Subscribers to Shooting People’s Casting Network will probably still remember the nasty taste left in the mouth by the recent volley of bitter recriminations about low and unpaid work. Always keen to take an unpopular route I wheezed on loud and long about the value of such work and why Shooting People should still offer its acting members the chance to make their own minds up about what they turn down or follow up.
There are caveats to this of course. No one supports productions that don’t share their resources equitably and with respect for the work of all involved. No one is suggesting that actors shouldn’t be paid – only that sometimes no one earning any money is not a reason for a film not to get made.
However the biggest problem I find with repeating this argument is the postings that then come in from directors looking for actors to collaborate with. My girlfriend is an actress and so I generally skim over the casting bulletin each day and recommend to her anything I think she’d be amazing in. She is definitely castable as “…late 20’s/early 30’s – well spoken – attractive – height between 5′6″ and 5′10″…” so my fingers hesitated over yesterday’s casting call from Mark McDermott about his feature film project “Silent Terror”.
I’ve never met Mark and I don’t think I’ve seen any of his previous work, I have no personal vendetta against him and I am definitely not accusing him of any short practice, unfairness or anything other than crass stupidity. Equally I am in no way intending to attack his feature project, just the way in which he is pitching it to his would-be collaborators. This is not the worst casting call I’ve read on Shooting People but it does contain some of the regular flash points that always stop me forwarding things to my girlfriend so I thought I’d take a moment to explain why, expressed like this, actors have good reason for feeling like we’re treating them like idiots.
“Hi, I am currently casting for my second low-budget feature film Silent Terror, a suspense driven psychological thriller….”
Mark’s opening sentence at least sets out a clear genre and he goes on to give useful and concise information about shooting dates, location and format. However whilst “second low-budget feature” may sound like a step up from your “first” low-budget feature just have a think about what message this is actually sending. Of course it is good to let your prospective cast know that you have experience and we all know how hard it is to make films so no one will hold it against you that your first low-budget feature clearly vanished without a trace. But is this the first thing you want to tell people?
Because the simple fact is that if this is your “second low-budget feature” that generally means the first didn’t enable you to secure a better budget for this film. Again I must stress that I’m not trying to say Mark is a bad filmmaker, I’ve not seen his first film and I have no idea what he was trying to achieve with it. Neither does the average reader of this casting call. All they have is the information he has given them, so, like me, their first thought should be that rather than promoting his credentials, a man directing his “second low-budget feature” is not actually showing a glowing track record. This is probably an unfair assumption – but there is nothing to stop us leaping to it – especially when we later read:
“We are evaluating distribution opportunities at present and are considering a self-distribution strategy, along with film festival submissions.”
Come on, we are all grown ups here. No one considers a self-distribution strategy. You are forced to accept a self-distribution strategy because distributors don’t yet trust you to back you. This is fine. This is your second low-budget feature after the first one did nothing – of course you’re “considering a self-distribution strategy”. No one will think you’re a failure for this state of affairs, what erks the reader is the attempt at spinning it.
Mark is clearly an ambitious young filmmaker who has yet to receive any real support from within the industry. He is getting off his arse and defying their lethargy by making a film to prove that he has a talent with story telling. He is exactly the sort of person that Shooting People was set up to support and exactly the sort of person that actors should want to meet and possibly work with. Yet because of the way he has presented his past record and place within the industry he makes himself look like a conceited fool who doesn’t yet realise that his films suck.
However the real problem with this casting call comes when he pitches the story and the involvement he hopes his actors will have.
“The film is far reaching in its scope, with a large meandering story. Therefore, the parts we are looking for are significant and pivotal, but will only be required for a limited time in production.”
This blew me away. Who pitches a film with the word “meandering”? I mean I find a lot of Robert Altman’s work to often be meandering but I bet he didn’t try and raise the finance like that. Meandering means dull. Meandering means listless, directionless, rambling tedium. You don’t mean meandering you mean, I don’t know, far reaching or complex or many layered or multi-faceted. OK it’s a mistake and we all make mistakes but a pitch is a pitch and it should be cared about and if you say your film is “meandering” then even if I’m being charitable I’m thinking you’re going into this project without a clear idea of what you’re doing – an idea backed up by the next sentence…
“There will be opportunities for improvisation of performance and dialogue, so you have the potential to bring your own elements to the roles.”
Doesn’t that just mean that you’ve not written a good script yet?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m neither being purely sarcastic or anti-impro. Trust me, my girlfriend is a gifted and experienced improvisor and thanks to her I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the best practitioners of the craft in the world (genuinely). I love impro. Which is why it makes me cross when filmmakers reach for it unknowingly, when they assume that it’s a simple case of letting the actors say the gist of the script rather than being word perfect. Again I’m not accusing Mark of this, rather I’m hoping to point out that expressions like “opportunities for improvisation” are meaningless, foggy and suggest that he is not being rigorous in his approach. Perhaps improvisation is a key creative tool in his production, if so, say so. This reads like you’re hoping your actors will save you from the still unresolved problems in your script.
“All travel and food expenses will be covered. A DVD of the finished film will be provided, along with a digital file of your scenes if required for your showreel.”
Hooray for this, the bare minimum requirements of getting strangers to work on your project. But lets just skim over the story to the character breakdown…
“Jane – late 20’s/early 30’s – well spoken – attractive – height between 5′6″ and 5′10″ – partial nudity required. She has dark hidden secrets.”
And there it is. The ever present bugbear of the Shooting People Casting forum. “Partial nudity required”. How come nudity is “required” yet everything else has “opportunities for improvisation”? I mean, what if, using her impro skills, the actress decides to leave her clothes on? Is that ok? As a piece of impro?
Again, don’t get me wrong, as a filmmaker I’m all in favour of nudity in films. Story telling is about drama and I can think of plenty of dramatic situations that are heightened by everyone being actually physically naked. Not a problem. However that’s a general point about cinema. Let’s just think what you are asking your actress to do in this post. You want her to improve your script with her impro skills and get her tits out. For this you will pay her bus fare, buy her a bacon sandwich and send her a DVD of another low-budget film which you will then send to film festivals because no distributor will touch it.
This is why actors get pissed off.
Again, don’t get me wrong – I am merely talking about how Mark has sold this project, not the project and not Mark. I can think of many situations when a gifted young director will inspire his cast to give astonishing performances because they believe totally in his creative vision. This could turn out to be one of those situations… but you can’t introduce yourself to people like this – you can’t just expect people to get naked for the price of a train ticket because you’ve already made one low budget film that has flopped.
I fully support the right of people to seek collaborators for low and unpaid films – but if you are forced into taking this route think about how collaboration actually works before you start demanding your cast get naked.
