We have added an official page on Facebook where you can get regular updates on the production of “40 Miles”. I’ll be continuing to post my extended/detailed updates here on my blog as things progress, but for brief “up to the minute” updates from both myself, cast and crew of the film, make sure you follow (like) it on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/40-MILES/
It’s kind of funny that the times people most want to keep up with me I’m the hardest to follow. My blog seems to be no exception to this, but I’m doing my best to keep current, so you’ll likely see many more frequent posts as we get closer to production on many of my on-going projects, including “40 Miles” (40M).
That said, so many AMAIZING things have happened in the past few weeks that it seems as though God is trying to tell me something. After several delays in the pre-production process on my first (Directorial) feature “40 Miles” (which were somewhat expected), earlier this month I was finally able to make it out to Cincinnati (where we’ll be shooting the film this fall) for the “final” round of in-person casting/auditions. Since the film is already “sold” (we have distribution attached in all mediums) and the fact that the film is somewhat of a “genre” piece (which is nice as they tend to sell well on their own, without the need for known “stars”) I decided to cast the film with relative unknowns and in doing so we did an “open” call initially just in the greater Cincinnati region (with the intention of opening the call up nationally after the first few weeks). We had such an overwhelming response, with more than 2,200 submitting to the initial local call in less than 2 weeks, that we actually dumped the national call altogether… over the course of the next month we did a series of video-auditions long-distance to further cut the group down to fewer than 80, which were then brought in to audition in person (for me and my casting team) for the 14 available speaking rolls.
This is not the first time we’ve done this kind of audition (first round submitting only headshots/resumes, second round sending in video taped monologues, via online video services and third/final round being the in-person, pre-scheduled auditions) but I must admit I was thoroughly impressed at how efficient and effective this process ran. I had a VERY limited time to get through so many people while I was in town, but managed to get through all 80, including call-backs in 27 solid hours of auditions (spread out over two and a half days).
As long and as hard as auditions can be on those running them, I have to say that they couldn’t have gone smoother, or honestly, better. I owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to my Production Coordinator, Lindsay, and my entire casting team for pulling it off on their own time, in between other jobs. These guys are seriously awesome.
Now, I’ve written about my personal casting process before (LINK), but all that being said, as a Writer/Director, the audition process is honestly a really exciting time, it has a certain meaning, a significance to it. To me, as the Director and Writer of the project, it signifies that next step, that “proof” that the film is really happening, and that it all of the sudden has meaning, it’s now much more than just about “my project”. Bringing in actors and seeing actors play and “become” those characters that I’ve written is a touching thing and when you see that person that you know is right, that IS the character you created and brings them to life. There’s a moment there when you know… you finally believe that this is truly happening. Talented actors are much harder to find than one would believe. There are millions of “would be” actors out there, but few who truly have the talent and the passion to make a story real. Uncertainty or concern that you made the wrong choice is always a part of the game, especially when there are a number of highly talented actors involved (as was the case with these auditions, specifically with the lead), but when it comes down to it, when you find just that right person, you know it.
For me it was honestly a very tough choice, I knew what I wanted and I also knew that what I wanted was likely impossible to find. I have very high expectations of my actors and very specific, detailed mental images of what my characters look like and how they act, but even more than that, when an actor comes into the room I try to see not only the immediate performance, but look to see the potential of where that actor could go, what they can become. That said, I also always surround myself with a variety of people in the audition room and always listen to each of their opinions on each actor before I make up my mind. And while I rarely, if ever agree with everyone in the audition room (this time was no exception) I appreciate every comment given and take each seriously. In the case of casting my lead(s) in this film, I saw not only the performance, but also the potential beyond the first performance, which I’ll admit, is not always easy to see, and a big reason for call backs.
