Making Your Movie – Pre-production – Cast and crew

Tim Westland (Moderator) ~ 6/16/2012 8:04 PM

Making Your Movie – Pre-production – Cast and crew

Where did you find your actors? Were they professional or first timers? How much did you pay them? Are kids hard to work with? How often did your actors flake out or not live up to their auditions?

Tell us about how you experiences with finding people to act in your film...

Graham Trelfer (Level 4) ~ 6/19/2012 8:07 AM

I found that when we did a casting, the women were much better prepared than the men, because they had to be. While men would turn only having scanned the script the actresses were off book and some even prepared additional pieces. I believe that you should experiment in casting. Does the character have to be a good looking white male? or could they be a Filipino woman in a wheelchair. Give people the opportunity that don't quite match what the script says. It worked really well in the Station Agent and Alien.

Where did I find them? Some I knew, some I put out casting call for on website in the UK called Casting Call Pro.
How much did I pay? Nothing to expenses to profit share. The bare minimum you can do is keep everyone fed and watered with healthy food. Putting on a DIY buffet for 15 people is cheaper than buying greacy pizza. If I can't pay I offer to help them out with showreels, basically a trade in services. If you promise a DVD make sure you deliver it.
Auditions: if you are not paying, then expect actors to flake if a paid gig comes up. I have not had that happen, but have seen it.

Khamanna Iskandarova (Level 5) ~ 6/20/2012 2:45 AM

When I did my last movie I placed an audition ad and zero people showed up.

I had to go to a local theatre to scout for actors. I was so lucky, I auditioned two there and both did a superb job. It was hard to choose between the two in the end.

For one other actor I had to work with an agency and I'll try to avoid that in the future. Scouting in theatres is the best bet, I think. Before I auditioned my theatre actors I watched them perform, so I more of less knew how the audition would go. And theatre people are so nice, so dedicated...

There's also a website called shortfilmtexas.com - great website, if only I knew about it earlier.