Booked Out

The warehouse week starts off pretty much like any other one. Up at seven and off to work. Do some work for a bit, then check my hotmail and find my inbox filling up with actors hopefuls wanting to apply for the roles! Casting call authorised it first and my inbox had about 10 new emails every time I clicked refresh. At the end of the week I want to write a blog entry summarising my overall experience but this was just mad.

During lunch I created a separate folder for my Jacob submissions and another for the Jacqueline submissions. Casting call are actually quite good as you can go on and work through your submissions on their site and basically say whether someone is suitable or not. On Mandy I couldn’t find a way to do this so I have just catalogued the Mandy emails. If only there was a way to stop casting call sending you an email per applicant then it would be pretty good.

I also heard back from Spotlight in the afternoon and found out that for your first casting notice you have to get Spotlight to do it for you then after that then you can put them out yourself. I found this out at the end of the day and didn’t have time to send them the details.

After work I did the 1.5 hour journey to the warehouse to pick up the keys then travelled home and did a quick run through the actors who had applied on casting call. I managed to get through all of the Jacqueline’s within about 45 minutes. There was about 300 applications in all. It is quite amazing how quickly you can know whether someone is suitable or not. I have an image of Jacqueline in my head and even if I can’t quite describe it I know what I want and what I don’t want. If you seen my selections then that would be the best description of what I am looking for.

After doing that I rushed off to the warehouse again. We transported some of our gig equipment over as well as all of the boxes of alcohol that we have for the party.

Nearly forgot. I got a call from the Police today saying that they hadn’t received my Temporary Event Notice application form that you need to have in order to sell alcohol and to put on "regulated entertainment" (i.e. bands, dj’s, etc). This was a bit annoying and currently I am not sure what to do. Gut feel is to hold the nights anyway and take the risk that no one comes by to check. Possibly getting people to make a suggested donation for a beer or something.. hmm..

Made it back to the warehouse and met Derek there who had hired a street car and had a full gig equipment rig with him. We basically had anything of any value in the world that Derek owned in the warehouse. Two guitar amps, a keyboard amp, a PA, a guitar, etc!

With everything in the warehouse I headed home with the knowledge that I still didn’t have any actors lined up for tomorrow night. I got home at around midnight and spent the next couple of hours going through the rest of the actors that had applied on casting call. Once I had whittled it down I then checked their notes to see when everyone was available and I invited everyone for an audition who said that they could make it on Tuesday. I decided to have half an hour time slots so that we can judge how long it takes.

The emails sent I then went to bed. It is only day one but I feel pretty knackered already!

The emails are still coming thick and fast. I think the pace has slowed down and I am filtering them out on casting call as they come in rather than waiting till the end of the day. I am also on top of moving my emails to their specific folders as well. This seemed to work quite well for me. Not sure I am ever going to read the emails at all though. Sent the casting call notice text to Spotlight so will hopefully see what they provide shortly.

The big thing is that I will be auditioning for the very first time tonight. Luckily I get email responses throughout the day from the actors confirming that they can make it tonight. A couple can’t make it but I manage to email and get responses from some other so I have a full compliment of six lined up for tonight.

For the auditions I have decided to get the actors to prepare a monologue and to do a cold reading of an excerpt of the script that they will be given when they arrive for the audition. I will film all of the auditions so as to understand what the actors look like on screen as well as how I feel they come across in person.

The 1.5 hour journey to the warehouse from work seems to take forever. I have to leave early to get there on time and rush from the train station at the other end. My friends are coming to help me out. Tonight there will be three of them. One to meet and greet the actors as they arrive and the other two to help me in the auditions. One reading to the actor and the other working the camera. I have a girl and a boy helping with me so the girl can read as Ailidh and the boy can read as Jacob and whoever is not reading can work the camera.

All sounds good but my friends also have to make the 1.5 hour journey so I am on my own waiting for the first actress to appear. The seconds seemed to last for hours! The first actress was five minutes late as well so for a moment I was thinking that no one was going to show up. Once the first one was there the others came in quick succession.

Before I knew it I was doing my first audition. I can’t really remember it in detail to be honest. I just tried to do what I felt was right in this and all of the other ones. All of the actors were really nice and I quickly relaxed and got used to it. The first thing I realised was how early on you can tell if someone is right for the part. It is not as if they are a bad actor but they just aren’t what I pictured in my head. You can’t really change the shape of someone’s face that easily so they are basically never going to be offered the part.

