Tossers at Mockfest!

Hey, all -

Tossers is going to be playing Mockfest this Saturday, May 9th at 4 pm. We've played this fest before and it's always a great time.

Hope to see you there!

Danny

Tossing the good news ...

Hey, all -

Great news about Tossers! We just won the Audience Award at the Faux Film Fest - woo-hoo!

Upcoming stuff: we'll be at Smogdance this Saturday, April 25th at 7 pm. We'll also be playing Mockfest - the festival runs May 8th thru 10th, but screening times haven't been posted yet.

Come to Smogdance this Saturday and say hello!



Danny

Cast Away

So, casting.

I dig casting muchly - I think it's a great learning experience and really exposes you to all kinds of amazing talent. I'm helping cast a play I'll be performing in ("Sex, Love and Time Travel: An Evening of Bizarre Mysteries") (details soon) and I always have a great time.

First of all ... there's just no reason to have bad actors in your project. None. There's so much sensational talent out there, union and non-union, that really WANTS to work. I helped a friend out on a short film recently - there was a scene that took place in a classroom with ten or so students that had one line each. *ALL* of these actors were wonderful - and they only had one line! The talent is out there ...

Where to look? If you're not blessed with great actor friends or friends-of-friends, we place a (free) notice on Actors Access or LA Casting. This will get outstanding response, and you can sort through headshots & resumes. The great thing nowadays is actors post links to their reels (or short films they've done) so you can immediately see whether or not they're right to call in.

When we call folks in, we want them to be as prepared as possible. If it's a short film, we'll send the whole script - why not? They'll have more than just the sides to work with, they'll see how their character fits into the whole scheme of things and they can get a deeper, richer sense of who they're playing and can bring that to the audition.

When they arrive, we also want them to feel comfortable. We'll have someone at a check-in table, and we always try to have bottled water available. Someone also brought Rice Krispy Treats once - again, why not? You want to make a very welcome environment where your actors can relax and give the best performance they can.

Once inside, we welcome them and chat a bit - try to dejangle those "audition nerves". We'll ask if they have questions about the character or the scene - and this shouldn't be perfunctory, we really want to help and give as much information as possible to get the best performance possible. After the actor reads, we'll try to hone the performance by giving them adjustments - important to know if the actor can take direction.

And this is my favorite: seeing what the individual brings to the part. It's constantly amazing to see the varied interpretations of the same part - I'm always amazed by a gesture or inflection or subtext, something we can maybe ask them to expand upon in a second read-through. I'm also amazed by the dedication the actor brings - when we were casting Finding Space, we had actor after actor come in and pour their heart out. Blew me away. We found Elisa Dyann, who was wonderful in the film.

I also sat in on the casting sessions for Quiet - very intense, as we were casting a mentally disturbed character, and every actor genuinely tried to scare the hell out of us (and most succeeded). And we found Tim Trobec, who gave an extremely creepy performance.

I think the main thing, though, is to have fun - we cast Tossers and everyone had to do a silly frisbee dance when they first came in. This really loosened everyone up (as well as showed us whether or not they could sell the concept of frisbee dancing), and then they continued with the audition. And we found Rob Ullett, who was fantastic.

And by all means, if you're not 100% jumping-out-of-your-chair nuts about your casting choices, keep going until you are. Don't settle for someone who you're "pretty sure can do it" - keep searching until you find that actor who comes in and floors the entire room. It's *your* project and you want to shine everywhere you possibly can.

Danny

It's a world of laughter, a world of Scum ...

Hey, all!

A quick post to say that Children of Scum: A Retrospective is playing the World of Comedy fest this weekend on Sunday, March 1st!

It's in Toronto, Canada, so grab your toque, put on some back bacon and go enjoy the flick, eh?

-Danny

Happy New Year, all!

Happy new year! I hope everyone brought in 2009 happy and safe.

