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How Indie Filmmakers Get Great Performances (Without a Budget) · Indie Film Podcast

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Welcome to Indie Film Podcast. This week we'll be discussing
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who's at fault for a bad performance, the actor or the
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director. I blame the writer.
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Well, I blame the budget. We'll share our experience with
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us casting our own friends for our films.
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The age-old debate of under acting versus over acting.
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Are highlights and devastating lows of working with actors of
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all ranges. And of course, can you just fix
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it in post? On that note, I'm Vic.
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And I am Chuck. Let's start with something
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inspiring. We can share some of our
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favorite actors who started with 0 experience acting.
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Fantastic. I'll go first.
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Beautiful. I actually had to do a lot of
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digging around to find someone with 0 acting experience.
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OK. And.
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And the only person I could find that.
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And please comment if you have somebody that has zero
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experience, but I could only find Channing Tatum.
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Really. Actually, I believe that.
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Yeah, so before he was an actor, he was a stripper.
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Wait, actually. Yeah, in real life he was a
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stripper. So Magic Mike is based on his
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experience stripping and he really.
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Yes. Magic Mike is a true story.
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Well, I don't. I've never seen Magic Mike.
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I haven't either. But it's based on Channing
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Tatum's experience being a stripper.
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And then he got picked up by a modeling agency, he got some
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gigs doing some music videos, and then he worked his way into
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acting. Because when you, when you start
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to do a deep dive on people that have quote UN quote 0 acting
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experience, what you find is that they don't have any
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professional acting training type thing or they didn't go to
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acting school. But a lot of them, like one
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really good example, which from The Office, the character David
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Wallace, who was played by Andy Buckley, he was actually an
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investment banker during the filming of The Office.
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And so I was like, oh, that's really cool.
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And that was something that my, my brother the cinephile
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reminded me of. And so when I did some digging
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into his history, though, he practiced with Melissa McCarthy
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and Dax Shepard at the Ground Leads Theatre, which is a sketch
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comedy improv group when he was, I think in college or something
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like that. So he still had a background of
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having been on stage. And so do a lot of people.
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The other person I found was Johnny Depp.
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Oh. That was one of my examples.
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Oh really? OK.
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Because he was a musician, yeah, but he got like, pushed into
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acting by Nick Cage. I don't, I don't remember if it
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was Nick Cage, but somebody's like daughter like either had a
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thing for him or like knew of him somehow or was like, Oh no,
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this, this musician's actually pretty good.
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Like you should put him in Nightmare on Elm Street and then
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there you go. The story I read was it was Nick
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Cage who actually changed his last name to Cage from Coppola
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because he's part of the Francis Ford Coppola family.
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So it's, it seems like it's kind of a little close.
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And then, yeah, that was, it was really hard to find examples of
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that because if you Google it, even like Natalie Portman comes
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up. But then she started on screen
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as like a child. And I feel like a.
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Child actor doesn't really count because of course they don't
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have any formal training or they don't have a lot of experience
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acting because they're a freaking kid.
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Yeah, it ate. The most experience you could
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possibly have would be 8 years and I feel like those first few
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probably weren't that. Helpful baby.
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Gerber baby, I will say there was another one that I saw that
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I do not know the validity of. OK, so I take it with a grain of
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salt because. I don't have any salt, so we're
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just going to take it at 100% face value.
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Beautiful. Love it.
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Let's spread Internet rumors. Sweet.
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It was Rosario Dawson. Oh, OK.
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Was supposedly discovered while sitting on her front porch.
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Oh nice. I do not know if that's 100%
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true or not because I do know that she puts a lot of work in
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so I would be really surprised to hear that.
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But but it did make me think of something that I you don't
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really hear about people getting discovered anymore.
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I feel like that's not really a thing as much as it used to
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because people have the ability to create their own platforms
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and put so much of their own content out that being
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discovered isn't really a thing. But it does remind me of this
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really funny story and on the subject of like casting friends
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and things feels kind of right. In junior high, I was at the
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theater, this the local movie theater with my friend Lena, who
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is an amazing person, really talented singer and pianist.
