Hello all,
I am just going to throw this into the group, I am curious about your experiences. First of all, I don't want to sound negative, I am just running into an obstacle. I live in The Netherlands, and I want to make feature films in English. In my opinion, that is pretty much a prerequisite to get a film distributed any further than just the local market. So, I have put out a few casting calls, but find it really hard to find the right people. If English is not your native language, most things do sound awkward, especially when emotions are involved. Now, I have searched the Internet for casting agencies, and most of them are in the US. The market there just seems so much bigger, and finding actors seems to be a piece of cake. Now I am thinking about shooting everything over there. My question is: what is your experience with finding actors in your local country ?
Thanks in advance for your replies.
Georg
Your best bet is to search your local directory for other agencies that you may not have already tried. Failing this I would attempt to scount local drama groups, schools, colleges/universities and see what you come up with?
Cleary
www.myspace.com/b31_film_productions
www.youtube.com/yoursayvideos
Perhaps a Youth Hostel that caters to English speakers. Someone on vacation might be interested and have the acting chops. YOu never know.
RJSchwarz
RJSchwarz
those are great suggestions but in the long term, if you want to soley produce english films, then it would be good to shoot in the US or UK. just one less headache for you, in my opinion (not including what it actually takes to GET there, thats a whole other headache) but, hey, what is filmmaking but a bunch of headaches that hopefully will pay off? 😕
"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But a film? Well, thats worth a thousand pictures."
-(Own3d Studios)-
www.own3dstudios.com
"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But a film? Well, thats worth a thousand pictures."-(Own3d Studios)-
www.own3dstudios.com
Wolfgang Peterson started with movies in Germany. Luc Besson started with movies in France. Paul Verhoeven started with movies in the Netherlands. John Woo started in China. All in their native languages. They made a splash and then moved on to the bigger markets. There is something to be said about being the big fish in a small pond until you've gotten noticed.
By filming in your native tongue and country you can provide an experience HOllywood would take a lot of money to duplicate. You just need to ensure the story is something that the world will want to view, not just your local area.
You might also consider splitting the difference and make a movie about tourists in the Netherlands. Just be nice about how you mock the tourists.
RJSchwarz
RJSchwarz
i like the tourist idea haha
"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But a film? Well, thats worth a thousand pictures."
-(Own3d Studios)-
www.own3dstudios.com
"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But a film? Well, thats worth a thousand pictures."-(Own3d Studios)-
www.own3dstudios.com
One advantage with the tourist idea is that the bulk of the cast could be dutch speaking dutch and or bad English and it works and sounds natural. You'd only need a couple of people that spoke good English and everybody hates tourists, and nobody thinks of themself as a 'one of those" tourists when they travel so if you aren't mean spirited about it you can really go to town on the stereotypes.
RJSchwarz
RJSchwarz
If you just need people that speak English, you can check with your local Berlitz office:
If you need actors that speak English, it should be the first line in your casting call. You can also check with universities that specialize in abroad exchange studies. I'm sure there are plenty of English speakers in the country for a semester or two that would enjoy spending a week shooting your project.
Vacationers could be a hard sell. If they're not backpacking through, they usually have an agenda and a fixed amount of time to get through that agenda. Never hurts to try but it sounds like a hard sell.
I must say, that if the story is good, I don't care if the film is in English, German, French, Spanish, etc...
If you shoot in your native language, you can also use Berlitz to approve translators to create the English version of your script. Then create an English subtitled master and you can submit the film to english festivals / distribution / etc.
Good luck with the project!
David
David Schatanoff
D Studios Productions
David Schatanoff
D Studios Productions
