Suite101 interviewed Director Ray Griggs who reveals what he looks for in auditions, the rehearsal process, and how he maximizes his time with actors during filming.
Suite101: What do you look for when auditioning actors for a role?
Griggs: You have a pre-image of your characters that you’ve been writing about and so you want to fit the bill to that a little bit. So you take a guy like Will Powers, played by actor Ryan McPartlin, in my film Super Capers. I always pictured him as this egotistical version of Superman. So in the casting process, I was looking for a guy that was clean cut and bone jawed. It was a visual thing and then after that was the performance, could he deliver what I wanted or could he add something to the role that he sees in a way that makes it better.
So during the auditions when Ryan was reading his lines, I totally envisioned him playing this role. He just brought the character I wrote to life. In the casting process, I think it’s important to visualize your characters really well before you go in so you can see them when they come to life from an actor.
Suite101: How much do you rehearse with actors before shooting a scene?
Griggs: Any director would love to rehearse as much as he can. Rehearsals are great because your intention is to make the performance better. I haven’t had many rehearsals due to budget constraints on Super Capers, which was shot in twenty-two days. Ultimately it’d be great to rehearse everything as much as possible. I’d be one for more rehearsals on a project with more money, but we just snuck it in between scenes, during break, or while the crew was setting up something. Some of the actors would say, “Hey, you know off the clock let me come over to the house and we’ll have dinner and go over a scene or two.”
Suite101: How do you maximize your time with actors during filming?
Griggs: You got to have all your thoughts together and one of the things that helps me is I lay out the storyboards on a big poster board so everyone knows what happens for that day. The beauty is if you’re working on a shot with the actors, some of the crew could be setting up for another shot because it’s on the storyboard. We'd just mark the shots as they’re done, keep track of what we had to finish, and adjust our rehearsal time accordingly with actors. It’s all a matter of being prepared.
Ray Griggs is the Director of Super Capers, which stars Justin Whalin, Tom Sizemore, Adam West, and Clint Howard. Ray is also the Award-Winning Director of the short film Lucifer. He is CEO of RG Entertainment, a film production company in Beverly Hills, CA.
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