Thursday, I auditioned 39 people for six roles in my next short, which I'm shooting in the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres in two weeks.
I've always been amazed by dancers. They can look at someone do a bunch of moves, and then do those moves almost perfectly, bringing their own artistry and feelings to them, making them their own. I could never even manage the Hustle.
Actors come in the door with an idea how to play a scene, and then you change the meaning of the scene in the audition. They come in playing a scene straight, and you give them an adjustment: "Nope, you're completely insincere when you say that -- you're lying, covering up." And they reinterpret the whole thing, and bring it back to you with the new imaginary circumstance, filtered through their own instrument, their personality, their soul. Really crafted actors can turn a scene around on a dime, with precision and depth.
Actors are amazing people.
Editors have the amazing ability to carry all the footage in their heads and rearrange it in their minds, resculpting the whole structure.
Composers, good ones, have the ability to add an entirely new layer to your piece, made out of music.
For my part, I can feel a story. I can turn it around in my mind, look at it in three dimensions, feel where it's weak, where there's a crack in the structure.
Film is a collaborative medium. That's its challenge. It's hard to get everyone on board. It's hard to communicate what you want to people who work in entirely different media -- lights, or hair, or set design.
But the joy of it is that everyone brings an amazing specialty to it. They tell the story in different dimensions, and it all comes together as one experience for the audience.
E pluribus unum.