Recurring Themes

"The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out that you're wrong -  that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out - those are the exceptions."- Conor Oberst, musician

This blog can sometimes be like a bad movie pitch for me, where Bill Murray movies meet other Bill Murray movies. Right about now, it's Groundhog's Day meets What About Bob meets Lost in Translation, only without Scarlett Johansson.

After over twenty years of practicing zazen meditation, it is not surprising that my therapist recently said to me that I had 'introspection down pat,' nor should it be surprising to regular readers of this blog that I have a therapist, something that should be a requirement of anyone who is or, for that matter,  aspires to be, a line producer.

I had found myself on the doorstep of Shooting Gallery after experiencing a dark night of the soul after working with members of my close movie family on Town Diary, a feeling similar to the one I felt more recently after finishing Keep My Brother, where I questioned if this was the right direction for my life.

In preparing this post, recurring themes in my life presented themselves. How similar the challenges and questions of one film is to the next. The feeling of being pulled back in to a world that often did not serve me well. Wondering if this was the right path. Returning to my movie family like the grown kid who keeps going back for that nightmare, Home For the Holidays, Thanksgiving get-together.

The Oberst quote above has more truth for those of us who work in any of the arts than it seems at first glance.  We are constantly chasing after the truth, and scared that we might actually catch up to it. What would we do then? How empty our lives would be if we ever found all the answers.

Likely,  I could have been happy at Shooting Gallery for years, had it not hit that damn iceberg.  For sure, there was a period of time after Shooting Gallery had it's doors closed (that request came from an eviction marshall) where I found myself adrift in a lifeboat,  which was, in my case, funded by that small inheritance I'd received from an aunt.

That time was filled with pursuits both artistic,  where I pursued my writing,  and wanton, which included stays in Atlantic City playing poker. Indeed, there had been times in between shoots where I had made quite a good living after the movie Rounders and amateur  Chris Moneymaker's World Series of Poker victory had driven a number of would-be poker players to the table. It was a time when the quote from Rounders, "if you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, you are the sucker" rang true.  Those of us who had played for a while could make a tidy living.

All good things must eventually come to an end. Poker players started getting better about the same time that the dotcom bubble burst, stock prices tanked, and it seemed a good time to get back to work.

There is a great story about actor  Omar Sharif. The dashing co-star of Lawrence of Arabia and star of Dr. Zhivago and Funny Girl was a world -renowned contract bridge player, good enough that he had a Chicago Tribune syndicated column on bridge that was distributed worldwide.

Sharif did not simply engage in cards as an academic endeavor,  and he enjoyed all forms of gambling.  As the story goes, he had lost most of his money while in Monte Carlo, something that seems to have happened to him more than once. *

Legend has it that after a particularly rough night,Sharif ordered a large breakfast,  asked for a house phone,  called his agent and said, "It looks like it's time to go back to work.  Get me a movie."

My Sharif moment was less exotic with troublesome annoyances such as paying rent and utilities getting in the way.

It was about that time that Phil and Donna from Paper Blood were actually getting close to finally getting funding for their second feature, a script we will call The Holoflux

Years from now, it's possible that a film historian will analyze my career by the fact that two of the films I line produced had names involving the fire of the unattainable and the holoflux universe.  No one will ever accuse me of chasing commercial scripts.

I was back working with close members of my film family,  two people who were closer to me than blood relatives. I would bring in people I knew and trusted. 

Famous last words . What could go wrong?






* Sharif Quote from IMDB "I stopped making movies because for the last twenty five years I've been making a lot of rubbish because I was in debt all the time. You know I used to gamble quite a bit and then I was always broke. I was always one film behind my debts and so at some point you know I had to work all the time to support my family and myself and all my expensive tastes and then I decided that it became ridiculous at some point. "

This Gun For Hire - Part 4 - And the Band Played On

"Dance Band on the Titanic
Play "Nearer My God To Thee'
The Iceberg's on the Starboard Bow
Won't You Dance With me"
-Harry Chapin, "Dance Band on the Titanic"

Wow, that certainly would have made me feel better.

