Ok, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about! Lol! What is the WORST note you've received while on set. As they say on social media, "I'll go first!"
I had spent most of the week before a gig memorizing lines for one of those infomercials. I knew they were going to have a teleprompter but I wanted to impress the production with memorizing everything they had sent me. Eight pages, single spaced.
I get to set and LITERALLY right before the cameras roll, the Director lets me know that he has rewritten the entire script the night before without telling anyone, even his client.
So, I'm basically doing a cold read on a teleprompter and he gives me the note to "just go for it!" Excuse me? Dude!? Just go for WHAT?
A few days later, after the check clears, he feels the need to reach out via email and tell me I'll never make it in this business if I can't be "more professional" and "take bigger risks" with my acting.
So, you've heard mine, let me hear yours!
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Oh dear I feel for you Brandon Keeton At the same time I admire your willingness to share your vulnerable moments with us. I don't know about my worst note but the most recent that has stayed with me is, 'allow your emotions to reach your face and eyes'. Nerves had gotten the better of me but this still stung a bit
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Brandon Keeton, for me, the hardest note I used to get was always “slow down.” I heard it constantly when I was a teenager doing community theater, and it would drive me crazy, not because I didn’t want to, but because it didn’t feel like a helpful note. I knew I was rushing, but if I could slow down, I would! Nerves just had a way of speeding everything up whether I liked it or not.
Eventually, one of the women at the theater kind of took me under her wing, she became this unofficial auntie figure and changed everything for me. We’d hang out after school and on weekends, watching old movies and talking about performance, directing, timing. She taught me breathing techniques that actually worked. Slowing down finally became something I could do instead of just something I was told to do. That made a huge difference when I started pitching in film school, and even more as a Development Executive. Being able to control that pacing when the pressure’s on? Game-changer.
That director in your story? Wild. Rewriting the whole thing the night before and blaming you? No thanks.
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Non. All notes have meaning.
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I went to read for someone doing a submission for Project Greenlight. There were the producer and writer and a handful of other actors. We had a group meeting and the writer gave us a low down, etc. We had what I thought was a very productive meeting about the scene he wanted to shoot for his submission. Said we would all be in it. I walked out with all the other actors. A few days later, I got a poorly worded email from the writer informing me I wouldn't be in the scene as I didn't get along with anyone there. Which was odd to me since that wasn't my experience.
I think he just didn't like the questions I was asking. I have a lot more experience in how things work than obviously this writer did. I found when I moved to Tucson having come from working 4 years as an extra in LA, that people who have dreams of filmmaking, but don't know how the business actually works, don't want to be told that the way they think it works, is not actually how it works.
This writer also, spelled whether, "weather", so that's what I thought of his firing me. It wasn't a paying job anyway.
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Suzanne Bronson Had a couple of those "I actually dodged a bullet" things as well. I always go back on to IMDb and see if they ever actually made what they were trying to do. More often than not, it's nowhere to be found.
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the even weirder thing Brandon Keeton is he contacted afterwards, to tell me he most certainly did feed everyone and here is the scene. Like, who does that?!