well, i am willing to share you one of my dumbest mistakes when choosing actors: listening to a friend.
when doing preproduction on a film, i had done a casting for four main roles. it was perfect, they where exactly wehat i was looking for, until two days before shooting one of them fell ill... f*ck!! no actor, just a few days before shooting. everything was arranged: locations, catering, the actors, everything..it had cost me quite some cash so i could not blow the whole thing off.
Then a friend said to me: hey, i know someone who can play the part, its a nice guy, who' d be just perfect for the role. i hadn' t even seen this guy, but i trusted my friend... i did not find a way to see the guy before filming day 1, so when i met him the first time was actually on the set. talkning about amateurism. When i saw this guy thought: well, he looks alright for the role...quite filmable. But then he started spoeaking... the guy was french and could hardly speak our language. It turned out to be a big disaster in all...
Got to be careful when anybody give you anything, just go back and dub his voice or somthing, but at lest you got the shoot, and know never to trust that guy again.
I had a simeler thing happon, my friend said she would be great, in fact all she added was clevege to the film, and read her lines, not a wast but could have been better. You always have the one actor that you could do without.
"I know you're gonna be right, and you haven't even said anything yet! Oh there you go...I was too slow with this reply, but I still agree with you" - Ornsack
provided you have time for it, but defenetly never give the goob to a person you don't know. For me so far life has been an sudition, but for whatever I do next I'll have real auditions.
possably, but that would be really hard, but he should look into it, if it is possable. He should just test it with himself, before he gets actors back though, lest time gets wasted.
See I am the opposite to Foxwoos and most of my regular crew are friends and i trust them totally.
I would never cast anyone thought without meeting them first
The Honourable Grant Meredith - CEO Sick Individual Productions
http://www.sickindividual.com
Profile : http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/meredith.html
I trust my friends to an extent, I trust them with swords, I trust them with my life, i trust them with shoot ideas, the only thing I don't trust them with are picking actors, money, and my cammora.
the thing was that i had already planned in detail the days of the shoot, so the fact that one of my main actors fell away, raised extremely huge problems for i could not have blown the shoots off, it would've cost too much and eventually the film would never have been made. I found a good solution though. the role the french guy playd was that of ones younger brother. i rewrote his part during filming, so he was in fact someone with a speaking imparement, retarded really, because his brother dropped him on the floor one time too often when he was a small child... gave the movie some weird edge wich i could work with really well...
but you are right, never listen to that friend agin...
just a wild idea... since your shoot was screwed up anyways, why not just film him reciting the dialogue in french just for the hell of it? Make a short spoof of the movie! haha, just an idea.