"Many brave things were done that night, but none were more brave than those done by men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea."*

We did not have a band as we hit not an iceberg, but the proverbial fan, but, we did have a meeting that quickly turned into a party, whose purpose, I imagine, was similar: Keep those who are about to go overboard calm.

At this point, all sorts of rumors were flying. Larry Meistrich, the head of Shooting Gallery,  held a large meeting with all employees. Yes, there were financial problems,  he admitted, but not to fear, a Canadian company named Itemus was going to supply a much needed spark.

Itemus ** was a true dotcom - a shell of a company that once actually did something  (ironically, gold mining) but now produced nothing except as a shell to buy up dotcoms.

Larry was very positive about the takeover by Itemus , and though there would likely be cutbacks,  we would survive.

"There is no danger Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers." - Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice-President***

If Larry's optimism seems almost as foolhardy at this point, one must put it in context. From its inception, Shooting Gallery's success was unlikely, as was its rapid growth.  Indie film producers face certain financial death squarely in the eyes all the time. Why should this be any different?***

Except that it was.

The last on-board,  the dotcoms that were living rent-and-everything-else free off Shooting Gallery were the first to be asked to leave. Some other clients decided this was a good time to go on their own.  It seemed to me that the company started looking to shore-up more reliable clients, like the new-but-securely financed NYT Television,  the Old Gray Lady's**** way of dipping here toes into the internet world.

Next, the offices in other cities were closed.

Dave was still thinking. We looked into an ATM for the lobby downstairs, as an extra source of income.

"Wonderful thing wireless, isn't it?"***** - The Lure of Technology

About a year earlier,  I had joined the world of investment, having inherited a tidy but not insignificant sum from a generous aunt. She and my uncle had grown it the old-fashioned way, investing in tried-and-true ExxonMobil. I had just started dabbling in what a gambler uncle of mine used to call "speculating," and had invested a good portion of it out of that silly outdated oil company to two tech companies,  ironically both with ties in Canada.  One of them was JDS Uniphase******, a company I liked from my research,  and one that a longtime investment specialist I knew assured me was a "rising star." Indeed,  less than a few months later, I would find our what that meant, and the inevitable fate of burning stars.

At this point, I checked the market every day, so imagine my terror when I noticed that Itemus had gone from $5 a share to a few pennies a share. It was a feeling I would have, with much greater sickness,  with my own stock soon.

"Do you think the ship is seriously damaged," White Star Chairman J. Bruce Ismay asked Captain Smith. "I'm afraid she is."

The next news from on high was not good. They could guarantee only our next paycheck, and beyond that, nothing could be guaranteed.

It was an odd time for me. I had already agreed to help Jack do the re-shoot for a few days on Town Diary. Since we did not have an office, and I did't actually have somewhere else to go, I stayed on and used the office as my office for the Town Diary re-shoot, while still helping Dave do what we needed to keep the doors open.

Dave saw what might come, and had me get a security guard. We found a company and actually agreed to have them start, which I think they did for a few days, before we realized we had no way to pay them.

"If this is discipline, what would have been disorder?"
-Senator Smith on the evacuation process

Dave was, as usual, correct. While some people took small things, I can remember seeing people from the other building rolling out computers and other large items. Dave stayed even longer than I did - I think he was there when they padlocked the door - and because of his presence, and the respect people had for him, you did not see that outright plundering of supplies from our building. To be fair, I don't know how much of that stuff actually might have belonged to people, and with impending eviction, anything left behind would have been in the hands of the landlord and other creditors.

No sinking is ever pretty. Ours surely was not. I had finally qualified for health insurance a few weeks earlier, and I soon learned the meaning of COBRA.

Shooting Gallery and Gun for Hire were no more, and I was back in the icy waters of freelance indie filmmaking.

*Very good British documentary about the band called "Titanic: The Band Played On." See it if you can.

**Some of these facts about Itemus from Village Voice article linked below.

***To be clear,  I have never had a conversation with Larry about these events. What I offer here is speculation as to his thoughts and motives based on what I do know. 

