WHERE THE HEART LIES ... Johnson, Hyten, Golden & Bullis

Too Much Time Between Auditions

Too Much Time Between Auditions

Today we had our first day of auditions at the Complex in Hollywood. We found a couple truly good candidates and laughed our friggin' asses off at some truly amazingly bizarre performances. Interestingly, we found two actors who are totally wrong for this project but who both are absolute "must-haves" for future projects if the roles are right.

Lest we have given anybody a misunderstanding that we are mutating into mature and professional filmmakers, here's a little video of Hyten and me between auditions:

 
Auditions at THE COMPLEX

Auditions at THE COMPLEX

1197863643.jpg
 
Ahh, The Complex... the place where dreamers dream on their long shot auditions... promises of Hollywood drifting through their heads while they read their sides. Yes, The Complex... the place where all young actors fight for their chance to be movie stars... Ahh, The Complex...
 
Mark, Tim, anyone...

You should check out this demo reel for a buddy of mine who is a VERY talented rotoscope/compositor. He is a self-taught visfx artist, and his work is very impressive. I was the DP for the lightsaber shoot, and it was a blast to work with Nate. I think he needs to join up on this site because I know he will get a lot of work out of it.

He has even made a connection with J. Bills of Weta Digital. You'll remember them as the company that handled all of the FX for The Lord of the Rings. He is working as his assistant, or so I'm told.

http://www.natecow.com/Demo_Reel.html

Take a minute to browse his site. You'll come across a few pictures of BTS where I'm standing with the camera. Anyway, let me know what you think and, by all means, get a hold of this guy if you need work done. He is a member of Pixel Corps. I found this relevant because you do so much fx work, mark. He'd be a great guy to throw in your handful of artists.

-kyle
 
Last edited:
Kyle Stebbins said:
Man, Nate, your picture makes you look like your 11 years old. :cheesy:
Click to expand...

Psh, whatev. That's my PXC avatar, and believe me, my old one made me look even younger. Then again, this one is almost two years old, I should make a new one...

Anywho, thanks for the plug, now back to your regularly scheduled thread :)
 
First round of auditions are complete and it looks like we've got the candidates we need to fill out main slots.
 
We're almost set for our cast and have pretty much settled on two actors for two of the roles but are not certain which actor should play which character. It's an interesting dilemma because one actor "looks" best for one part but the other seems to play the part a little better. Also, we have a third character to cast and have two finalists to choose from. So, we have some work to do today and hopefully we can announce the final cast by tomorrow.

By the way, Blaine and I went to a screening of Charlie Wilson's War. The screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, took questions afterwards and it was a fascinating evening. God, this guy can write dialogue. There's a scene between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tom Hanks that is so well written and so much fun to watch that I am looking forward to seeing the film again when it is released. It's an unusual role for Hanks and it will be interesting to see how it does at the box office.
 
Cool. Glad to hear it's moving along, guys.

My personal opinion.... go with the person who plays the part the best. They end up "looking" the part more in the long run.... but, hey... I'm just me.

I love Philip Seymour Hoffman. Aaron Sorkin wrote the first play I ever acted in.... "A Few Good Men". A role that I didn't "look" the part for, actually.... Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson.

Keep it going guys. I wanna see a complete project from your camp this time. Looking forward to it.

Later,
Jason
 
Jason Ramsey said:
.... go with the person who plays the part the best. They end up "looking" the part more in the long run.... but, hey... I'm just me.
Click to expand...

Well, you're not alone.
If you're looking for my two cents (and come on, who isn't?)... I'd definitely go with the one who plays the part best. Like Jason said, they will wind up 'looking' the part.

You may have had some preconceived notions of what this character should look like - but remember that as an audience, we don't have any preconceived notions of that. To us, the character is always going to look like the person you cast - that's it.

People never know what they're missing - they only know what's on the screen.
Mamet had a great quote about that - something like, "an audience will accept anything they are given no reason to disbelieve" Granted, he was referring to plot mechanics, but I think that concept applies to just about anything within a film - including the believability of the characters.

If this actor plays the part best then the character will be believable.
If someone else doesn't play it as well - it doesn't matter if he looks like the part, because in the end the part may not be as believable.

Alright - I'll stop rambling now.....
:thumbsup:
 
Much appreciated comments by both of you, Luis and Jason. I am looking forward to hammering this out with Tim and Blaine today. We're fortunate to have good actors to choose from.

The auditions were a real blast. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had some people who were completely on another planet but some of them have such amazing looks that we've made a file for them for future projects. We've got one guy who would be perfect for a Russian mob boss or a hit-man (we had some extra time during his audition so we did a little improv and he grabbed my throat and I thought he was really going to hit me!) We found a guy from Jersey who just absolutely looks and sounds like he's fresh from the docks as well as an aging, sensitive character with a hairpiece who would be perfect for a skewed part. Anyway, the whole audition process is great experience and worked out really well for us on this project.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top