Same Town... Different View

In other words.... Mismo... pero diferentes.

At the end of the year I had planned for a three month sojourn in Oklahoma City... where I could spend quality time with my friend Hattie as well as knuckle down to do some serious writing.

When Hattie (who plays the contractor in Mismo) decided to leave San Francisco two years ago, I drove across country with her and helped her get reacquainted with her home town.  We enjoyed going out in search of what we deemed civilization... yoga studios, organic produce, wine bars, gay nightlife... any nightlife!  While we never found one vibrant hub that offered all, we had a swell time exploring and Hattie assures me that she has since discovered plenty of cool people doing interesting things.  I was really looking forward to the change of scenery and had already reached out to fellow indie filmmakers who I was looking forward to hooking up with.  Alas...

What's that saying about what happens while you are busy making plans?  Oh, yeah, life happens, and to quote the Scottish Bard who's birthday is coming up, January 25th, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley" , which is another way of saying, here I am still in San Francisco, albeit across town enjoying a different view.

A snapshot taken on one of my neighborhood jaunts... looks like the Haight, feels like the Haight... except it's North Beach.

And for your viewing pleasure a souvenir of our road trip from 2 years ago:

Tips for Conducting Auditions

Be Open to Surprise
As you scan photos of potential actors for ‘the look’ that you want, keep your mind open to meeting someone who might not meet your criterion but who intrigues you in some way.   Several of Mismo’s cast was a result of following our curiosity.

Actors are People too
As indie filmmakers, we like to run happy sets in which everyone feels valued.  Set the stage with your audition process by giving the person time to settle their nerves before you put them through their paces.  Not everyone can jump right into a When Harry Met Sally orgasm.

Be Prepared
Have a plan for how you propose to elicit the characteristics and emotions required for the role.  For each of our characters we were looking for diametrically opposite qualities that exemplified their public and private persona: Toni, the cold calculating psychologist by day became the femme fatale at night; Mitch, the spiritual artist in public was uptight and obsessive-compulsive in private; Anjelica was kind and loving, but also tempestuous and extremely sensual.

Be Flexible
If the actor is not giving you what you want, try another tack… and another.   Sometimes it’s in the way you phrase things - help the actor understand what you're looking for.  Perhaps you’ll improve your own communication skills and become a better director.

Push
Don’t be afraid to push the actor - for the most part, they are looking for meaty and challenging roles.  It’s also how you’ll discover boundaries, if they exist, and whether the person is right for the part.  Gino loves to describe oddball scenarios followed by “Would you comfortable with this?”  Often it’s meant as a joke, but can reveal a lot.  It’s how we developed the character of our gallery owner, Rene.  Unfortunately, as we made decisions about pacing and the core of Mismo’s story, the role of Rene was dramatically cut.

Be Professional
It’s a job interview, even if there's no pay involved.  Thank the person for their interest and their time.  Let them know when they can expect to hear from you and who will be the contact.  While the person might not be right for this role, they might be perfect for another down the road, in this movie or another.  We met a “damn fine actress” who we didn’t feel was the right fit for the role of Bella.  As we advanced in our process, we needed someone for the senator’s wife and she was willing to play the smaller role (and proved her point!)

Remember to Laugh
Making movies is supposed to be fun!

Importance as a storyteller to shuttle between environments

hello fellow storytellers... wanted to give you a peak into my world of shuttling between worlds...in this case... i left san francisco to spend time at my family's ranch in nevada... it was a chilly 32 degrees as i shot this short video... where do you go for perspective taking? 




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is your backpack too full or too empty...

i went to the movies yesterday with my mom, darlene...it's a great way to spend a lazy sunday afternoon with mom...especially when it's below freezing outside...

we saw 'up in the air' with george clooney... clooney's character leads a seemingly empty life out of a suitcase, until his company unexpectedly grounds him...it's a movie worth seeing...clooney does a wonderful job in his role as a man hired to fire...

for clooney's character...home is in the air...in a different place every evening...sometimes even with a different woman...whatever the case, 'up in the air' gets us thinking about how 'home' or the concept thereof...is a survival tool...something that makes us feel at peace...or 'at home'....

while an outdoor guy like myself would go mad living exclusively within the stream of modern artifices...from the car...to the hotel...to the conference room...to the airplance...and all over again...we learn that clooney's character goes mad if not dieting on cultural articifices...this was his pocket of inner peace.

though pockets are sometimes places to postpone addressing our deeper fears...with clooney's character...we see that he's averse to commitment...when not firing people...he speaks to conference goers about lightening up their backpack...saying that it infringes upon their ability to move...and thus live...a speech he really is giving to himself...with others just listening in on his internal self-fulfilling dialogue...

