiority complex, addiction, obsession, greed, envy) that pursues an active but misguided goal in order to achieve a positive result. However, in the case of the tragic hero, the goal turns out not to be in their own best interest and therefore self destructive.

Often an anti hero is also a tragic hero. The main difference is that the tragic hero’s flaw can’t be overcome. “La Haine” is a great example  because Vincent Cassell couldn’t overcome his flaw of misguided vengeance. he couldn’t overcome his flaw which in the end (spoiler alert)….  lead to someone’s death (maybe his own).

Another good example of a tragic hero is Willy Loman in the play “Death of a Salesman”. Again, his flaw (excessive pride), couldn’t be overcome which inevitably lead to his (spoiler alert) death.

While developing our script it was also necessary to analyze who our antagonist is. In our case, our protagonist will also appear to be his own antagonist. This is less common in scripts that have a strong tie to Western dramatic structure but this format is still completely valid. Our challenge will be twofold:

• Our antagonist still needs to manifest itself in human obstacles
• It does help to have a person represent antagonistic ideals. This helps humanize the conflict.

Without giving too much away, I can tell you we have a much better understanding of our film’s ending and we also have a much firmer grasp on what type of protagonist we’re dealing with. This is helping us tackle the second act of our film.

There is a phrase thrown around by screenwriters that goes something like:

“The second act is where the screenplay goes to die”.

This often happens becuase the screenwriter starts out without a clear idea in their head about where their story is heading. A screenwriter without a clear understanding of their story’s ending is bound to get lost in the middle because they don’t know what they are trying to connect together. Without a clear idea of where your story is headed, the story generally flips and flops around without a clear sense of direction.

Audience’s like to be able to follow a story. If your story is loosing its sense of cohesion and going off on tangents, or if your second act is simply a series of isolated events that don’t fit into the larger picture,  audiences will sense your confusion and lack of direction becuase you’ll be filling pages with superfluous information in a quest to reach the end of the 90 pages necessary for a feature length story. Since 1 page of script equals roughly 1 minute of screen time, confused screenwriters often fill pages upon pages with banter that doesn’t properly tie together the different pieces of their story.

In order to avoid this common problem we need to focus our energies on our conflict and action.

AND NOW FOR LESSON 2

There are two primary types of action that help you propel your story foreword. They are:

• Physical Action - car chase, dancing, running race, shoot out – These are things your character DOES.
• Emotional Action - thoughts, gestures, relationships, subtext – These are the things your character FEELS. This is the center of drama and the type of action that helps you define your character.

Both types of action are important in any film. In fact, understanding action is one of the most important parts of any screenplay. So now you’re probably wondering “how does this all fit together?” This all ties together when you realize that a character is the embodiment of action. A character’s actions move your story from point A to point B.

Aristotle said that men are certain kinds of individuals as a result of their characters, but they become happy or miserable as a result of their actions. Without action you have no characters and without characters you have no action. Essentially: action is character. What we do defines us. If you know your characters well enough, you can figure out their needs and create obstacles. This is what we’re doing with our protagonist now.

This is an important step in the process becuase this is how you build great characters. Think of the great characters of film: Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in The Godfather, Travis Bickle  (Robert De Niro) in Taxi Driver, Marcus (Vincent Cassell) in Irreversible, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) in There Will be Blood. These characters become iconic because they have one commonality: Their depth.

I’ll be sharing more of our process with you next Thursday… Stay tuned!

RELATED POSTS:

Screenplay writing
How to audition
Nikon D90 for filmmakers
Independent feature film
Feature film Canon EOS 5D Mark II

This blog post is the first part of a 2 part post about independent film casting methods. Over the years I’ve received thousands of audition requests from actors. I would like to take a moment and outline some to the things actors can do to increase their chances of being called in for an audition. I would also like to outline some of the common things actors do that ruin their chances of getting an audition before they even submit their application.

WHAT NOT TO DO

1. Don’t Send more then 1 email to us. – It’s annoying when you get the “ooops I forgot to attach my headshot, here is another email”. Now your resume and phone number are in one email and your headshot is in a separate email. When we’re dealing with such a large intake of applications it’s important that we stay organized. In order to do this we create 5 folders in our inbox for each character profile. Every time we receive an email we put it into the appropriate character folder. This makes it easy for us to go through and discuss which actors we want to call in for an audition. If I’m tired and don’t feel like combining the parts of your email back together and re-emailing it to myself in my quest to stay organized, I often just delete the email without looking at it. This doesn’t work out in anybody’s favor.

