I just shot the second half of my first short, and it's clear to me now that my lead actor is not working out in the role. We had limited time and resources and I made a spontaneous decision without doing any call-backs or further auditioning. I'm kicking myself now, as I'm pretty much forced to cut most of his lines for the rest of the film, because his delivery doesn't fit at all with what I want.
Beyond the obvious of being more careful next time around, I was wondering if anyone had any other suggestions. I can't reshoot what we've done already, so that's out of the question. Any feedback or advice would be very much appreciated

thanks
derek

That's a tough one. It's a common thing to have to work with talent that doesn't fit your needs, or one that isn't professional enough. The best thing to do is to rewrite the lines to fit the actor's style of delivery. I had to do that for a project of mine on this site, Broken Minds *shivers* and it turned out as best as it would've under the given situations. Granted, the dialogue's campy, and I let them ad-lib a lot, but I wasn't expecting a miracle. If you really want to stick to your guns lines, amplify the need for intensity for whatever emotion or feeling you want them to act with. Usually bad actors don't take to the direction as much so overemphasis can sometimes compensate.

Good luck. Welcome to student filmmaking, with student actors...

That happened to me a few years back. Nearly all of my actors suited their roles- playing themselves more or less, very natural. Then I was in a pinch and had to cast the female lead role based on availability. She brought down most of the movie- her delivery was loud, clownish, and horrifying. However, to her credit, she pulled off a really subtle speech at the end of the film.

The best thing to do now is, if you need him to do more lines, try to put him in the mood for the scene (if he needs to be nervous, upset, etc.) without telling him. Yelling at him to make him uneasy, etc, try to use reverse psychology. Also, do some ADR to dub in past lines if you can, although that can be tricky.

I've dealt with before. Never too fun to realize. The way I got around was to voice-over scenes and altered my editing style, although that's probably too extreme for most cases.

One thing I recommend (that I'm just getting into) is doing less with the scenes. Don't have a set image in your head of how the scene should go if the actors simply can't do it naturally. Instead, run through minimal, basic motivations on the scene and the facts the scene goes off (if someone picks a ring off the table, does he know who's it was? A sign that his girlfriend left him and left the ring he gave her?). Then run through the scene and ask your actors questions about why they think they should do.

This does take a good sense of judgment as you have to decide quickly which ideas work and which don't, but when the ideas come from the actors, everything comes across better.

Alright thanks for all the advice guys. I figure I'll do my best to get something out of my actor during shooting (whether it's upping the intensity or using some psychology). However I'm prepared to cut most of his lines down to the bare minimum, which for this style would'nt be too detrimental. I'm worried about telling him though, he's a nice kid but he's just not what I'm looking for and I should've realized that earlier.

So what are your opinions on casting sessions? How much do you have them read, do you do call-backs, if so how many?

Read some Sanford miesner to learn how to direct actors by using action to create emotions. Actors given "too little" to do in a scene will often do too much with their bodies and emotions. I hate to say this, but a lot of young directors do not know how to direct actors to pull out what they need. Also some fantasy work in rehearsal might help as well. I think there are very few truly bad actors, the key is to know how to speak their language.

Well I appreciate your advice and recommendation, but I never said my person was a bad actor, just that he was wrong for the part. I can direct and bring out exactly what I want from everyone else without any trouble at all, and his part is not that complicated to understand; he just doesn't have the capacity to do it (the best way to put it is that his character is a normal person, but he himself is not "normal" in that sense and cannot act that way). I gave him the part knowing very little about his skills other than a small reading, and being pressed for time and not having many other options, I made a quick decision.