It’s been nothing but casting, casting, casting lately. I started the casting process by going for some television actors and making calls to their agents. After that failed I posted a breakdown on breakdownexpress.com. The cool thing about that website is that it only release to managers and agents. So it’s a step up from Backstage or Craigslist where you have tons and tons of actors hitting you up.

Breakdown Express is really clean and you get pretty legitimate actors. Anyway, I did run into one snag with it and that’s the whole SAG thing… Some of these actors won’t work non-union. So I had the choice of getting a SAG Short Film Agreement (and possibly increasing the talent pool of actor’s submissions) or sticking non-union. And, in the end, I’m going to stay non-union. I found six actors I really liked on Breakdown Express.

After that, I decided that six actors wasn’t enough (to fill the 3 roles). Some of them might not end up working out for multiple reasons. So I released the breakdown on Backstage Casting as well. This releases to the actors. I got about 200 submissions to sort through and narrowed that down to about 15 more actors. That took a lot of time.

I reserved a room at the Space Station in Hollywood for Sat. Aug 22 and I’ll have a line-up of around 15-20 actors to choose from…if I can’t find 3 out of that I won’t know what to do! I’ve never held a casting so this should be interesting…

Besides casting, I spoke to the owner of the barbershop in Orange County and he agreed to let us shoot at this establishment. And that went amazingly smooth. He was enthusiastic about it.

A friend of mine that I used to work with, Ryan Strong, offered to do the artwork for me. He’s a great graphic designer and photographer. You can see his stuff at http://www.ryanstrong.net/.

And lastly, my friend Zack Weber (who I’m shooting some music videos for in September) has been actively promoting my film in New York and helping find investors and fans alike. So that’s been a great help!

I’m excited because I’m done with my editing job at MTV in less than a week and I can devote my free time to storyboards and shot lists. That’s the most exciting time for a director in pre-production (at least to me)!

Second Article:
http://digg.com/d3ziJA

Well…well…not a ton going on, quite honestly. The shoot is still almost 2 months away. I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to cast the film through agents (I should have known that wouldn’t work), so I am waving the white flag on trying to get any well known television actors. I’ve learned a few things:

1. Agents don’t care about anything except money. No matter what. Doesn’t matter how good the script is. They want their 10%.
2. If you want a decently, well-known actor you have to have a connection to that person and NOT go through the agent.
3. Those guys hate short films.

So that’s where it stands. Today I submitted a breakdown of the cast to breakdownexpress.com. They release the breakdown to talent agents and managers who then submit their clients to me. I will then narrow it down based on demo reels and looks and hold a casting in late August. My friend told me you could rent a casting room in Hollywood for $10 an hour. So I will probably do that. Then, hopefully, we will have a cast!

On DIGG:

http://digg.com/movies/The_making_of_an_Indie_f...?OTC-fbc1

If you didn’t see in the “buzz” on the right, the first article following the film is up on the inter-web:

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-10191-Indie-...

THANKS BRITTANY!

Nothing much stirring at this point. It’s been nothing but trying to cast the film for the last 5 days. Calling agents every day during lunch (it’s the only free time I have to get it done) and sending the script around. I’m hoping to get somebody or something in place soon, but it’s a lot of work. I think the script speaks for itself so we’ll see here.

If I can’t get anybody that I specifically want within 2 or 3 weeks I will post a breakdown on breakdownexpress.com and cast it from that. But I’m fairly confident we can get the guys I want.

Wednesday consisted of lots of boring, boring work. But it must be done! We have a little problem in the script where I wrote in about ten extras outside the barbershop window. Well that’s not going to be feasible on our budget. It’s not only ten extras, but ten people that need to look like they live in the 1930’s. So scratch that. I sent workaround ideas to my DP. It will either involve creative camera work or a small re-write.

I’m getting ready for the exciting part of the journey, I’m putting together a small wish list of actors for my Casting Director to start making phone calls. We’re not exactly going for Johnny Depp and Christian Bale here, but definitely some recognizable faces. Some television actors and smaller film actors that I think are great. I’m excited to see how this turns out. I believe in actors so much that I have nearly half my budget for actors. I don’t think most indie filmmakers would even try calling these guys, but I figure why not? The worst they can do is say no. But I truly, truly believe the script is good enough for them to fall in love with and all the makings are there to get this thing to Sundance.

Other than that I worked on the budget after receiving some numbers from my DP (he was calling rental houses) but I don’t want to release those numbers at this time. The online goal is $6,500 and I will combine that with my own money. So it won’t be that small, that’s for sure. My last film was about $3,000…so this is already more than doubling that.

That’s all for today. Should have an update after my Casting Director makes some calls on Friday. Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see how it goes. I also reached out to a Production Designer. We’ll see if she hops on board or not. Another friend that I went to school with in Missouri that lives in California. She’s worked on some big movies too.

Tommy

We received more contributions by mail today! Almost $300 worth, but I’m not going to post it on the site because they will steal $27 of it.

Location Scouting photos are up (on Facebook and MySpace – links added to the IndieGoGo page)! Found some decent stuff on Saturday. What’s crazy is that on Sunday Andrew Elkins (sound man extraordinaire) and I went to Orange County to have lunch with the DP (Nathan Carrington) – a really good guy – and we went by a few more barbershops and they were all pretty awesome. So we’ll have to heavily consider going down there. It’s probably less hassle as well.

I added links to our new Facebook and MySpace pages. Become Friends and Fans.

Hey there – I see you’re looking for casting help. Please contact me privately and I’ll electronically introduce you to a great LA based casting director.
Best,
Roberta
www.RobertaMunroe.com

waiting for the Boy II Men song – nice pitch clip