80% of the Job - The Cast

One of the old line Hollywood directors - maybe John Ford or Sam Peckinpah, Google can tell you - said that 80% of successful directing is having a good cast. It is doubly true when you are working on a limited budget. There is no room for delay, sulking in your trailer - rarely had a budget for those - or coming to set unprepared. I was lucky to have run into a brilliant casting team early in my career, and that had two benefits: their intimate knowledge of the specific actor pool we needed - mostly young, multi-lingual, multi-racial - and their knack to pick candidates with the right combination of professionalism and talent. So if you're on a tight budget pick actors who are close physically and psychologically to the characters they will portray. No time for make-overs.

Full disclosure: The casting team - Maria Nelson and Ellyn Marshall - are now my partners at liberty films. Their casting company is called Orpheus Casting.