A famous director once observed, that it's often more important that the actors look the part than their exact skill level. Of course, you don't want terrible actors regardless of how they look, but it's really important to have the heavy look like a heavy, and so on. Because that look sells the story instantly, the moment the actor comes on screen. So care should be taken to make sure you got that right. For example, I'd ask myself these questions: does the girl look like she has it in her to torture people, never mind the harm they did her? If the girl looks too sweet or innocent to torture anyone, you're gonna lose credibility right off the bat. Does the girl look ethnic enough to play a Native-American woman who can call upon ancient spirits, or does she look like any old suburban chick, except she's got black hair and dark eyes... it's like those supposedly menacing Mexican drug mafia guys, who are played by your buddies who happen to be latinos - and the fact that they grew up in comfortable suburbia in the U.S. comes through loud and clear, and totally doesn't work for "dangerous Mexican drug mafia killer". Remember, the actors and the script are what make a film - not the Red One or Super Lens. If your actors are laughably miscast, never mind their skill levels, you're gonna lose, period. And keep in mind - it is a separate issue from talent... you can miscast very talented actors as well. An amateur indie production already faces high obstacles, of which bad acting and casting are perhaps the biggest obstacles - you don't want to condemn yourself to failure right off the bat before you even had a chance to shoot the movie, because you didn't work hard enough on the casting. Make sure your script is up to par. And make sure you pick your actors carefully - that's 90% right there. Everything after that is gravy, even if it takes a lot of hard work. And you don't want to waste all that hard work, money and people's efforts on a poor script or poor casting decisions. Good luck!
FEATURE: The Legend of Seven Toe Maggie
- Thread starter Azmyth
- Start date
Ted Spencer
Veteran
A famous casting director (Michael Shurtleff, who among many other interesting examples, cast Dustin Hoffman in "Goodbye, Columbus") wrote in his excellent book "Audition" that "the biggest casting mistakes are based on appearance". After watching countless badly acted movies, I tend to agree. And it's never more true than in low-budget indies IMO; the lower the budget the truer it is.
If you've got tens (or hundreds) of millions you can probably find a great actor who looks almost exactly like you want him/her to look. Big-budget films that feature look-alikes of historical figures are good examples of this (except when they must cast stars in those roles, in which case it's usually much less successful looks-wise). But in a low to very low-budget scenario casting a just-right looking actor over a really-good actor is highly likely to he a recipe for disaster, because you almost certainly can't afford to pay enough to get both. Beautiful young women are the classic example; show me a gorgeous young thing who can really act and I'll show you a millionaire you can't afford to hire. It's not that there aren't enough gorgeous women out there - there are loads of 'em. The problem is that 99.99% of 'em can't act their way out of a paper bag. You do *not* want to hire one of those, no matter how breathtaking they are to look at. The first badly acted scene you show with them will turn off 95% of your viewers, and it will be all but game over.
Shurtleff's story about then-unknown Hoffman is the perfect example: the casting description called for a "tall, athletic blonde". But he chose Hoffman (and convinced the producers to cast him) based heavily on his acting skill. Would a lesser actor who was a tall athletic blonde have made a better movie? I don't think so. And they had ample budget...
Bad acting (running a very close second to bad writing) will sink a film faster than concrete shoes on a gangster. If you have limited budget, cast for acting skill first, then appearance. Obviously, if you're casting a bicycle riding champ you probably can't hire someone who looks like Luciano Pavarotti, but otherwise, beware of falling in love with the 'perfect looking' actor (and particularly the perfect looking non-actor, aka all too often as a perfect looking friend, which happens *a lot* in micro-budget indies)
My $.02, just upgraded to $.03 for the new year : )
If you've got tens (or hundreds) of millions you can probably find a great actor who looks almost exactly like you want him/her to look. Big-budget films that feature look-alikes of historical figures are good examples of this (except when they must cast stars in those roles, in which case it's usually much less successful looks-wise). But in a low to very low-budget scenario casting a just-right looking actor over a really-good actor is highly likely to he a recipe for disaster, because you almost certainly can't afford to pay enough to get both. Beautiful young women are the classic example; show me a gorgeous young thing who can really act and I'll show you a millionaire you can't afford to hire. It's not that there aren't enough gorgeous women out there - there are loads of 'em. The problem is that 99.99% of 'em can't act their way out of a paper bag. You do *not* want to hire one of those, no matter how breathtaking they are to look at. The first badly acted scene you show with them will turn off 95% of your viewers, and it will be all but game over.
