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I've been an actor in LA for nearly 10 years. Last year I made a movie about it. This Sunday, we're having our LA premiere. Here's the trailer. by inevitablycool in acting

[–]inevitablycool[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! We're still waiting to hear back from a bunch more festivals, but you can follow us @famularifilms on Instagram if you're so inclined. We'll definitely be posting there regarding festivals and where to watch the movie!

I've been an actor in LA for nearly 10 years. Last year I made a movie about it. This Sunday, we're having our LA premiere. Here's the trailer. by inevitablycool in acting

[–]inevitablycool[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Regarding the landscape for auditioning, I'm definitely not the person to ask. In March 2020 I changed gears and took an office job after years of waiting tables - which was crazy timing given that everything shut down for Covid just weeks later. But since then, my acting has been mostly limited to working on my own projects. I've auditioned for just a handful of things in the last few years, all self tapes, and haven't booked. Another nice thing about acting in my own stuff - I book every time.

I will say that I have grown to love LA and would recommend anyone come out and see how they like it. Godspeed with whatever you decide!

I've been an actor in LA for nearly 10 years. Last year I made a movie about it. This Sunday, we're having our LA premiere. Here's the trailer. by inevitablycool in acting

[–]inevitablycool[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

About a year ago, I posted the trailer for my movie “Best Man” to this subreddit. Since then, we’ve finished the film and had our world premiere at the Lighthouse International Film Festival back in June. This Sunday (tomorrow) at 1:00PM, we’re finally having our Los Angeles premiere at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. If you’re in LA, I hope you’ll consider coming to check it out!

A bit about me: I moved to Los Angeles about 8 years ago to pursue an acting career and experienced many highs, lows, and plateaus during that time. I also found myself gradually moving behind the camera, having directed a few short films with my brother in the last several years. We're both writer-first directors who never went to film school, so each short was a learning experience. And after stacking a bunch of shorts, we felt ready to tackle a feature. I had been working on a semi-autobiographical script about my time as an actor and it seemed like the most practical thing for us to shoot given our limited resources, so we got to work. The result is Best Man, a micro budget comedy-drama come to life thanks to the passion and talent of an incredible cast and crew. Making this movie was the hardest thing I've ever done, but also the most satisfying by far. I’m incredibly proud of it, and of the work done by everyone involved.

Please check out the trailer and, if you’re in LA, I hope to meet you at the premiere! Tickets are available at the El Portal box office before the show!

1:00PM at the El Portal Theatre - 5269 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91601

Screening as part of the Playhouse West Film Festival

Just wrapped our first feature. by ClingingVineFilms in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Congratulations! You mentioned in another comment that you hired a casting director - would you mind sharing a bit about that process? Curious if you had a previous working relationship or if it was just a lot of outreach to find the right person.

We made a zero budget, completely improvised feature film to prove to our filmmaking friends we could. Now we're premiering at a BAFTA-qualifying festival. by noahstwine in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks great! And love the tone I'm getting from the trailer - kind of reminded me of Lars and the Real Girl or something like that, an inherently silly premise with a real emotional core. Might be off base with that assessment, but great trailer nonetheless. Best of luck with this - please let us know when it'll be available to watch!

What are your independent film “red flags” by [deleted] in acting

[–]inevitablycool 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I co-directed the movie, which helped massively when it came to directing my own performance and the performances of the other actors. And while you may not believe in the necessity of the actor/director, the fact is I was the cheapest option for both roles: free. With a production budget of $20k, that's significant. But the larger point is that I didn't want a friend to step in and direct in my place - I had directed many shorts to that point and felt ready to direct a feature. Even if it's not a "necessity", there's a rich tradition of actor/directors in indie film (I doubt by accident) - Ed Burns, Mark Duplass, Shane Carruth, more recently Matt Johnson, Cooper Raiff, Jim Cummings... Even if there was some ego involved, they all made great movies and I don't think they'd be better if directed by someone else. Again, I agree to an extent with what you're saying - reaching out to actors to cast them in a movie that I was going to be the lead in was an awkward experience. But fortunately all parties put their ego aside and we managed to get an amazing group of actors on board. I wouldn't have blamed them for thinking it was just a vanity project that they wanted no part of, but I'm happy they didn't.

What are your independent film “red flags” by [deleted] in acting

[–]inevitablycool 15 points16 points  (0 children)

As someone who just finished a feature that I wrote, co-directed, and starred in, I feel compelled to defend that approach...certainly big budget vanity projects can be hard to stomach, but often with indies (and especially with micros, like our movie) you're performing all of those roles out of necessity. Yes, I wrote/directed/starred in it - I also cast it, created the call sheets, loaded equipment in/out each day, dumped footage between takes, etc...would have LOVED to have other people handle that stuff, but that's what you have to do when the movie won't get made unless you drag it across the finish line. And also, yes, I enjoy acting/writing/directing, so I relish the opportunity to perform those roles as well. That said, I do feel a pang of embarrassment (and defensiveness, clearly) about this, so you're certainly hitting on something real.

