How to get a cast and crew

We had another question on YouTube that asked:

“How can I get a cast and crew that is willing to work for very little or no money?”

Abraham T.

There is a very simple answer for getting crew... friends and family! They might not know anything about filmmaking, but they are willing (and this is the important part) to work for free. I’ve shot a few short films where everyone on the crew had never stepped foot on a set or gone to film school, with the exception of myself and my partner. Before shooting I met with each person that had agreed to help, and taught them how to do the job I needed them for. Really, (for a no-budget film) the only jobs on set that need someone with experience is the Director, DP and the Cam Op (which is typically the same person as the DP). Another great idea is to talk to film schools in your area and see if any of the students would be interested in working for experience/credit.

But if you don’t want to go that route and would rather use experienced people, you’re going to need a great script or past work that shows your talent. If you have one of those two… or both, go and post the open positions you are looking for on these sites:

http://www.craigslist.com/

http://www.mandy.com/

http://www.productionhub.com/

There are a lot of sites like these. But I’ve gotten the best results from the above three. Also if you don’t mind spending the $100 I would suggest getting an IMDBpro account.

http://www.imdbpro.com/

IMDBpro is another great avenue to find other filmmakers and stay up-to-date with all the industry news.

Actors are a totally different story. There are a ton of aspiring actors and actresses out there itching to get work to build their resume. The down side, however, is that 80% of them are not good. So you will have to go through the painful task of sifting through the bad to find the good.

Good places to post for a casting call would be:

http://www.actorsinfobooth.com/

http://www.exploretalent.com/

http://www.craigslist.com/

http://www.mandy.com/

http://www.imdbpro.com/

You can also contact all the acting schools and drama groups in your area... just Google it.

Also remember, no matter who you are trying to get to work on your film, be it family, friends or people you don’t know, you have to get them excited about the project. No one wants to work on a boring film that is going nowhere. But if you can convince them that it will be something great with much potential, then you will be able to get all the help you need.

I hope this helped. We will be talking more about casting in one of the upcoming episodes of “Making the Film.”

Ryan

Script writing website

Check out the below article from creativescreenwriting.com

Zhura is a new screenwriting and community website that utilizes Creative Commons licenses (Go here for an explanation of creative commons) to enable amazing avenues for online collaboration between screenwriters. Although creative commons licensing works is optional (you have the ability to write and share works privately), the “public” area of Zhura allows screenwriters to collaborate on projects they would have never been a part of otherwise. The possibilities are vast and unprecedented, ranging from an independent filmmaker making a noncommercial adaptation of someone else’s treatment to community fueled script collaborations. Meaning you can post your script and have others critique it for you.

From Zhura:
“Zhura provides the most advanced online screenwriting tool in the industry, plus the ability to connect with the global writing community. On Zhura, you can work privately on your own projects, collaborate in private with your friends, or collaborate with the global public community.”

Membership is free and members may choose to work in any or all three of the ways listed above. However, it is in the “Public” area of the site which Zhura has adopted Creative Commons. When members create a “Script”, they are required to answer two questions: 1) Allow commercial use of your work? and 2) Allow modifications of your work? And based on their answers to these questions a Creative Commons License is assigned. From this “Create Script” page, as well as from within any Public Script that has been created, members can jump directly to your Creative Commons site for more information.

http://www.zhura.com/

-Cameron Parkins

This is a great way to get feedback on your writing. Of course, make sure you copyright your stuff before you ever let anyone read it and especially before you post it online!

-Ryan

Two-Face Clip From The Dark Knight!

Two-Face Clip From The Dark Knight! from TELL on Vimeo.

I Can't wait for this movie!!!

-Ryan

Film School or Film Festivals

We had a question from Michael on YouTube, he asked:

“Now that I feel I am very comfortable doing some advanced visual effects I'm going to put my focus on making some short films to be entered into film festivals. Can I get noticed doing short films and possibly end up skipping the film school thing all together? Or would I have to have a successful feature to get noticed.”

Firstly, if you are going to be focusing on film festivals, make sure the emphasis for your film is on the story. Special effects are tools to tell a story and should never overshadow or take the place of a good plot and interesting characters.

With that said, it is possible to get noticed by entering your short film into festivals. I’ve heard of many directors and writers getting their start using this method. Jonathan Liebesman (the director of Darkness Falls and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) was first noticed by Ron Howard after he won the Austin Film festival for his film “Genesis and Catastrophe.” Click here to check out his film. After that he was able to get an agent and finally land his first gig helming “Darkness Falls.” However, he did attended film school at NYU, which is where he shot his award-winning short film.