Shurtleff's story about then-unknown Hoffman is the perfect example: the casting description called for a "tall, athletic blonde". But he chose Hoffman (and convinced the producers to cast him) based heavily on his acting skill. Would a lesser actor who was a tall athletic blonde have made a better movie? I don't think so. And they had ample budget...
Bad acting (running a very close second to bad writing) will sink a film faster than concrete shoes on a gangster. If you have limited budget, cast for acting skill first, then appearance. Obviously, if you're casting a bicycle riding champ you probably can't hire someone who looks like Luciano Pavarotti, but otherwise, beware of falling in love with the 'perfect looking' actor (and particularly the perfect looking non-actor, aka all too often as a perfect looking friend, which happens *a lot* in micro-budget indies)
My $.02, just upgraded to $.03 for the new year : )
[...]
When I comment in these threads, I always keep in mind the noise/signal ratio. There is no need to state the obvious, because the obvious is known to all, and brings no value into the discussion, thus it becomes merely noise. I comment when I think that there is something I can add of value that has not as yet been said. For example, I don't think there's anyone out there who has the ambition to make a movie who doesn't understand that bad actors with poor acting skills are going to be a net negative in a film. It's very obvious, so I'm not going to jump into a thread to specifically mention that. Especially, when it's already been mentioned, as it has been in this thread, f.ex. here, post #19:
Honestly gotta say that actress (assuming she's not just part of the teaser) really needs a lot of work.
I think the point about skill level has been made. And, skill is something that you can work on - so if you have a middling actor, if you are a great actor's director, you can get a good performance out of such an actor. But if the actor is miscast, there is really nothing you can do as a director, no matter how great you are. By the way, there is no sense in repeating - for years - that Dustin Hoffman was in "Goodbye, Columbus", when he was not - that's simply not true, though typical for someone who has such a poor grasp of the issues that they can't even get basic facts right, instead they repeat the same falsehoods for years and years. In any case, that's misunderstanding what miscasting is. It's not necessarily what the original script envisions. Directors can change whatever the scriptwriter conceived, and if it's the director himself who is writing, s/he can change the character description to suit an actor with a different appearance than originally envisioned. So for example, you have a handsome-looking guy be a suitor who wins over the girl. And the script calls for a handsome guy - but you can bend that, because being handsome is not quintessential to winning over a girl, and so you could cast a Dustin Hoffman (who was never the typical matinee idol) as a successful suitor who wins the girl on personality and charisma etc. That's legitimate. But if the film is about a heavy-weight boxer, you wouldn't cast Dustin Hoffman, because you can't bend that role to fit, no matter how you try. That's miscasting.
My point being, is that people are well aware of the necessity of avoiding bad actors. So aware, paranoid even that they'll sometimes make a miscasting mistake in order to avoid the "worse actor" and go for the "better", more skilled actor at the cost of miscasting. And that is something less spoken of. Which is why I mentioned it. Because it is obvious that you don't want a terrible actor no matter how "right" s/he looks for the role (as I mentioned in my first post in this thread) - we all know that. I am pointing out that talent and actings skill is only half the equation. The other half, is correct casting. And if you look at indie films and the discussions the filmmakers have, it's quite clear that while there is very high awareness of the need for good acting, there is absolutely less awareness of making the correct casting choices based on actor credibility for the role. Because while often you can bend the appearance, there are times you can't. And you should be aware of that.
Now, bringing this to this thread, my point was - I'd ask myself the question "is the actress cast correctly" in this case. The director can answer that for himself. I'm quite sure he's aware of the need for a skilled actress, so I didn't feel the need to state the obvious. But is she correctly cast apart from acting skill?
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Azmyth
Veteran
Let me clear up a few things that I think are confusing to some and the reason for some of the comments. I appreciate all the input, but it has to be said that the girl in this is no character in particular.. its not "maggie". Its just a random girl running through the woods "from" what "could be" the entity of this ghost called "Seven Toe Maggie". Her ankle is slashed by the entity and thats why you don't see it, nor can you really tell "what" did it. That's the point. The point of this was more or less a glorified camera and lighting test. I want her to be a young confused/scared girl who is trying to find her way away from this "force" that she cannot see. She's not in hysterics until she realizes that there's no way out of this situation.
