So today was the second day of shooting my feature film. Yesterday, the lead had learned the wrong lines, so I put his poor performance off to not being prepared. I made sure that he knew what pages we were doing for day 2.

So this morning I have a quick run through with the lead and another actor. It turned out the lead doesn't know his lines. Two pages is all he had to know, and a few of his parts were simply a sentence, with the other actor having a majority of the lines for the day, so I spent all day trying to get them out of him, but he just couldn't do them.

Now I'm in a mad rush to try and replace him, it's a pain because shooting is underway, and good cast and crew are locked in for the next three weeks. I feel really let down by this actor, his performance is a complete write off, unsalvageable. Hell, I even tried feeding him his lines and he couldn't get them down on film.

Being a no budget film, and all cast and crew under deferred payment, it's a pain in the ass finding a good replacement at short notice.

Okay, vent over.

I feel for you. I really do.

There are some options you can exhaust like finding a replacement, writing down his lines on the props for him to read off of, giving him his lines thru an earpiece etc.

But worse come to worst, dont discard having a crew member or urself step to save the day. If it becomes so bad where u think an unprepared person just reading them is going to be better than nothing, see if any of ur crew have had an acting past or can pull it off and just do it.

After running through it with him all day, I've learned his lines. I just performed them in a mirror and nailed it. So that annoys me even more.

Also, I tried having the lines written there for him, and also feeding them to him offscreen with no good results.

I'm not making judgments or casting aspersions, but why did you hire the actor in question?

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. You might not have to replace him.

There is another method. I'm not saying this method is correct; every director is going to have their own way of doing things, and that's fine. But it might be worth considering.

I don't actually expect any of my actors to know their lines prior to arriving for their shoot. I definitely appreciate when they've looked it over, and thought about how they might want to add to it, but the actual memorization of lines doesn't happen until right before shooting. Here is the general process on my set:

1. Actors begin reading through the material, with each other. While they are doing this, I am working with crew on lighting and staging.
2. After they've had a few read throughs with each other (but are still far away from being off-book), I sit down and listen to what they've got so far. This is when I first give any feedback or perhaps ask them to do it differently. Often times, this is also when last-minute rewrites of dialogue might happen, either at their recommendation or mine.
3. After giving my instructions/feedback, I step away again (back to working with crew), allowing them to work through it a few more times. When they are closer to being off-book, that's when we start rehearsing with blocking. Needless to say, this is also an important time for me to make directions, give feedback, etc.
4. After blocking rehearsals, they may be ready to shoot, or they made need a little time by themselves (each actor just working on wrote memorization).

One of the advantages I see to this method is that if they memorize lines prior to showing up, they may be memorizing them in a way that I don't want them delivered. We would then have to get them to unlearn what they've learned in order to change their performance. What's more, I think it's great for them to be able to learn their lines as a team -- this keeps things dynamic, and fresh. And lastly, I just think this model is efficient, and to be honest, this method is just plain fun.

I would give Cracker Funk's method a go, and at the same time have your team scour for a replacement, FAST.

He is your lead; Give him another chance and if he can't bring it, cut him. He has cost you valuable energy and *time.*

Hang tough, we're all in there pitching for you.

kj

PS After you get through this difficulty, watch "Lost in La Mancha," about Terry Gilliam's ill-fated project and the difficulty with HIS lead. Terry Gilliam, mind you, because if it can happen to him??.....

Been there and it sucks.

Rough business, man. Sorry you're going through it. I guess wars stories will come in handy later on. The perspective never hurts. It's just hard to keep that in mind while you're putting up with it.

Hope you make it through in one piece. At least you've got a forum to rant to?

Heh.

Look at your script and what you've shot. See if you can kill off the character. Have him get hit by a bus.

Killing off a character in mid-shoot is a tool for filmmakers to fix troublesome cast members. I've done it. Others have too.

Look at your script and what you've shot. See if you can kill off the character. Have him get hit by a bus.

Killing off a character in mid-shoot is a tool for filmmakers to fix troublesome cast members. I've done it. Others have too.

I would've loved to do that and if it was anything else, I would've. But 1) The entire movie is about his last day before execution. 2) I'm under contract to follow the script.



He's just cancelled on me for todays filming. So it's over. Looks like I'm going to have to reschedule until I find someone else suitable.

Well i guess he realised he wasn't up to it.

Good luck finding someone else.

Must be horribly frustrating.

I would've loved to do that and if it was anything else, I would've. But 1) The entire movie is about his last day before execution. 2) I'm under contract to follow the script.



He's just cancelled on me for todays filming. So it's over. Looks like I'm going to have to reschedule until I find someone else suitable.

At least that takes the decision out of your hands really. What else can be dome now but fire him, re-cast, and start over.

You should audition your next actor or ask to see their reel.

The crap this is that I did audition this guy, he wasn't amazing in the audition, but he was fine. I was chatting to a guy today who knows him, apparently he's pretty into drugs.

The crap this is that I did audition this guy, he wasn't amazing in the audition, but he was fine. I was chatting to a guy today who knows him, apparently he's pretty into drugs.

