Single Biggest Unexpected Lesson You've Learned Making An Indie Feature?

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

I had two massive castings in 2006 for my last feature, and it felt like 60-70% didn't have much experience, and it ended up being a waste of time. I cast maybe 2 or 3 people out of 200+. I thought I'd get at least 8-10 cast.

For the future, I'll have people email me a link to their reel so I can look at it, then call them in for an appointment.

We had auditions on Sunday for a role in a short film. I had selected 13 candidates based on their demo reel. All were competent. Two were great.

Demo reels are a huge time saver. Leaves more time to make the script better.


J.

[Heath McKnight]

I bought that book in film school over a decade ago and it's a great read, full of wonderful insight and helpful tips.

heath

[David Knaggs]

Originally Posted by Ryan Kincaid

David, this book is amazing. ... I just assumed that most in Hollywood did the same thing, after all Hollywood is notorious for that chew 'em up and spit them out attitude.

Yes, it's amazing how you can have pre-conceived ideas about "Hollywood types". I remember a few years ago going to a talk/Q&A session by Roger Corman, king of the Hollywood independents, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. I'd always pictured him as a brash, cigar-chomping, hard-nosed "Hollywood-type". Instead, I found a cultured, educated, kind, sincere gentleman. The complete opposite! Suddenly I could understand why directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron and Ron Howard went to Roger for their start. As well as Jack Nicholson (actor) and Gale-Anne Hurd (producer). All of these people flourished and prospered following their association with Roger, even though Roger obviously would have always kept his eye on the bottom line as a businessman.

Originally Posted by Ryan Kincaid

another $11 purchase was the Screenwriters Bible

If you are also going to be involved in the writing of the script, there's a $10 purchase which I mentioned (with some really bad analogies!) here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/694505-post68.html

And the book can be found on Amazon here:

Amazon.com: Making a Good Script Great: Linda Seger: Books

I personally consider this to be the single most important book in all of filmmaking.

No kidding.

Purely my opinion, of course.

[Heath McKnight]

I'm still a fan of Syd Field:

SydField.com - A Website for Screenwriters - The Art of Visual Storytelling

heath