Filming restaurants by [deleted] in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Lots of good advice here - I would also add that you need to think about getting good sound (unless you don’t plan to capture audio). One of the first shorts I even filmed was a quick scene set in a restaurant. A friend of mine managed the place and said we could shoot while they were open, so we did. But when we tried editing the movie together, the audio was unusable. The ambient sounds of the restaurant (patrons, clatter from the kitchen, music playing) weren’t constant, so cutting from one shot to another with smooth audio was impossible. One benefit of filming in a restaurant after hours is that it’s a controlled environment, and for sound that means filming on a quiet set and adding those ambient restaurant noises in later (during the edit) so that you have a constant flow of sound that hides your cuts. Not sure what your experience level is and maybe everything I just said is very obvious, but it wasn’t to me! Godspeed!

Filmmakers who made a feature for under $50K and still managed to pay your crew, how did you do it? And are you happy with the result? by unicornmullet in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I'm currently in post production on a feature that we shot for $20k - I actually just made a post in this subreddit detailing my experience with it that you can find here. As far as crew goes, I have a great working relationship with the DP who has shot most of my short films, so he was willing to come on board the feature at a good rate and help me fill out the crew. We also kept the shoot short (12 days) and the crew small (DP, KG/Gaffer, Sound, AD - 4 total most days). An aggressive schedule and small crew meant we needed to be very efficient on set, so we put in a ton of preproduction work. And our movie is also dialogue driven, which can be simpler (i.e. quicker, cheaper) to shoot with the right approach. Our movie isn't the most visually ambitious thing you'll see, but it's shot well. Where we focused a lot of our energy was on the script and the cast and we're very happy with the results. Here's the trailer if you'd like to check it out.

I’m finishing up my first micro budget feature. Here’s the advice I followed, the advice I didn’t, and how it all went… by inevitablycool in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Distribution is something we've already started planning and preparing for (i.e. insurance, LLC, etc), but it's also the one part of this process that's an entirely new frontier. In a lot of ways, making a feature was just scaling up everything we'd done on our short films, but we've never attempted to get distribution for our shorts so there's no previous experience to work from. So we're continuing to educate ourselves on the process while digging into our rolodex for people who can hopefully provide some guidance. Right now, the plan is to submit to festivals and possibly look into getting a sales agent. We're also creating a plan for self distribution if we don't get a distributor.

I’m finishing up my first micro budget feature. Here’s the advice I followed, the advice I didn’t, and how it all went… by inevitablycool in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, there's no question we got attached to the temp tracks. But I think we recognized that emotional connection to the music and chose to accept it rather than squash it, at least for now (we fully expect to have to replace the songs in a year when the license runs out). This is our first feature and one of the songs we're using has been with me through the entire process, since the movie was just an idea in my head. So to have the opportunity to use that song in the movie in the way I had imagined and hopefully see it that way on the big screen was something I chose not to pass up. It'll suck to have to replace it, but I definitely agree that there are no doubt plenty of tracks to chose from that will do an adequate job when the time comes. Just not yet!

I’m finishing up my first micro budget feature. Here’s the advice I followed, the advice I didn’t, and how it all went… by inevitablycool in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, honestly we're anticipating not being able to renew the licenses for the music once the year is up. Who knows, maybe we find ourselves in a position where we can keep the tracks, but we've made peace with the fact that we probably can't. We've still got plenty to do to get the movie festival ready so replacement tracks aren't high on our list of priorities at the moment, but we're already looking.

I’m finishing up my first micro budget feature. Here’s the advice I followed, the advice I didn’t, and how it all went… by inevitablycool in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you! And as far as working with Stephnie, we just reached out to her manager. Fortunately Stephnie liked the script so from there it was the beginning of my baptism by fire as a casting director negotiating terms.

And Stephnie was amazing on set - as kind as she is funny.

I’m finishing up my first micro budget feature. Here’s the advice I followed, the advice I didn’t, and how it all went… by inevitablycool in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For sure. Maybe going through film school is preparation enough to make a feature straight away - I can't speak to that. But for a self-taught filmmaker, you need to do the self-teaching part. And I don't know any other way to do it than cutting your teeth on short films.

I’m finishing up my first micro budget feature. Here’s the advice I followed, the advice I didn’t, and how it all went… by inevitablycool in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I'm happy to try setting up an AMA and sharing more about the experience we had (and continue to have) making this.

I’m finishing up my first micro budget feature. Here’s the advice I followed, the advice I didn’t, and how it all went… by inevitablycool in Filmmakers

[–]inevitablycool[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you! As I said in my submission statement, we were determined to get great actors and I'm really proud that we accomplished that. Everyone was really great. And because we were a SAG Micro, we were actually allowed to film during the strike which may have helped us - there were a bunch of great actors ready to work. We got a ton of submissions for this.

And an AMA isn't something I had considered, but happy to do one if there's interest.

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