Archive for February, 2009

Auditions

Monday, February 16th, 2009

I held the auditions for Tom and Nathan on Friday – the 13th! But luckily everything went to plan (well, more or less…) and I now have 6 potential actors for the two main parts.

There were a couple of hick-ups however, the first being the very first audition. A guy called Oliver showed up, on time (even though I’d already messed him around by changing when he was supposed to be there), and in the right place. However, his partner did not. We waited around for a little while but it became obvious that we weren’t going to see anyone else until the next time slot – which was approaching very quickly! The only thing to do was for me to step in and be his partner, which was unfair to him to say the least because I’m not an actor and was not prepared in the slightest for doing something like that… We got on with it though and he was OK, but it was hard to judge straight off because I wasn’t sat on the outside looking in as I should have been.

Audition slot 2 came, and this time two guys showed up, but not the two who were supposed to. One of them was right, a guy called Ryan, but he’d brought someone else with him and said that the original guy was ill and couldn’t do it, so was it OK if Lucas had a go. Sure! These guys were pretty funny and Lucas was really good considering he’d never even heard about it before that morning – no script, no background, no nothing, but he took the part by the horns and did a great job!

The third and final slot of the day came and we waited for the actors to show, and we waited, and we waited, and I nearly gave up but then I got a call from one of them saying that they had been trying to find the room for about 25 minutes and had been everywhere! I went out to meet them, and on the walk back they told me that the no-show from the morning had the same problem, he just couldn’t find the room. I asked if they could get him on the phone and ask if he wanted to come down now instead, and he did…so I got to audition everyone after all! These last 3 were all pretty good too, one of them fitted the part better than the others but overall I was really impressed. Really nice guys too.

So, now I have to pick my main 2 guys from these 6 and organise the callbacks just to make sure that it’s going to work between them. I think I have a pretty good idea who I’m going to pick…

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El Mariachi

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Last week I invested in the book ‘Rebel Without a Crew’ by Robert Rodriguez and managed to work my way through it over the weekend. It was very inspiring.

For those of you who don’t know, Robert Rodriguez is a director/scriptwriter/producer/editor, in fact he knows how to perform almost all of the tasks required to produce a feature film. His book (which dates back to 1996), follows his rise to fame and is subtitled, “How a 23-year-old filmmaker with $7,000 became a Hollywood player”.

After speaking with a friend about my video project over the Christmas holidays, he recommended that I check Rodriguez out, as in his first film, he performed all of the roles which you would usually employ a crew to perform; just as I will be doing. (Except the script writing, of course). This book, which follows diary entries throughout Rodriguez’s rollercoaster ride into Hollywood tells all the secrets that a young filmmaker might need to know.

The film is El Mariachi, and is about a young musician in Mexico who accidentally finds himself caught up in the middle of a gang war, through no fault of his own. It was shot in a small Mexican town (the hometown of the lead actor) on a budget of $7,000, and was originally intended for the Spanish straight-to-video market. Rodriguez wanted to practice his film making with a full length movie while making some money at the same time. His idea was to produce this first film, make a profit and then invest the cash into a second film, which would cost more and be even better. And then make a final third movie which would hopefully be good enough for him to get noticed by Hollywood.

However, with his raw talent, along with a bit of luck and a lot of dedication, El Mariachi was picked up by Hollywood agents and he was subsequently propelled to fame without the film ever making it into Spanish video stores, and before his second and third films being made. (He later did make these other two Mariachi films, titled Desperado, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico).

The book is an inspiration for anyone wanting to get into film making. It is very simple, to the point, and Rodriguez lets the reader into all of his secrets for creating low-budget films. It is also quite humorous and manages to make the impossibilities of making a successful Hollywood movie quite possible.

I will be taking his advice and using it to my advantage during this project, and will hopefully be confident enough in the final outcome to submit it to competitions and short film festivals.

Fingers crossed!

Movie Poster

Movie Poster

Book Cover

Book Cover

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Posted in Dissertation, Final Year Project, Inspiration, Research | 1 Comment »