I have been to a few auditions, and I have held quite a few auditions. One thing that I know is what not to do.

When I was eighteen, I saw an ad in the paper (yes, the paper, that’s all we had and stop judging) soliciting for actors to be in a film. It was in the basement of a church in Fayetteville. I was suspicious about it and unsure about what I was walking into. I thought about all the news stories I had heard over my youth about abductions and the like. It made sense to me to feel that way; after all, it was Arkansas in the ’90s. No one around here made movies, at least not ones you could show to the public. But, I am pretty much not afraid of anything, so I went anyway.

I love making films. If you didn’t know that already, well, now you do. Sometimes we have a fleshed-out script, and sometimes we don’t. The real fun of making films sometimes comes from not knowing what I am going to film and figuring it out as we go. I know that sounds dumb, but it always seems to work out.

This last weekend, we did exactly that. We had outlined a few scenes and practiced some stunts with the actors. It worked out alright; it was one of those times when working on a wing and a prayer just felt right.