GrantAveCasting & Productions

A New Age TV show?

michaelching — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:56:45 +0000

So this lady I know has an idea for a TV show all about New Age stuff. OK so now what? She wants me to produce this as something fresh, something new, something no one has seen before. No problem…Let me make a few phone calls and lets see what this’ll cost you. “New”, costs a lot, “Something no one has seen before” costs more, a lot more. “Can we do this for 10 grand a show?” “”Lady it’s gonna cost 10 grand just to rent the camera”.

I may be sounding a little facetious but producing a TV show ain’t cheap. Who’s your audience? Who’ll be your advertisers? Will your subjects approve of what is being shown? This isn’t something for the Food Channel or Sci Fi Channel either.

She really isn’t all that naive but it does take a lot of planning and you have to start small if you have limited funds. If the idea works and is produced well, of course it will, if it has a large demographics in the 20-65 yrs old, range, if. if , if….you may have something there. All you have to do is find a broadcast company thats willing to take a chance on you, if that happens then you’re in business….I’ve always wanted a home by the ocean….

I will keep you posted on the progress of this.

Posted in Producing Tagged: broadcast, camera, New Age, Producing, TV

When or when not to cast, that is the question.

michaelching — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:50:11 +0000

I get calls all the time from budding writers and directors wanting me to cast a film they wrote. The usual response from me is “do you have funding” and most often than not the answer is “yes but not a lot”.

Send me the script.

They always do, either a hard copy if they have money or a pdf file if they don’t. My initial investment is time, a few hours to read and see how many characters there are and if the story is any good. I look for the character development, how the scenes are set up and the main objective of the film. If this is all done through dialog I will tend to like it. If I don’t get a clear picture of what’s being said, a red flag goes up and I usually decline gracefully to cast the film.

There is one that landed on my lap a few days ago. It’s called “Low Budget Ethnic Movie”. Got to be a comedy with that title. “Do you have funding”? ” yes, but not a lot”. I should have known. He sent a pdf file. But to my surprise, it’s a very nice script. Good characters and very funny. I’d like to cast this film. The challenge is to find the lead character. A 40ish American Korean man who plays ice hockey. Tell me I’m nuts for wanting to cast this.

Michael

Posted in Acting, Casting, Producing Tagged: Casting, Comedy, directors, Film, Funding, Korean Actor, writers

The Cisco Kid

michaelching — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:23:54 +0000

OK. So I was able to book a corporate video with Cisco. I worked this time with Camp Creative who in my opinion does great work. Richard Camp directed and Laura Marks produced this very complicated shoot which showed what Cisco calls Tele-Presence, a very high end tele-communication set up involving high bandwidth high resolution video conferencing with no delay. Richard had to shoot this from several points of view and with a great crew, he was able to come up with what he wanted. Can wait to see it.

Other actors on the shoot: David Kazanjian the CountryWide guy, Chris Ayles, Tim Talbot, and friends, Clive Chafer, Jackie Honea and Derek Yee. Oh yeah, my friend Pauline Barry did makeup.

For some reason I seemed to be ever connected with Cisco. I’ve been fortunate enough over the years to have been in numerous Cisco videos and live presentations. I am also a shareholder since 2002. Recently I found out that one of the guys I play baseball with is a VP at Cisco. He’s a ultility infielder. Not bad for a corporate VP. Tried to connect with him the day of the shoot but he was at another Cisco campus.

Cheers,

Michael

Posted in Acting, Baseball, Uncategorized Tagged: actors, Baseball, Camp Creative, Cisco, tele-conferencing