****An old moniker for The New York Times from when newspapers were in black-and-white only.

*****Captain Arthur Rostron after telling his second officer of the latest known positions of the icebergs

***** *From Wiki. "During the 1990s, JDS Uniphase stock was a high-flyer tech stock investor favorite. Its stock price doubled three times and three stock splits of 2:1 occurred roughly every 90 days during the last half of 1999 through early 2000, making millionaires of many employees who were stock option holders, and further enabling JDS Uniphase to go on an acquisition and merger binge. After the telecom downturn, JDS Uniphase announced in late July 2001 the largest (up to then) write-down of goodwill. Employment soon dropped as part of the Global Realignment Program from nearly 29,000 to approximately 5,300, many of its factories and facilities were closed around the world, and the stock price dropped from $153 per share to less than $2 per share."

DISCLAIMER:The Village Voice did a great article with a lot of research, as did a documentary. All of my articles on this are based from my perspective which, while from the inside, did not include access to interviews or conversations with key ;players like Larry Meistrich, nor was I in on meetings where key financial decisions were made.

Priorities - Casting

There are points in the chronicles of the films I've worked on that I think it's appropriate to address a production issue at greater length, or expand on a point made in one of the production posts. This will be one of those posts.  I refer to these posts as "Priorities," the things we need to focus on in production.

As we just showed how not to cast with  "Plaster," I thought this was a good time to discuss casting.



After a particularly long casting session a week or two ago for a short film, the casting director I was working with said she never understood why there isn't an Academy Award for casting directors, and, frankly, I had no good answer. The more I thought about it, the more it made no sense.

If you want to make the case that casting is decided by the producer and director, understand that almost everything is ultimately decided by them, and that doesn't stop us from giving awards to those people. The last time the Board of Governors voted on it as a category was 1999, and the category was rejected.

Oddly, the Board of Governors has also rejected best stunt work  - repeatedly. I don't get that one either.

The issue of the award is not as important, though, as some of the misunderstandings about what one should expect of a casting director, what a casting director actually does, and what to look for in the casting process. Especially on the Indie level, which is the only one I can talk about from personal experience,

Let me look at some misconceptions.

"What is so important about a casting director. I know who I want for my film, and as for name actors, I know who the agents are. Why not just submit myself?"

First misconception is that casting is just about name actors or the stars of your film. Getting the leads right and getting mediocre supporting actors will show on screen.

One of the arguments I often hear is "Anyone can cast George Clooney or Brad Pitt. I don't need a casting director to tell me that."

No, you don't. Somewhere, though, there was a casting director who took all the small roles Clooney did and thought to put him on E/R., or cast Pitt in Thelma and Louise, or Denzel in St. Elsewhere.

More on this later.

On indie films, as for submitting to agents yourself, the connections a casting director has with agents is a huge help. The casting director I worked with on this short does a number of high-profile voice-over jobs, and a lot of big name actors are cast in these good paying jobs. Agents want to keep casting directors happy, because these sorts of jobs can be filled by any number of actors, and agents want to be sure they are getting the call.

That means they will read a script from the casting director that they won't read from an individual production company, especially a start-up with a first-time director.

"Won't the breakdown services be just as good for the supporting roles?"

It constantly surprises me how many new filmmakers are willing to throw big money at a few name actors, and then take whoever they get in supporting roles.

I co-wrote and produced a film called Town Diary. Our lead, through no fault of the casting director, turned out to be rather disappointing. He was an established actor, and it turned out he had a lot of preconceived notions of how a lead should carry a film, including telling the director how he would play it, regardless of direction.

Worse, he had zero charisma.

The casting director and her assistant had reservations; the director and I loved him. No one is perfect.

What saves the movie for me is the supporting cast. This includes the wonderful Angelica Page (the woman who poisons her child in Sixth Sense), veteran Bob Hogan (a staple on NY TV series, a recurring role as a Judge on Law and Order, and the guy for whom Colonel Hogan is named in Hogan's Heroes.) and Terry Quinn.

Yes, that Terry Quinn, from Lost, before that show hit the air. Terry was still a well-known actor (and a regular on X-Files and Millennium.). We were a small film on the SAG Modified Low Budget contract with a first-time feature director, and we got the perfect person for that, and other roles.