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Really shy, does not really love acting so much.
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As she's gotten older, it's gone away quite a bit, but at that
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age she was pretty shy and didn't really love performing.
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Meanwhile, I love acting. I've been acting since I could
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walk and talk and Lena is also. She's Asian, Chinese, and very
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tall. Absolutely gorgeous, beautiful
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long flowing dark hair. Like she's stunning.
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I am an awkward short redhead. We are at the movie theater
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together. This woman walks up, which
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should be concerning and just starts talking to Lena about
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have you ever have you been discovered before?
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I run this modeling agency and we really need to talk and she
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just starts coming in real hot with all these different things.
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How? Old were you to?
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12/13. Oh my gosh.
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Really uncomfortable. Like all things considered, very
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very uncomfortable situation in exchange.
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But also for an already awkward redheaded teen who's been
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bullied for their looks and everything to be a solid foot
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shorter than this woman who's like being accosted by a fully
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grown woman who's trying to turn her into a model while I'm like,
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I don't even think she wants to model anyway.
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It was it was a hard moment. It was a hard moment and I'm
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pretty sure the modeling agency ended up being a total scam
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anyway. I don't know if I don't think
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Lena ever did it. I don't think that that's the
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way being discovered works. I don't think it was really
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uncomfortable, especially in Boise, ID.
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Did she also have bicycles in her van?
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And Sandy because it's. I don't know.
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We did not make it outside with her.
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That's good. Yeah, we did not.
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Probably would have been the next thing, yeah.
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Lena, I think you. Ended up taking Skittles because
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I got all you can eat I. Got them all.
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I got them all. I don't know if I buy that whole
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being discovered. I don't know.
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Story that we used to hear when we were growing up, like pretty
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Internet, because I feel like that was all manufactured and
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was part of like the background of people appealing to everyone.
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Like the every man or every person story.
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Because if you really look into it, all these people that are
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talented, even Channing Tatum, right?
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I mean, yeah, stripper. But The thing is, is he knows
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how to perform on stage in front of a large group.
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Of people he understands theatrical performance and if
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you don't think that strippers are performing.
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You're going to the wrong clubs, yeah.
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I'm so sorry, I don't want to be the one to tell you that, but.
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You should go. You should go somewhere else
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because you're not getting your money's worth, but.
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Yeah, so I was just going to say you're really gullible.
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Oh yeah. That's true too.
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I've got some lakeside property and you know I need a landlocked
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state. Arizona.
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No, there's still a lake in Arizona.
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Are there any states without a lake?
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It doesn't matter anyway, the point being.
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Yes, you got it. You're gullible.
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You. Yes, yes.
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So should we talk about casting friends?
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Because we've both done it, yes. And that's something that indie
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films do. And sometimes it works.
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Sometimes it works. I'll just, and it's the sentence
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there. Sometimes it works.
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I I want to say all of this with a strong caveat though.
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Like, I have been involved in film and theater since I was a
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kid, so a lot of my friends are actors and they do enjoy
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performing in one way or another, whether they like film
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or theatre or improv or music or whatever it is.
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Usually the people that I'm I'm closest with do enjoy being
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performers. Not all of them.
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Some of my very, very closest friends definitely do not.
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I can think of one person in particular, so I'm just going to
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say a huge thank you again to Danielle.
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I think she deserves that. For all the years that I made
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this incredibly nerdy, wonderful, sweet, super shy,
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super introverted, hates people kind of person perform on camera
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constantly. I just because you know what,
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every time I needed her, she showed up.
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She was on time. She stayed as late as we needed.
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She didn't care what we were doing if we were filming a music
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video and she needed to dance, and she does not enjoy dancing,
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but she would sit there and go over the choreography with me
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over and over and over again until she had it figured out.
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That's nice, so. Your dedication is real with
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friends. You had friends that were very
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supportive of your dream to become a famous director.
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My friends are way too good for me, I love them all desperately
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and I feel bad for putting them in these scenarios but like,
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come on, you got to be in a music video.
