Are you struggling to find and work with actors who can elevate your film project? This comprehensive curriculum will teach you how to discover an actor’s strengths and weaknesses, gain their trust, and understand their process. You’ll learn to respect the craft and keep the actor from running the show while making necessary adjustments. Our expert tips will help you bag the take and keep the actor wanting to give their all. After filming, you’ll learn what to expect, how to make sure the actor promotes your project, and what’s next for working together again. By joining our interactive live Q&A, you’ll learn how to negotiate with agents and managers, build relationships with reps, and attract bigger and better actors in the future. Sign up now to boost your productions and attract more actors to your film projects.
Webinar Schedule
Film Directing Webinar Series
Jumpstart Your Directorial Debut:
Directing Actors and Building Authentic Performances
with Shane Stanley, Multi-Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker
- Date: Friday, July 7, 2023
- Time: 10:00am PST to 11:15am PST (California Time)
- 1:00pm to 2:15pm EST (New York Time)
- Location: Live Online via Zoom
- Cost: FREE for Members.
- Registration: Pre-registration required. Click Here to Register Now.
Curriculum
- Understanding the beast before you go to war.
- Discovering an actor’s strengths and weaknesses
- Learning who they really are isn’t in their reel but on the red carpet
- How to gain an actor’s trust
- An Actor Prepares
- Take some acting classes yourself and get an agent (walk in their shoes)
- Understand and respect the actor’s process.
- Making yourself available
- When to bend but never break
- When Filming Your Movie
- Your respect of the craft
- Don’t let the actor run the show
- Making adjustments the RIGHT way
- Realize when you’ve bagged the take and don’t wear them out
- Keeping them wanting to please you and give their all
- Dying on that sword
- So Much for the Afterglow
- What not to expect
- Don’t get your feelings hurt
- Did you cast them to make a friend or a great film?
- Making sure they’re onboard to promote your project
- What’s next (working together again)
What You Will Learn
- How to hunt and gather actors who will elevate your project.
- Negotiate with the agents and managers.
- Make actors glad they said “yes” to working with you.
You Will Be Able To
- Build relationships with reps to get bigger and better actors easier in the future.
- Boost your productions moving forward.
- Attract other actors to come on board in the future.
About the Speaker
Shane Stanley is a multi-Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker and best-selling author who grew up in/around “the biz” in Hollywood. As a childhood actor he had appeared on-screen in over 100 projects with Hollywood legends which included June Lockhart, Lloyd Haynes, and David Arkin. By age ten, he was comfortably running an Arri 16mm camera, a flatbed-editor, and Moviola.
Along with his father, Lee Stanley, Shane produced The Desperate Passage Series. The docu-drama series ran on KTLA with world-wide syndication from 1988 to 1994, was nominated for 33 individual Emmy® Awards and won 13 statues. Two episodes of the series went on to become successful feature films, Gridiron Gang was acquired by Sony Pictures and became the #1 box office hit starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Shane served as Vice President of Sheen/Michaels Entertainment where he produced several motion pictures starring Marlon Brando, Mira Sorvino, Thomas Hayden Church, Donald Sutherland, Marisa Tomei, Sean Penn, John Travolta and of course, Charlie and Martin Sheen. During that time, he also began writing and penned episodes of Zalman King’s Red Shoe Diaries, edited motion pictures, and created an original television series for Jeff Sagansky, former Head of CBS, before producing Dream Chasers for Discovery Channel – a television adventure program filmed in several different countries in the aftermath of 9/11.
In 2004, Shane made his directorial debut with his own screenplay, A Sight for Sore Eyes. The film was honored with the Special Jury Award at WorldFest Houston, won two Telly Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Film & Television, as well as winning top honors at the International Family Film Festival along with Walden Media’s The Chronicles of Narnia. It went on to win dozens of prestigious awards and was invited to screen at Cannes in 2005.
Shane has also directed countless music videos, many which have aired on VH1’s Top 20 Video Countdown, including two that went #1 and another that made the network’s list of Best 100 Music Videos including “Go That Far” with Bret Michaels. The Michaels’ video was used for the television series Rock of Love, where Shane also served as a consulting producer.
Stanley has also produced and directed national television commercials including campaigns for Morongo Resorts, San Manuel, Westgate Las Vegas, Kimberly Clark, Snapple, Virgin Airways, Sony PlayStation, and mega-hit gaming franchise “Call of Duty.”
Other directing credits to his name include Mistrust, starring two-time Golden Globe® and Emmy® Award winner Jane Seymour, Break Even with Tasya Teles, Steve Guttenberg, and Golden Globe® nominee, Joanna Pacula which he also produced with Adam Kane (Prodigal Son, 24: Live Another Day, Heroes). In 2022, Shane produced and directed the action-comedy, Double Threat starring Matthew Lawrence and Dawn Olivieri (Yellowstone, 1883), which The New York Times listed on their Top 5-Action Movies to Stream Now and was the sole indie feature amongst Hollywood blockbusters on Amazon Prime’s “Top 10 in the US” list remaining there for several weeks and peaking at #4.
Recently, Shane’s action-thriller, Night Train, starring Danielle C. Ryan and Diora Baird released nationwide theatrically and will premiere on HULU in May of this year. The film is the story of a single mom struggling to make ends meet as a Hollywood teamster who evades capture by a ruthless FBI Agent while running black market medical supplies in her legendary souped-up pickup truck. It also stars Joe Lando, Ivan Sergei, and Joseph D. Reitman.
His book, “What You Don’t Learn in Film School,” a best-seller earning a 4.5-star rating across the board was listed by CNN, FORBES, and BOOK AUTHORITY among the Best Filmmaking Books of All-Time, which covers filmmaking from concept to delivery. It has landed on required reading lists at several universities around the world and is endorsed by some of the most respected names in Hollywood including Producer, Neal H. Moritz, (Fast & Furious, S.W.A.T., 21 and 22 Jump Street) and Paul Williams, Oscar®, Golden Globe® and Grammy® Award Winner and Hall of Fame songwriter.
In addition to his Emmy® Awards, Stanley has received 11 Telly Awards, 2 CINE Golden Eagles Awards, 5 Aurora Awards, 4 WorldFest Remi Awards, and 28 International Film Festival Awards. He has spoken at several prestigious film and art institutes around the country including The Screen Writers Expo, the world’s largest tradeshow for screenwriters, alongside Oliver Stone, Michael Goldenberg (Harry Potter franchise) and Adam Herz (American Pie) about the secrets of marketing to today’s youth.
He and his wife, actress Val Barri, are active in charities supporting cancer research, restoring hope for inner-city youth, and animal rescue. They live in Los Angeles.
Please visit: shanestanley.net and whatyoudontlearninfilmschool.com for more info.
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