For the lead female, the agents submitted Vera Farmiga. Now, I won't say I regret not casting her because the woman we hired was fantastic (and every bit as pretty), but my director rejected Vera because she was "too sexy." Yeah, we'll talk later.

The supporting actors still make the movie for me (a LOT more on this movie in later posts).

For me, another big reason for a casting director is to get those actors who are "industry hot." I discussed this extensively in talking about 1999, which featured future stars Amanda Peet, Jennifer Gardner, Timothy Olyphant (in a really small role) and Dan Futterman.

I won't go over old ground covered in the post linked above, but over the years, from shorts to features, I met actors who later became famous. who were cast because the casting director knew who was "industry hot," people I would never have thought to cast.

Now that we've talked a bit about casting directors and their importance. let's talk about what to look for, and some common casting mistakes I see.

Isn't Hiring SAG Actors Too Expensive for A Low Budget Film?

It amazes me that when I talk to first-time filmmakers, I still here that they want to go non-SAG because SAG is "too expensive."

I cannot imagine someone setting out to make a movie and not being familiar with the SAG Indie Contracts, but I still get it a lot.

First, SAG doesn't charge as fee to become a signatory.

Second, if your feature is under $200K, you can hire SAG actors for $100 per day. If your short is under $50K, you can hire SAG actors on and not pay them upfront (they get deferred payment if you sell your short, but that doesn't happen often).

On both of those contracts, you can hire SAG and non-SAG, so, yes, your friends who will work for free can still be in the movie in small parts.

This is all well-known by experienced filmmakers, but the misconceptions I get make me feel obligated to point out the obvious for those just starting out.

It never ceases to surprise me that some young filmmakers are willing to spend what they need on fancy equipment,. but look to save on what they put in front of the camera.

There is no comparison of the pool of actors you will see if you are SAG as opposed to non-SAG. That does not mean every SAG actor is good, or no non-SAG actors are but your pool of talent changes.

If you are making a movie in any major city, shoot SAG. Period.

Looking for A Name

When looking for "name" actors, people either look too high, too low, or in the wrong places.

While low budget producers don't ask me about Clooney and Pitt, they will ask me about Joseph Gordon-Levitt or other industry hot young actors. Forget it, you missed the boat on them.

Others will not take having a name in the cast into account at all. I have never suggested casting someone just because they were a name, but having no one recognizable will not help you stand out when it's time to sell your film.

You can get recognizable names who are right for your film anywhere from the SAG Modified Low and up, sometimes even on the Ultra Low, if you set your sights realistically.

Think folks who were supporting actors in bigger movies, the antagonist in successful indies. If you are in NY or LA, recognizable faces from television. Many of these folks are looking for an opportunity to show a different side of their talent - give them that chance.

When Law and Order was shooting in NY, I found regular guest stars and recurring characters as good folks to target. Same would go now for Blue Bloods.

For indie filmmakers, too many think like Hollywood. You want someone to play a cop? Cast the guy who played a cop in this movie. A tough guy? Get the guy who played a tough guy three times.

For most actors, this is exactly what they are not looking for, unless the pay is right. When Chris Noth left Law and Order, the last thing he was going to play was a detective, yet this is probably what indie folks were sending to his agent.

Think of talented actors who have never played the type of character you are offering. While we are on type-casting....


Casting With and Against Type

Folks who have never acted may think actors are neurotic, unstable folks, and while there is an element of that, I would argue that it takes a tough center to continue to audition and get only a small percentage of those auditions.

I have often told actor friends who have never been on the other side of the table that very often they aren't cast through no fault of their own, but simply because they don't look like the picture the director has in their head.

For Town Diary. I had the deputy from Lone Star in my head when I wrote the role of the local sheriff. The casting director brought in a person who, if crafted from an online program, could not have been closer to what I imagined.

He also happened to give the fourth or fifth best performance.

It never ceases to amaze me how much some writer/directors cannot get away from the way they heard the lines in their heads - hence,  the dreaded line readings. I strongly urge young filmmakers to move beyond their own head, and let good actors show you other dimensions you had not imagined.