So what do you do when by the moment you are shaking their hand you have mentally decided that you aren’t going to give them the role. Well, to be honest I always think that if I were in their shoes then they deserve to be treated equally with the ones that I think are contenders because they have taken the time out of their lives to come and audition. I hope that it will also give them some audition practice as well. Also you might review the tape afterwards and see something different on camera to what you have seen in person so it is always worth putting in the effort. Also if I just sent them away then we would just be twiddling our thumbs till the next person shows up.

After the set of auditions were finished I felt that I was getting the hang of it. I also realised that I didn’t need thirty minutes to run through what I wanted to run through. I think that fifteen minutes is probably enough time on average to run through an audition.

I am not going to comment on the actors at this stage as I will wait till I have fully reviewed the tapes but I will say that there was a mixture of abilities and suitability for the roles.

Getting home I decided to upload the video onto my computer whilst checking emails and going through the casting call submissions that had came in when I was at the auditions. I also had an email from Spotlight to let me know that the casting call had been put live.

Today was a slog of a day. Spotlight submissions started flying in as well as some casting call and Mandy ones in the background. Thankfully Spotlight don’t send you an email per submission but instead provide you an area of their website where you can view all the submissions and in a similar way to casting call decide whether they are a yes, no or maybe. I didn’t really use the maybe option to be honest. I didn’t have any time during the day to look through all of the entries as they came in.

After work I made my way over to the warehouse with the rest of the band. We got the equipment set up. Well our drummer and guitarist got the equipment set up while the rest of us sat around eating chips watching them try to work out how to make the sound come out well.

Setting Up

With the equipment connected and pointing in what seemed like vaguely sensible directions we went through setting all of our levels. It is pretty cool being able to be plugged into a big amplifier and to hear yourself blasting out! We got the sound set up and it was sounding pretty good. We were just about to have a full on run through of our set when the warehouse owner showed up informing us that you could hear us halfway up the street. He was pretty concerned and we basically had to stop. Tomorrow we have four bands but the other three are acoustic so won’t really make as much noise as we have a drum kit and a drummer who loves to smack those skins pretty hard. So we packed up for the night. Moving some of the easy to steal equipment out of site for the night.

We went to the pub to organise the last minute things that we had to bring for the gig the next night to make sure everything was going to run smoothly.

I got home about midnight again and in my mind I still had seven or eight actors lined up for the weekend even though I had went through the whole selection process on casting call and had about 800 submissions waiting for me to rate on Spotlight. Tomorrow I would be playing the gig so if I wanted to get actors there on Friday night and at the weekend then this was the only time that I could do it.

I stayed up till 4AM and managed to do the following

• rate all of the Spotlight submissions as yes or no
• email all the casting call people giving them particular slots that they can come in based on the notes they gave when applying as they would let you know when available.
• email all of the casting agencies asking to see actors x, y and z and not giving them particular slots as the majority of agencies didn’t supply this information.

The arranging process took forever. Just in case there are any other film-makers out there and interested in exactly what I did then...

For casting call I copied over their name, email and telephone number and what days they could do from their submission notes. I then went through them one at a time. For each person I put their name into my master casting times list based on when they said they were available. Then I sent the following email text:

Thanks for sending over your CV for my film Booked Out. Would you be able to come for an audition on Sunday?

Details are given below.

Date: Sunday 7th June
Time: 11:15AM
Location: Ada Street Gallery, 2A Ada Street, London, E8 4QU
Map: <Map Location>

If this is ok can you bring your CV and headshot with you and to also have prepared a monologue?

I did this one at a time. I am guessing you could write a macro or some code to do this for you but it was the early hours in the morning and I went for the repetitive but tried and tested approach.

For spotlight I copied their details into a spreadsheet with the actors name and the agencies email address. I then sorted the details based on the agencies email address. I then went through each unique agency one at a time. For each agency I sent them an email with the following text:

Thanks for sending over your CVs for my film Booked Out in relation to my Spotlight. Would the following people be able to audition on Friday night (7-10PM), Saturday Morning (10AM - 2PM) or Sunday (10AM-9PM)?

