DavidBeier
Veteran
I'm only 24 years old and this is my first real "film" (not corporate video or commercial) in two years so I didn't think I'd end up being such a jerk so fast.
I found this great girl to play the part of a little sister through a casting director who's a friend of my agents. She was smart, cute, and very mature. Unfortunatly, her parents had a wonderful habit of not answering their phone for days at a time and then, a few days later, just saying, "sorry we were at church." After the second time this happened and the first missed rehearsal, I sat down with them and said very clearly but kindly, "I realize this can be difficult, but I really need to be able to contact you guys on a moment's notice. Especially with a small budget like this, schedules and shootings days can change in an instant but we need everyone to be able to stay in touch because we're still paying for things like equipment, locations, catering, ect..." They said they understood, and then it happened again.
After two days of trying to contact them, I finally gave up and decided to rewrite the role for an older girl and cast the daughter of my lead actress in the role (since I knew she'd have her girl well-rehearsed and professional). I still feel like total crap though because it wasn't the first girl's fault. She learned her lines. She was mature. It was just her parents who didn't believe in answering their phone. It's so maddening that I'm having to punish her because her Mom and Dad can't get their acts together but I also couldn't expect my cast and crew, most of which aren't being paid and even those who are a very reduced amount, to just wait around for when they're ready to return my call.
They finally called me the day before I was about to shoot with the new girl. I did something rather cowardly (I already regret it), and told them we had already been forced to shoot the scene with someone else. I don't like lieing but I also didn't want to deal with them asking, "well, we're calling you now, why can't she shoot tomorrow?" I've also got to go ahead and try to talk to the casting director who recommended this girl to me in the first place and make sure there's no bad blood since he's friends with her.
Why is this stuff so hard?
I found this great girl to play the part of a little sister through a casting director who's a friend of my agents. She was smart, cute, and very mature. Unfortunatly, her parents had a wonderful habit of not answering their phone for days at a time and then, a few days later, just saying, "sorry we were at church." After the second time this happened and the first missed rehearsal, I sat down with them and said very clearly but kindly, "I realize this can be difficult, but I really need to be able to contact you guys on a moment's notice. Especially with a small budget like this, schedules and shootings days can change in an instant but we need everyone to be able to stay in touch because we're still paying for things like equipment, locations, catering, ect..." They said they understood, and then it happened again.
After two days of trying to contact them, I finally gave up and decided to rewrite the role for an older girl and cast the daughter of my lead actress in the role (since I knew she'd have her girl well-rehearsed and professional). I still feel like total crap though because it wasn't the first girl's fault. She learned her lines. She was mature. It was just her parents who didn't believe in answering their phone. It's so maddening that I'm having to punish her because her Mom and Dad can't get their acts together but I also couldn't expect my cast and crew, most of which aren't being paid and even those who are a very reduced amount, to just wait around for when they're ready to return my call.
They finally called me the day before I was about to shoot with the new girl. I did something rather cowardly (I already regret it), and told them we had already been forced to shoot the scene with someone else. I don't like lieing but I also didn't want to deal with them asking, "well, we're calling you now, why can't she shoot tomorrow?" I've also got to go ahead and try to talk to the casting director who recommended this girl to me in the first place and make sure there's no bad blood since he's friends with her.
Why is this stuff so hard?