Some updates: Tossers (see post below) is out to festivals now, and will hopefully see a lot of activity in this new year. We'll be playing Smogdance - it's a great fest run by wonderful people. We've played there the last two years, and look forward to this one. I'm in the process of expanding Tossers to feature-length - we'll hopefully see more adventures of our crazy frisbee dancers soon.

We'll have a couple more films on our site - Finding Space is a drama we shot a couple years ago. It was ... absolutely insane shooting in that crowded parking lot, but well worth it. Elisa Dyann plays my wife in the film and I think she gives a fantastic performance - we'll have the movie here soon, but for now you can see it on our MySpace site.

We'll also have My Life in Subtitles: A Documentary - after Finding Space, I just wanted to do something ... silly. We had SO much fun shooting this comedy - again with Elisa - and for now you can view the film here.

Next up is a mockumentary that kind of pokes fun at all those UFO documentaries you see - it's about an alien visitation that has a rather strange effect on a small town, called BARSTOW LIGHTS.

And you? What are you working on for this new year?

Danny

Critics dig Tossers!

Hey all -

Sorry so long in-between posts - I'll definitely try to be more active here in the future. Reviews have been coming in for Tossers, and critics dig it! Click below:

Pulpmovies.com

TheIndependentCritic.com

RogueCinema.com

We're just out to festivals - I'll be updating this spot for the playdates of a film festival near you.

Danny

Make It Count

I’ve talked before about my Top Three Pet Peeves of Short Films:

1. Bad Acting – Please, guys, there is so much wonderful talent available. Take the time to *cast* your film.

2. Bad Sound – If you can’t hear the movie, what’s the point?

I’d like to talk about #3: It’s Too Damn Long.

So you’ve made your short film and you’re in the editing room and you’re on the fence as to whether or not to cut something, be it a line of dialogue or a character beat or an entire scene, and you’re going back and forth because it MIGHT be cool or it’s KINDA funny or it SORTA works …

Cut it.

What’s that line from RONIN? “Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.”

Cut it, cut it, cut it.

Here’s the thing I’ve found: no one really knows what a short film is. I’ve asked countless folks how long they think a short film is, and the answer is always different: “5 minutes”, “10 minutes”, “A half hour”, “I dunno, shorter than a feature.”

Really, the answer is “as long as it needs to be”.

Key word there being “needs”.

I saw a short film recently that opened with two girls dancing at a club, and we followed them in the bathroom and watched them do some drugs, and we learned their names and watched them kid around for a bit … and then the movie cut to something else entirely, forgetting completely about the two girls. They were never referenced again. We spent at *least* a minute with them, and they were never heard from again – why were they there in the first place?

Cut them.

I saw another where a guy was trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend … and then we cut away to a TV show he was creating on a public access channel. We saw this guy starring in the show, telling us all about his life … and had no bearing at all on the getting-back-with-the-ex storyline.

Cut it.

It’s difficult, because you’ve spent all this time storyboarding the shots, and shooting the scenes, and editing them together, and you want everyone to see *all* of the fruits of your labor. You’re proud of your stuff and you want to show it off, dammit.

But is every shot absolutely necessary to tell your story? Does every scene build character/advance the story/deepen conflict? Does every edit logically lead to the next? Are all of your characters vital to your story?

No?

Cut.

Here’s a fun exercise: invite your friends over to watch a rough cut of your film. After the screening, have a no-holds-barred critique session. Really discuss the fine points of the movie – are there edits that could be smoother? Transitions that could be made clearer? Dialogue that could be cut? Chances are, after the session, you’ll be a little depressed … but take a week or so to digest everything. Try to go back and look at your film with fresh eyes. You might surprise yourself with how much shoe leather you can get rid of.

Be objective. Be merciless. Take the time to service *the movie*, even if it means cutting the stuff you spent extra days shooting – your audience won’t miss the boring stuff. I’ve heard this many times in film festival audiences: “Yeah, that was a pretty good fifteen minute short … but it would have been an *awesome* ten minute short.” Brevity is the soul …

With a short, you have a limited amount of time to tell your story.

Make it count.

Danny