2. Don’t send emails that say things like “I don’t have professional photographs yet so I haven’t attached any headshots” or “I don’t have experience, but I’m a born natural actor. I would like to apply for the lead character of….”. In our casting call we ask that you send us your headshot and resume. It’s really not asking much. If you don’t have acting experience then consider applying for a role as a secondary character or as an extra. We are very open to the idea of auditioning people with little or no experience. However, when you’re an actor in this position you walk a dangerous line between promoting yourself and insulting the filmmakers.  If I were you I would error on the side of caution and be honest about your experience. There is something to be said for being humble. When we’re casting we might call you in to audition for a secondary character. If we think you have potential we’ll give you a bonus read for one of the main characters and we’ll see how you do. But to email us and say you’re the right person for our lead character even though you have no experience is a little arrogant. It’s also a  little bizarre and mildly confusing how you’ve managed to come to the such a conclusion since your lack of experience means that you’ve never had an opportunity to find out how good of an actor you are.

3. Don’t tell us you’re “perfect” for the role of a particular character. First of all, that’s for us to decide. You also don’t know enough about each character yet because you haven’t’ read the script or the full character biographies. You might be “curious” about a character, or sense that you might be a good fit based on what you’ve read so far, but to be certain you’re “perfect” for the part… makes us think you’re either delusional or insincere.

4. Don’t favour the “cooler” character. This makes us think you’re too concerned about your image and not as concerned about our story. All that matters to us filmmakers is our story. That’s it. We just need to put the pieces of the puzzle together that help ensure the strongest story possible. By only applying to be the cooler character it hints that you might be more interested in the glamor of film rather than in the story itself. Be up for the challenge of playing an emotionally uglier character. If you’re not up for the challenge and simply want to look cool on the screen then consider applying to beer / car / shampoo or fragrance commercials. They are always looking for cool people.

5. Don’t take a picture of yourself with your webcam and call it a headshot. If you don’t take yourself seriously, I can promise you we won’t take you seriously either. We’re open to accepting high quality photographs that are not professional headshots (although we strongly prefer professional headshots), but we often don’t even look at webcam headshots.

6. Read the casting notice. If you see our character is described as being between certain ages, don’t send us an application if you fall outside that age range. If you’re really close to the age range cut off and you think a little makeup can push you on the right side of the range then that’s fine. But if you’re 19 and applying for a role that states we’re looking for someone 35-45, then that’s not fine.

7. Do not send us heavily edited photoshop’d headshots with artistic effects on them. We have no idea who we’re looking at. We’re not curious to know how you look behind a green and orange filter with the mosaic and plastic effect applied. We want to see the real you.

WHAT ACTORS SHOULD DO

1. It’s nice when actors provide a link to their acting website. It allows us to deepen our exploration of our potential actors since most performer’s websites have their demo reels, photo galleries and resumes in one place. However, a website should supplement and not replace the need to an attached headshot and resume.

2. Get professional headshots. When we see family photographs, photographs of you and your friends (i.e. I’m the one drinking the Heineken in the middle to the left of the tall blond guy) or web cam photographs we see it as a sign that you are not serious enough about acting to have made the small investment to get headshots taken. If you’re applying for a lead role in a feature film we at least expect you to have professional headshots. It shows your commitment to your craft.

3. It’s also nice when actors send more than 1 photograph of themselves. This gives us a little insight into the range of your appearance. One headshot is enough to make a decision from, but it’s always nice to see an assortment of 2-3 photographs. Headshots by default are generally your most generic look. We understand the importance of playing it safe with headshots as you’re not trying to miss out on opportunities on either side of the weird spectrum but it means that those in charge of casting need to use their imagination to see what possibilities your look has. How do you look with scruff? How do you look in street clothes? How do you look after a rough night? How do you look on a first date? Based on the character you’ll be reading for, these are the questions the casting directors need to ask themselves. Looking at your headshot where you have perfect posture and are sitting with your hands on your lap with fall colored leaves in the background means that the casting directors really need to use their imagination to see if you’re right for the part. Help us fill in some of the blanks in our imagination by submitting, not only your main headshot, but also 2-3 supplementary images that can help us see the range of your look.

