Acting should be easy, right? It’s like playing dress-up with a little more intentionality behind it. If that were actually true, we’d all act and the pool would be that much thicker to wade through in finding the greats. So what separates the Laurence Oliviers from the Pauly Shores? Usually a semester or two at Juilliard, or just basic talent, but even more so it’s a muscular conditioning of the extraocular variety. Yes, the eyes are without a doubt the most important physical aspect of an actor’s ability to embody a character. Don’t believe me? Go back and watch Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, Jack Nicholson in Chinatown or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, for that matter. All of these performances are bolstered by the intensity, discrepancy and overall directionality of the eyes. Admittedly there’s an entire body to go along with them, but every presentation has its focal point and the eyes tend to standout in the most standout performances.

The actual movement of the eyes reveals intent or contempt, love or hate, truth or mistruth. The best actors can communicate a myriad of emotions in only a few moments with their eyes. After years of directing all shapes and sizes, I finally asked an actor if my fascination and effectively higher standards for eye-performance was warranted. He told me it’s one of the most basic principles that, for the most part, goes unspoken. See, it’s like watching the NBA and saying, “wow, he’s an amazing dribbler!” Instead you’re just waiting for a dunk. The dribbling is seen, it’s registered, but is also gone unmentioned. Why? Because it’s rudimentary, a foundation. The eyes are always there, and even the most exceptional ocular effectuation is invisible simply because it’s so good. The best kind of acting is that which either goes unnoticed or becomes immortalized. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote or Brando’s Don Corleone were both understated, with eyes that barely moved for all the weight these characters carried around their necks. In contrast, Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood and Charlize Theron in Monster were accentuated, darkly-spirited performances in which the eyes were more carnal, frustrated and deadly bright.

In the same ways the eyes can seal a truly great performance, so can they undo the less honest ones. I’m not such a vicious critic that I’d list examples of poorer actors so cavalierly as I did the greater ones, but I’d encourage anyone interested in my theory to go back and vivisect any performances you consider to be truly bad. Watch the eyes. Watch where they track. Watch how they vibrate or else awkwardly dart from place to place. The most telling moments will be when these actors are not delivering dialogue but are instead giving silent reactions. In situations of tension the truer eyes will remain focused, unmoving and almost three-dimensional in their potency while the untruer will glaze in and out of attention, thinking more about the script or what’s for lunch than the world of the scene.

So, be you actor, director or casting manager, keep in mind the windows to the soul may in fact be the windows to your character as well.

The first thing to remember is that stories come from a character’s journey. The character’s journey is made up of two things; a want and a need. What does this character want, what is his/her mission? What does this character need, what is his/her character flaw that is preventing them from getting what they want? The idea of want and need is what forms the sequences and the acts of the story.

Now what is a sequence? We all know the idea of a three act structure: Act I (The Beginning), Act II (The New World/Mission), and Act III (The Resolution). Well, sequences are what makes up those Acts. A movie can be broken down into eight sequences. Sequences one and two make up Act I, sequences three through seven make up Act II, usually with a twist, i.e. the character arc, happening at the end of Act II which leads into sequence eight in Act III; the resolution.

So, let’s look at a classic movie, The Graduate, and break it down. This is a summary of The Graduate according to IMDB:

Recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock is trapped into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, who happens to be the wife of his father’s business partner and then finds himself falling in love with her daughter, Elaine.

That’s the summary, but how can we break it down? The first question is ‘what does Benjamin want?’ He’s just graduated college, he’s returned home and the one burning question is what is he gonna do next? But Benjamin doesn’t have an answer. That’s his character’s want: He wants to figure out what he’s gonna do next. Next question: what is his character’s need? What is his character flaw? If you watch the movie you’ll notice one thing keeps summing Benjamin up – he doesn’t make decisions, he doesn’t take action. The opening of the movie is him on a moving walkway, everyone else walking by him, but he’s just being pulled and taken to his location. This sums up his character – he needs to walk, he needs to make a decision and take action.

Now that we have our want and our need, let’s break the movie down into sequences.

ACT I

Sequence One – Will Benjamin get time alone, away from everyone? He keeps trying to escape the party, but people keep finding him. His only escape is to take Mrs. Robinson home.

POINT OF ATTACK (INCITING INCIDENT) – Mrs. Robinson makes herself available.

Sequence Two – Will Benjamin call Mrs. Robinson? He’s been propositioned but will he actually take the opportunity. Ultimately he does call her. A whole new world opens up to him.

ACT II

Sequence Three – Will Benjamin get a room? This might be a simple decision for a different character, but as we’ve established Benjamin isn’t one to make decisions. He actually has to be told by Mrs. Robinson to get a room. Even then he still has difficulty doing it.