Once I had my lead, the rest of my key cast just seemed to fall into place in my mind, they’re all extremely talented in their own right, and when things “click” they just plain “click.” I may have, yet again, chosen the more difficult road with casting (I’ll have to explain this later), but the funny thing is, I know it’s the right one and my co-workers now know it too. To be honest, it’s not the first time I’ve cast some amazing “unknown” talent out of the blue, to the point where I now have people asking me for advice on casting left and right… fact is, I’m no genius, I’m just a very opinionated person, and when it comes down to it, it really is just a matter of opinion, I am a Director… I just know what I’m looking for and I can generally recognize when I’ve found it. It’s that simple. Everything else is secondary, the potential complications, the plans, even the story. If other people happen to like my choices as well, (which they often seem too) then it just makes the film that much more likely to succeed. As much as I’d love too, I can’t tell you who the cast is quite yet (we’re honestly still finalizing much of the supporting cast), but I can say that we will be “officially” announcing the project and the cast here in a few short weeks.
So, after all that’s said, if you’re looking for my advice on the matter, when it comes to casting a film, as a Writer/Director, don’t let anyone else make the decisions, make sure you’re very specific (to yourself) about what you’re looking for BEFORE going in and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Pick specific people that don’t just agree with you on everything, LISTEN to other’s opinions and take them seriously, their different outlooks on a character are just like that of your potential audience. In the end, it’s still your choice, you have to choose who is right for your character and for your film. When you find them, you’ll know it.
Hey guys… so, we’re starting the casting stage for the first of several feature projects here. I’ve included below a copy of the Casting Call/Notice that is going out in the midwest right now, note that we’re only casting locally at this point, but will likely expand to a nation-wide call here in the next few weeks.
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FEATURE CASTING NOTICE
Los Angeles-based production company Star Com Productions, LLC is announcing an OPEN CAST CALL.
Star Com is looking for NEW FACES (preferably non-union), based in the greater Cincinnati/Tri-State area for their upcoming feature film “40 Miles” which will be filmed on location in Cincinnati, Ohio (and the surrounding region) this summer, and will be released nation-wide next year. Star Com is accepting SUBMISSIONS only at this time for Lead/Principle, Supporting, and Featured roles, if the casting team decides you may fit what the production is looking for you will be contacted with additional information and to schedule a formal audition. If you fit one of the roles below please E-Mail a CURRENT headshot and acting resume ONLY (with Measurements, Phone, E-Mail and current Permanent Address) to the e-mail address listed at the bottom of this notice – include in the SUBJECT line of your e-mail “40 Miles Casting – [Name of Role(s) Submitting For]”. Please do NOT submit if you do not specifically fit one or more of the roles listed below, and do not call in or physically mail any materials to us, due to the high volume of submissions we receive, any such inquiries will be ignored. This specific casting call is for residents of the Greater Cincinnati/Tri-State Region only, do not submit if you do not currently reside in this region, and/or cannot be in this region for a formal (in person) audition on short notice. **If you are based outside of this region (including LA/NY) DO NOT submit to this call! A national call will take place at a later date.** While prior acting experience is greatly appreciated, it is not required, however, a high level of professionalism is a must. All roles are paid standard rates.
–Project Details–
Title: “40 Miles”
Description: Current Day Post-Apocalyptic Thriller in the vein of “28 Days Later” (though this is not a zombie film)
**ROLES CASTING**
(do not submit if you do not fit one of these descriptions)
Lead/Principles
JEN – 16-17, Female, Caucasian, slim, no taller than 5’10
LIAM – 35, Male, Caucasian or African American (IE Jeremy Renner or similar type look/build)
KAREN – 35-39, Female, Caucasian, Jen’s Mother (IE Jodie Foster, Jennifer Morrison or similar type look/build)
Supporting
NATE – 28, Male, Caucasian or African American, Male Nurse
SAM – 25, Female, Caucasian, college-educated “Blond Bombshell”
JOSS – 32, Male, Caucasian, waiter at a classy restaurant
ED – 55, Male, Caucasian or African American, trade/office technician, not “fit”
JOEY – 24, Male, Any Ethnicity, slim, not muscular
Featured
RANDY – 17-19, Male, Caucasian, Jen’s Boyfriend (average build, no body-builders, no 22+ year-olds please)
LYN – 45-55, Female, Any Ethnicity
MAGGIE – 3, Female, Caucasian
CASSIE – 13, Female, Caucasian
TYLER – 10-11, Male, Caucasian
DARREN – 38-42, Male, Caucasian, Jen’s Father
If you fit one or more of the above roles please E-MAIL “CASTING@STARCOMPRODUCTIONS.NET” a current headshot and resume ONLY (with Measurements, Phone, E-Mail and current Permanent Address) – include in the SUBJECT line of your e-mail “40 Miles Casting – [Name of Role(s) Submitting For]”.
