Well, it’s true.

A while back, my partners and I made a short film called Quiet for a ridiculously small budget. It played in a lot of film festivals and went on to be named one of the top ten shorts of the year by Film Threat.

And so we thought – if we can make a good short that’s 17 minutes long for almost no money, why aren’t we making features?

We can make a feature film with high production values for a budget that wouldn’t pay for 1 minute of a studio feature film.  And, since we don’t have to worry about grossing a hundred million dollars before we can pay back our investors, we can aim our movie at a specific audience rather than trying to please everyone.

We’re making the kind of movie I’ve always wanted to see – a movie about smart things for smart people, which provides intellectual stimulation while also giving a visceral rush.  If we do it right, this movie will still be playing in college dorms in twenty years.

Come along for the ride and let’s see if we can answer the question – can a movie for smart people make it in a dumbed-down world?

-Steve

Newton’s Cradle explores territory that’s near to my heart- the plastic nature of reality.

For most of my life, I’ve been fascinated by the fact  that not only can perception alter a person’s experience of the world, but someone’s cognitive processes and categorizations can shape their reality as well.    The way we think about things, the way we classify our perceptions and experiences, that can all change from person to person, and so each person experiences a different world.  But through communication, we can shape the way others think about things, change the way they classify concepts, and so by communicating with others we’re shaping their reality as well.

Most people readily accept that this happens with abstract ideas, such as politics or art, but it also happens with fundamental physical experiences as well.  When I first started college I majored in physics, and after an early class in particle dynamics I attended a baseball game.  My experience of the game was fundamentally different than it had been before.  The concepts of how the ball moved off the bat and through the air when pitched or thrown had been communicated to me, and I could sense how the pieces all interacted.   I had the same experience driving a car – suddenly aware of friction and inertia in ways I had never been before. My experience of reality was different from the guy next to me.  Combine this with the philosophy classes I was also taking and the classic book The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (required reading at my school), and I was ready to learn that conceptual change applies to the experience of physical reality as well as ideas.

So when Steve, Marshall and I  started discussing what we’d like to do as a nanobudget feature project, the idea of a “perception infection”  (a phrase we’ve thankfully lost!) that changed the essence of reality had a strong appeal for me.  It neatly tied in a number of my interests – physics, memetics, communication of ideas.  I couldn’t resist it!

And so, many drafts of the script later, here we are with Newton’s Cradle ready to begin production and start exploring what it means to change your perceptions and your thoughts.   Our writer Bryan Tranel has found brilliant ways to communicate these ideas and make them fun and exciting, and I can’t wait to see the finished movie.  First, though, we have to make it!

With Newton’s Cradle, we’ve done a few staged readings of the script along the way.  They were quite helpful in spotting what did and didn’t work it terms of pacing, dialogue, structure, etc.  But it’s not until auditions that you really see the characters come to life.  When a skilled performer has taken time to prepare their interpretation, the results can sometimes be stunning, even with material you’ve known backwards and forwards on the page for months.

We primarily used Breakdown Express to locate actors for our audition process. As producers, we submitted a short breakdown for each role, explaining in general terms what we were looking for. Actors, who registered via the service Actor’s Access , saw the breakdowns and submitted themselves online. This is a vast improvement over the process we used when making short films years ago – submitting breakdowns to a print weekly and then getting hundreds of headshots via snail mail. Even just keeping track of all that physical material was a challenge.

So we go through the submissions online and find the actors who seem like they might be a good fit. How do we pick? Well, honestly, a lot is based on look. Does this person look right for this role? It’s not about glamor here, though some roles might require that. It’s about finding faces that seem right for this particular part. To some extent, it’s a process of discovery. Sure, we go in with some ideas about what the characters will look like, but there’s also quite a bit of “Hmm, yeah, that look might be a good idea.” in going through the photos. Then we do a scan of resumes to see where everyone is coming from. It’s all a bit arbitrary, it’s true. But not completely, the needs of the film serve as the ultimate filter.