Sequence Four – Will Benjamin sleep with Mrs. Robinson? Funny how we remember this as being what the movie is about, while really it took a while to get there.

MID POINT – Remember that montage of Benjamin by the pool and then with Mrs. Robinson to Simon and Garfunkel’s music? Yup, we’re in the middle of the movie.

Sequence Five – Will Benjamin take out Elaine? Mrs. Robinson didn’t want him to and he’s forced into it by his parents.

Sequence Six – Will Benjamin get Elaine back? He came clean about the affair too late and Elaine goes back to school. But Benjamin is starting to make decisions, so he goes after her, only to be told that she’s getting married.

Sequence Seven – Will Benjamin stop Elaine’s wedding?

CHARACTER TWIST – After finally making a decision and acting on it, Benjamin ends up literally banging on the glass screaming for Elaine at the end of her wedding. Symbolic for a man who couldn’t take action regarding his future – he’s literally screaming at it. In doing this he also triggers Elaine’s character arc to complete – she screams for him and runs away from the family and situation that’s always telling her what to do.

ACT III

Sequence Eight – Will Benjamin and Elaine get away/get a ride? They hitch a ride on a bus and head off into the sunset. Our hero and his bride end up sitting together on the back of the bus. Benjamin is seemingly sitting next to his future.

As they drive away that famous look of “what now” comes over them. You could argue that this means he hasn’t changed or had a character arc. I personally don’t think that’s the case. Just because you manage to take action doesn’t mean you won’t have to take more. We’re all running to get somewhere and once we get there, we wonder where to go next.

So those are the sequences of The Graduate. Obviously it’s almost cinephile sacrilege to break a masterpiece like The Graduate down in such simple terms, but the lesson here is that we, as humans, are wired to follow patterns, anticipate, ask questions and search for resolution. That’s why (again, almost) any great film you break into acts and sequences will follow a certain pattern. Such are the mechanics of storytelling and there’s a lot to be learned from tearing apart your favorite stories and breaking them down into impossibly simple building blocks.

Getting hired to write the screenplay for Break the Stage came as a result of striking up a conversation with a Director with his own production company while working out at a fitness center. That assignment led to them optioning a series of scripts and even some unfinished projects of mine they liked because they are looking for movies with a positive message for young people. The suggestion to novelize the script followed shortly after a final draft of the script was approved.

Both TV and feature filmmakers have fallen in love with adaptations of novels, especially but not exclusively true stories. Because of my first book, Loyalty on Trial, and the adaptation of a novel I did for a production company with the rights to The Trials of Adrian Wheeler, I now get asked to adapt other books to screenplays or the reverse, novelize a script.

Break the Stage, the book, is a novelization of my script. As a result, it reads somewhat like the movie but with details, back story, and personal reflection of the characters that sometimes fail to come across in a visual medium. I always admired real novelists for their prose and poetic style and was (still am) thoroughly intimidated by their talent. Novelistic style in a screenplay is verboten, so lucky me. I am most comfortable with screenwriting, but willing to work on the skills of writing one finds in a traditional novel. For now, I prefer to pursue novelizations because I’m not ready to write a full-fledged novel, and honestly I would be hard-pressed to find the time. Your situation may be different.

Novelizing the script into a 220 page, 40,000 word Y/A novel took a little more than 3 months. That was the deadline dictated by the production company. I met the deadline despite working on other projects at the same time. With the structure, storyline, and dialogue already in place, I wasn’t starting from scratch. And if you can find a good writing coach you can pick up the style needed to come across as a professional. I found mine after the fact, but that’s another story.

You may find that you have underestimated your ability to write a novel and embark on a new career. I have a few historical fiction scripts that by their very nature tend to be too episodic for film. Time permitting, I plan on tackling at least one as an experiment. If you have anything like that in a file somewhere, novelizing it may get your story out in a book form and develop a following. That, in turn, could pique the interest of producers who before might have been likely to overlook it as a movie.

While novelizing my script, I saw the opportunity to embellish scenes or add scenes that didn’t exist in the script. Sometimes it was just a small plot point or a dialogue revision that enhanced the story. Adding those into the script where possible was an additional benefit. In my case, where the movie had already been cast, the actors were given the book and appreciated getting to know their character better and also ended up with a firmer grasp of the story.

So don’t discount novelization. It could open doors for your career that were not only closed before, but you didn’t even know existed.

I went out and made a movie. An absolutely terrible movie. Nothing went the way I wanted, and I can’t even look at the finished product. Does this mean I’m a bad filmmaker? Should I give this up?

