Hindsight – 06/11/11 – Our Acting Debut

I come from a pretty artistic family where everyone at some point was involved in a musical, play, or band. The need to be artistic is kinda engrained in me. Two things on my bucket list are to perform in a musical and rock a concert with me singing solo while playing piano. Someday I’ll get to them, but for now most of my work is outside the theater world, so when my friend Kevin Daum asked if ACbert and I wanted to help him put together a film for the 48 hour NYC Film Festival, we excitedly said yes.

Since ACbert and I have minimal professional acting experience, our role in the film involved us playing a “hollywood power couple” without any actual lines. There’s a twist to our part, but you’ll just have to wait for the release to see .

After watching the skill level of the other actors, it was probably a good thing we didn’t have any lines, because our inexperience would have easily shown through.

It only took 15 minutes to film our part, but we stuck around the entire day because it was interesting to watch the whole process of putting a film together.

Film making shares a lot of similarities to running a business…

• One person needs to have the clear vision in mind at all times.
• It takes a whole team to actually achieve the vision.
• The last 20% of perfection will kill you, and the clock.
• Consistency matters.
• Too many creative cooks is counter productive.
• Everyone has to have clear tasks.
• Free food goes a long way.
• Someone, besides just the main person, should be watching for quality control.
• Most of the hard work happens before and after.
• Success often involves long nights and early mornings.
• It’s not all creative work all the time.
• Technology levels the playing field.
• Good talent is the real competitive advantage.

If you’ve been involved in making a film or theater production, what else would you add to this list?