Beyond that, if the old girlfriend you wrote about was a blonde, and the best performance you see is a brunette, think seriously about adjusting, unless hair color is really important (Legally Blonde would probably not worked as well if it were Legally Brunette)

Similar for tall, short, etc. Also, unless the role needs to represent a certain ethnic group, try to think outside-the-box a little there as well. (One of Forrest Whitakers early film roles was for a character originally written as a Jewish dentist.)

Look for the performance they can give, not the performance they give in audition

It's rare on a feature that the actors have seen the entire script, more often only the sides. You cannot possibly think that the entirety of an actor's work is done just from this small sample. They are trying to impress you with this material, and sometimes may make choices that are wrong based on the short section of the script they have read.

What I'm looking for is how well they executed the choice they made, even if it is different from the choice I expected.

For any actor I like, I will always give a note with a different choice, even if I like the choice they made. My goal is not to get them to the perfect performance in the audition room. I want to see how they incorporate notes.

This is especially important in lead and major supporting roles. Resume will often tell you a good deal as well.

It's Not the 'Combine' - Past Performance is best predictor of future behavior

In professional football, there is this event called the 'Combine' where college athletes are put through a series of measurements: how fast the run the 40 meter dash, weight they lift, etc.

Old-school scouts will tell you that for all the measureables, they still believe the "eye test". What did they actually do in game situations in college?

In horse racing, there is a saying to never bet on a horse to do what he hasn't done. Lots of horses will put up great workouts in the morning, only to fade when challenged in a race.

For actors, I love when I have tape on an actor. Even if they are good, are all their performances basically the same character in different movies? Are they so cameleon-like that they are completely different from role to role?

Most actors aren't Meryl Streep - you will see a lot of the same character traits from role to role. In the old days, this wasn't considered bad. Humphrey Bogart basically had two character-types - good guys and bad guys - and most performances can be lumped as one or the other. but somehow, he still gave memorable performances.

When I look at tape from other shows, I look to see if there is a range. If there is, I have a better reason to believe I will see the range in this role.

Agents will provide tape, but today, you can also YouTube performances outside of the best selects that the agent sends - or just rent the shows or movies.

For me, actors that grow over time give you better performances in the long run. Look for them.

There are exceptions: genre movies (sci-fi, horror, crime) often do just fine with stock characters. The effects and stories are more the stars  than the actors. Comedies often can do this as well (has anyone ever used the words "range" and "David Spade" in the same sentence?)

There are also limits: no matter how much you go beyond "type", casting John Goodman as the hot young stud in Thelma and Louise would have probably failed - and did you really want to see him with his shirt off?

At this point, let me offer some rebuttal advice from someone who went to the grave with more knowledge of casting than I pretend to have, Elia Kazan. from "Kazan on Directing":

"The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards."

Kazan famously worked with the earliest and some of the best of the Method Actors, including Brando and Dean. Kazan goes on in the book to say that actors can never get very far from who they really are, so don't cast them to go beyond who they are.

I would argue that this is not necessarily contradictory. Actors are people, and some have limitations.

One of those limitations for me is intelligence: it's a hard thing to fake. It is why you see so many of the same actors in the work of writers like Aaron Sorkin. I don't think you can give dialogue of a highly-educated character to an actor who is not that smart. It comes off like the old sci-fi movies where, when they wanted to ingenue to look intelligent, they put her hair up and gave her a pair of glasses. It rarely worked, and it is the same with men or women. Good actors can play characters who know less, but not more.

There are also those rare casting opportunities where the actor's life experience informs the role. In the short we were casting, one of the juicier supporting roles was a rock musician who is now successful telling off a record executive who he no longer needs. The guy we went with was a musician who had a lot of pain in that area that we could never teach or show.

I often think of Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, where basically playing herself was better than anyone "acting" that role could have been, or Jerry Lewis in King of Comedy. In the scenes where he is kidnapped, the pain that comes with fame, especially the double-sword of fan adulation,  is something that very much comes through. Lewis clearly knew this from first-hand experience.

The thing about those instances is that they are, for me, the exception. A well-trained actor can find the essence of a character whose specific experience is very different from their own. When casting actors about I know little, I will look to their training and their theater work.

