What Happens when No One Reads the Casting Calls

While we filmed The Making of, we gave out script pages as-needed and out of order, so none of the kids making the film knew what the film was about.

This wasn't on purpose. I'm pretty sure there was a pitch for the film in the casting call (*cough!* I mean "class description.") But it lead to some heart-warming moments. Specifically three of them, because three is a good blogging number. Like #1, when we couldn't get through the Joshua Torres that he wasn't dead.

The Making Of is about an unscrupulous filmmaker using a bunch of kids to make a movie. So naturally, there is a movie being made inside the movie. In this movie within a movie, Joshua Torres dramatically dies.

"I DIE?"

"No. You're an actor pretending to die."

"But I'm DEAD? D:"

"No, you die inside the movie that you're making. .__."

"I DIED."

...on second thought maybe I didn't explain that well enough.

# 2, Brilea, sweet, adorable Briley who came in on the last two weeks of filming to save our hides, approached me at the co-op's end-of-the-year party.

"I think I know what the movie is about, Miss Joy."

"Really?"

"Yes. We are homeschooled so he thinks we're weird but then he works with us and finds out we're not weird."

Oh, darling, we're never not weird.

"...that is wonderful and I love you. That's not what the movie's about. Do you want me to just tell you?"

#3 One of my favorite stories from making this film was when near the end of filming we overheard the teenagers debating, trying to figure out which one of them was the main character.

I stepped in. "Collin plays the main character."

They stared at me like I had lost my mind. "But he's the bad guy!"

It's a good idea to accept that no one reads the casting calls.

But here's what matters to me in this.  Every one of them knew they were important. They knew they were important to the point that any one of them could believe they were the main character. I really, really like that.

 

This year, exhausted, drained, and battered, I showed up to a shoot and played the cast a choppy version of the trailer we were about to release. The flickering figure of Collin got down on his knees, and Adam yelled "WHOA. I NEVER saw that coming!"

They were happy. Hopefully, they know that I'm still working for them, that I'm not going to give up.

Sometimes it's not so bad when they don't read the casting call.

If you haven't seen the trailer for The Making Of yet, you can find it here. Have a great week.

Somebody Save Us: How a Bad Situation Got us Great Teammate

I hate firing people. The bending over backwards trying to make a way to keep someone you like. The ending up flat on your back, knowing it's cut them loose or  sink everyone who's worked so hard. The gaping hole they leave, gushing time and production value while you scramble to fill it.
 
I had a void in my cast, and three weeks left to shoot. That's one day a week with a max of 2 hours 30 minutes that day, if no one wanted to eat.

I had just fired someone. I needed a replacement by the end of the co-op's lunch period.
 
It sounds simple, right? You're asking someone if they want to be in a movie.  But what happened isI went table to table in every lunch room, asking every appropriately aged girl if she could save our film, and every one of them said no.

We'd worked for more than a year on this thing. I didn't want to lose it because I couldn't find one girl.

Chemistry classes. Biology classes. Pottery classes. Financial Peace. Table to table to table and not a single highschool, middle-school, mercy! I'd have taken an elementary kid, not a single person was available to save us.

I combed three lunch rooms and walked down the hall empty handed. I was praying, my chest tight and my head swimming from the lack of food, and I opened a classroom door. And there was Brilea, sitting alone in an empty classroom with her lunch, reading book.

I'm pretty sure I didn't get down on my knees to beg. But I did consider it.

A few minutes later I had explained the schedule, and she was telling me she'd have to talk to her teachers, but she was pretty certain they'd say yes. And she said, "I don't know how good I will be at this, but I will try my very, very best."

If I was gonna cry, I would have done it then.

I wanted to hug her. I reached my hand out, and shook. "Thank you. That's all I need." 

Brilea saved our movie, and a year later, she's still with Rabid Camera. The last week of the shoot year, I realized that she'd never heard the story before, so I told her. And I was like, man. That's a story worth telling.

We're really grateful for every member of our team, but Brilea has the weirdest origin story. Yay.

Sometimes when you have to fire someone it doesn't turn out so bad.

How to Film Stuff Really Quickly

We shot our last feature film almost entirely in 45 minute to 1 hour stints while we had the kids between their other classes.

In the time we’ve spent filming quickly, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve learned a few tricks.

I don’t always follow this advice, but I always wish I had.

1.     Have a back-up plan. And a back-up back-up plan.

Worst case scenario, shoot montages or interview people for behind the scenes.

When you yell “Plan E!” you know you’re doing it right.

2.  Practice forgiveness.

Someday, you are going to have this conversation.

You: You know your lines?

Actor: No, but I learn lines really fast.

When you have 30 minutes to get a scene, 'really fast' is destroy-everything slow.

People are going to mess up. People are going to show up unprepared (and sometimes? That is going to be crazy hard to forgive them for). But you need to become a forgiveness machine, because you cannot work your best and they cannot work their best while you are ticked off or snarking or in any way punishing your people.

Yes, communicate expectations. Communicate why their behavior hinders your goal. And then make sure they know they are more important than their mistakes. And let it go.