<Actors name> (Jacqueline)

Details of the location are given below.

Location: Ada Street Gallery, 2A Ada Street, London, E8 4QU
Map: <Map Location>

I will also require them to bring a CV and headshot to also have prepared a monologue?

If you can provide me with a suitable time range then hopefully I can slot them in.

To be honest it was 4AM and I had about fifteen agencies to go and I was basically copying and pasting email addresses and names from a spreadsheet into hotmail at the same time as my eyes were going together. I suddenly realised this when I nearly feel asleep while sending off an email and couldn’t remember if I had changed the names or email addresses from the previous one that I sent. Needless to say I went to sleep.

After three hours sleep I was back up and sending off the remaining emails to the agencies to ask to see their clients!

At work I was a bit dead today. The whole week was taking its toll and getting about four hours of sleep each night doesn’t really help matters.

All throughout the day I started getting responses back in from agencies and actors confirming or rearranging their auditions. I felt like a full time casting director as I tried to juggle my work commitments with phone calls from agents asking me to see their talent.

On the train to the gig I felt pretty dead and not really excited which felt pretty weird.

I was a bit on edge before the gig, worrying about people showing up on time. Knowing that we had to go on early because of the sound restrictions and generally being half asleep.

About half an hour before going on stage I managed to get some energy back and was pretty excited about going on stage.

Asher and Matt

Myspace: Asher Dresner
Players: Asher, Matt

Our drummer Matt plays in another band with his friend Asher. Not sure whether their stage name was "Asher and Matt" or "Asher Dresner" but they were up first and I spent most of my time filming them using my camera and my friends camera. It’s a pity that I can’t film my band but that would be a bit hard I guess.

Whatever they were called doesn’t really matter as they were good. Not really my cup of tea in terms of the music that they like to play but nonetheless they were good.

Asher - Photography by Ellie Atkins

Kat Kampf

Myspace: Kat Kampf
Players: Cat, Del, A Pat, Matt, Bryan

Kat Kampf were up next. I love playing live even though this is only the second time that I have actually done it. I just love the songs and the other guys in the band and it feels wonderful to share our songs with everyone that came along to watch.

In terms of the gig the sound was great and everyone could hear everything more clearly than they could at the last gig. Personally I had a slight incident when my guitar strap came loose and feel off during one of the songs. I started to try and play the bass with it on the floor a bit like a cello. I realised that this wasn’t really the best so I decided to stop playing and to put it back on. Doing this made my lead fall out. Lead back in I then started playing and I don’t know why but I started playing one fret higher than I was meant to. Eventually I sorted myself out.

Kat Kampf - Photography by Ellie Atkins

This all contrasts with Derek our guitarist who had the same thing happen. The pro that he is manages to keep playing with the guitar on his knee then manages to throw the guitar down and pick up his spare without missing a note.

Jamie Poole

Myspace: Jamie Poole
Players: Jamie Poole

Jamie Poole hit the stage next. It was the first time that I have heard Jamie play and he was excellent. He played mostly his own material and also threw in a Clash number at the end. It is not until now that I realised that this actually fits in with a scene in the film when Jacob bring some old vinyl records over to play for Jacqueline and all he has is Cliff Richard and the Clash. Mental note... sort out clearance of songs by these artists or we will have to change to some alternatives.

Jamie Poole - Photography by Ellie Atkins

The Clearing

Myspace: The Clearing
Players: Prashant Majmudar, Hannah Wilson

The Clearing made another appearance hot of helping us out at the Elixir bar. Again they were entertaining and had the crowd dancing to their beautiful music.

The Clearing - Photography by Ellie Atkins

We couldn't really help ourselves to be honest. Watching the Clearing myself and the rest of Kat Kampf decided to play a couple of songs at the end to round things off. It just seemed right to do this seen as everyone had come to support my film. We debuted a new song and Derek played Prash's acoustic guitar.

Kat Kampf: The finale - Photography by Ellie Atkins

Another day pretending I am holding down a day job and being a film director. I think saying I was tired by this point is a bit of an understatement. I had the same barrage of responses from actors and agents to deal with throughout the day and the now tedious trek to the warehouse to endure. On the way there I was so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Once there and the actors started arriving though I got some energy from somewhere. We ran through 10 auditions. Going with the fifteen minutes per person instead of half an hour. I think this worked better. It was quite nice to come down to call the next person and to see a little queue of people waiting to audition.