Let's go to the videotape!*

OK, it's not videotape any more, but always, always record the auditions.

For one thing, it is too easy to forget the specific audition after seeing hours and days of them. More important, the final product will be on film. Some actors translate better on film than in person. Additionally, I have often argued that the camera "loves" certain actors. That is a big part of what used to be called "star quality." Simply, if you can't take your eyes off the picture, you are in good shape.

This is something you cannot learn or teach, It's there or it's not. It's not even about being a good actor. When you take a good actor who also has that "thing", you have something special.

Casting a lead requires more than a good actor or actress

A lead has to carry a film. Some talented supporting actors have not reached the point in their career where they can carry a film, and good acting isn't enough.

I have seen this one too many times, and it was part of our problem on Town Diary. Our lead was a good actor, but his only other "lead" role was in a bad Melanie Griffith movie, and if I had bothered to watch it, we would not have cast him.

The best way to know if an actor or actress can carry a film is if they have done so before. I always look for leading roles in other films or in plays. It is a huge opportunity and also a huge burden, and not all actors (I use the term gender-free) are up to it.

Especially on an indie film, your lead will be working almost every day, if not every day, and for the most hours. Every other actor enters his sphere. Consistency of character, as well as character arc, are more difficult for your lead than anyone else.

Add all of that to that "watch-ability" factor mentioned above, and you will be asking a lot of them. Do your research and make sure this person can not only be good for one day, but for 25-40 days.

You are my soul-mate - at least for the next month

The relationship between director and lead is legendary. Hollywood abounds with stories of directors and leads who did not get along, and many of those times, the end result was good - or even great - despite, and sometimes because of, the tension.

For better or worse, it is a relationship. They don't have to be your best friend. Many of us can think back to  romantic relationships in our lives that was fueled by the different personalities, by the tension, sexual and otherwise. Tension can be used.

Still, that is hard. If you have a reason to believe the actor will be difficult, I highly suggest casting someone else. Even though actors are often on best behavior at rehearsals, some will give hints, little signs that the working relationship may not be good.

If you are a first-time director and the actor has a resume a mile long, there may also be a sense that they know more than you do, and they probably do. You are still the director, and while you need to take everyone's contribution as a part of the final product, it still needs to be your vision.

The give-and-take there is not something that can be quantified. If you are giving line-readings every day, something is wrong. You need to find a better way to get the performance from an actor. By the same turn, if the actor has decided to ignore you because he has a better idea, that doesn't work, either.

I have seen a number of lead actors chew first-time directors up and spit them out. It's not pretty, and once that dynamic enters, there is no winner. If the director comes down hard on the actor, there is a tension that is not good on set. If the actor gets away with it, the rest of the cast, and then the crew, lose respect for the director.

Some of this is Freudian. No, it does not mean the actor wants to marry their mother or kill their father (it doesn't mean that isn't true, of course) but that they may be reacting to a past traumatic experience; namely, having watched some other lead bully their way through a movie while they had to play second fiddle. Consciously or sub-consciously, they said to themselves, as they nursed their psychological wounds, "When I get my chance...."

Again, this is not just a theory, but something I have seen on more than one occasion.

With leads, think not only about the actor, but the person you are casting

This is hard to tell, but there are sometimes signs body language that tell you this might be the case. Is the actor condescending when responding to your note? Sarcastic? Does he cut you off when you are talking? If that is happening here, it will definitely happen on set.

There are probably dozens of aspects of casting I have left out, and they will probably come to me when I hit "publish" and thereafter.

Consider this a primer.  There is certainly no shortage of advice on casting from bigger names than me. What I offer here are my experiences and observations.I welcome feedback, especially from your own experiences.  Don't be afraid to disagree! I promise to not invoke Production Infallibility.**





* A phrase that first entered the popular vernacular when NY sportscaster Warner Wolf used it on evening sportscasts in the pre-ESPN and SportsCenter days.

**I often joke that the Pope does not claim to be infallible, on to be infallible in matters of Church law. I sometimes invoke the same thing on set, admitting that while I am not infallible, I will claim to be in matters of production. As you might guess, that has a varying degree of success.