In a word, no. It’s good that you’re disappointed – if you didn’t think there’s anything wrong with your first dab at filmmaking, that would’ve been a red flag. A bad first experience in moviemaking does not mean a failed career. The first time you tackle anything, it’s bound to be a clumsy attempt, because you just don’t have a feel for it. Not yet.

I made my first movie, Mortal Coil: An Eric M. Blake Noir, for the 2013 Campus Movie Fest. I had this ambitious idea to take up Brian De Palma’s challenge to student filmmakers to make their first movie a silent movie. The story would be told without any dialogue – just acting and camera work.

You can look it up on YouTube, if you like. I already know it’s a mess.

There are many reasons for that. We didn’t have a good tripod at the time, so we had to hold the camera by hand. The way it looked forever alienated me to “shaky-cam”. And the last day of shooting, two key actors announced they’d be unavailable, so we had to improvise by “fudging” the story and experimenting with POV shots. As a result, the plot’s a bit muddled (“Doesn’t the guy have still have the money?”), and if you look carefully, you can see the tail end of the actress rushing out of a shot, because she’s not supposed to be in the scene. In short, “flawed” doesn’t even begin to describe this film. It was my first directorial effort. And it’s a mess.

I don’t regret making the film. It was my first real session of film school.

Arguably, in fact, a bad first movie is one of the best things to happen to you. It shakes you up, keeps you humble, and helps you self-critique, and learn. It’s better to get the “bugs” out of your system early on, while you’re still an amateur. You go out there, make the best film you can, and then look at what you made and ask yourself, “What do I like about this movie? What don’t I like?” Get constructive critiques. And then apply those lessons to your next project. If you truly love making movies – and if you’re honest about yourself – your work will get better.

Believe it or not, some of the great filmmakers of history have gone through this. Stanley Kubrick hated his first movie, Fear and Desire, so much that he apparently tried to gather up all the prints of the film, so no one would ever suffer from watching it again.

In 1996, Quentin Tarantino told Charlie Rose about his first movie, My Best Friend’s Birthday. As Quentin tells it, when he finally had the resources to process the footage, he ended up very disappointed, because “I did not have at all what I thought I had!”

You can see both Fear and Desire and My Best Friend’s Birthday on YouTube, by the way. I personally don’t think Quentin’s movie is that bad, which goes to show that sometimes, you really are your own worst critic.

Quentin went on to add that he did not regret making the movie, because “That was my film school.” He learned a lot about filmmaking by going out there with equipment and making a movie. In effect, he learned what to do and what not to do, in the best possible way.

After all, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Practice.

We did you a favor and found My Best Friend’s Birthday for you. If you don’t have 36 minutes to spare right now, at least skip to the 20 minute mark to see Quentin himself deliver the lines he later reused for the opening scene in True Romance. Classic.

If you were to mute the movie, any movie, what would be lost?

Movies are absolute visual stimulus, no matter the genre, no matter the plot. The audio tends to be secondary in our minds. While sound lends itself more to a villain’s monologue than a daring car chase through Amsterdam, both are ultimately on the chopping block. Direct exposition might stall in the silence but we still have visual cues: the performances, the aesthetic and the movement. In live theater, it’s all about the actor’s movement whereas film relies on the camera’s. This cinematic principle is called the “eye of god.” A camera takes you places you’re normally unable to go. Even more than that, this dynamic gives you insight – a camera will hold on an actress’ face far longer than we’d dare stare in real life, and in that disembodied, extended focus we observe every inch of her emotion. Now incorporate sound: her shuddered breath is agitating, the stifled sobs emotive. Sound is the sensory validator, confirming what we see is communicating what it should be. The screech of a violin announces a psychopath with a meat cleaver while a slammed door indicates an unseen entrance. Now remove those markers… something is lost but is something gained as well? Think of cinema before “talkies,” in the silent era when faces were dialogue and music was exposition. Now remove that music and there’s still a wholly visual experience there, with all types of indicators toward a story.

So can a movie exist without sound, or sound without picture? Should they be expected to? Ideally, yes.

Take last year’s Whiplash, for example. It’s literally a film about music, but there’s a silent, visual story in there. Imagine Whiplash on mute and the foundation remains intact through what we see: “An aspiring drummer vies for a spot in a formidable jazz conductor’s studio band but soon realizes the man is not only a master manipulator but an absolute sadist to boot.” You could watch the entire film, start to finish and while the sound may change or arguably enhance the overall experience, you’d take in all the information you need from the performances and gradual evolution of the cinematography.