Also we had the warehouse owners dog to content with. The owner of the warehouse lives in a room that is right next to where we were holding the auditions and he had left his dog in his flat when he went out. Randomly the dog would start barking as the actors read their monologues or cold readings. I like to think that he was joining in with the auditions and barking at the ones he liked but maybe I haven't had enough sleep and this is a thought of a mentalist!

Saturday comes round and the week feels like a blur. Today we have 18 auditions lined up and a fancy dress party to throw. I packed my costume into my bag, grabbed my list of auditionees and headed off. At least I didn't have to juggle work today and I had an hour or so extra in bed.

The audition process went similar to Friday. In terms of finding the roles we seemed to get female actresses who would be able to play the part but the Jacob's just didn't seem to be appropriate. They were either too theatrical or not the right look. I always thought that it would be hard to cast for Jacob but there was no one suitable auditioning.

I had arranged for one of my friends to audition for the part as I had always imagined him as someone who could play the Jacob character. He agreed and we auditioned him last and it felt great to watch him produce a natural and relaxed performance.

Mark West: Jacob saviour and party DJ!

We then went to lunch at the pub. Everyone was a bit knackered but also excited about the fancy dress party that night. The pub was the Dove in Hackney and the food was lovely. I would highly recommend it if you are in the area.

In the afternoon we arranged the warehouse into a party venue. Putting up some lights, testing the DJ set up, hanging a disco ball. The usual party essentials!

I dressed up as a bearwawa - half panda bear and half chiwawa. This is the costume that Ailidh makes Jacob for the fancy dress party that they go to for the film. For the film I think we will go to a lot more effort than I did but I still think its a good concept. I keep forgetting how much I like wearing facepaint. That also influenced a line in the film where Treacle (one of Ailidh's friends) says to Jacob "You would look good with eyeliner".

Bearwawa!

The first few hours of the party were just myself, Derek and Cat from Kat Kampf with Simon Walker DJ'ing. My thought that people would actually show up at around six knowing that we would have to finish by 11 didn't really seem a good one.

When the first people starting arriving at eight then everyone showed up at the same time. It was really cool to see everyone dressed up and making an effort. There was all sorts of non-existant animals there. I did my bit behind the bar and a few others helped out as well.

Simon Walker and then Mark West and Ellie Atkins were Dj'ing. The home made twister went down well and everyone was chatting away and having a great time.

Home Made Twister

To be honest the time seemed to whizz by for me until 10:50 when Derek came over telling me that Kat Kampf were going to play a small acoustic set in the room upstairs. Going upstairs was cool, Derek had set up the place with loads of little tea lights and it looked amazing.

We got everyone up and ran through a few songs and it was really nice. Alastair and Derek shared acoustic guitar duties with the other one trying to keep a beat with a wooden spoon and an plastic orange shaker thing. It was really funny watching Alastair dressed as a cow-ger trying to concentrate with all his might to play the orange and spoon well.

All in all everyone who came had a great time and there was some relief on my part I think, knowing that there was only one day left before I could have a few hours relaxing!

Kat Kampf: featuring Alastair on Spoon and Orange Shaker - Photography by Ellie Atkins

The last day of the warehouse week and what better way to finish it off other than an auditions marathon. We had 39 people scheduled to see today, starting at 10AM until 9PM at night with about a combined hours break in between.

If I were to do this again I would leave a longer break for dinner and lunch but for me it's like going on holiday. You always want to maximise the time that you have and that is what I wanted to do here.

My friend Matt helped out today as well. He had studied film directing at the University of Surrey and is a great person to talk to about films. I went to a screenwriting course with him about five or six years ago and we have kept in touch since. I think he really understands what type of film I want to make. I was glad he came along as he brought a bit more energy and purpose to the auditions as the rest of us were pretty fatigued by this point. It was also good to validate that I wasn't doing anything particularly mad during the audition process.

The most interesting thing he said was to make sure and review all of the tapes as people might seem great in person but not great on tape and the opposite can also apply.