One of the leads in my last film (the motel clerk in 109) knocked it out of the park at auditions, I mean nailed it. Then showed on on set not knowing her lines and had to be dragged through a mediocre performance. Auditions can be misleading for sure.

This exact same thing happened to me when i was shooting my feature. The two leads never came prepared and were, quite frankly, just plain bad. Everyday turned into me being an acting teacher. I wound up cancelling the film. I use Cracker Funk's method to an extent. Due to rigid scheduling and lack of funds, I like to shoot as much as possible in a day. This doesn't work if they come in unprepared. Though, I will have them run scenes while I set up equipment.

In regards to auditioning and drugs. I'm currently doing a 30 minute short and my lead auditioned well but performed terribly. He later tells me of his love for drugs. Upon watching the footage back it was clear that he waa stoned off his butt.

It's so frustrating and I feel your pain. I hope things pick up for you. :)

Believe it or not, the method I describe is not that time-consuming. I averaged 6 pages per day on my feature, and I shot a 12-page script in one day, on my last 48 Hour Film Project.

The most time-consuming part of filmmaking is set-ups, the rehearsals don't take long at all.

srbclark -- I'm sorry things went wrong. In the end, it might be better that you got that guy out of the production sooner, rather than later. Good luck from here on out!

Believe it or not, the method I describe is not that time-consuming. I averaged 6 pages per day on my feature, and I shot a 12-page script in one day, on my last 48 Hour Film Project.

The most time-consuming part of filmmaking is set-ups, the rehearsals don't take long at all.

srbclark -- I'm sorry things went wrong. In the end, it might be better that you got that guy out of the production sooner, rather than later. Good luck from here on out!

It can work, certainly. The problem was, for me at least, I had to become an acting teacher. My actors would show up to set unprepared, then we'd spend two hours just trying to get them off book on a 2 page scene. Let alone any sort of directing or blocking that needed to be.

It can work, certainly. The problem was, for me at least, I had to become an acting teacher. My actors would show up to set unprepared, then we'd spend two hours just trying to get them off book on a 2 page scene. Let alone any sort of directing or blocking that needed to be.

Mmm, yes I can see how that would be an issue. In both examples I cited, I was working with professionally-trained actors.

Mmm, yes I can see how that would be an issue. In both examples I cited, I was working with professionally-trained actors.

That makes such a huge difference. It'd be nice to at least get actors who are committed and responsible (let alone professionally trained). So many people just seem to want do it for poops and giggles. "Oh acting? That sound like fun!" That mentality makes it very hard for those of us who are so serious about filmmaking, and unfortunately it seems to crop up all too often in these circles.

Sorry to hear about your trouble. Terrible situation indeed.

The following approach worked okay for my first 15-minute short film with four actors to prepare them. The rationale behind this approach is that I find the actors the key element. Much more important than the time spent on technical or production related aspects. You can of course debate about that.

My budget was $3000 and the cast&crew was mostly amateurs (cast&crew working without salary). To me it is surprising that you seem to have more professional and bigger feature production so I am really surprised that you could not convince your producer to spend resources on rehearsing the actors.

Of course you can never be 100% sure about actors, but by making sure that your actors are committed to the production and spend effectively the time they have available for preparing, I think you will maximize their performance on the set.

My approach for effective working with actors in indie / low-budget film:
1) Find potential actors (distribute marketing material, talk to indie communities, networks, anywhere...).
2) Ask any interested actor to send CV and photo to you by email
3) Phone interview each actor that you think is potential a role
4) Preliminarily select the actors for each role
5) Invite the actors to a 3-hour kick-off / screen test session (introduce production, discuss the script, read-through, shoot some blocked read-throughs of the key scenes)
6) Give detailed feedback to actors about the screen test (within a week after the screentest)
7) Later, meet each actor individually and discuss about their character (1-2 hrs)
8) 1-2 weeks before the shooting starts organize a one-day rehearsal session for fine-tuning, blocking and improvisation (here you can check that they have memorized their lines and fine-tune scenes).
9) Have a production kick-off party (the actors to meet the crew in a relaxed environment before the set)
10) 1-2 days before the shoot, check (by phone) that everything is okay with the actors and prepare to spend some time discussing their concerns
11) On the set make sure that: a) if your budget is above zero, spend the first dollars on a make-up artist, b) there is an assistant who actors can easily turn to with any practical concern, c) keep the schedule (what will happen and when 100% clear to all actors all the time) d) atmosphere is calm and nobody distracts the actors, e) craft services available 100% of time.
12) Direct the actors, especially: a) give clear feedback of actors' performance, b) don't focus too much on the technical side

I also could have done a real audition, but having no prior practical experience of film production, I decided to do a light approach. This light approach was also good in the way that I was able to get one professional actor who is also acting in Finnish TV. If I would have auditioned him against 20 amateurs, I would have lost him and also wasted a hell of a lot of time from myself and everybody else.

Hope this gives some ideas and helps even a bit (at least for the next time) and good luck!

Yeah if he really can't carry the performance like you thought, you don't want to carry through with all the hard work only to have a -lead- that isn't convincing.

Have you told the casting director or producer? They of course need to know about this and will help you take the right steps in getting a new actor more fit for the role.