Now, sound without picture is a different story, one we’re actually more familiar with. Audio plays have been around since the dawn of mass media – one of my favorite parts of the radio show A Prairie Home Companion is when Garrison Keillor and co. present a highly-involved skit with nothing but voice and sound. Even more than expositional narration, our ears pick up what is called “ambience” or “foley” to make sense of things. These audio principles ensure the environment of the story is communicated by noise, from a chuga-chuga-chuga at a train station to the skittish footsteps of a woman walking home during a full moon. While picture stimulates us, sound activates our visual imaginations. For example, the final scene of Pulp Fiction serves as its own audio play from the moment Jules and Vincent sit down to pancakes. By removing the picture, we hear only the ambient sounds of the diner and the dialogue of our characters, and once Ringo and Yolanda stick up the joint we are treated to tension in both the silence and raised voices that break it.

The take away from these examples and the theme at large is direction both in sight and sound. Directors should constantly be selling the story in the visuals, even beyond the structure of the script. Likewise, sound editors and mixers must strive to not only follow the visual cues but at the same time compose their own audible story between every screeching tire or ringing gunshot. If sound and sight can come together in these highly intentional ways, that’d make for movies that feed both the eyes and ears in a swell of cinematic awesomeness.

I’ve worked as a low budget editor for quite some time now; nearly every project I’ve worked on has either been a passion project of mine, or a zero-sum/micro-budget project. Mostly favors that I’ve done for acquaintances or trades in services (cutting an actor’s reel in exchange for his appearance in a short film, for instance). I have worked with incredibly tight deadlines and, as I’m writing this currently, I’m secretly stressing out about a commercial deadline for the most recent video of which I’ve had the pleasure of being a part. But here’s the thing… I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Yes, I’d love to make more money doing what I do, but I feel that that mentality is the wrong way to go about a job like this. Oftentimes, editing can be thankless and un-noticed. To be honest, that’s the way it should be! No on is supposed to notice the editor and the best of us make the stories that we string together look seamless. The thing about working for no money, though, is that the connectivity of myself with whatever project can go one of two ways: I can either divest myself from the project and, for lack of a better term, “get it over with” or (and I think that this is the better way to go), acknowledge the fact that there’s no financial gain involved and do my best to gain something from the project. This industry, especially in the beginnings of it’s participants’ careers, demands a higher knowledge of things and in this light, every opportunity should and, almost always is, a learning experience.

Now, you’re probably wondering “well, what have you learned so far?” I’ll give you three pillars in that respect.

1. Patience isn’t a virtue; diligence is

Patience certainly can be a virtue, but, given my experience on the projects that I’ve been a part of, it’s more about sticking with your guns and not giving up or giving in than anything else. There’s a lot of times that people tell you to “sleep on it” and I agree, that can be helpful, but I also think that it’s important to put in the time. “You know, that whole ten thousand hours” thing. If you do decide to sleep on it, then getting up and getting back to it is arguably the most imperative thing. Basically, don’t stop working.

2. Listen

We’ve all gotten a lot of advice and nearly everyone has had an experience when someone told them to “take any job you can to get the experience that you need” and that’s all well and good, but I don’t think that the people that hear this are actually listening to what they’re being told. First of all, there’s the phrase “take any job you can get.” First of all, think about this sentence. I started in the industry by taking any job that I could get and I ended up in the back of a van moving ice back and forth from one van to another in St. Francisville, LA, (no, you don’t know where that is – neither do I) to keep a bunch of drinks cold while the entire cast and crew were on their day off. I don’t know if you can tell, but that is miles away from what I want to do in this industry, which brings me to the second half of the phrase, “… to get the experience that you need.” This is of utmost importance. There’s a tiny sliver of the pie that you want to take and that’s where you need to stay. If you want to be a film editor, then edit films! Don’t take a job as a production assistant in a news studio if you want to be a screenwriter. It’s not going to help and it’s going to pull you away from the path that you so desperately want to be on.

Here’s the tricky part, though. I haven’t figured out how to make this happen and I don’t know anyone who has. Which leads me to my third pillar.

3. You gotta f***ing go for it

There comes a time in your career when you are so tired of spending all your time at your day job and saving money for your next passion project, that you will become stifled and miserable. That will happen to you. It happened to me. It happened to David Fincher and Ed Norton and Craig Robinson and Annie Leibowitz. There will come a point when you want to look at your boss, flick him/her the most sincere “f**k you” you’ve ever expressed with your most explicit finger upon your hand, and walk out.

