Tag: casting

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Truly Free Film

Nobody Knows Anything #8: Casting, Celebrities, and Archetype Theory

By Charles Peirce 

Nobody8-300Casting is one of the obvious essentials of any film, and like all aspects of the process worth examining: the assumptions that define it and the possibilities of how it might be used to best advantage. Casting’s key place comes in financing, where attaching the right star allows raising money based on their monetary value to specific regions or demographics. Enough attached stars offer the promise of pre-sales in distribution, and enough pre-sales can then determine a base budget. This would seem to follow the simple logic of a star’s popularity guaranteeing viewers, a shortcut in the task of finding an audience.

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Issues and Actions Truly Free Film

Filmonomics: Thinking in Casts Part 2

By Colin Brown

“I lost money for the first time ever in my career over the last two years,” beamed Matthew McConaughey in his signature drawl as he picked up this year’s actor trophy at the recent Hollywood Film Awards. “But I did have a helluva lot of fun.” McConaughey’s conscious decision to”recalibrate” his shirtless rom-com persona into something edgier has since led him to a succession of eye-catching performances in director-driven, lower-budget films – MAGIC MIKE, KILLER JOE, THE PAPERBOY, MUD – and now to the brink of Oscar recognition with DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. It’s the kind of Travolta-style career revival, a McConnaissance if you will, that should give fresh hope to indie filmmakers still hitting heads against talent agents’ doors in their casting quests. At a time when Hollywood slate-pruning has seen the studios essentially abandon mid-budget dramas, pretty much all actors are open to stimulating roles that may require them to sacrifice their customary compensations. Besides wanting to work, actors know there’s always a chance that their fun will laugh all the way to the bank.

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In McConaughey’s case, that financial pay-off will come soon enough. Next month, he will be seen playing right opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s $85 million-plus THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. And this time next year, he will surface again as the top-billed male star in Christopher Nolan’s even pricier space-travel spectacular INTERSTELLAR, headlining a cast that also includes Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Matt Damon.

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Issues and Actions

Filmonomics: Thinking in Casts Part I

By Colin Brown

“More than 90% of directing a picture is the right casting,” suggests Martin Scorsese in the revelatory documentary CASTING BY. Producers might well reach a similar assessment for financing a picture as well since actors remain by far the most enticing lures to potential investors. But settling on just who might be “right” for that picture is another matter entirely – and a source of constant tension as filmmakers struggle to reconcile the urgent needs of the story with the erratic tastes of the global marketplace and its appointed gatekeepers.

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Casting is rarely a sequential, yes-or-no decision-making process that involves working your way down a long list of actors who have been somehow calibrated according to their creative merits and box office bankability. That would be too easy. Unless your director’s name happens to be Scorsese, more than 90% of the time will be spent casting out again and again into an ocean of uncertainty and inconsistency not knowing which way the winds will blow. You need good hooks as well as good fortune to fish in those waters, the tenacity to keep going, an unwavering hand and eye to thread that needle, and the improvisational skills to react to what’s constantly changing around you. Not unlike acting itself.

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Truly Free Film

You Now Access Better Actors Than Ever Before For Your Movies

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Truly Free Film

Jennifer Lawrence Does Not Want To Be In Your Movie: Lessons Learned Casting Our Microbudget Feature

By Scott K. Foley and Josh Rosenberg

Maya and DP Joe Fitz

When we set out to cast our microbudget feature, Jessica, we were certain we’d be able to quickly find an up-and-coming actress to star. I mean we’d written a script about a complicated and conflicted character, the kind of breakout-caliber role that actors dream about, and one that with a bit of luck would propel their careers, all of our careers, to the next level. What we didn’t know was how, as first time and microbudget filmmakers, we’d be expending an enormous amount of time and energy trying to get past the gatekeepers and how some much appreciated tough-love advice from an unexpected source would finally allow us to move forward and start making our movie.

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Truly Free Film

How COLLABORATOR Happened & Why The Actors Did It

If you couldn’t make it to the IFC Center in NYC on June 18th, you missed having Hal Hartley moderate a Q&A session with Martin Donovan, David Morse, Melissa Auf der Meur, and myself on how Martin wrote, directed, and got his debut feature made.

Ah, but no worries, the glory that is the internet brings the past back to you for your eternal enjoyment.  COLLABORATOR is currently available on VOD and will return to the IFC Center tomorrow July 6th, and then the Egyptian in LA on July 20th.  Please check it out.

 

Certain highlights to check out:

Hal Hartley & Martin Donvan on “What is directing”
approximately 1745- 2250

David Morse, Hal Hartley, Martin Donovan, and me (Ted Hope): “What makes a director someone an actor (or producer) wants to work with”
approx 25:00 – 31:00

For more of Martin’s secrets, check out his interview with Marshall Fine here.

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Let's Make Better Films

“On Casting With The Director” via The New Breed

When I was out in LA for LAFF, I got an opportunity to sit with Kevin & Zac of Sabi to talk about the casting process for their series “The New Breed” that they are doing with Filmmaker Magazine and The Workbook Project.

NEW BREED LOS ANGELES – Episode 4 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.