**Parents must submit on behalf of anyone under the age of 18**
It’s official, I’ve completed the first draft of “40M”, my cross-genre SciFi/Horror/Thriller that goes into production this summer, and I have to say, I’m definitely getting faster at it. I conceptualized this film in about two months and wrote it (cover to cover) in about 14 days. That’s a personal record. For those of you who may not know, every writer generally has their own unique process of developing and writing out their screenplays. As far as I’m concerned, I like to have EVERYTHING worked out ahead of time… I’ll start with a basic story/idea I like, develop a bunch of characters and bio’s and then get back to how to conceptualize the story itself. Since I’m also a director, I have a tendency to imagine everything visually, I basically construct the entire film in my head (and on dozens of pages of hand-written, scribbled notes to remind me of specifics) before I ever actually sit down and write a single word. By doing it that way, the “conceptualization” stage is what ends up taking up the longest time, but the great thing is, once I’ve got the characters and story all visualized in my head, sitting down to write it all out on paper just comes naturally, and spitting out 90+ pages in a week or two isn’t out of the question.
So… now we’re on to the notes process and bundles of joyous re-writes! (not too crazy about this part… but it’s important).
Ladies and Gents, exciting news, as you may already know if you’ve been following this blog for a bit, I’ve had the pleasure of producing a large number of films and directing a select few shorts, commercials and music vids, etc… so I’m very excited to announce that an indie feature film of mine, which for now we’ll just call, “40M” (this is not the actual title) was just financed this past week! The film, which I’ll be Directing, Writing, and Executive Producing shoots this summer and already has domestic Home Video, TV, and (national) limited theatrical distribution attached! You have no idea how excited I am. I don’t have an exact start date or release date for you quite yet, but based on the current plan, my (wild) guess is that it will likely hit theaters either around the late 2010 holiday season or (more likely) sometime in early 2011, but don’t hold me to that, things in this industry are about as predictable as a squirrel on steroids and ironically enough, I probably won’t have any say as to what date is chosen for the final release since that’s up to our other producers, the distributor and marketing peeps.
Now on to actually writing of the darn screenplay… yes, I actually got a film green lit, with distribution attached WITHOUT a script. Don’t ask me how, it’s top secret (haha), but hey, no complaints. I’ll keep you all updated as things progress and, of course, I’ll do my best to give you updates as we begin the production process here in a few months. Stay Tuned!
Question: Do you listen to music when you’re writing? Do you think it can help or hinder the creative process?
Ok, so I’m in the middle of writing this crazy SciFi feature which I was just notified of a few days ago, and started writing promptly thereafter (which I have about 9 days to finish) and I ran across this little gem of a question which I wanted to answer right away (which also gives me another excuse to procrastinate more). To put it simply, YES. I definitely listen to music both while I’m writing and while I’m conceptualizing a story. Music is a BIG part of my life, I listen to all kinds of music from rock to pop, classical, and TONS of movie soundtracks. To be honest, I’m a little bit of a sucker when it comes to quality film scores of all types.