The fall, is caused BY the slashing of the anjle. Not by tripping over anything thats in the forest. She falls because her ankle was slashed by something.. what that "something" is.. is meant to be unseen and unknown.
Whether that is portrayed correctly is probably more the issue, as obviously it wasn't obvious enough that this is what had happened. "Seven Toe Maggie" is a ghost. Not an actual being, so you will never actually "See" her.
Kholi - we used 4 1000w work lights about 30 ft away, and several soft boxes up close to get the lights on her face. I had 6 fog machines, but believe it or not NOT 1 of them would work properly that night.
The fall, is caused BY the slashing of the anjle. Not by tripping over anything thats in the forest. She falls because her ankle was slashed by something.. what that "something" is.. is meant to be unseen and unknown.
Whether that is portrayed correctly is probably more the issue, as obviously it wasn't obvious enough that this is what had happened. "Seven Toe Maggie" is a ghost. Not an actual being, so you will never actually "See" her.
Kholi - we used 4 1000w work lights about 30 ft away, and several soft boxes up close to get the lights on her face. I had 6 fog machines, but believe it or not NOT 1 of them would work properly that night.
Azmyth
Veteran
NP! I enjoy contructive criticism so it doesn't bother me. I thought I explained well enough to begin with and in the vimeo description the "purpose" of this, so any sort of misgivings on the story (or lack thereof) are somewhat of a mute thing as this has little to no bearing on the film itself.
Even though it looks like we are in the middle of the woods (we were) in South Ga we are lucky enough that people do actually live in the middle of the woods, so there was a power source about 100ft away, so we ran several HEAVY Duty drop cords, and I had an electrician on my crew who wired us in to the actual fuse panel, and put them on different circuits. We gelled the worklights blue by hanging LARGE blue gels about 5-6 feet away. It was about 30 degrees so heat wasn't an issue. I originally had planned to do the whole "fog up the background" with the fog machines and I brought all 6 because I knew there was a chance some of them would have issues. We only had one that was working "sort of" and it had a mind of its own. We determined that the cold weather was screwing with the mechanisms, and that in this instance we would have needed a Hazer vs. a party fogger.. since these things aren't mean to withstand harsh weather.
I actually got my GH2 a few days ago, so gonna be doing some test shots with it! Can't wait to see what it can do. I like it so far. The image is so much sharper than my t2i was, can't wait for my adapters to come in so I can try my other lenses on it.. right now I just have the kit lens.
I haven't hacked it yet, got any tips on which one to use for my needs?
Azmyth
Veteran
launched a crowd funding page...
hopefully it helps!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/699742022/the-legend-of-seven-toe-maggie-feature-film
hopefully it helps!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/699742022/the-legend-of-seven-toe-maggie-feature-film
Azmyth
Veteran
We swapped to indiegogo.. you can now get the movie on release for 10$ which will be $5 cheaper than it will be come release. By contributing at the 10.00 level. Also, at the 50.00 level I'm throwing in a copy of my last film EXIT 101 as well. These will be limited release versions as we now have distribution and won't be allowed to sell/distribute these anymore.
http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Legend-of-Seven-Toe-Maggie-Feature-Film?a=8676
http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Legend-of-Seven-Toe-Maggie-Feature-Film?a=8676
Azmyth
Veteran
UPDATE:
Casting is going well.. Cast 3 roles so far of 17. 2 are returning from EXIT 101... They are:
Lesley Warren
You can see her in this trailer... She'll be playing the role of the male lead's Mom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m86XvofI-bo&feature=player_embedded
This is Travis Breedlove. He played "Sheriff Rankin" in EXIT 101 and is returning to do another law enforcement role. You may have seen him
if you've seen the CW's Vampire Diaries. He frequents that show, also as a cop.
Here's him in an episode of the Tyler Perry's "Meet the Browns". He'll be playing the role of "Officer Daniels"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5fwxobJq7s&feature=player_embedded
Walter Robert Duckworth is also returning from EXIT 101. He played the role of douchebag barney fife cop "Deputy Rayford".
