How Social Networking Expands Your Rodriguez List

This post is a reference from a reference. Stu Maschwitz talks about the Rodriguez List in his book the DV Rebels Guide, which is a reference to Robert Rodriguez' book, Rebel Without A Crew.

What's a "Rodriguez List"?

The idea is simple. You make a list of all the assets you have access to, things your friends, family, in-laws, extended family own that they would let you borrow for your film project. Cars, locations, props, etc. I love this idea, it's both efficient and frugal.

So, we're filming a movie called Dust, and within the story there's a scene in which a cop car parks in front of the main characters house. Well, how am I going to get a cop car? Enter facebook. Here I have three hundred or so friends, family, acquaintances who through a simple 'event' know that I'm making a movie, and that I'm looking for a cop-like car.

I ended up getting two cars that were cop-like. A white Chevy Impala, and a white Chevy Blazer. After removing some hub caps, putting a cage in the back seat, adding an air-soft shotgun under the rear view mirror, and putting a laptop on the center console: we had a cop car!

Social networking at its finest.

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http://www.sethdeming.com

Love it!

For our film we needed US 1970's period cars so we approached car clubs and were amazed how receptive some people are to the idea of 'being in a movie'; this was in New York. In contrast when we filmed a scene in the UK which needed to be the Nevada desert, we ended up hiring a Lincoln Town car and the place where we hired it from knew what it was worth and never budged on price, even though his office was within 5 miles of the location and it was a half day shoot. It was worth it though, money well spent, great production value.

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Chris Taylor
@c_taylor
www.lvjmovie.com
http://chris-taylor.squarespace.com/

I totally agree. When we told the neighbors about what we were doing, people were asking if we 'needed any help'. I think people like to be a part of something where the sum is greater than its parts you know?

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http://www.sethdeming.com

Nice! I'm gonna have to try this.

I've been thinking for a while now about doing some casting through facebook. I put up a casting call and ask interested actors to post a 30sec-1min clip of them performing an excerpt from the script. Then I contact the actors who show promise for a more formal audition.
Just an idea. Haven't tested it yet.

Id encourage you to just go meet with the actors. That way, unless they live far away, you can meet with them and see how you'll interact in a director-to-actor relationship. Also, people may be a little afraid of posting a video of themselves (in any context) for the world wide web to leer it's slimy eyes on.

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http://www.sethdeming.com

Seth,

Agreed! Nice work! Mind if I find you on FB to expand our Rodriguez list?

Of course not!

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http://www.sethdeming.com

I cast my film entirely on Facebook, and found some very good talent out there.
I have also been able to build my audience with a FB fan page for the film, and was able to leverage that to use Kickstarter.com to raise some funds.

Take my top 3 actresses and they have a combined fanbase of roughly 12,000 people that have heard about my project that otherwise might not.

We are in the middle of shooting and I couldn't be happier.

oh, and the film is at www.thecthulhukey.com and my fledgling production blog is at www.thecthulhukey.com/blog

rock on!

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My blog | My film