Cast an Actor Nothing Else

What A Lovely Morning, The Sun Is Shining, The Birds Are Singing and The Bees Are Making Honey.

Casting for this film has been.... Lets say interesting, i can say i have been very blessed and lucky the people am working believe in themselves, the script, the crew and my vision. I have too say when i first started i thought to get a good actor you needed money but i no longer believe this to be true, reason being is once you have a good cast, script and team the money will follow.

Today i can say my first rule 'Cast An Actor Nothing Else'.

In my experience most actors act, however there are a few who want to Produce, Direct and Write. Listen do not get me wrong there is nothing wrong with wearing many hats, however it does get twisted when an actor wants to do this on your time, again nothing wrong with wanting to change lines or change the camera angle but that is why we have the writer and DoP. The truth be told am dealing with actors who want to produce, again nothing wrong with this or wanting to help out as you know a friend who may have a house rather than a flat for a location which is great.

Let me go back there was an actor who we will call nameless, this actor is a kool person, talented and the rest of it. Anyway they called me one day saying Mr Aaron Thomas (Business Like Voice I Never Heard Until Now) what your doing is fab but i can take your project where it needs to be on the big screen, talk show interviews, magazine covers and most importantly i can get you a million $$$$$. At this point my ears stand to attention, am thinking 'Thank you Jesus, You finally Have Answered My Prays, I can Get THE Red One For a 3 Week Shoot, All Those Action Scenes in The Original Draft They Can Go Back and i Can Pay Everybody Their Deserved Daily Rate'.

Anyways Nameless is telling me they know some well off investors who totally love the script, want to invest the money once i send over a budget, contracts and the rest of the it.

I know what your thinking but don't say it right now, so the next question is when can i meet these people? 'Well you can't meet them Aaron we get the paper work done, i will meet them, do a presentation, sell the product and you just sit back and watch'. Most people would have said '*uck Off You Tosser' but am a reasonable person so i said 'OK sounds interesting where do we go from here? Namesless says 'Now you sign a contract with me giving away some of your rights (15%) for the film so that way i cannot be cut of the deal when this moves forward i get paid'.

Ok people question what would you do? At this point i know am having a conversation which is a total waste of time and i know i want to continue to work with namesless as an actor but do not want to say 'Do i look like ras clat fool to you, what makes you think am going to bomba clat sign anyting', but as you know people in this industry or any other you cannot always say what is truly on your mind so at that point i give a really big smile and say 'Am truly grateful for you taking time out to speak to your colleagues but right now i really want to concentrate on getting this production right' which was the truth.

Let me say the above took abut a week but am glad i experienced this but i do not see myself entertaining another conversation like that today but my point is 'Let The Actors Act' Let The Producers Produce'. There are so many talented people around why have one person do so many roles when we can have a team of people who are dedicated to their individual role.

But the funny thing was i got another offer like that last week........

Anyways am out, have a wonderful productive day and i look forward to telling you about the day i got my arse kicked.

Take care and God Speed.

ART