He'll be playing the role of Maggie's love interest, "James".
------------------
The power is on at the house location, only cost me 30 bucks
We are doing cleanup and bringing in some set decoration this weekend.
Walter, also hooked us up with period clothing for our flashback scenes...
Just a few examples of what he's got. He's got enough to cover all my actors for those scenes.
Things are going great. If I could just raise the rest of the funding I need, we'd be good to go!
Also brought on a Cinematographer from Georgia State who is going to do lighting etc. And is going to storyboard.
Lighting wise.. we have about 4x the amount of lights we had last time..
I've got..
3 x Softboxes = 2400w
12 x worklights ranging from 250w to 1000w (used sparingly)
Several Clamplights with varying wattage bulbs and temperature
2 800w redheads (my cheap chinese ones have been rewired completely)
3 300w open face tungsten fixtures
and if all goes as planned, a Lowell kit.
Will probably add a few more and rent a few here and there.
I'm also planning to DIY a set of kino flos. I have a friend helping me with that.
We are shooting on the Panasonic GH2, and if we can make it work.. may intercut with 2 Canon T3i's.
We're using alot more gear this time. We have a 12" jib, Slider, and a new Dolly, carmount, cable cam, and steadicam.
Casting is going well.. Cast 3 roles so far of 17. 2 are returning from EXIT 101... They are:
Lesley Warren
You can see her in this trailer... She'll be playing the role of the male lead's Mom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m86XvofI-bo&feature=player_embedded
This is Travis Breedlove. He played "Sheriff Rankin" in EXIT 101 and is returning to do another law enforcement role. You may have seen him
if you've seen the CW's Vampire Diaries. He frequents that show, also as a cop.
Here's him in an episode of the Tyler Perry's "Meet the Browns". He'll be playing the role of "Officer Daniels"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5fwxobJq7s&feature=player_embedded
Walter Robert Duckworth is also returning from EXIT 101. He played the role of douchebag barney fife cop "Deputy Rayford".
He'll be playing the role of Maggie's love interest, "James".
------------------
The power is on at the house location, only cost me 30 bucks
We are doing cleanup and bringing in some set decoration this weekend.
Walter, also hooked us up with period clothing for our flashback scenes...
Just a few examples of what he's got. He's got enough to cover all my actors for those scenes.
Things are going great. If I could just raise the rest of the funding I need, we'd be good to go!
Also brought on a Cinematographer from Georgia State who is going to do lighting etc. And is going to storyboard.
Lighting wise.. we have about 4x the amount of lights we had last time..
I've got..
3 x Softboxes = 2400w
12 x worklights ranging from 250w to 1000w (used sparingly)
Several Clamplights with varying wattage bulbs and temperature
2 800w redheads (my cheap chinese ones have been rewired completely)
3 300w open face tungsten fixtures
and if all goes as planned, a Lowell kit.
Will probably add a few more and rent a few here and there.
I'm also planning to DIY a set of kino flos. I have a friend helping me with that.
We are shooting on the Panasonic GH2, and if we can make it work.. may intercut with 2 Canon T3i's.
We're using alot more gear this time. We have a 12" jib, Slider, and a new Dolly, carmount, cable cam, and steadicam.
Good luck, I'll be following this!
Azmyth
Veteran
Thanks! I love the GH2 and think its going to do an amazing job for this..
On another note.. We need to raise this tiny bit of funding.
At the $10 level your essentially preordering the film on DVD at $5 off (they'll be 14.99 on release)
At the $50 level you get this one, and a copy of my last film Exit 101, a T-shirt.
http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Legend-of-Seven-Toe-Maggie-Feature-Film
On another note.. We need to raise this tiny bit of funding.
At the $10 level your essentially preordering the film on DVD at $5 off (they'll be 14.99 on release)
At the $50 level you get this one, and a copy of my last film Exit 101, a T-shirt.
http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Legend-of-Seven-Toe-Maggie-Feature-Film
Egg Born Son
Veteran
Awesome location!
Azmyth
Veteran
More screen grabs!
Here's a link to the BTS gallery..
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.340228359362955.92827.233665073352618&type=3
Here's a link to the BTS gallery..
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.340228359362955.92827.233665073352618&type=3