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So fun. So to answer their question
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then, is casting your friends in your film a smart shortcut or a
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disaster waiting to happen? How would you qualify that
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statement or quantify it? I honestly think that it is a
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smart shortcut. I think that your odds are good
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that you do have friends that are talented actors.
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Acting is just like any other skill.
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Yes, it helps if you want to learn it because that makes you
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more likely to to put the time and effort and energy in, but I
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think anybody can do it. I don't agree with you.
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I think that it's so much better to put some feelers out there
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and try to find somebody that who that has experience with
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acting, that's willing to work with you, maybe because they
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enjoy your script, because you're going to learn more from
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the person that has experience than you think you will.
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OK, Then I'm going to also kind of reframe this here.
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The way I interpreted this question was, if you cannot find
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actors to work with, should you just not make your film?
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If all you have are your friends?
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And I was going to say no, absolutely not, because you're
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going to have so much fun working with your friends.
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Do the film, but don't. Don't.
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Don't sit in your comfort zone because you're already going to
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push yourself out of your comfort zone.
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If you haven't made a short film before, you're going to want to
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push yourself outside of that comfort zone.
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You're going to have to when you're making the film.
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So do it early and audition some people and maybe get some input
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from people that are actors that will understand maybe your
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writing's really bad. Oh yeah, and.
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You hear it from somebody that knows how to act right?
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And I'm not even saying somebody with a ton of experience, like
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it doesn't have to be somebody that's been in front of the
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camera for years. But I mean, at least go to, you
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know, your community theater, which we bring up a lot.
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See if you enjoy somebody's performance, inexpensive
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tickets. Those people are donating their
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time anyway. Those are it's a great place to
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source potential actors for your film.
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Yeah, people talk about actors, talk about film versus theatre,
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actor being different, but. They can be.
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They can be. It's definitely more similar
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than somebody that is, you know, like a mechanic.
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Yeah, that's definitely. Unless you want them to play a
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mechanic, then maybe there might be some.
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You do want the mechanic. Yeah.
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Because then when they start talking about the car engine
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parts and your script makes no sense whatsoever, and you're
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talking about like flushing coolant out of your transmission
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or something like that, then the mechanic can at least call you
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out on that. Yeah.
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But you should just run that. You should run that by the right
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people at the scripting phase anyway.
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But that's also very fair. No, I I will say, you know
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having been on camera as an inexperienced actor and the
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Lower Gentry Studios first feature film, I would advise
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against using inexperienced actors if you can get a around
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it. So why were you on camera?
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Could you not find another actor or did you want to do it?
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That's a great question. I thought I was going to be
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fantastic. And it was just kind of one of
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those things, like it was the Jihari window, you know, or the
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Dunning Kruger effect. I didn't know what I didn't
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know. So the the proofs in the pudding
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when you watch the film, no. I honestly don't think it's it's
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not. It is far from the worst acting
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I've ever seen. Well, I mean, I did play in
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bands on stage in front of people, and I did have like a
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couple of small roles in high school theater.
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So it wasn't like I was coming with 0 experience, but at the at
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the same time, like I hadn't done a lot.
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So but it was it was, it was definitely rough.
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But what we can get into that because we can, we're going to
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share some of our experiences working with non professional
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actors. But I will say there's a really
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good quote from Walton Goggins, and his suggestion for actors is
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to read the script 250 times. And his quote is it's a child's
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game. Turn yourself over to an
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imaginary set of circumstances. Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Tandy,
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Robert Duvall, they all read the script 250 times.
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And I feel like what I learned, being an inexperienced actor, is
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that the lines need to become unconscious in order for you to
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have a remotely present delivery of those lines.
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And so if you have enough rehearsal time, then it might be
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OK to bring someone on with no experience, But you need to make
14:01
sure that they have those lines forwards, backwards.
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They can start and stop at any point in the script, almost like
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somebody that has, you know, has a performance for classical
14:13
piano. Like you want to be able to pick
14:16
the piece up in the middle in case you screw up in the middle
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of it and execute, execute out all of it, like muscle memory.