Do it. Don’t do it now, but do it. Also, maybe don’t do it the way I did (*cough*), but there will come a point when you have to tell yourself, “it’s time” and you just have to jump in with both feet. It’s terrifying and uncomfortable and sometimes it will ruin your plans to go to Cabo San Lucas with your college buddies but, you know what, ten years down the line, you can’t kick yourself in the head about giving it a shot.

When your granddaddy was on his deathbed, he sure as shit didn’t say, “I wish I’d done less.”

- My mother (though I’m pretty sure she stole the quote)

The following is a guest blog by Danielle Deffenbaugh. Danielle is an avid filmmaker that re-located to Los Angeles after finishing her degree in Film Production at San Francisco State and is currently happily working in variety TV.

Danielle is still exploring a multitude of different jobs in both TV and film productions.

Television vs Film: Which one is better to work in?

You’re fresh out of film school, a BA in Cinema under your belt, several independent student films on your resume and countless hours of PAing for your friends or productions when they come to town. You can load film into a Bolex in a pitch-black room in your sleep, set up a c-stand faster than you can say film noir, and recite every word from Citizen Kane backwards.

As you decide to move into the production world and start a career path towards your dream, there comes a fork in the road. For most people, you start working and therefore meeting people and making connections, and that’s how you end up working for one side or another. This divide is most blatantly between Television and Film.

In both facets of the entertainment industry, there are many more paths for you to choose. In Television, you could go into scripted, reality, variety, competition, game show… the list goes on. Film allows you to enter into features, independents, shorts, documentaries, etc. Aside from that, there’s animation, commercials, music videos, and more. Typically, you start working in one area, and that’s where you continue to get hired by the same people. Depending on the department you’re working in, there’s room to move around between different projects if you want. However, in most departments, a position title in film work can be completely different than in TV work.

An AD on a feature film is a drastically different job than an AD on a live TV show. When on a film set, the AD is responsible for scheduling, keeping the shoot moving along and on time, and the set in order among other things. On a live TV show, the AD works with the director to keep the show exactly on time, call out commercial breaks, and help oversee the cameras, again among many other things.

Another position on a film shoot, the script supervisor, is in charge of continuity; keeping every re-take of a shot the same, and making sure the eye-line between two characters matches. On some TV shows, however, the script supervisor is in charge of building scripts. Building a script entails creating an original document on word, and formatting it to look like a script the director will like. Page numbers, page colors, commercial pages, package pages, and music pages are all pieces to the puzzle that goes into a TV script. When looking at the difference between TV and Film production, the type of responsibilities and work that goes into most positions tend to be completely different.

If you’re just starting out in the business, my advice is to try out as many types of projects in production as you can. Even if you have your heart set on directing independent films, you never know if you’ll end up falling in love with directing a scripted TV show. I spent months trying out different types of production; I worked on an independent film, a major feature film, countless short films, a few commercials, a late-night TV show, a scripted TV show, and a live competition show. After all that, I finally decided I liked working in variety TV. Some shows are better than others, but now that I’ve decided this, I tend to only work in this area, and continue to get hired by the same people in that circle.

Some people swear film is better than TV, and vice versa. The beauty of this business though, is that there is something to fit everyone. Even if you find yourself on one side or the other, there’s a type of production to fit everyone’s lifestyle, whether you like the 9 to 5 job or the freelance life of working two weeks straight then two weeks off!

When you’re new to production, take the time to experience as many facets of this industry as you can. Even if you’ve been hustling in the industry for some time, and have always been curious if the grass is really greener on the other side of the production spectrum, take a chance to try out something new if you ever get the opportunity. It’s a crazy business we work in, but don’t be discouraged if you don’t like a certain job you have. Try something different, and see if you like it!

You can get in touch with Joe on Facebook, Twitter or via email. He’d love to hear from you. Also check out the course he’s offering on Stage 32.

The 1^st Assistant Director position is widely regarded as the most difficult and least enviable on set. It is one fraught with compromises and negotiations; where politics and artistic visions collide with practical realities and necessities. What exactly does that mean and why is it that so few people seem to know how to do the job competently, let alone do it well.

It’s funny, really, how few people can define the job of the 1^st AD. If you can’t define it, how can you do it well? I have several Joe Bohnisms regarding film, the definition of a 1^st AD being one of them:

The job of the 1^st AD is to get the director as much quality footage as possible given the realistic confines of the production and ensuring the obtainment of enough footage to compile a complete film. Your job is to facilitate the scheduling of the film and the running of set in such a way as to maximize the amount of time getting quality footage in the can as opposed to losing time waiting on other elements that could have been prepared had you done your job more effectively.