he soon realizes that his backpack metaphor is catching up with him...it's a great lesson because for every person who has too light of a pack like clooney's character...there are hundreds needing to lighten their pack...

it's like independent filmmaking...you are automatically light...why...because you don't have the funds to put a lot in your filmmaking back pack...as a result you're able to move quickly...and adjust on the fly...

yet you see people who try to make movies all by themselves...a completely empty backpack...and yet to me this would be an unfulfilling endeavor...because while too many relations (a big production, for instance)...may be cumbersome...too few relationships...or none in the case of somebody who thinks they can do it all by him or herself...misses the opportunity to engage with other creative people who have similar interests...

it is about striking a balance in our relations...from family to film...and we only know when we have went too far...when our backpack is too full....or too empty...when we have risked living and lived risk...

The Cast Call

The beauty of having a small crew is that you’re nimble and can fit in tight spaces or, as we’d find out, be less conspicuous in the big outdoors… more on that subject later.

Here we were April 2007 with the goal to shoot a feature film ‘deconstructive’ style… a series of shorts, +/-10, that we’d submit to film festivals, YouTube, and everywhere else appropriate, along the way.  Even in hindsight, I think this is a darn good idea, and I have a story about a serial killer in San Francisco that’s perfect for this approach, it's Seven meets Sliding Doors… but I digress.

Confident of our plan, 7-minute script in hand, we set about the task of casting and quickly realized that we needed to find all our principal cast, even for the short, i.e. Anjelica, Mitch and Toni.  Since we were operating with zero budget, there was no discussion about hiring a Casting Agent, so it was up to us and resources on the Internet.

While Craig's List is always an option, as well as other indie filmmaker groups, my tool of choice was SF Casting.  I can’t speak highly enough of their service – a great resource for finding talented actors; even better for indie filmmakers, it’s free.  No sooner had we posted our profile and call for our cast and we were inundated with applicants. 

This is one of the most fun aspects of filmmaking… to actualize your vision of a character and see it embodied in a walking, talking human being.  I’ll confess, it’s a bit of a meat market… kind of like online dating, at least to start, as you flip through pages and pages of headshots.  Nope, too pretty… nope, too skinny… nope, too young… nope, no film experience… nope, nope, nope!  Until you get to the maybe, maybe, maybe and hopefully, yes, yes, yes!

We whittled the list down to our top three for each role and thus began the parade – through my living room – of actors hoping to bring their interpretation of our characters to life.

Compulsion... Characters... The Muse that Compels to Create...

One subject that fascinates Gino and I as filmmakers – and one we continue to explore as we develop the script for our next film Pitchin’ Papaya – is human compulsions. We are interested in exploring what compels people to act in certain ways, do certain things, even when it goes against their better judgment. It’s the core of Mismo and our tagline …when fate and freedom collide; meaning that while we all have free will, we permit our innate nature to make our choices, thus leading to our inevitable fate… and oftentimes resulting in a collision.

We first explored this theme in Compulsion, the story for which was sparked by a real runaway bride who, to avoid a trip to the altar, claimed she’d been kidnapped. Her story spawned a nationwide search for her kidnappers accompanied by a media furor. It was likely the furor that tripped her up… in the end, she confessed it was a lie… she’d concocted the entire story. In our version, the runaway’s impulse, “I simply had to get away,” leads to another compulsion – greed – that leads to her being kidnapped for real.

Had we completed the script, the themes of freedom versus security, predictable versus risky, and passion versus romance would have been explored. As it was, Compulsion took many forms before finally settling on the genre of road movie – and, alas, a production beyond our modest means.

With Mismo’s parallel story lines the opportunity for compulsions to collide is amplified, leading to an ending that led one viewer to comment, “it sent chills right down my spine.”

While we have created our characters for Papaya, I am guessing that, as we write the script, at least one of them is going to take us on a road trip with her compulsion. It’s our journey as writers… to follow the muse… see what transpires… and in the end, we always have free will to delete.

The Team of Many Hats...

Our Scary Cow pitch attracted the cameraman that we desired, the "legendary" Danny Baldonado.  I figured that if a guy can shoot skateboarders while he's also on a skateboard, well, he's our man!  Thankfully, he liked our idea.

When it came to lighting and sound, there was no-one withing the SC community, so I called on my friend Jeffery Davis with whom I'd attended film school.  He also liked our idea, but not the monthly SC fees.  It wasn't hard to do the math and conclude that we were better off putting $$ directly into our own  kitty rather than compete quarterly for bucks that might never come our way. 

Et voila... that was our team... and for those of you who wonder what a "real" film team looks like, I'm providing this image courtesy of The Guerilla Film Makers Movie Blueprint by Chris Jones, Jonathan Newman and Cara Williams.