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And I think that's super, super important if you're going to
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work with inexperienced people. Well, that's one entire like
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school of theater. It's the wolf boy.
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I really hope I'm not wrong here.
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The Meisner method, OK, is that it's the words aren't what
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you're saying. It doesn't matter really what's
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coming out of your mouth, because the words are only that
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itty bitty percentage of what you're actually saying.
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True so. How many times do you misread a
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text message? Everybody out there.
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Constantly. Yeah, but or an e-mail?
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You're like, why is this person being so passive aggressive?
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And it's like, Oh no, that wasn't you talk to him.
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You're like, Oh no, it's fine. It wasn't passive aggressive,
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they genuinely meant it. Yeah, I guess I just read
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everything as passive aggressive.
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I don't I don't know why that registered that way for me, but
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yeah, the the words aren't as important as the delivery.
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And it's not even just the delivery, it's being present in
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that moment, right? Because what is it like 90% of
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acting is reacting or something along those lines is another
15:19
famous catch phrase, if you will.
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And the idea is, yeah, you're, you're there.
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You're genuinely interacting with this person.
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Like for us, we don't really have a script for the podcast.
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We have an outline. So we both know kind of what we
15:32
want to say and we have notes, but we aren't we're having a
15:36
genuine conversation versus if we were in a play, there would
15:43
be a script. But for it to read as a natural
15:46
performance, it can't be about the words and remembering what
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you're about to say because you don't do that in real life.
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You don't think about what you're about to say next.
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No, you want to be totally present in your performance.
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Exactly. You were supposed to say what I
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wasn't listening to. So what's better or worse?
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Actually, what's worse, a flat performance or an over the top
16:09
bad performance? This one I'm pretty passionate
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about actually. I am a firm believer that a flat
16:14
performance is so much worse than over the top because over
16:17
the top you can always pull back.
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I don't know if you can actually push someone who has a really
16:23
flat performance to go bigger. Oh, so you're saying that it is?
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So the flat performance is by far not good.
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OK, yeah, I agree with you. That's.
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That's that's what I tell every time I'm directing well this.
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Is a. This is a flat interaction that
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we're having if we're just agreeing with each.
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Other they're gonna agree. Yeah, it's over the top.
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It was the quote I heard. It was actually on Freakonomics
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podcast of all things. Somebody was talking about as
16:48
acting coach from high school. But it's better to be bad than
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be boring. I thought that was kind of that
16:55
I. Thought that was kind of cool.
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So yes, I feel like that's true. I feel like Nick Cage is a
17:00
shining example of over the top. Yeah.
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So great. You can watch.
17:05
You love it every time. There was a real even.
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When he doesn't have lines. Yeah, he's he's always at 110%,
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just just delivering with so much energy.
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But you can see behind the scenes of the of the film face
17:18
off and it's absolutely incredible, him and John
17:21
Travolta. And when you get removed from,
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you know, the music and the audio of them, like having the
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scene where Nick Cage is like strangling John Travolta, it's
17:30
so incredible to watch how over the top their delivery feels.
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You know, when they're in that environment and then on camera,
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obviously it's still over the top, but it's kind of fun, so.
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Well, that's one theatre has the luxury of being a little bit
17:46
more over the top. So I feel like theatre actors
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get a little bit more of a pass because you've got to play that
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to the back of an auditorium of a couple 100. 1000 people.
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True, true. And I, I also feel like most
17:59
people this is this, this seems very assumey of me and that's
18:04
probably not great, but most people probably assume they're a
18:07
little more over the top than they actually are.
18:10
Oh yeah, there. 'Cause I know that yeah, that's
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my go to is I will always tell actors you go as big as you
18:19
possibly can. I will tell you when I want you
18:22
to stop or if I want you to pull back.
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Otherwise, go as hard and as big as you can, yeah.
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You're right, it is harder to get more out of somebody that
18:30
doesn't, that's nervous or shy or reluctant to give that really
18:37
over the top, potentially embarrassing performance.
18:40
Yeah. Getting past the self-conscious
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stuff is is really difficult for people.