When it comes to the relationship between music and writing, at least for me, I often find myself flipping through hundreds if not thousands of songs while conceptualizing a story and actually building a playlist of sorts of music which both moves and inspires me that I feel relates to the story I’m trying to tell. One thing I love about film scores is that the best of them are written for an emotional mood or specific character moment within a film, which, unlike classical music, or most music with lyrics (at least for me) truly speaks to me when I find just the right track for just the right moment in the story I’m trying to write. If you were to sit in the room with me while I’m writing (which would be terribly distracting by the way, and would never happen) you’d find that I’ll often put a specific track (or tracks) on repeat while working through and writing (or conceptualizing) a specific scene where I’m trying to portray a specific emotion or event. This would probably drive you nuts if you were sitting in the room with me since you’d have no clue what is going through my mind, but to me, when I hit just the right line of dialogue or just the right moment and read it back to myself with the music playing, I can tell it’s just right. I’ll admit, I’ve spent hours, even weeks compiling just the right set of songs to “write to” (and they are often a combination of genres that each speak to different characters, emotions, or moments in the story… rock for action moments, strings for heavy drama, or exact opposites when the scene calls for it) I try to mix it up as much as possible, depending on the film I’m trying to write. I often find I focus on one musical “sound” for each film.
One other note of interest here is that since I also direct most of the screenplays I write, so the music I listen to while writing then often becomes the “temp track” of the score for the film during post-production, since I know the music fits the mood of what I was aiming for precisely. Then the final original score of the film is written based off of the same temp music which I send to the composer with the cut of the film, so he can see (generally) what I’m looking for musically in each moment. Again, the music in the final film is NOT the music I listened to while writing, it is completely original, written for the film, but it is often based off of my initial tracks.
So, all that just to say, YES, music plays a huge role in the writing process for me, and often finding the right music can mean the difference between writing a crappy and/or bland moment or a truly moving one. It honestly has less to do with the specific music I choose and more to do with how the music affects me emotionally; it puts me in the mood to write what my characters are feeling.
Ok… so it’s been a while here, my apologies… there’s been both way too much going on and a lot of nothing. Let me explain, since the film fest at the end of July I’ve been packing up for the move out west and dealing with all the fun details that come with it… including the financial annoyances (ie: cost of moving) and all the details that come with not only moving myself, but also transferring our main production office as well. Basically, due to all the crazy projects I’ve got in the tubes both personally, and through my production company (Star Com Productions LLC) I felt it was time to make the move out west, but not only myself, but for the company’s main office as well. Now, don’t get me wrong, we’re not a huge company, and a lot of what we do can be done from home-offices, but the fact of the matter is, changing everything (and moving everyone) from one coast to the other is a heck of an undertaking and so while I’ve now been living in Los Angeles for about 3 weeks, it’s taken me until now to get things situated to the point of getting back to the fun world of “internetz”.
Before I get into some brief updates on ongoing film/event projects I just want to clear up one important question I’ve been asked rather frequently recently regarding the move and my continuing relationship with the Oxford International Film Festival. Yes, I know live primarily in Los Angeles, but I am continuing to work with the festival on a regular basis. A good friend of mine and a long-time supporter of the festival, Eric Chatterjee, has been very gracious in accepting the reigns as the new “Executive Director” of the festival starting in 2010, and is now handling all the day-to-day operations and planning. I’ve taken on the new position as the festival’s “Producer”. Basically what that means is that I still have the final say in most festival matters, including programming, but I’m no longer the day-to-day person. Due to the crazy amount of work involved in putting on the festival every year I felt it necessary to hand over a considerable amount of the yearly work load to someone new, not only because I’m no longer directly local (you’ll find that I’ll still be in Ohio rather frequently through – we still plan to shoot most of our productions there) but also to allow me to have more time to focus on Star Com, our ever-growing slate of films, tv projects, and concerts (not to mention my own Directing endeavors). So there you have it… no worries about the fest! I’m still a major player in the festival, but I’ve intentionally passed on the “Executive Director” title and daily duties.
That said though, we’re now all setup here in LA and getting right back into the game head-first. So, a brief update on some projects that I’ve got in the works: The “In Dreams” (formerly titled “Slipping Away”) feature is still very much alive and kicking, indie financing in this economy to be honest just plain sucks… I’m actively in talks with a couple different backers and we’re still pushing ahead, though we have not yet set production dates, and yes, we still have some VERY interesting actors in talks.
