John Cosper

I thought it was just me.

Used to be I could post a casting notice on a website or Yahoo Group (remember those?) and get dozens of replies within hours.

Now I post a casting notice on Facebook group and get nothing.

A fellow filmmaker, who is still very much in the game, assures me it’s not me. Actors are different these days. Ten years ago everyone jumped at the chance to do anything on camera. Now they’re more savvy.

This is both good and bad. It’s good because a lot of perverts post casting notices for reasons other than actually making a movie. You don’t just answer any casting call, especially if you’re a woman, without checking it out first. It’s bad because there are some actors who create problems on set that I never had – like an extra holding up a shoot demanding a lead actor be replaced on an unpaid project.

I miss it, but I don’t. The scheduling headaches and the time away from my babies (now 10 and 11) was the reason I left, and there are now more reasons to stay out. I still have many very talented actor friends from those days, and most of those folks will still say yes because I finish what I start. I also have a lot of friends who “used to act” and will come out to do things just for the fun of it. You get a lot fewer attitudes and a whole lot more collaboration and laughter with them.

I am exceptionally grateful to everyone who ever auditioned for me or sent an acting resume. I had a blast, and I am thankful that some truly amazing people would still come out and work for me if I asked – even though I’m much closer to Phil Tucker than James Gunn as a film director.

No, this not me swearing off film. Just some thoughts I had after a good catch up with a fellow director while trying to cast my next wrestling short. For the record I’m using a new actor (the only new face who responded to my last casting call) and one old friend I haven’t worked with in over a decade. Should be a good time for all.

Speaking of films I made, here’s a classic. Hope you enjoy it.

Here’s an old idea I had for a movie. Probably better suited to a short subject rather than a feature, but who knows?

Working title: Lord of the Files

Logline: A modern day office breaks into tribal warfare in an updated version of the classic novel Lord of the Flies.

Synopsis: Around 9 am on a normal Tuesday, a busy sales office discovers that their branch manager is dead. With no central leader to keep order, the office breaks down by department into factions. Sales, Accounting, Purchasing, Customer Care, Administrative, and HR all begin to stake our territories and slowly turn tribal. Small skirmishes flare. By just after lunch, it’s clear the whole office is headed down a path of destruction.

The sales department is the most aggressive, having beaten the HR department into submission and claimed the break room area for themselves. When the sales manager begins to have second thoughts about what is going on, his top sales rep stages a coup, and the sales manager is exiled into no man’s land – i.e., the production plant, which has become a savage wasteland inhabited by the violent production workers.

Meanwhile, customer care attempts to form an alliance with purchasing, accounting, and admin to stave off destruction at the hands of sales. Food is scarce, though, and it’s up to the rookie in customer care to brave no man’s land to cross through the plant, raid the vending machine, and return. He makes it back with an armful of Cheezits and Payday bars, wounded but alive, and the alliance is forged just in time for battle.

Armed with staplers, letter openers, and rubber band guns, the sales force strikes in an attempt to obliterate their colleagues and conquer the whole of the office. The bloody battle begins at 4:58 pm, but as soon as the clock strikes five, everyone stops what their doing, grabs their stuff, says their goodbyes, and heads home.

We end on a shot of the dead manager, his head still on the desk, rotting away.

This idea came to me many years and a few office jobs ago. I never pursued it because (A) I could never seem to get a start on it, and (B) I never read Lord of the Flies nor had the desire to read it.