18:45
Which we can talk about actually best and worst moments working
18:48
with non professional actors. Yeah.
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Do you have examples? I would definitely say that
18:53
music video that I referenced earlier.
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Now, to be fair, we had a great time filming it because it was
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basically just spending a whole day hanging out with my friends.
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But again, college, right? I should not have been
19:08
choreographing anything. Yes, I have a lot of dance
19:11
experience. Yes, I really love dancing.
19:12
Yes, I can teach Zumba classes, but should I choreograph things?
19:19
No, I don't actually have any experience in knowing any of
19:24
those things. I do not understand dance theory
19:28
if you will, or detailed stylings of things.
19:31
And I should not choreograph things.
19:35
But they put up with it and they all learned it for the most
19:40
part. But as not dancers in a big
19:45
group where everyone is supposed to be moving perfectly In Sync,
19:50
as you can imagine, it was not flawless.
19:53
Well, was the music video boring?
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The music video was so not boring and we didn't have the
19:58
lunch be bad. And to be boring.
20:00
So at least you got that taken care.
20:02
Of and it was a music video, so we got to cut around a lot of
20:05
things and and put some creative stylized shots in there.
20:08
So honestly, all things considered, it actually turned
20:10
out I was I was OK with it. I was totally fine with it, but
20:13
it was so much fun. Yeah, to make.
20:16
Well, good, as long as you're having fun.
20:17
And you know, that's another trick you can use, like if
20:19
you're an indie film, just like, make it meta and if it ends up
20:23
being really bad, lean into it. Oh yeah, especially since the
20:26
song was fame from the musical. Oh nice.
20:30
Which probably does not resonate with you, but I'm hoping
20:33
somebody out there knows the the song and it's.
20:36
I would imagine. Yeah, it's awful.
20:39
It's not a great song. I love it, but it's not it.
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Not my jam. That's OK.
20:43
OK, what about you? How about your best and worst
20:46
moments? So one of these was really
20:49
great, by far the best, and that was working with it, was my
20:55
former neighbors. Their names are Wes and Josiah
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and we were filming a scene for this 48 hour feature film.
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And the 48 hour feature film was, was a script that was sent
21:08
out to multiple teams, like 12 different teams that were all
21:12
supposed to film a segment like a like a 5 to 10 minute segment.
21:15
Everyone got so many pages. Yeah, yeah.
21:18
So everybody got like 5 to 10 pages and we were supposed we
21:21
were supposed to film it over the weekend and then they took
21:23
all of those segments and compiled it into one feature.
21:27
And the segment that we got included a really long drawn out
21:32
speech of one of the characters that, to be honest, was
21:37
painfully boring. Oh no.
21:39
And so we were trying to figure out what to do with it.
21:43
And our friend Ellen Smith was in charge of this, this really
21:47
long drawn out speech. But we only had 48 hours to do
21:50
it. And so we didn't get the script
21:51
till the night before. And it was like, I can't
21:53
memorize. She was like I can't memorize 5
21:54
pages because it was literally. It was a 5 page monologue.
21:57
Yeah, it was. It was that long.
21:59
And so we're like, OK, what are we going to do here?
22:02
And what we did was we sat our friends Wes and Josiah on the
22:06
couch in their own framing. And then we had the we had Ellen
22:14
do her speech mostly off camera. And then we let our camera roll
22:21
on those two and we kept doing the take until they literally
22:26
were bored out of their minds and they forgot that they were
22:29
on camera and so. Got a very genuine performance.
22:33
Yeah, we got a super genuine performance from them because
22:36
you can see them trying to look and pay attention to what she's
22:41
saying and then kind of looking down at their hands and trying
22:45
to figure out ways to entertain themselves as the.
22:48
Time is going like threads on their pants, yeah.
22:50
Exactly. And you, I mean you could see it
22:53
if you jump to the end it's on it's on Vimeo.
22:56
If you Google I48 feature lifter is what it's called.
23:01
You can. Find that still out there.
23:03
Yeah, you can find it on Vimeo on Google.