Note that I didn’t say your job is to get a lot of footage. If the footage is of a quality so low then it doesn’t matter how much you get, it’s useless. I also didn’t say that your job is to just get quality footage. You need a full film. Eighty percent of an amazing movie is a movie that can’t be sold. So you have to work with your director and other department heads to know when to sacrifice, when to adapt, what’s important, and what can be lost. You are that mediator, the conscious in-the-ear of the director reminding him that while he may want to spend 3 hours on 1/8 of a scene, he still has 8 more pages to shoot today.

For me, I tend to talk in terms of “real estate.” We only have so many hours in the day to shoot. That time is “time real estate” and as a team we have to constantly be figuring out how to spend that shared real estate – with the 1^st AD being the accountant.

A Joe Bohnism to remember: “It’s the director’s film, the producer’s product, the DP’s picture, the PD’s world, and the 1^st AD’s set”. Why is this important? If the director decides he wants to spend 8 hours shooting an insert of a flower, that’s his choice. You can remind him as much as you want about time and what you still have left, but it’s his (or her, of course) film. Now, should that occur you obviously need to call your producer to set immediately to update them. Things in the modern age can get tricky though. Often times your director is your producer as well. In which case, do your job, have everything coming up 100% ready when the director wants to move on, and let the director worry about his film. Remember you work with the director for his film, but you work for the producer for their product.

Which leads to a pretty simple to state but hard to follow Joe Bohnism: “Not my job”. It’s easy, especially in the low budget world, to overstep your bounds. Do your job and do it well. Let’s say your director is a hot mess, you’re a director as well, and the cast is even looking to you for guidance and direction. Star actor comes up to you and says, “Joe, the director says I should do X but what do you think?” The answer is, always, “I’m not the director, you guys should have that conversation.” Don’t overstep your bounds because it will only lead to you stepping on toes and that leads to you not working again.

As much as filmmakers are professional and talented individuals, you have to remember you are the babysitter on set. You’ll find over and over that people will do their job and then be happy to sit around for hours if no one checks on them. You are the constant eyes and ears watching everything and striving to not waste a minute. Spend some time working in other departments and knowing them intimately.   That knowledge will allow you a short hand to communicate with all the department heads and to know when something doesn’t make sense. For example, your gaffer tells you it’ll take him an hour to light a scene but you know that’s not right because you’ve done it yourself before; you can say no way, it should only take thirty minutes so get it done or explain to me why I’m wrong.

The word no should not exist in your vocabulary. Your job is to facilitate the yes. The producer’s job is to come in and say “no, we don’t have the money for that” or:

Producer: “Joe, do we have the time to do that and make our day?”

Joe: “We can’t do that AND make our day. We can choose to drop something, or compromise something else and still make the day.”

Producer: “So no.”

You exist to make this movie happen as best as it can given the resources available to it, let the producer decide how those resources can be allocated, and you worry about running set efficiently and accommodating every need and want you can.

Which also leads to the difference between need and want. Often times you’ll experience a situation on set where an individual swears they need thing X. In reality, they want it and it order to get it they’re willing to sacrifice something they actually do need. Your job is to help them realize the difference. Remember, it’s not your job to decide what they need and want, it’s your job to help get them as much of both as you can.

By the nature of the job, you’re telling creative people they don’t have the time to be creative. You’re the big bad meany of the set. Be prepared to feel the tension that can come from that and let it go. The biggest problem that can arise here, is that all these creatives can have good, great, and wonderful ideas. Here’s the thing, good ideas usually come late and take time to execute. Time you may not have. If you have it, embrace the good ideas and make them happen. If not, then remember: Good ideas are the death of days (yup, another Joe Bohnism).

In summation, you have to be a yes man with conditions, a babysitter, a negotiator, a mediator, a boss, a jerk, and a friend. We work long days in high stress situations with a lot of ego, talent, silliness, and awesomeness swirling around into the awe inspiring cocktail we call filmmaking. Never forget that there are thousands upon thousands of people out there who would beg and plead to do what you are doing. So if you’re going to complain too much, you might as well just step aside and let the next guy take a shot. No? You don’t want to do that? Then hurry and get back to set. Picture’s up!

Image taken from the movie ‘Bullet’ on which Joe Bohn worked as Assistant Director.

This is an opinion piece on the importance of being ‘yourself’ rather than trying to fit into a certain ‘type’.

Too often I hear actors going through casting billboards say, “I would never get that part, it’s not my type.” It frustrates and annoys me that there are starving artists dismissing potential work because they feel branded, so I’ve started exercising a new trick that I’ve recently picked up. I sidle up to them, square my shoulders, look them dead in the eyes and say, “Define ‘type’ for me.” Invariably, most of these actors become red in the face, and spit and stumble trying to cough out some lame Webster’s definition. That, of course, is precisely the response I’m looking for.

