confessions of an associate producer

the intricicies of a cattle call

auditions are a funny thing. being 'good' or 'great' is really only part of it [albeit, a major part]. do you have the look that is wanted for your character? how well do you look next to your co-star? is the experience you bring to the production too little or too much?

last week we sat through probably 200 auditions. we saw all sorts of people; a lady who was fired from being a train engineer for going 10 miles over the speed limit, a guy who was legally blind but ranked 5th in the world in darts [and was the ambassador to japan], a lady who marched into auditions singing 'called to serve' in german, a man who was in 'saturday's warrior', and countless throngs of others.

i've auditioned for plays before and know how hard it can be, but when you're on the other side of the room [sitting on the couch or behind the camera], you begin to understand why things are run the way they are. after two agencies on tuesday and two more on thursday, our open call on saturday began to drag a little long, depending on what role we were seeing. if we were seeing girls reading for our leads, sister gardner or sister gold, kirk took some time with them and got to know them and help them feel comfortable, then gave some direction for the scene and had them read it once or twice. and we saw a fair amount of 'good' to 'wow' performances.
on the other hand, i was surprised at how many people came in to read for the handful of small roles that we had, essentially any part but a young female. and while there were some people who impressed us even with their readings of three or four lines, kirk was right when he said we could throw a dart at any of a dozen people and be fine. so when we're in hour five of our third day and we have six people in a row come in and audition for 'mr. schmidt', yes, it's easy to feel like we're rushing them in and out, because we probably are.
conversely, the guy who came up to us as we were leaving the actor's lounge on saturday and asked to audition is one of two people being called back for schmidt.
so there you go.

i spent a few hours with kirk today working out the pacing and feel of the rain scene, which we've seen read so many ways over the past week. lots of walking around the apartment, throwing out good ideas and bad ideas, often because the qualitity of an idea isn't apparent immediately. we discussed theories of style, what works and what doesn't, ways to prepare both creatively and logistically, so that when we get to austria, we will know what's going on and how we can be at our creative best.

i used to wonder if natalie [kirk's wife], didn't like me much at first. now she compliments me on my hot pink shirt and we can toss around ideas and talk about the inner workings of a talent agency while kirk is nuking some corndogs and as i play with badgley, the world's only lovable rat dog.

we're working on securing the music we want [exciting but daunting], working through scenes to evoke maximum emotional impact while discussing the mutually admired greatness of wes anderson, plotting camera angles and movements, learning the difference between billy wilder and william wyler [and now i've already forgot who did what], excruciating over the strengths and weaknesses of those narrowed down for callbacks, placing their video clips next to each other and thinking aloud all of the pros and cons of not only each actress but also the combinations of the girls. and kirk taught me the bass line to 'ironman'.

tomorrow we have our last day of auditions, it's 1:44 a.m., and i'm up, addicted to scrubs.

posted by --jeff * @ 12:25 AM 0 comments

everybody hurts sometimes

today was one of those bohemian days, where energy flowed and we could taste the artistry as we talked.

i went up to kirk's today to meet and talk. it seems i'm up there about every day, not fully sure what we're going to talk about and sometimes not really sure what was discussed when we leave, although knowing that we did get things figured out.

on monday we addressed the issue that both of us have been working on this movie largely as 'producers', looking at it from a business point of view. that's great and necessary and all that jazz, but we are also the director and d.p., and really should be discussing shots, styles, themes, and all that jazz.
that's kind of what today was.
we went through some storyboards, looked at examples of movies and how this shot here was really cool and the pacing of this movie was great and how we want our opening sequence to have this sort of feel, and then walking ourselves through it.
we bring the camera here, then it comes around over here, and then this shot!

it's encouraging to start seeing scenes and get a feel our project, but somewhere during about a boy, kirk suggested an idea for music. i wasn't sure what he was quite getting at at first, nor did i know what i thought of it. but once it hit me, i loved it and threw some suggestions back. i suspect that some astronomer somewhere must have noticed the planets aligning, because kismet hit the apartment. as what i thought was a bad example, i threw out a song suggestion for the rain puddle scene. kirk loved the idea and i suddenly realized that the combination i mentioned was too good to have been my own idea. he pulled it up on the computer and i read the scene with our new background music [and i did a reading better that nearly all of the auditions yesterday, thank you]. we were jumping around, getting excited and throwing out ideas and a 'what ifs' and even kind of freaked out his little rat dog.

our meeting ended on the phone with some licensing company, trying to find out what we have to do to get a major band to let us use their song in our little movie.

but man, is it ever exciting.

casting was interesting yesterday, and we've found a potential person or two for gardner, but certainly we're still grateful that we have two more agencies and an open call before we have to make our decision.
i have a good friend whom i think not only looks the part but has a good personality for our sister heroine. she came over tonight and read and rehearsed the scenes for a while. now, i'm not the director, but i've sat through hours of auditions with kirk giving direction enough to know what he wants from the scene, plus, i've read the script myself several times and know what's going on here [and i suppose c) would be that any insights i can give her will already push her ahead of the crow]. she's never acted before, but she's recently off her mission and with some practicing [and perhaps too much shouting for our neighbors next door with tiny children], her scene ended in near tears which almost had me in near tears.

i think she's got a chance.

posted by --jeff * @ 12:04 AM 0 comments

the sink and the rug

i figured out how to use my 'especiallyneat.com' e-mail account, went through joe's lists showing what cast and locations will be on what continent, and sent an e-mail to hunter in an effort to detemine which script i have is the most current [we will soon be moving into color revisions; i saw a picture of the script for 'sexy beast' and they went through the colors one and a half times. there's something kind of cool about that].

a technician from deluxe called me this morning, giving me some info about going from video to print. he referred me to efilm, their digital company, and now i have an e-mail from a guy at efilm. i've read some horror stories about making prints off digital, and so to make sure we do this right, we want to shoot a minute of footage, run it through the computer [edit, color correct, titles] and then make a 100' print to make sure that a) we can simply do it, and b) that there are no problems in resolution or quality consistancy.
i think just seeing something i shot printed and projected will be a big inspiration.

we bought the camera two days ago [and i'm continually learning about video and it's accompanying craziness], are purchasing an advanced lens system for the camera today, and kirk and i are looking at steadicam options tomorrow.

casting begins next week, and we will begin shooting some local scenes in november.
wow.
even as a student, i had more help and equipment than i will for most of this movie. our electric budget is tiny, but kirk and i have done some good work with next-to-nothing before. thus, i am trying to read [or re-read] a lot of my cinematography books and understand lighting; someday i will have a grip/electric crew and a truck. for now, it's my wits and some parchment paper.

posted by --jeff * @ 4:32 PM 0 comments