4. Send your resume in .doc or pdf format only.

5. Send pictures in jpg or bmp format only.

6. Send only recent photographs of yourself that don’t take too long to load (I would recommend trying to keep your photographs 1 – 2MB in size

7. If you have a demo reel send it as a link (not an attachment).

8. Talk to us. Don’t just send us your headshot and resume with no text in the body of your email. It feels like you’re just going through the sytematic process of submitting yourself for 50 roles that day you just happened to come across our posting. It works in your favor to reference something about the posting so we know you actually took the time to read it. We are looking for actors with strong attention to detail. This means starting out by properly introducing yourself and your interest in our project. What draws you towards it? We’re not simply looking for actors who want to be on the screen. We want actors who are passionate about their craft and eager to exploring challenging characters.

RELATED POSTS:

Screenplay writing
How to audition
Nikon D90 for filmmakers
Independent feature film
Feature film Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Canon 5D Mark II vs. Canon 7D vs. Nikon D90

We’re planning on shooting with the Canon 5D Mark II as our primary camera becuase it has the largest sensor and it has better light sensitivity than the other two cameras. The Canon 5D has a full frame 24mm by 36mm sensor. This is about 24 times the size of a standard compact camera sensor. The Canon 5D’s sensor size is the same as a standard film camera frame and it is even larger than the RED camera’s 24.4mm x 13.7mm sensor.

The Nikon D90 on the other hand has a 16mm by 24mm sensor. This is still 11 times the area of the average compact camera’s imaging chip.

Sensor size is important to us becuase the larger the sensor, the better the camera will handle in low light environments. We plan on shooting many of our scenes at night which means we need a camera that is sensitive to light. If our primary camera’s sensor is too small the resulting image will suffer from having too much “noise” (which is the digital equivalent to “grain” in film).

You can also see that the Canon eos 5D Mark II has an ISO range from 100-6400 while the Nikon D90 only ranges from 200-3200. While it’s likely we won’t be shooting over 3200 ISO with the Canon 5D (as doing so you increase your chances of “noise”), it’s always nice to have the option.

All three cameras use CMOS sensors (instead of CCD’s) and all three camera’s have been criticized for this to varying degrees as well. One of the main criticisms of the CMOS sensor is that it produces a “jellocam” effect (also known as rolling shutter). What this means is that the image may warp slightly if there is too much movement in a shot (i.e. actor movements, dolly or jib shots etc).

This happens because the CMOS sensor (unlike the CCD sensor) doesn’t capture the entire image simultaneously, but instead captures the image from top to bottom. This means if there is too much movement in the frame, the image may “lag” causing a jello effect. Using a larger off-camera  monitor will help you identify when this problem does occur so you can re-take your shot if necessary.

However, we’ve shot quite a bit of footage with the Canon 5D and we’ve incorporated a lot of movement into our shots and have still not experienced a problem with the jello effect yet. The more expensive RED camera also uses the CMOS sensor but the jello effect doesn’t seem to be as big of a problem with this camera either. However, it has been cited as an issue with the Nikon D90.

The Nikon D90 is also criticized for its onboard microphone. The fact is, that all three cameras have terrible onboard microphones. The Nikon D90 has an 11khz mono track which is simply not compatible with professional broadcast standards, and with no auxiliary inputs for sound you’ll be forced to find some type of double system solution. On the Canon 5D Mark II we use an adapter call Beachtek which allows us to insert our XLR cables for our Sennheiser microphones.

But there are some major drawbacks to the D90 that are not found in the Canon 5D or 7D cameras. For instance the Nikon D90 has no  power zoom, no auto-focus and virtually no manual control over the camera’s shutter speed, aperture or ISO when in video mode.

The 5D (before the 2 most recent firmware updates) suffered from some of the same criticisms of the Nikon D90. However, Canon released 2 firmware updates. The first gave filmmakers more manual control over their settings in video mode and the second update allowed for 24p shooting. Therefore in our opinion, the Canon 5D is a much better first unit camera if your budget allows for it.

That being said, the Nikon D90 has a price tag under $1000 dollars while the Canon 5D costs over $3000 with lenses.  The price difference is dramatic and filmmakers should not let the technical limitations of the Nikon D90 deter them from undertaking both short film and feature film projects. The video quality the camera produces is still great for the price of the camera.

There are a series of great short films being shot on the Nikon D90. In fact some of the best short films I’ve seen have been shot on the Nikon D90. For example, I’m really drawn towards the aesthetics of the French film director Jean Julien Pous. He too seems heavily influenced by Chinese filmmakers as can be seen in his short film “Drifting Away” which was shot on the Nikon D90. Enjoy!

To watch another great project of his of his watch “Seeking You”

RELATED POSTS:

Screenplay writing
How to audition
Nikon D90 for filmmakers
Independent feature film
Feature film Canon EOS 5D Mark II