23:05
Oh, I'm going to have to look that up because I think I'm in
23:07
that. Oh yeah, there's there's a lot
23:09
of Idaho slash Boise people that were in that.
23:12
So OK, yeah, we're ours was was at the very end on that one and
23:16
yeah, it was so great. That's but the best thing about
23:19
it is when they did the screening, the there were two
23:23
other speeches in that film that were very similar.
23:26
And I started to laugh really hard when the 1st 2 came up
23:30
because all those other teams did the exact same thing that we
23:33
did. You cut away to somebody else.
23:35
Somebody that was really bored during the speeches and it was
23:38
like, oh boy, that was great. So.
23:40
Oh, that's really. That's really funny.
23:42
That's really funny that you weren't the only ones that had
23:46
that as your solution. It was it was it was very what
23:50
do you call that's not synergistic?
23:52
But it was very coincidental that everybody had that same
23:55
exact response to it. And then worst experiences.
23:59
Definitely the schmacking. It's a quote that my brother
24:04
Elliott uses. Writer, director, schmacking,
24:07
which is like. To reference acting.
24:10
But like, just kind of like turning it up too much.
24:14
Oh, is that like when you tell someone, namely me?
24:17
Wow, you're acting so hard right now.
24:19
Acting so hard I'm. Schmacking.
24:21
OK, so Elliott would just say schmacking.
24:22
Schmacking. Yeah.
24:24
And that was actually me on our our feature film Brown truck.
24:28
We had a crying scene and I thought I nailed this crying
24:32
scene. And when you go back and watch
24:34
the footage it I was crying real hard and it's pretty, it's
24:40
pretty bad. My brother made a a GIF out of
24:43
it and so he still sends it to text message groups every once
24:47
in a while that I'm in, you know, to like Poke.
24:48
Fun. Like just to really lean in.
24:51
Chuck. Chuck is upset about it.
24:52
And then he'll send a picture of me, like crying really, really
24:55
hard. Weren't you trying to compare it
24:57
to Tobey Maguire and Spider Man's crying as well?
25:00
Yes, it is actually very similar to Tobey Maguire's.
25:04
So Tobey Maguire and I are probably on a similar level.
25:07
I don't think that's fair to Toby.
25:09
I don't think that's fair to him.
25:11
You're wonderful in your own way and you excel in all the places
25:16
that really matter. And if you really wanted to act,
25:18
I think you could just do it more and you'd be pleasantly
25:20
surprised with yourself. But don't say that about Toby.
25:23
That's. Not fair.
25:23
Well, I'm just going to say I don't know if he's that much
25:26
better than me. All right, so how can you adjust
25:31
the script and edit to save an actor's performance?
25:34
I actually really believe that an editor is going to make or
25:39
break an actor's performance. And and that's whether you're a
25:44
really skilled, talented actor with several films and series
25:49
and all sorts of fun things under your belt, or if you've
25:51
never been in front of a camera before.
25:53
If your editor doesn't know the right mood and moment and timing
25:58
to cut, to really hit those beats and make things stick, or
26:03
even just a cutaway to other people to kind of switch it up,
26:05
keep it from getting dull and boring.
26:07
Aforementioned monologues. For example, if you have a
26:10
really long monologue, but you just leave it on the person, no
26:14
matter how good that performance is, there is still a really
26:18
strong tendency that unless you're leaving it on them for
26:22
that dramatic play, it's going to play as wow.
26:28
You couldn't think of anything else to do with the camera.
26:30
And then people are so taken out of the actors performance
26:32
because I want to see what how is this landing with everyone
26:35
around them? What do the other people feel,
26:36
what's happening? You know, things like that.
26:39
So there's, there's a lot to be said for what an editor can
26:42
actually do. And again, stylistic choices.
26:45
There are times where, yes, the camera should stay on the
26:47
monologue the whole time. I'm not.
26:49
I'm not going to argue that. Yeah.
26:51
But oftentimes it does behoove you to show the surroundings and
26:54
the impact of those words on other people in the scene.
