Festival Madness

Tomorrow, Gabe, Rebekah/Zoe (I presume), Josh, Angie and myself will be heading down to Tucson to check out the TucsonFilm.com Short Fest, 06. As you’ve probably read on Try Avoidance, we’ve got two short films in the main festival this year plus three others in the online segment of the festival. As you can imagine, this is a real treat for us. Plus, we get to hang with our local film buds, Bruce and Max and watch their film “The Intervention of Brad”. Everything is shaping up for a good weekend.

Shifting gears for a moment here, I cannot wait to get out of school. I mean it; things are really starting to drag. I have all of these projects I’m working on, but there simply isn’t enough time to do everything properly. And so, everything I want to do gets put on hold while I take care of everything I have to do. The second school ends however it’s anyone’s game. I don’t know if that makes sense, but whatever.

Wildlifeless update

A very exciting development has been the lockdown of the cast for Wildlifeless. I gotta tell you…this project is shaping up to be amazing. Why? Well, these actors…and I won’t drop names for the moment…but these actors are phenomenal. Probably some of the finest actors we’ve ever had onboard. They really “get” it. There were so many different, interesting slants to the character that the other potentials tried to cover…and I was delighted by the variety, but the ultimate selections knew what made these characters tick. There is a comment in a book I have on directing, entitled Friendly Enemies (a book I have been referencing continually over the last few weeks) which basically says: always keep your character in mind during the audition. Understand who your character is. Once you know that, casting the role is incredibly simple. It’s simply matching up the actor with what you envision for the personality.

And believe me, I did not believe the book until the audition. Now, I absolutely hold faith in that publication. If the director knows the characters and knows the story, then the actual selection of roles is incredibly easy. The hard work is about to begin though…the actual directing of the actors. I must say that I am a little frightened. This is the first time I’ve directed a kid. I’m confident that I can pull it off, but it’s going to be an interesting and probably harrowing journey before I arrive at that next level. The actors are putting themselves through a plethora of hoops to pull these characterizations off though, so I believe that it is my duty to go on this journey with them and see what comes our way.

Cinematography wise, I’m not worried. As long as we practice the shots, I’m confident we’ll be able to pull it off. I mean come on…this is Josh we’re talking about here. He knew the score about this film before he even took on the role of DP. The visual aesthetic is as much his baby as it is mine.

So that’s that.