(Also, feeding actors line by line and shooting that line ad nauseum till you have what you want is a thing that works in emergencies.)

(And forgive yourself. Guilt is not going to help you make a movie. You’re worth more than your mistakes and you’re going to do a lot more good for this film than you’ve done bad. Go make stuff.)

3.     Know your material.

You do not want to be standing there saying, “So, directionnnnn. Uhhhh…”

If you’re connected to as many crazy aspects of each line and experience as you can get, you are way more likely to have the off-the-wall direction that snaps an actor out of his head fast.

Annnnd your shot list is probably going to be sideswiped. If you know the shots you need, you’re less likely to miss that key shot when it all goes south.

4.     Avoid wasted motion.

If you spend three minutes fumbling around for pens, and you miss getting that last shot by three minutes, whose fault is that?

5.     Take the time to listen.

Acting is hard and vulnerable work, and your actors are always worth your time. You can communicate deadlines to them, but make sure you’re taking care of their well-being and listening to their struggles and reservations.

Ultimately, your people are worth more than your deadline, and they will last a lot longer than any of your projects. Invest in them.

6.     Have fun.

Don’t always be waiting for the hammer to drop. Ask God for help, and then proceed as if you’ve got it.

Pretend that you have some kind of guarantee that you’re not wasting your time and working for nothing.

 

Whatever happens, enjoy what you’re doing. If you let the fun drain out of filmmaking, you’ve become a sad, sad creature and everything gets way, way harder.

7.     Afterwards, relax.

I’m not good at this. I go until I crash.

Don’t be me. This is bad and does not work.

Learn to slow down.

My brain just stopped working. Give me a moment to drink coffee.

Blech. Okay.

Do you have advice on this, or on filmmaking in general? I would love to hear it. Also, advice on learning to relax would be really useful, because I’m still horrible at it. :P

Have a great week! May all your pens be in easy reach.

Things We're Thankful for (or, 'This was a rough week; have some pictures')

We've been having a bit of a rough time here at Rabid Camera. Friday:

1. I lost my beloved car. She is almost definitely not fixable on any budget that makes sense.

2. I have to quit my better-paying job teaching children and become a cashier in walking-distance.

3. The money for the camera I've saved for two years for is going to go to the future car. That hurt.

4. No car means not seeing my favorite fight director very much.

That was really hard.

But somehow, this grief has made us refocus on thankfulness. And I'm really glad this happened, because I am so much happier than I was before.

So, in no particular order, here are 6 things we at Rabid Camera have to be thankful for.

1. Wonderful student actors and crew.

2. Supportive parents.




3. Encouraging friends.

4. Kind location managers. (These guys rocked.)

5. Brave volunteers.

6. The chance to try our absolute hardest, and make mistakes, and learn, and try again.

If you're a Bible-reader, 1 Peter 1 has been super helpful to me. I recommend you check it out.

Wishing you a week not free of adversity, but full of joy.

Have a week of greatness.

50 Shades of Film: Don't Let Directors Hurt You

The release of the Fifty Shades movie has opened up a lot of healthy discussion about abuse and abusive relationships.

I like actors, so even if this was a story I'd watch, knowing the actors making it were unhappy would feel like watching a film made at the cost of a thousand Humane Society commercials.

But here's the thing: the emotionally abusive and manipulative behavior in the 50 Shades story is not confined to romantic relationships. It's afoot in filmmaking at large. I worked for a guy who bragged about bullying his actresses to hysterics. I should have quit right there. Instead I worked for months under a psycho, and I still don't know if he was intentionally trying to destroy me and make me quit the job, or if that was just how he worked with everyone.

I didn't stick up for myself, even when I knew that behavior was wrong, because I wanted so badly to be working in my craft. I don't want other people to go through what I did.

You're worth more than that, and you should never feel like you have to put up with emotional abuse to exercise your craft.

This is a really emotional subject for me, and going back to write this has been really hard. I'm sorry if this is disjointed.

Here are three ways to protect and stick up for yourself, because you are worth sticking up for.

1. Recognize Abuse

A pattern in abuse and manipulation is that the abusive party will be extremely charming and complimentary and encouraging and build you up, and then

1) Cut off contact right after they get what they want out of you.

2) Become extremely rude and cold when you politely refuse a demand. ("Actually it's after midnight and I have another job early tomorrow morning [and you already fired me in the worst way].")

3) Ask you to be open and then berate you for it.

A director should never get angry at you for answering a question about your feelings.

Director: How are you feeling?

Me: Nervous.

Director: Why?

Me: I was worried I was fired.

Director: I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU I CANNOT PUT UP WITH THIS UNPROFESSIONALISM OH MY GOD DON'T EVER TALK TO ME LIKE THIS AGAIN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND.

It's crucial in a relationship regarding artistic work to have honesty and safety and that? That up there? That's psycho and damaging.

2. Set Boundaries

I worked with a director who used to call me at 9 at night and require rewrites within an hour. When I finished, he would call me again at midnight and ask me for something else.

