Inexperienced Film Directors

There are certain things to avoid on movie sets. Ideally one should not work with inexperienced people unless you want to put with all the disorganization that occurs with most. I have come up with ten points on things to look out for actors who naively put their name out looking for an opening in the film market. I will add though that if the actor is representing himself, and good film work is short to come by, then he might consider doing a gig with an inexperienced individual or company. But then he will have himself to blame if he finds he is putting too much time in for the process and he is not happy in the end.

1. The actor should not offer more than a minimal amount of time especially if he knows that he is not going to get paid for what he is doing. This will guarantee some sort of publicity and will minimize the amount of time lost on a production that might also fail to move forward.
2. The actor should know how big the crew is going to be. A small in house production could mean more responsibility for the director who will have multiple jobs and that could affect or delay the film making process. Film shorts generally do not require large staffing, and so they may also reach post-production much earlier.
3. The actor should try to get an idea of how much the director knows about the rehearsal and the audition processes. If the director is professional he will not stress out the actor over extended rehearsals, which lead to nothing learnt and just serve as a means of stroking his own ego. The actor should let the director know clearly how much time he is willing to devote to practice before the filming occurs.
4. Once the actor sees that the director is reading his lines in front of him, it is a good indication that the director has forgotten where he is in the script. The actor is supposed to know his lines and does not need this kind of intimidation especially from an inexperienced director whose job should be to supervise and allow the actor to act.
5. The actor should not be given commands and directors should refrain from doing so, although we are not living in an ideal world and patience can run short on expensive sets. I try to sum up the personality of the person who I would be working with and generally am pretty good at knowing whether it is going to be a temperamental person or not.