Being a leader though is easier said than done. As soon as I told six actors so far that I could not secure a venue for auditions anytime soon, they never emailed me back. I got a last actor now and wondering if I tell her the same thing, will she loose interest. Being a leader doesn't mean shit if no one will follow.
What do you expect? If someone called me up and said 'Hey I'd like you to shoot my movie, but I want to see your reel before we go forwards. There's no pay, but it could be good experience. I won't be able to look at your reel for quite a while' I'd say 'Great! Call me when you look at it.' Or I simply would cut ties, knowing that the road ahead would probably be fraught with disaster.
But I guess that's better than it not getting made at all. Now I will try my best to get the last actor to stick around, not being able to have an audition and not knowing if the talent is good or not.
It seems like you don't want to make this anyway. So, if you really don't want to - why do so? I've always said; if you can do something other than film, you would be and you should be. Filmmaking is one of the hardest professions to get a start in, and one of the hardest to work your way up, and one of the hardest to get decent pay. But it's worth it for those who love it.
Seems to me like you might be better off hiring yourself and your camera out as a camera operator for weddings and events.
Secondly - you need experience. That means making films, or getting on sets. You've already expressed your distaste for driving to a larger city where people had offered you decent experience on decent sets. So, you'll have to make your own movies.
Experience means crewing on films that are worth crewing on. If you need to move to do that, then I'd do it. As far as I'm concerned, if there's no movies worth crewing on (especially paying ones) in my general area, how will that ever translate to future paid work? Short answer? It won't. So, if you're really serious about making this a career, move to where the work and opportunities are.
Failing that (but usually in addition to) make your own films, and learn from your mistakes. Your first ten films will probably be terrible. But then yoru next ten might be better, and the ten after that will be even better. No-one got to the top of any profession without spending years honing their craft, especially in the film industry.
The huge Directors didn't decide that it was 'too hard' or 'not worth it' when they were first starting out because their films weren't going to be as good as something that had 10x the budget.
Or you can sit where you are feeling sorry for yourself. Or you can make films as a hobby, and have a different job during the week.
All options are perfectly fine. There's no specific right or wrong way to go about things. Many people have made great movies with barely any (or no) crew and barely any (or no) actors, and plenty of people have made terrible films that have been fully crewed and catered, and with everyone getting paid.
Make a decision and stick to it, and then accept the consequences when they come your way. Even if your film falls down or looks terrible, or you can't get the sound sync'd - you've still learned from it.
But from what I can tell, you'll probably spend the next 6 months making excuses about why it can't be made, or why it isn't as great as it can be and end up learning nothing.
At the end of the day, the reason Hollywood movies look like they do is the talented crew. You can make all kind of excuses like 'Roger Deakins shoots with Alexa and Master Primes, if I could shoot with Alexa and Master Primes, I'd make images that look just as good' when the reality is, if you shot on an Alexa with Master Primes, your images would look very similar to the way they do now, just with a tad extra dynamic range. The real reason Deakins' stuff looks the way it does is because it's Deakins behind the camera. And the reason Deakins is as good as he is, is because he spent years honing his craft.