Then we do the first round auditions.

I feel for actors, I truly do. It’s got to be impossible, walking in that door and facing a group of strangers with the sole purpose of being evaluated in a few minutes time. It’s a brave thing to do.

In the audition room for Newton’s Cradle, we had four people.  The director, Marshall McAuley, and the producers, Rodney Ramsey (that’s me), Steve Barr, and Eunice Choi.  We all have input and discussion, but of course the final choice lies with the director.  It’s also my opinion that no one should be in the audition room who isn’t a part of the decision making process.  It’s not really fair to the actors, who are already under enough pressure as it is.

We send the actors small portions of the script, called “sides”, a day or two before the auditions, to give them some time to prepare their interpretation. Then we set up a schedule of quick, short blocks of time (5-10 minutes) to see as many actors as possible in a session. Typically the approach is for the actor to come in, do the handshaking and introductions, then read through the side once showing us their choices about the character and scene. Then the director will provide some direction and the actor will run through it again. The purpose of the second runthrough is largely just to see how the actor adjusts when given direction. Even if their initial take is amazing, we still want to see if they can quickly and intelligently interpret the director’s comments and adjust properly.

So what else are we looking for in this first round?  Some of it is undeniably appearance – does the actor look like we thought, are they good for the role when we see them in person?  Most of it, though, is really performance.  We all have ideas about what the character should be, but we’re also looking to be surprised by someone who makes them more than that.  And there’s always someone who makes them more than we expected.

Some actors filter themselves out immediately by being obviously unprepared.  Most seem to have put at least some effort into it and give a decent performance.  And then there’s those who have clearly really thought about how they should play a role and bring something special to it.  Those are the ones we bring to the callbacks.

Watching auditions for a film does require some learned skills.  You have to learn to imagine how the performance is going to look on screen.  You’re seeing the whole person in three dimensions, but it’s not going to be that way to the audience.   I end up mentally framing the actors,  though if something interesting happens outside the frame, I do make note of it.  What I’m really after here is looking for people who are aware that their actions are magnified on-screen.  People who know how to take advantage of that and use the subtle movements and expressions film requires.  Every now and then we’ll get a great actor who’s wrong for our project because they’re stage-acting. Stage is very different, with big gestures and emoting.  Some stage actors have a hard time toning it down, and so aren’t really good choices for film.  Having said that, many of the leading candidates for Newton’s Cradle have resumes that are primarily stage-oriented.  Sometimes good actors are just good actors!

Then we come to callbacks, which are really about two things.  One is chemistry- how does this potential cast member play against that one?  Another is seeing if what we saw in the first round carries over- do they bring something to the role when we try them out in other scenes?   Every now and then we find the first round was a fluke, they hit the bit we did then amazingly well, but they somehow seem wrong for a different bit of the script.   The vast majority, though, continue to bring good performances.  Which is where things get hard.

For Newton’s Cradle, we called back 12 actors, 4 for each of our three lead roles. We had three sets of sides: one with all three roles, one with the two males leads (David and Ian), and one with a male and female role (David and Marie).   These are the crucial chemistry combinations for our film.  We broke the actors into sets of three, a David, a Ian, and a Marie,  more or less arbitrarily.   We ran everyone through the trio scene and the David/Marie combo.   After running all 12 through, we let a few actors go.  All good, but not right for these particular roles when seen against other actors in the other roles.  Then we picked who we’d like to see with who, and ran again through all three sides.  This is all about chemistry, and playing off one another.

And when it clicks, it really clicks.  It’s an amazing thing to see.  Now we’re not just seeing characters brought to life, but we’re seeing actual scenes from the film brought to life.  It’s always very exciting to get to this stage.

Casting has gone well for Newton’s Cradle, and I think we’ve got some very good candidates for the roles.  All three roles have special challenges, but it feels like we’ve got actors who can meet them.   Smart people who understand what’s needed and are talented enough to deliver it.

I’m looking forward to making the final decisions and moving ahead with what promises to be a truly excellent cast!