26:57
Yeah. Just to to fully illustrate it
26:59
better to your audience. And if you do have somebody
27:02
that's an inexperienced actor and you are leaving the camera
27:05
on them for that entire monologue, you might want to
27:08
rethink that. Yeah, because you're talking
27:10
about somebody that might be knocking this monologue out of
27:12
the. Park.
27:13
I am assuming they're going to knock it out of the park, but.
27:15
If there if there's not necessarily knocking this
27:18
monologue out of the park one out of the park 1, you might
27:22
want to re edit rewrite it first of all.
27:26
Yeah. Like at the at the scripting
27:28
phase and then during the edit you might want to make some cuts
27:31
where you can and you might want to cut away as well.
27:34
There's ways to fix it in the edit, but I agree completely
27:36
that that editing is gold. And if you're a director and
27:42
you're handing something off to an editor and you're just making
27:45
a list of of takes, especially when you're starting out.
27:48
And if you haven't worked with the editor before, you want to
27:51
be there and you want to communicate directly and see
27:54
what's going on, at least until you get a feel for it or you get
27:58
a feel for the editor. I don't know what that's like
28:00
because I've only ever gone start to finish, especially with
28:05
the stuff with Lower Gentry Studios and my brother.
28:06
It's like he's there and he does all the editing, you know, and
28:10
I'll come in and look at stuff, but every single take gets
28:13
looked at and, and cutaways are chosen for specific reasons and
28:19
usually has to do with performance, sometimes
28:20
continuity. But yeah, you, you, you want to
28:23
be real careful during the edit and you want to take that into
28:26
account when you're working with inexperienced actors because
28:29
that's where you can get clever to help to cover some of that
28:32
stuff up. Yep.
28:33
So no, I completely agree on that one.
28:39
I will say as far as changing the script goes.
28:44
Yeah. This was this was my worst
28:49
moment. This one was hard for me.
28:52
I was the cinematographer for the Bodega short and I made a
28:57
few years ago and I was not supposed to be in the cast.
29:03
OK. And our actress dropped out last
29:08
minute all. Right, this is indie film stuff.
29:10
This is indie film stuff. It happens.
29:12
They got it was still heavy COVID times.
29:15
They had been in, you know, out of town at a gymnastics
29:19
conference or something. And for their kid, not for them,
29:21
though. Kudos to anyone who's an adult
29:23
and still doing gymnastics. That's impressive.
29:25
But it's so she then they had a COVID outbreak there.
29:30
So everyone was being forced to, to quarantine there and stay.
29:33
And she just was not going to be back.
29:36
And so that was, you know, the night before the shoot.
29:41
So I got to try to memorize a really long monologue the night
29:46
before. And I, and I actually really
29:50
enjoyed the monologue. It was really well written and I
29:53
could, I did not have enough time because I was focused on
29:56
shooting all day. So I didn't even have time to
29:59
memorize it that day either. So I was just doing my best to
30:03
try to get through this monologue and I know I ended up
30:07
having to rewrite a fair amount of it in my head and basically
30:09
just channeled angry feminist rant was was the point.
30:14
I knew there were a few key lines and moments that I had to
30:17
hit because other people had to respond back to them, so I
30:19
wanted to hit those as best I could.
30:21
But yeah, a good majority of that monologue was very
30:24
improved. Well, I don't think that improv
30:26
is necessarily a bad thing. I felt bad because the script
30:28
was really well written. Well, I mean, that's another
30:31
thing too is sometimes scripts are well written, but I will say
30:34
in like micro budget indie film, a lot of the times they aren't.
30:38
And so to hold on to some of those words on the page like
30:42
they're gold, if they don't have a reason to be there, don't
30:45
question it. And maybe trust somebody that
30:48
has experience, that's an actor and maybe has some improv
30:51
background. Like trust them to do something
30:53
that's more interesting than what you might have written down
30:55
and be open to it. No, that's a really good point
30:57
because I do end up getting stuck really hard on when there
31:01
are lines. That's exactly what I'm supposed
31:03
to be saying. Yeah, verbatim.