My agent played that exact game with me in my first interview with him. I had come into the office, cocky that my self-assessment of what I could and should be cast for would impress him, and like these other actors, I was left with the same slack-jawed look on my face that I receive now. But that one moment explained so much more to me about the casting process than the hours and hours of bad advice that I’ve had the misfortune of listening to and occasionally following from actors I’ve surrounded myself with for years. Here’s what I took away from the experience:

Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.

“Well, I’m the girl next door. I’m the lawyer. I’m the mob boss.” Were Zooey Deschanel or Viola Davis or Steve Buscemi those “types” before they established the trends? A type is far too broad for any actor to try to fit into with any sort of certainty, and you are doing yourself a disservice in thinking that way. I can already see virtual eyes rolling at my A-list examples, so let’s examine a more relevant case – my own.

For the first eight or ten months in Los Angeles I had been brought into auditions for parts I would consider to be more or less of the same type. Almost always I was reading for the thoughtful, emotional, romantically-stunted loner. Chalk that up to my big forehead, weak chin, and lack of facial hair. There would be the odd vampire or cyborg (many thanks to my bony body and pasty skin), but 90% of the characters I went out for and booked could be lumped together in one awkwardly wrapped package.

Then, about four months ago I saw an interesting shift occur. Without any real impetus from me I was no longer going out for the nerd. Suddenly, all of my auditions were for the young meth-head, the punk, the scrawny bully. Same photos, a reel composed wholly of clips of my various nerds, and yet I was being seen in a very new way. I struggled to make sense of this on my own, wondering if I should change my hair, my photos, my wardrobe, get more tattoos and piercings. Should I stop bringing in Michael Cera characters to workshops, and start bringing in Ezra Millers?

This was recently crystalized at an audition I had for a music video. Music videos are great because there is no dialogue and you’re normally cast based on how you look and the vibe you give off. They are a helpful tool in analyzing how the industry sees you, sans acting abilities. So I go to this audition, and I’m being seen for the role of “nerdy teen boy”. I showed up in ill-fitting clothes, my hair combed stupidly, and looking as baby-faced as possible. Easy breezy. It was a group audition, so at my scheduled time we five nerdy teen boys entered the room and stood side by side. The CD went down the line, asking some general questions, then stopped and did a sort of double take when he got to me. He asked if I was comfortable being filmed shirtless. I said yes and stripped. He looked at my tattoos and asked if my ears were pierced. I said yes again. I put my shirt back on, finished the audition and left. The next day I got a phone call saying I had booked the job for the character “shirtless punk”.

An argument could be made that these two columns of characters could be uncomfortably nestled under the umbrella term “outcast”, but that word is too unwieldy to even pay attention to. The point of all of this is that you have no idea what it is that casting directors are looking for—hell, they probably aren’t entirely sure themselves. The most you can do is learn to accentuate and embrace what makes you you. Not what makes you special or different, but what is most honestly you. It’s trite, but casting directors aren’t stupid. They can smell a phony a mile away and can spot a plastic, Hollywood actor just as easily as the rest of us. You are right for some part in some production somewhere. Changing yourself into a watered down version of what you think casting directors should see you as is not only dishonest and disrespectful to yourself and to them, but also makes about as much sense as a dairy farmer deciding to sell staplers, just because there is a market out in the world that he isn’t tapping.

Aaron released his self produced documentary Driving July in the summer of 2014.

Story is an elusive word.

It seems so simple in concept, or even worse, it seems obvious. But besides all the so-called obvious answers, why is it that some filmmakers after years of work find themselves on the next breakthrough in the entertainment industry, while others are unintentionally competing with Tommy Wiseau’s The Room in the world of unintentional cult comedies? (Or maybe they’re dramas. It’s anyone’s guess at this point.)

It starts with an idea.

Whether you’re a filmmaker, a writer, or even just someone who likes to think differently, you have something to tell. But what is it? Chances are you don’t even know it yet. A lot of times that feeling is nothing more than an emotion, and a search for a means to show it.

The fact of the matter is there is something within all of us that longs for the short route, hoping to instantly show everyone our next brilliant idea, and longing for the instant gratification that comes with it. The story twists and turns with us, and if we’ve lost sight of why we were creating it to begin with, we can find ourselves frustrated, leaving the project that we thought would spring us to greatness somewhere in the middle of My Documents, which we’ll stumble upon next time we’re clearing space on our computer.

A seed needs room to grow.