Another thing that we tried was Matt running the actors through what they needed to do and me sitting down with a table between myself and the actor. Before then I had introduced them and stood up beside them. I think having me sitting down distanced myself more but then allowed me to just give direction. Also I felt like I had more power for some reason. As in when I was telling the actor that the audition was over then they seemed to accept it more when I was sitting down whereas when I was standing up they looked a bit disappointed. Weird but true.

I think when I have selected an actor then feel that standing up and being involved in their space is my style but for auditions although it probably makes me feel un-natural I will stick with the behind a desk approach.

We somehow managed to keep going throughout the day and although drained gave each actor as much attention as we had left.

I plan to summarise my thoughts on the audition process separately and try and give some tips to actors and film-makers based on my experiences but for now I have had a great week but looking forward to some rest!

Today I decided to cast Mark West as Jacob. I have known Mark for the past year or so. We met at a swing dancing club and have been friends since. Whenever anyone asked about Jacob and who might play him in the film the only person that I thought of in my head was Mark although I spent the last six months without telling him this. Not quite sure why but I always thought that I would give him an audition if he was up for it but always tried to come up with excuses for why he wouldn't want to do it. Couldn't get time off work, concentrating on his music, etc. Thinking back I think that this was a defensive mechanism on my part in case he didn't want to do it and I had my heart set on him for the role.

Anyway we held auditions last week for Jacob and I saw about 30/40 male actors. After the first day of auditions I was sitting down for a beer with my friends who had been sitting in on the auditions with me and we were discussing the candidates we had seen so far. We had been auditioning for Jacob and Jacqueline at the same time. The general feeling was that we had seen some potential Jacquelines but all of the Jacob's were completely wrong. I showed them the headshots that I had chosen based on and they agreed that they had the right look on paper but that hadn't came across in person.

They then started asking the question of if I could have anyone in the world to be in the film who would it be and I told them about Mark. They knew who Mark was so could understand where I was coming from. They convinced me to get in touch with Mark to get him to come for an audition. Five minutes and a few text messages later and Mark was booked in for the next day of auditions.

By the time it came to Mark's audition we had sat through another set of male actors who were equally not right for the character as the day before. Mark came in and read for us and I think we all knew in the room that the part was his. I decided to wait and watch all the tapes back first but I was pretty certain by this point.

After the audition we were going to lunch so Mark joined us and we were discussing whether he was interested in the film and it turned out that for the last six months since I had let him read the script that he wanted to be involved with it but never wanted to ask me. I found this really sweet that we both wanted to speak to each other about it but never could find the way to bring it up as we thought that the other didn't want it.

I reviewed the tapes and it was a bit of a box ticking exercise. There were a few other good actors who came along but just didn't seem right for Jacob for one reason or another. So now Mark is on board and I am excited about working with him over the months ahead!

I really want to be able to provide feedback to others who are taking the journey into making their first feature films. As part of doing auditions I think I learned a few things that I wanted to share to help actors and film-makers. This blog is some practical tips for film-makers that I came up with. Hopefully some will be useful!

Always film the auditions

You never know what someone will look like on the screen until you film them and review the details. There are some people who look great in person but move too much or just aren't comfortable on camera and also the opposite still applies.

Remind the actors to state their details

With conducting and filming 80 actors it can be hard to remember each actor when reviewing the tapes. Remember to ask the actor to say their name to camera before they start.

Film ALL of the audition

It is just important to go back over the parts of the audition where you are conversing with the actor so that you are reminded of how well you could communicate.

Always give the actors their own time and space

Remember that it is a nerve-wracking time for the actor and they are pouring out their emotions for you so the least you can do is to make the environment as nice as possible for them.

Give everyone the same attention

Even if someone walks into the room and you feel that they are not right for the part then I really believe that they should still be given the same attention as a potential candidate. They could have travelled a long way or put in a lot of effort to be there and they deserve to be heard.

Even if you know they aren't right you can still practice your directing skills and they can practice feeling comfortable in an audition situation. You never know, they could win you round or they might have improved and be the right person for your next film so treat them with the respect they deserve.

Get a second opinion

Get someone you trust in the room with you so that the energy levels stay up and also so you can discuss the merits of each after with someone. It can also be useful to get tips on how you come across to the actors and to help you improve your audition and directing skills.

