Would festivals have a problem with this type of short film?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, I've already taken acting classes, for that purpose. They teach me how to act myself, but not how to pull performances out of others though. I could try using the same advice the teacher used though when advising my actors, if that would help.

[Brian Drysdale]

What do you think?

[Ryan Elder]

Perhaps. I could try it and see.

[Paul R Johnson]

Directors to not advise - they guide, cajole, persuade and bribe actors. It's essential they can read individuals preferred style of direction. You cannot learn to direct on a course. You need lots of mistakes to progress - but above all, you need to have the right personality to do it well. Friendly, bombastic - it matters not if it works. The minute you lose them, you've gone.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks. So far the directing has been different every time, for each person. I guess I can just hope for the best. But next time I am definitely doing more rehearsals for sure.

[Paul R Johnson]

Hope for the best is not really something you can imagine any great director saying - when doing their pre-production. Proper planning is everything. You yourself have hoped for the best many times and had it go wrong on you.

Have you ever done a skills audit on yourself, Ryan?

Look at your competence in all these areas. Score those areas where you can do things with your eyes shut because it's second nature at the top, and at the bottom, those roles where you have do double check each and every decision you make, and where you simply don't know what to do next. This might show your strengths and weaknesses. In the UK where we're ultra sensitive, we now talk of strengths and areas for improvement - maybe that works better?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh maybe, but I am not quite sure what you mean by that. What do you mean talk strengths with areas of improvement? Talk about that with who?

[Josh Bass]

He’s saying that’s the terminology they use because of the particulars of UK culture. “Talk of” = “use these words”.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. I read that a skills audit applies to identifying skills in an organization. But I am just one person, and not an organization, or what I am I missing?

[Brian Drysdale]

In the case of am individual, someone who knows you well and you can trust to be truthful with you. However, I suspect it may be something like this: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/engl...uage-essay.php

[Paul R Johnson]

Blimey Ryan! You're hard work sometimes. A skills audit can be applied to organisations and individuals, just a matching and evaluation of attributes. A way to assess your own sill level objectively.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh i didn't know how thise skills audits work. As far as skills go, how is my audio from the previous projects?

[Paul R Johnson]

We don't know - you only tell us about disasters. The entire point of a skills audit on yourself is so you analyse your own strengths and where you find them a bit lacking. On what we know from the posts, you struggle in every single area. This cannot be right. There MUST be some things you are really good and competent at - but you have forgotten them in the quest to sort out others. It's a self written tool to assess the state of development. I can have a big list of things I'm bad at, but its harder to quantify your strengths.

If you think back to the booming noise problem, we didn't believe you when you explained. We knew there was a solution but you had trouble finding it. We knew the real problem wasn't your mic, but your technique. We knew what you found impossible was just lack of technique.

You have issues with every discipline it seems - but above all, you're really weak at experimenting and you believe every bit of information given to you giving the same weight to a comment from somebody really skilled to somebody who has been own a course worse than the one you took. "I've been told" that you repeat endlessly should really be "I've been told by the guy who directed Lawrence of Arabia that ...." then their advice has worth - but you accept ANY advice as good reliable and robust advice. The idiot that got you into the wilderness with a religious guy and didn't do it properly, for example. Why every take advice from people who are clueless?

Perhaps your skills audit will reveal positive areas you haven't considered.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, thanks, I'll do the audit then.

The person who wanted me to do the wilderness video was not a filmmaker though, or didn't have any filmmaking experience, so I never took any advice as reliable from her.

I would say that my vision seems to look much better on paper, in script and in storyboards, compared to the later product. So something goes wrong, during production, but it's different each time. So maybe my talent is having a good pre-product, and I need to figure out how to not make it go wrong during the process after.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I agree with Paul. To be honest it’s pretty painful and exhausting listening to your indie filming making tribulations. You don’t seem well suited for it. It’s great to take chances and learn new things but you seem to take things too far, getting in over your head, no money, lack of proper equipment, inexperienced, working with others who also don’t know what they are doing. From our view point sounds like a nightmare. You need to find out what you’re good at and focus on that. In my eyes a director needs to be able to lead and communicate with the crew and actors, and problem solve. Neither of those are your strengths.