As a storyteller, you must not only understand this, but embrace it. I’ve watched many young artists that I’ve been friends with plow through their work for the sake of plowing through it. The unfortunate fact is that most of the time, it results in this review:

“It was kind of slow, but I liked that one part”

It’s because the storytellers got confused along the way and thought that one brilliant idea was the only idea. Conflict, character development, and the change of emotion were pushed to the wayside, all for one cheap pay off.

It’s not about telling the audience your idea. It is about making the audience believe that THEY came up with the idea.

How do you convince them that it was their idea? It’s almost like that scene out of inception. “I say don’t think of elephants. What are you thinking of? Elephants.”

We can very easily get caught up in the relatively recent technology that separates film from other mediums, and forget that people aren’t watching our work solely for exhibition. Movie-goers want to learn from us, and grow with the characters in the situations that we’ve created. I urge you not to get caught in the trap of believing that the audience is stupid. Your work will reflect it, and the only people looking dumb in the end will be the people who worked on that project.

A film is like a relationship. Be very very sure you are ready to spend the next few years of your life on what you are working on. Otherwise you might be in for a messy break up.

How do I stand out?

There are so many films, and even more stories. Everyone has something to say, and more often than not, if someone has an outlet to share what they are thinking, they will use it. It is the reason why social media continues to boom more than ten years after the release of Myspace, and why its predecessor Facebook still stands at the top of the charts.

It’s a question that all of us try to answer on a constant basis, whether you have made it or not. Study interviews from the best filmmakers and they’ll all say the same.

There really isn’t anything fundamentally different from the Steven Spielberg’s of the world and the countless film students who find themselves leaving USC wondering where to go next, but there’s nothing that says that those students can’t fall into Spielberg’s category as well. After all, some of them do. But the knowledge is never innate, and luck isn’t always as lucky as it seems on the outside.

What separates the successful and the not-so-successful?

There used to be a question I would hear a lot growing up. “If you could ask anyone living or dead anything, what would you ask them?” The great thing is, now with Youtube, while you might not be able to ask your question in person, there is a chance someone else already has. We are living in an age where you can get to know someone so well, you feel as if they are a good friend even though you have never met. Never in the history of the universe has that ever been more true.

Find your inspirations. Research them. Not just their films, but who they are as people. You would be surprised how much of their greatness is hidden to them in the routines of their daily lives, and would never be obvious unless you took the time to understand their insecurities and emotions and began to relate it to their creations.

Everyone has the means of telling stories in this age, yet we find it’s the same people who are releasing top content. At a certain point, maybe it is not the work of art itself that you should be studying, but the artists themselves. They might have a few tips that experience couldn’t offer you.

So, if everyone has a story, why are very few good? Personally, I find my biggest obstacle in storytelling is the belief that every scene must be great. And I don’t mean that every scene must work. I mean, every time I pick up the pen I have the desire to write something along the lines of “Luke, I am your Father”.

The thing is though, in any iconic movie scene, we focus so heavy on the delivery that we forget everything leading up to it. It is the context – the whole – that makes something great.

John Mayer once spoke in front of the Berklee School of Music on the economy of songwriting, specifically the creation of a guitar solo. I suggest taking a look at it and applying what he said to your side of storytelling. It is all intertwined after all.

Know yourself.

The truth is, while genre is a very predictable way to categorize a story, you should never bring the element genre into your work.

After all, what really does make a comedy a comedy? I can tell you I laughed a lot harder at The Room than I did The Hangover 2, which is what neither of them intended. On the other end of the spectrum, I teared up at the end of Toy Story 3, and I found myself laughing throughout the violent irony of American Psycho, both of which brought forth reactions in completely new ways.

The fact is, the great storytellers are not kings and queens of genre, but of themselves. They understand the emotions that drive them, they understand how they get to those emotions, and they use their medium to make you feel it as well.

How do you express emotions like the greats?

Story is within all of us. You might have as much to write as the Nolan brothers, or the eye of Wally Pfister, but if you do not study your own unique way of expression, you will be caught in the trap of trying to impress, never express.

So I leave you with this. Film is one of the newest, most untapped forms of art in all of this world. It can change and it will change. Will you wait for your next big inspiration that someone else has created, or find it deep within yourself and put it on the paper?

Choose quickly, because if you choose the latter, you’ll find that you might not even be sure what to express right now. It might take years. But even if it does, they will all add up eventually. And who knows, maybe, just maybe, you’ll find you do have the power to express something that can affect people in ways that you will never truly understand.

If you’ve done it right, your stories should be part of you. So as they say: Trust in yourself and the rest will follow.