Although nothing is impossible, I do think that without some kind of training, be it an apprenticeship or film school, you’ll have a much harder time constructing a film that would gain festival praise and launch your career. But I don’t want to be discouraging; I truly believe that if you are passionate enough about something you can accomplish it. So if you don’t have the money for film school, go out and get every book you can on the subject, become a sponge and soak up every bit of info you can get your hands on. A great magazine to subscribe to for tips and tricks is Student Filmmaker Magazine:

http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/

Also, click on these links for some great books:

Writing

Cinematography

Directing

Editing

Start with writing, because if you don’t have a story you don’t have anything. Also, remember the internet is your best friend, with sites like AtomFilms.com, TriggerStreet.com, YouTube.com, Vimeo.com, etc… These sites can be a great help in getting your name out there.

Thanks again to Michael for the question. His YouTube name is AAEuser, so go check out his stuff.

-Ryan

Interview with David Koepp

Great news! For our first episode of “Making the Film,” we will be interviewing David Koepp (the writer of Spider Man, Panic Room, Mission Impossible and most recently Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.)

We thought it’d be great to ask him the questions you guys would like to see answered, so if you have something you’d like us to ask Mr. Koepp, post it in the comments of this blog and we will add them to our list of questions.

P.S. Only screenwriting questions please.

-Ryan

The new RED camera:

I don't know if you've heard, but RED announced their new cameras at NAB a while ago. Check out RED.com

The camera is called "Scarlet," and is a downgraded version of RED ONE. It's a 3K camera, which means the horizontal pixel count will be at 3,000 or above. To put that in perspective, the newest Canon and Sony HD cams (XL-H1 and EX1), at their highest settings shoot at 1920.

The great thing about this camera is unlike the RED ONE (which goes for $17,000 for the camera body alone), the Scarlet, once released, will be going for under $3,000! Of course after that you'd have to buy all the accessories, but it's worth it for such an amazing camera.

http://www.red.com/nab/scarlet

Check out the video below for more info on the scarlet and other products they annouced at NAB.

-Ryan

Explosions and Car Wrecks

Hey Guys,

We had a question asked under our first blog that says:

“Ok. What are your suggestions for say a car wreck or explosion? Is there any way at all to accomplish that cheaply? Also, what would be some easy ways to get locations?”

This is such a great question that I thought I’d answer it in a new blog post. So thank you to Grebanahs for the question. . . And on to the post. . .

In my opinion, short of a possible arrest and hospital visit (both of which would make great behind the scenes footage), The only way for us low/no-budget filmmakers to pull off an explosion or car wreck is pure creativity. Instead of showing the event, use sound, clever editing, lighting and your actor’s reactions to fool the audience into believing what you want them to. If you do it well enough your audience won’t even recognize the trick, they'll be too wrapped up in your story to stop and think about it.

For example: If you want to blow up a house... Show the bomb ticking down, then your actor running out of the house, then your actor running away with the house now out of the frame. Then use a bright light flashing to simulate the burst of fire that we now believe is exploding the house just out of our sight. Add a great sound effect and some flying debris to really sell the effect. A car crash would be the same principle. Show everything up until the point of impact, then sell the rest using sound effects and reactions.

But if you really want to show it and have a little money to spend, try looking through a footage library like this one:

http://www.buyoutfootage.com/pages/col.html

There are some great free tutorials that will take you step by step showing you how to achieve different effects. This is by far my least favorite choice, because unless you are amazing at After Effects (and lets face it, most of us aren’t), the effect will look fake, which will then discredit your film and pull the audience out of the moment.

As far as locations go, most of the time if you just ask enough places/people, you will be able to find a location that you can use for free. Your best bet is to go for locally owned stores, restaurants or whatever it is you're looking for. Tell them you'll give them a producer’s credit or something. :) Big chains are really hard to get, there is a lot of red tape and insurance protocol they would have to go through to let you film there. So unless you can offer something in return, odds are they are going to say no.

But, at a low/no-budget level the locations should really be known before you even write the script. In other words, write a story around the resources that are already available to you. So if your mom owns a flower shop, write a story or scene with that location in mind.


Hope this helped,
-Ryan

P.S. I keep getting emails asking when the first episode will be up. We are almost finished with it and will be posting as soon as we possibly can.