Organise and record the results

I didn't do this and I wasted two days afterwards doing it. You should number each audition tape and put down the in and out times on each actor and a tick, cross, maybe against each of them. That way once the audition process is complete then you can quickly get the candidates that you want to review onto a DVD quickly so that you can review them all side by side.

I really want to be able to provide feedback to others who are taking the journey into making their first feature films. As part of doing auditions I think I learned a few things that I wanted to share to help actors and film-makers. This blog is some practical tips for actors that I came up with. Hopefully some will be useful

Always bring a CV and Headshot

For me it is useful to have a CV and headshot that I can review after the auditions. To be honest I won't look at all of them but the people who are potentials I will look at them and it is a bit annoying to have to go onto the web to review these. I would bring this along even if you haven't been asked to or your agent hasn't told you to.

Put your CV and Headshot within an envelope

A few people did this and it is a lot better for me as when you have 80 actors details then it makes sure that if I screw up then your details are still together.

Perform you monologue into space

Don't perform the monologue to camera as this looks un-natural when I review the tapes and don't perform it to the director as this doesn't allow the director to judge your ability as an actor as they naturally are compelled to engage with you.

Choose a monologue appropriate to the film

This doesn't necessarily mean that your monologue has to be perfect for the film but it was more interesting to hear why people chose to perform a specific monologue. Some people chose a monologue or learned a new one specific to the role that they were coming from and some performed monologues from films. These were generally better although some play based monologues were also good.

The main thing here is that we are auditioning for a film so being really theatrical immediately puts me off or at least doesn't allow me to see what you can produce on film which is a completely different medium compared to the theatre.

Research the character that you are auditioning for

For my film I gave a paragraph character breakdown. These were the same as are on the character pages of this site. I also provided a link to my facebook page which has a synopsis of the film. Some of the actors had done their homework and found the synopsis whilst others hadn't. This isn't necessarily the important bit but shows that you are keen.

The most important thing is to read the character brief and make your own interpretation of who the character is. You might be wrong but at least you have engaged in trying to find out who the character is and this for me is essential.

Remember to say your name to camera

With conducting and filming 80 actors it can be hard to remember each actor when reviewing the tapes. You should be asked to say your name to camera but if not asked I would probably either ask if they want you to or just to go ahead and do it yourself.

Arrive early

If someone shows up late for an audition then it doesn't really matter what their excuse is for me they aren't going to get the part. You can't afford for someone not to be on time during the shoot and this is a sign that someone isn't the best time keeper.

Also we were handing out the script for the cold reading so the earlier you got there the more time that you had to prepare for the reading.

Make definite choices within a cold reading

It is more interesting if you make some deliberate choices when doing a cold reading. At least it shows that you can analyse, engage with a script and make a decision. If you make these choices then you can explain and talk about them with the director and then you can receive direction and adjust your approach.

It surprised me that when I asked actors what they thought of the script excerpt and what they had just done that some of them weren't expecting to talk about the script.

Remain positive at the end of audition

I was running 15 minute auditions so there wasn't much time with actors and really I wanted to get an idea of who worked and who didn't. The length of the audition doesn't necessarily dictate whether I like an actor or not. Straight away I might decide that you aren't right for the part and also I might decide that I want to call you back so I don't need to see anymore.

Upon telling actors that the audition was over some of them looked disappointed. This is natural I guess but it is also the last time I see you so it is the image that is left in my mind and if possible I think you should try and leave with a positive feeling at the end.

Listen to the direction that you are given

After a cold reading we will discuss what happened and I will provide some direction. I was surprised how many actors just wanted to rush and do the scene again rather than to make sure they were comfortable with what I wanted them to do. The majority of time when they just did it again immediately they hadn't taken on board the direction and did a carbon copy of their previous attempt or if it was different it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

The actors who took the time to understand and discuss what i was looking for were a lot better at producing a performance that was close to what we had discussed.

Don't be afraid of slowing down

During the cold reading a lot of actors rush through the scene and it doesn't feel natural. There is generally a greater tension by just slowing down your actions. It also allows me as the director to study what you are doing and to take in your facial expressions and body language.

Thought I would share with you the number of results that I received from the various casting sites in case this helps you decide a specific route to go for. First of all some background on the castings:

I sent out casting notices for 2 lead characters for my debut low budget feature film. One notice for Jacob, who is a 20-25 indie/scruffy male lead and one for Jacqueline, who is a 20-25 hurt/tender female lead. Below are my experiences of each service.

