Director’s Journal

It’s been a while so I thought an update was well overdue. The script is still in the writing process, so nothing new on that front. Granted I’m perfectly fine with this, because I know the stronger the script is when we enter production the better the film will be in the end. What I’m really compelled to share right now is the experience I’ve been going through as an actor.

When we first started pre-production about a year and a half ago I never thought I would truly care about the acting side of filmmaking. After all the director is in charge of telling a visual story. Let the actors do their thing and I’ll do mine. Even with this naive view, I was curious to find out how a director could learn the language so at the very least I didn’t sound like a complete idiot on set. I had read several acting books and had taken a class in film school, all of these mainly geared at directors, but I wanted to actually see things first hand. I decided to sit in on a couple of acting classes and quickly realized how much actors bring to the production and how easy of a job it’s not.

After a couple of visits to the Truthful Acting studios our casting director Marco DiGeorge asked if I’d like to participate in the new curriculum him and Robb Maus were going to start to teach. I was a little reluctant at first, but decided to give it a shot.  It’s been close to a year now that I’ve been studying the Sanford Meisner approach to acting under their guidance and my life has never been the same since. Many of the schools of thought, and indeed  the way I’d been shown in school, approach acting in an intellectually way. The actors enter in a scene and they must contrive  or manipulate a way to feel mad, sad, happy or whatever. Through Mesiner I’ve learned that acting isn’t about knowing how a scene should be played, but instead that scene needs to be lived, that the actor must be in constant respond to the circumstances and his or her fellow actors, not as if it were really happening, but because it is really happening. Acting is living truthfully in an imaginary circumstance and each actor will have their own truth and must honor that truth. Otherwise the scene and ultimately the film will be dishonest and cliche.

Over the past year I’ve seen first hand how an actor can achieve this depth of personal truth and it has been quit a mind altering experience. The reason for this is because it is vary rare that we are indeed truthful to ourselves. We might think we are, but in realty we spend the majority of our day hiding our real feelings. We hide them from ourselves and we hide them from the people around us. We’re always cautious of what others might think if they knew what was truly going on in our heads. We’re afraid of looking stupid. We’re afraid of looking prideful. But through this work I’ve learned how to let go of these fears and grow not just as an artist, but also as a person. I’ve experience the gambit of emotions from happiness to sadness, to fear and frustration, love and hate. Many times experiencing not one of these feelings but multiple ones within moments from each other.

In the last few weeks our work has driven us to extreme depths and I’ve felt things I didn’t know I could feel. At least not to this degree and with such consistency. This isn’t some that resides only in a classroom, but carries out with you into the real world as well. You start to feel yourself as a person change and it’s both an exciting yet terrifying thing.

-Will

For anyone interested in learning a little about Sanford Meisner here is a link to a documentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNuFSrsYfpM

Update

Script is being rewritten as we speak.  We’ll hopefully shoot the movie this year.  We thought we could maybe shoot last year, but knew that’d kinda be a long shot.  The cool part is we’re getting better at filmmaking through our video production company Them Feelings Multimedia (themfeelings.com) in the meantime.  We’re getting better at lighting, editing, shooting, coaching actors, making strong choices, etc.  Everything happens when it’s supposed to.  I’m excited.

Blake

Director’s Journal

It’s been quite a while since the last time I posted, but that’s not to say that I or the rest of the crew have been slacking on the project. In fact it’s quite the opposite, as our writers have been slaving away (yes we do use whips) for the last month or so diligently working on getting the story as good as it can be. Blake’s been working on the business plan day in and out while also figuring out how we might trick, I mean convince Dwight Howard to appear in our film. In the mean time I’ve been studying up on the different acting approaches and finding any reason to go out and take photographs. I’ve also started reading a book called The Artist Way and I think that anyone who considers themselves to be a creative individual should at the very least take a look at this book. It’s broken down into a ten week program in which you discover what it is in your life that might be blocking your creative side. I personally do not feel that I have an excessive amount of  blocks, as I’m already a very analytical person, but that’s not to say that I don’t have any. So far  I have discovered things about myself that I never really thought before, or in some cases been more willing to tackle problems that I sort felt might be issues before. Anyway, I am finding this to be an interesting read and wanted to share it with other artist.

-Will

Operation Get Dwight

Okay, so of all the cameos I’m working on getting for Normalcy, none is bigger than Dwight Howard.  I won’t lie, a big reason I want him in the film is to raise our buzz, which’ll make our movie easier to sell, but that’s not the only reason.  Dwight’s a positive icon for our area and since Normalcy’ll feature a lot people, places, and things unique to Central Florida, he’s someone I’d love to have.   That, and he’s a funny, cool dude.

Now I know that he’s always busy (traveling, acting, pitching his reality show) and everyone wants a piece of him, but I’m hoping we can win him over by making him laugh.  We’re shooting some funny comedy sketches over the next month or so that I’m confident he’ll love.  And if I can somehow show them to him, I’m hoping our comedic brilliance will make him unable to resist working with us, LOL.  What do you think?  The sketches are gonna have to be hilarious.

-Blake

Casting Callback Photo Gallery

Check out the photos from the casting callback.  Click here to see.

-Blake & Will

Casting Callback Success!

Hey guys, we had our first casting callback yesterday and it was so much fun.  Thank you to all the actors who came out.  We’re going to post the callback photos that we took very soon.  Thank you to Nikeida Pegram and Eric Marcano for assisting with the callback.

-Blake

Casting Callback

Hey everyone, we’re having our first casting callback on Sunday, July 26.

-Blake

A productive week

My co-producer and casting director Marco DiGeorge is notifying our actors about our callback and working on our script.  I’m pre producing and fundraising.  And Will‘s pre-producing and working on the script.  I forsee this week as being very productive.  Yay!

Oh ya, I started a twitter account too so I can give even more frequent updates, you can follow me here: http://twitter.com/themfeelings or just read the latest tweets on this page (over there on the right and down the page some.)

-Blake

Casting for Berkly successful!

We held the casting for Berkly today and it was a lot of fun.  We saw some very talented actors and want to thank them for auditioning.  We’re most likely going to be contacting our Berkly candidates as well as our Kendra and Tillman candidates early this week for a call-back scheduled for July 25, 2009.  A big thanks to Leander Suleiman for reading as Kendra all day and of course a big thanks to our co-casting directors Marco DiGeorge and Robb Maus.

-Blake

Casting Saturday

Casting Call

Them Feelings Multimedia & Drunken Leprechaun Pictures Presents the Feature Film…
“Normalcy”

NON-UNION CASTING CALL

Casting for:
- Berkly : Male, Late 20’s. Successful businessman. Estranged from his family. Uncertain of his future after his father’s death.

Casting Date:
July 11th, 2009, from 1pm to 7pm
(BY APPOINTMENT ONLY)

Location:
Longwood area. Exact location will be given once your appointment is scheduled.

Contact:
To schedule appointment – email headshot, resume, & preferred appointment time frame to Marco – info@truthfulacting.com

Shooting Dates:
September TBA

This is a low budget feature film. While we will offer deferred pay for our main cast, there will be no up front pay. Copy and credit will be provided.