Ok, on to some NEW stuff… I’ve recently been asked to develop and write a network tv/family drama for a Disney starlet which would basically start as an online “webisode” series and then make the transition to one of 3 networks. I finished the pilot script a few weeks ago, which everyone very much liked, so like everything else, now it’s basically just a waiting game to see what the producer/studio/sponsors decide to do next. I’ve also been asked just last week to write and direct a low-budget SciFi/Thriller aimed as a SyFy channel original movie, which, I’ll be honest, I was a bit hesitant to do originally, but now I’m getting very excited about the more I think about it and continue to develop the story. We’re still very much in negotiations about it (again, like everything in this biz.. you never REALLY know if anything will ever happen until it’s finished) but I’m happy with where it’s going and really starting to get to know and like the producer (which is a good sign).
Hum… I think that’s about it for now… lots of other random things in the works, but not too much far enough along yet to really mention, but I’ll certainly let you all know if/when things start to progress, the great thing about LA (and this industry in general) is that things move SO fast (and, ironically, often SO slow) that predictability and planning is often all but irrelevant, but hey, that’s half the fun of it. 🙂
More soon.
–JC
While I may not be producing another film until the feature later this year, I have been and will be writing/directing/producing several promos for the Oxford International Film Festival which will be released online every few weeks from now until the festival in July. We’ll be switching off posting one of mine a few promos by other director friends of mine throughout the coming months. The promos for the 09 fest can be found here: www.youtube.com/oxfordfilmfestival other new promos will also be posted on the festival’s Official Website, MySpace page, Facebook page, and of course on the fest’s YouTube page. You can actually submit your own promo for the fest by going here: www.oxfordfilms.com/promo/
I’ll also be directing a music video for a new band called Above Only here coming up in June. The song is “Hear Me” which is featured on their debut EP. This is a thoroughly impressive band that’s going to be huge here in the next few years, so stay tuned, I’ll let you know when we get the video finished and out to the world.
So, check out all these new vids, rate them, comment, and have some fun. I’ll be doing some other fun little side-projects over the next few months which I’ll cue you in on latter, but will hopefully hold you all over until the feature comes out sometime next year. Peace.
Ok, so after much deliberation and procrastination, I finally caved and joined “Twitter” yesterday, (as if I didn’t already have enough to do 🙂 that said though, you can follow my spontaneous and somewhat random updates at www.twitter.com/jcschroder. I will still be posting my regular blogs.
Also, another screening to announce: The “final cut” of The End of All Things will have its regional debut this SUNDAY, April 19th at 7:00pm at the KNOW THEATRE (1120 Jackson Street, Cincinnati, OH, 45202) as a part of Underneath Cincinnati, featuring a number of shorts by local filmmakers. Tickets are $7 public/ $5 students for the whole program. I plan to attend, so stop in, say “Hi”, see the FINAL cut of the film, meet some other filmmakers, and have some fun! For questions/times/tickets contact the theater directly at: (513) 300-5669 – See you there!
Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I’m featured this month on the PBS/CET show “Viewfinder”. So, if you live in the tri-state region make sure to check your local listings, and tune in to PBS/CET this Thursday, March 24th at 7:30pm EST. I’m honored to be on the show this week as well as with an actress, Meredith Meeks, who worked on “End of All Things” with me, and will join me later on in the show to chat about that (now award-winning) film. For those of you who haven’t seen my recent shorts “Freedomland” or “End of All Things” this is an excellent chance to get a taste of them and hear me blabber on about how many things had to fall into place to get those films made. So check that out.
Also, I want to give a shout-out to the kids at the Cincinnati Country Day School (High School) which I gave a keynote to a few weeks ago. It was great getting to chat with you, and having a chance to meet many of you. Hopefully I’ll be back again before too long to bug you some more. You guys are awesome, keep up the good work, and ignore everything I said about throwing things at people 🙂 .