This week we were hit by the first big wave of auditions and the reality that our scripts might actually turn into films. Everyone jumped in and helped and it was fun to do all the different roles, from greeting the actors to reading scripts to directing and doing the camera work. It’s fascinating to see real people breathe life into the words that we wrote and how different the characters can be depicted by different actors. You also start to see where the script is working or not. I got lots of ideas and feedback from my auditions and it seems like I’m practically rewriting the whole script now.

The other really cool thing about this week was a couple of special guests that Patrick brought in. We got to meet Debbie Brubaker, one of the top producers in northern California, and hear what it’s like to be a serious film producer. It’s pretty mind boggling, actually, when you hear her talk about the million dollar budgets (for SMALL films!) all the crews, equipment, actors and especially the unions and how she worked her way from the smallest film jobs up to the top of the heap. On one hand, producing sounds very removed from the creative side of film making, with all the effort that goes into developing the budget and managing the people. On the other hand, she clearly shares in the thrill that a producer has of being involved in every aspect of making an idea into a movie. The producer role is one of the harder movie making roles to understand, but after meeting with Debbie and hearing her stories, it’s much clearer why this is the role with the most responsibility and the biggest rewards, and why it’s not for everyone. Great stuff.

The second special guest of the week was actor Randy Quaid (brother of Dennis) and his wife Evi, who directs and produces. Randy is a veteran actor of hundreds of films including an Oscar nominated performance in The Last Detail (1973). I also discovered that he was in Midnight Express, Missouri Breaks and Paper Moon, a few movies from the 70’s that I really enjoyed. We were treated to a special screening of some early cuts of an avant-garde art film project that Evi is working on with Randy… very interesting and great for pushing our notions of the creative limits film in new directions.