This behavior continued after he fired me. Or, more specifically, after he did his typical not-talking-to-me-for-a-week thing and then let me find out I was replaced from an actor, and then, when I sent a nice email asking about it, had someone else call me.

You need to have boundaries and if your director does not respect those boundaries, if he tries to make you feel bad about them or if he fires you for them-

3. Walk Away

The scariest part of this story is that a year after this nightmare, the worst guy in the pack- not the guy who lied about me to my face, but the guy who bullied and manipulated and was psycho- he came back and offered me a job, and I almost said yes.

He was charming and he held out my dream to me on a platter and I knew, knew, that he dropped people like paper cups and treated them like garbage and working for him was a nightmare and I didn't even like any of his work, and I still wanted badly to say yes, because that's how artists work and that's how artists are and we want to do our craft so bad that way, way too often, we are kicked and we crawl back, bleeding, to be kicked again.

He was charming and complimentary and offered so much hope and I walked in a circle around my kitchen, sat down, and wrote him that I had my own projects to focus on, and wished him the best.

He immediately changed face and was rude and dismissive, and I knew I'd made the right choice.

I've turned down at least two jobs doing what I love and worked hard to build my own company, and I work other jobs to make ends meet because I want to create an environment where people are safe and loved and protected and can do what they love without experiencing abuse. I used to tell every actor I trained, "Don't trust filmmakers," but that's ridiculous advice, because trust is crucial. If you don't trust your director, you cannot make films.

It's not, "don't trust filmmakers." It's, "don't put up with abuse." Because abuse is never okay, and you are always, always worth more than that.

Do you have more advice for recognizing and responding to abusive situations? Do you have advice for working in your craft while maintaining emotional safety and self respect? Please share.

This is an important topic. Because you? You're important.

Have a great week.

Rabid Camera: a Sappy Love Story

I was pretending to take notes in English class while scribbling on the script for ill-fated web-series Homeschoolers vs. Zombies, the train wreck that was going to break my heart and change my life for good. This guy who sat next to me- cute, loquacious, spoke a little Russian- leaned over and said, “Is that about zooooombies? O_O”

Oh my gosh, I didn’t trust him. I didn’t know him. I said, “Yeeees. ._.”

His eyes were big and childish and hopeful, like someone was holding out a puppy that played video games. He said- dagnabbit, he knew how cute he was- “Can I help? O_O”

I didn’t know him. I’d barely talked with him. But he was all cute and his eyes were enormous and I said yes.

 Six months later, he’d graduated from carrying bags to choreographing fights to coaching dialog, and I didn’t know how I’d ever worked without him. He was trustworthy with a little, so I kept giving him more jobs, and soon I was putting the camera in his hand. He worked tirelessly, taught gently, corrected me with deference and respect. I realized that being with him was the only time I felt calm.

Soon I was watching behind the scenes of him carefully smoothing latex onto our littlest zombie’s face, and I realized that against all my intentions, I’d fallen for the cute guy in English class.

And then we got lost in a parking lot, in a thunderstorm, at night. We walked for two hours looking for my car. At last we crossed a street, climbed a hill, whooping and laughing, and we collapsed in the front seat of the Paraclete. And he looked at me and said, “Well, what are we making next?”

And I’m a genius, so I was like, “Nothing; you’re moving to Vermont and you’re going to meet a girl and you’re not going to have time for this anymore.”

Can I move space and time and give you the high points of the dialog? Because he said, “Joy. I’m a guy. You’re a girl. Boy has met girl.”

And I was like, “Well...I’m happy. ._.”

Soooo, that’s my sappy valentines day story. Here is a picture of my best friend and co-director with the ridiculous present I made for him last Valentines; it's a pony-monkey monster, and if you’re a Jonathan Coulton fan, you definitely know what that means. 

If not, you might really enjoy this song: Skull Crusher Mountain Song, by Jonathan Coulton
 
Happy Valentines Day!

6 Things I Never Thought I'd Say on Set

Filmmaking is a lot different than I thought it would be.

1. "Just lower the book and I'll slide the script inside of it."

2. "We're short on time, so I sharpened this pencil with my teeth."

3. "I need you to hit him with the boom mic."

4. "Don't pet the boom mic!"

5. "I'm tirrrrred. My blood sugar is low."

Me: "Join the club; we have jackets."

6. "Darling, would you..." *children stare* *blush* "Director Pennington, would you please..."

7. Me: "Crap. ...I'm sorry."

Student: "I say crap sometimes at home."

Student: "Me too!"

Student: "Sometimes I say heck!"

Me: "OKAY. Now that you've all been corrupted..."

Is there anything you never thought you'd say? Have a great week!

**

One Note, because I need to rant: I am editing the footage my mom and Collin acted in, and my mom + Collin = oh my gosh THEY WILL NEVER STOP GIGGLING.

She's all, "He keeps looking at me! Make him not look at me," and so we ended up with Jared as a stand-in and Collin with his back turned trying to run lights.

She is adorable and he is adorable and they are entirely worth it, but do you see what I put up with for actors? Do you see this?

How did I ever get so blessed that I get to work with these goofballs?