Category Archives: Classes/Books

Casting Class

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Last weekend I drove into San Francisco to attend a casting seminar taught by casting director Kim Hardin.  Kim has 20 years of experience as a casting director and is known for films such as 2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers, and the award-winning Indie film Hustle & Flow. 

The class was geared toward actors, but directors and producers were also invited to attend.  It didn’t surprise me that we were greatly outnumbered by the actors. 

Even though it is still very early in the development process and we don’t know what, if any, other roles we’ll be needing to fill, this was a great opportunity to learn a little about the casting process ahead of time from someone who has been doing it for a long time.  It also gave me a great excuse to go into the city on a beautiful day.  I was delighted to find out that the hotel where the seminar was held was next to the cable car route.

The fun part of the class was the “cold read” (auditions performed without memorizing the script) audition practice at the end.  Kim gave all the actors “sides” (a portion of a script to be read at an audition) and sent them out into the hotel hallway to practice for a bit.  Some actors were teamed with another actor, and some were sent out by themselves because they would be doing their scene with Kim herself. 

After a short practice period, Kim called everyone back into the room.  It was fascinating to watch their performances.  Some were obvious beginners, while others had much more experience under their belt.  Nerves got to some of them and the sometimes long periods of silence betrayed the fact that they forgot their lines.  In an effort to be understated, some gave performances that could best be described as bland, while others went too far the other way with their over-the-top performances.

As I-Man fans, we often brag about the incredible chemistry of our cast so, of course, I closely watched the actors who were paired up in teams.  One couple really caught my attention.  They came across as though they had known each other for years.  The chemistry was there and it was very obvious.  Others just weren’t clicking.

During the instruction part of the class there was one young man, looked to be in his teens, that kept asking questions about things that Kim had already covered just minutes before.  It was apparent that he wasn’t paying attention, but Kim was very patient and answered all his questions.  I was curious how he would do.  When his turn came, he read opposite Kim.  And when I say read, I mean, literally, read.  He didn’t act the part at all, he just read it.  I’ve got to give him kudos for having the courage to do the practice audition.  He must have been incredibly nervous.  He has a marketable look, but he definitely needs training.

An older gentleman, who used to do a lot of theatre work and was just getting back into acting after a long stretch off, absolutely nailed the part of a pastor.  He was quite convincing.

Kim gave some of the same sides to more than one actor in order to give us the opportunity to see how different actors interpret the same scenes differently.  It was fascinating to watch each actor bringing something different to their roles.

After attending this class, I have to say that I have a renewed respect for actors and what they do for a living.  The majority of us only do a small number of job interviews in our lifetime before settling into our respective jobs for at least several years.  But can you imagine spending most of your career going to job interviews (which is basically what an audition is) all the time?  Well, the majority of actors do exactly that.  Getting an acting job takes a special kind of fortitude that, dare I say, the majority of earthlings wouldn’t want to deal with.

I tip my hat to actors everywhere who are chasing and living their dreams.

Lights, Camera, Action!

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So last night finished up a directing class that I’ve been taking at a local community college.  We got together and had a screening where we got to watch our work and, afterward, a guest speaker, who is a local production coordinator, talked about budgeting.

During the course of the class each of us had to choose a scene from a script, break it down, create a shot list, and storyboard it.  Let me tell you, I couldn’t draw if my life depended upon it, so it was stick figures for me!  We learned about casting calls, but I missed the day they talked about acting and working with actors. 

Then each of us got to play director and shoot our chosen scenes.  We were running short on time so I opted out of directing my scene.  I don’t have any plans to be a director, but my classmates do so I figured they would need the experience more than me.

But, low and behold, we were short on actors, so guess who got recruited into the job?  Now, the only thing I’ve ever done in front of an audience is public speaking and dancing.  Acting was a totally new experience for me.  But it was interesting to get a small taste of what an actor does:  memorizing lines, repeating the same lines and actions over and over again for each take, taking direction from the director, keeping my movements smaller for closeups.  Actually, when I think about it, there are some similarities to public speaking and dancing.  So would I ever want to be an actor?  Heck, no.  Even though I got compliments on my acting, it was downright painful watching myself at that screening last night.  Nope, no acting for me.  I’ll do the world a favor and remain behind the scenes.

Getting past the pain of watching myself, it was a good learning experience to watch the scenes that we shot.  The teacher pointed out mistakes that are typical for a beginner director.  A few that I can remember off the top of my head are: 

  • In one shot the framing was off and there was too much air space above the actors’ heads.
  • Another time, the actors weren’t blocked properly and it looked like the actress was on the head of one of the actors.  Also, there was no continuity and sometimes the actress was in the shot and sometimes she wasn’t.  It not only looked strange, but the whole reason for the shot lost its meaning without her.
  • The funniest was seeing the fuzzy fur-covered microphone at the top of the shot and one of the lights over to the side.  Oops…another framing mistake.

So maybe by now you’re wondering why I took a directing class even though I have no plans to be a director.  Well, producers have been described as generalists.  They need to know a little about each job, but they don’t have to be experts in those jobs.  But they need to know enough to be able to hire the right people and budget for those jobs. 

So far I’ve taken classes in scriptwriting, lighting and cinematography, directing, film production, and early film history, among others.  Since I’m new to this, I’ve got the double job of keeping the project moving forward while I keep my education moving forward.  I’m always in the middle of reading of a book or two and when one class finishes, I start looking for my next class.  Fortunately for me, I love learning, and this is a job where the learning never stops.