31:05
They have given me the words to say that is exactly what I need
31:07
to say. Which is, which is usually what
31:10
you want to start with, I would imagine as an actor that's
31:12
that's really important. And I shouldn't just like, you
31:14
know, shit on indie films because I will say that most
31:16
Hollywood films have a really, really crappy writing for the
31:19
most part, so. Feel like wait, no, everything's
31:22
poorly written? Never mind.
31:24
Yeah, it's like there's a lot of really bad writing out there
31:27
regardless of the budget that's that's available.
31:30
It's like, come on, figure out plot, figure out how people
31:33
really talk. It's it's it's hard, but do the
31:37
work. But yeah, I don't, I don't think
31:38
that line by exact delivery is important.
31:41
But The thing is that if you do have a good script and you are
31:44
really proud of the dialogue you wrote before, before you take
31:49
the actors input, it is important that they do know what
31:52
you wrote and understand it. Yeah.
31:53
So coming from that place is better than just being like, oh,
31:57
I don't know, this doesn't feel right.
31:58
Let me come up with some lines. That's I guess that's a.
32:00
Little different and it was definitely a necessity type of
32:03
thing. It was just.
32:04
And you know, when you're micro budget indie filmmaking, like
32:07
you just got to do what you can do when it's time to hit record
32:10
sometimes and that's that's all you got.
32:13
So. That's the best you can do do.
32:15
You have anything else you'd add?
32:16
Like to add to our subject of working with non professional
32:20
actors. I will say I just on the subject
32:24
of like, of course it's killing your darlings.
32:27
It's always killing your darlings.
32:29
But in the edit, as far as making or breaking a good
32:31
performance, I actually think that this was covered really
32:35
well. And I'm pretty sure it's called
32:37
the studio on Apple TV. And there's an episode where Ron
32:42
Howard has a new movie that he's created.
32:45
And obviously it's fake. But in this movie, it's like the
32:49
first two hours of the movie they take you through and it's
32:52
just, it's evocative and it's beautiful.
32:54
And then they're laughing super hard and then, Oh no, there's
32:57
danger and they're all on the edge of their seats and it's
32:58
really well done. And then they think the movie's
33:01
over. And then, Oh no, it starts back
33:03
up again. And then it's another like 45
33:05
minutes to an hour. A very esoteric art house style
33:12
shots that are just a completely different vibe from the rest of
33:15
the film. But it's emotionally important
33:18
to Ron Howard as Ron Howard. And it's he's it's, it's about
33:22
him losing his cousin and it's very, very important to him and
33:26
it's emotionally. And so then nobody's willing to
33:30
tell him that you have to cut the last 45 minutes of this
33:33
movie. And that's what the entire
33:34
episode plot hinges on. And I think it's a really good
33:38
moment, right? Because even the actor that's in
33:41
that film, which is therefore in the episode talking about it,
33:45
he's like, what are you crazy? Like this movie is terrible.
33:49
It's so good up until the end. And then I just look like an
33:52
asshole and like he's never going to work again if the movie
33:56
stays as is. And somebody has to give Ron
33:58
Howard this note, but nobody wants to.
34:01
So I think that's a good, that's a good way to summarize killing
34:03
your darlings. It affects more people than you
34:05
know. Yeah, just just cut it and don't
34:07
be afraid to cut actors performances if they slog on
34:11
like it's an indie film. It's a micro budget indie film.
34:13
If you're working on it, it needs to be succinct.
34:15
I think most films can just be more succinct.
34:17
So don't take, don't be upset if you have to cut some lines from
34:21
your actor because and cut their screen time because you want to
34:26
be thinking about the project as a whole and not the importance
34:29
of individuals being on screen. Not to mention the fact that if
34:33
an indie actor looks better in the shorter version, they will
34:41
be much happier that you cut their performance too.
34:44
They don't want to look bad. Fair.
34:46
It only does favors for everyone.
34:49
Well, they don't want to look boring, but right.
34:53
They can look bad, but not right.
34:55
All right. Anything else to add?
34:56
No, I think that's fine. Succinctly say goodbye.
34:59
Absolutely. Bye bye.