Spotlight

Sent to: 739 Agents
Sent: Wednesday, 03 June 2009, 11:50
Closing Date: Sunday, 07 June 2009, 23:59

Jacobs

Total applications received: 487
Suitable applications received: 29
Non-suitable applications received: 458

Jacquelines

Total applications received: 339
Suitable applications received: 27
Non-suitable applications received: 312

Casting Call Pro

Sent: Monday, 01 June 2009, 11:50
Closing Date: Friday, 05 June 2009, 23:59
Views: 2342 Views

Jacobs

Total applications received: 169
Suitable applications received: 9
Non-suitable applications received: 160

Jacquelines

Total applications received: 423
Suitable applications received: 15
Non-suitable applications received: 408

Mandy

Sent: Monday, 01 June 2009
Closing Date: Friday, 05 June 2009

Jacobs

Total applications received: 85

Jacquelines

Total applications received: 78

Summary

In summary I quite liked the experiences of casting call and Spotlight in terms of finding actors that you wanted to contact. I didn't look through the Mandy applications as I didn't have time and their website doesn't provide an easy way to get quickly hone in on the people that might be suitable.

Today I had set aside for planning the rest of the time between now and the start of the film shoot. I previously had a big spreadsheet that I had been adding things to but it was time to get everything in a more usable format. Also with other people starting to come on board to take on tasks I had to come up with a solution that allowed everyone to work on the right tasks and the right time without me having to spend any time worrying about exactly what was going on.

I decided to use an online project management tool called basecamp which allows a free licence as well paid models. I went with the free licence which allows you one project with an unlimited number of users. It restricts you in certain ways from the paid option where I think you can share files and attach files to tasks. That might be useful but I am already using Wuala to share files so I didn't see a need to spend money where it isn't necessary.

So in terms of the parts of basecamp that I used and how I split things up that is really what I wanted to go through briefly on this blog. It will take a few weeks for me to understand how well it works but initial thoughts is that it is going to do the job pretty well.

Basecamp has a concept of milestones and to-do lists. To-do lists can be attached to a single milestone or just live on their own. Then you can assign to-do items and/or milestones to people and they can add comments to to-do items and then say when they have been completed. It also sends email reminders when milestones are coming up and you can choose for it to send someone an email when you assign them a to-do list item.

Milestones

For the milestones it was slightly arbitrary on how I came up with these. There were obvious ones that are required before the shooting started (i.e. "Secure Locations") but also some that were required for shooting starting but needed to be split into multiple parts as they had dependent milestones and I needed to make sure that they were done up sooner than the start of shooting. An example of this might be "Finalise Shooting Script" as there are a number of dependent tasks that follow of the back of this.

Some of the milestones that I came up with

All in all I think my advice would be to come up with a high level set of milestones first and then look for any dependencies within them or any really large milestones that can be broken out. One huge milestone can be unwieldy to manage whereas millions of small one task milestones can have the same effect. Let common sense prevail and you will have a gut feel that you have the right balance.

To-do lists

The To-do lists were easier to fill in but a lot more time consuming due to the vast number of them. I am pretty much for having every little task added to a list so that I know that I don't forget anything when there is pressure on to get something finished. You don't want to leave anything half done so get everything down and if you think of another on the train or the bus then make sure you add it to the list.

I copied over the tasks from my spreadsheet first. It would have been good if there was a bulk import function but I couldn't find one. So I copied them over by hand. I created a to-do list and decided that I wanted to match them to every milestone so I did the copying over one milestone at a time. I created logical groupings of tasks into to-do lists.

List of todo list items mapped to their milestones

Once all of the spreadsheet ones were copied over then I went through each milestone and thought of new things that were missing and went to the next level of detail on the ones that were required within the next few weeks (i.e. send email to so and so about something).

The process went fine. I assigned the to-do items around to various people and I am looking forward to seeing them being ticked off. So far so good!

Today I got some "filmy" friends around to watch the audition tapes for the actresses going for the part of Jacqueline. I had went through all of the tapes on my own and created a short list of ones that I wanted to watch. Unfortunately my DVD making skills seemed to have evaporated and we only got the first 1 minute of the DVD which actually worked.

Nevertheless we forged ahead with my notes of what girls I wanted to see and the DV tapes were shuffled in and out of my camera after each one.

It was really good to watch the auditions back. Some we watched the whole way through. Others didn't make it through their first minute before we moved on. There was some really good actresses and a couple in particular that I really liked but just weren't the right look for Jacqueline. Especially when I think of them next to Mark who they will be interacting with for 99% of the script.

I have decided to do call backs for the ones that we liked and have sent them a copy of the script to read. What I plan to do in the call back is the following:

• Run through the scene that we did at the first audition again
• Run through another scene from the script
• Talk over your thoughts on Jacqueline from reading the script
• Talk through the production, my plans, etc to check that there is no misconceptions about the shoot, budget, etc

Today I signed a couple of people onto the crew list for the film. There will be more to come over the coming weeks but I just wanted to say a little bit about each of them and what I think they are going to bring to the party!

Derek Yau

Derek Yau

Derek is a friend of mine from work and we also play in a band together. Derek is going to be in charge of finding the various locations within the film. I think he is going to be really good in this role and from talking with him he is pretty fired up and coming up with ideas. It is really nice when someone starts to question you on what you want with some intellect and creativity and that is what I feel with Derek. He is also extremely hard working and dependable so together with his creative streak and vision I think he is going to work really well.

Ellie Atkins

Ellie Atkins

Ellie is also a friend but this time I know her through swing dancing. She is a great swing dancer if you ever get the chance to get a dance! She has been taking photographs for me during the fundraising events that we have run and I have been really impressed by them. If you compare her photos with the ones that were taken by amateur photographers or people who leave the camera on the auto setting you can see the difference that her expertise and creativity bring. I really like her composition especially. Apart from taking great photos Ellie will seamlessly go around taking photos without you really noticing that she is there. This is really important to me on the film set and I think this humility will serve her well. I am excited already about working with her more and on seeing the shots that she gets.

Today I decided to give the role of Jacqueline in Booked Out to Claire Garvey.

At the auditions Claire really made an impression on myself and the rest of the production team who saw her. When she walked into the audition she had a real presence and energy about her that none of the candidates had. I still can't quite put my finger on it but she just made us all sit up and pay attention. She came across as someone who you could really communicate with.

As with all of the actresses that I auditioned I got Claire to perform a monologue as well as a scene from the film. She chose to do a monologue from Monster which in the film it is a voice-over by Charlize Theron where she is explaining why/how she got into prostitution. The way Claire did this piece was beautiful. It was kind of sad and sweet at the same time. Not over-acted with the character bubbling away but just a real sense that she was really in the moment and recollecting how she had gotten to that point. I like to describe it as I could see the sadness behind her eyes.

After the monologue we talked about the scene and Claire ran over it a couple of times. She did have the warehouse owners dog barking in her ear throughout this scene. I guess he was trying to tell me that she was the right one for the part or something. On hindsight and from watching back the tapes, Claire was one of the first few actresses that we had seen so during the scenes I hadn't given her as good direction as the later actresses but what I had asked she did really well.

With all of the auditions completed Claire was the only actress that I really had a strong affinity with in terms of seeing her as I had always imagined Jacqueline when writing the script. What was really funny was that out of the sixty or so actresses that auditioned I only received one email thanking me for the audition and that was from Claire. I found this quite sweet and although I don't really believe in fate/etc I think that there we probably both had a feeling that this was the right project to collaborate on.

Not wanting to just go with my gut instinct I reviewed all of the audition tapes and selected a short list. Read more on this here. There was a couple of the other girls that I liked but none had the right look or style which I felt Claire would bring to the film. So I called Claire back and got her to work through a few scenes with Mark.

This felt really natural and more like we were rehearsing rather than it being an audition. I called up the next day and offered Claire the part and so now she is on board! Yeah!

One other thing I forgot to mention and applies throughout is that Claire consistently seemed to be thinking about who the character of Jacqueline was. She made some assumptions and decisions herself and always asked me when she was not sure. As a director this for me is essential as I can get an idea of what she is going to bring to the project as well as getting a clear idea of how we are going to work together.

I am really looking forward to working with Claire in the next few months as I feel that she is going to bring a lot of energy and creativity to the character.