Taye Diggs
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13 Steps to Directing Famous Actors in a Microbudget Film
As I wind up my festival and theatrical run of my film Between Us, it’s gratifying to see the amazing reviews for our four-person ensemble cast, with critics using blurb-ready adjectives like “brilliant,” “razor-sharp” and “career-best” to describe the performances of Julia Stiles, Taye Diggs and Melissa George. David Harbour, in particular, just won the Best Actor prize at the Woods Hole Film Fest, and many reviews agree that he steals the movie in his breakthrough film performance. Naturally, all credit is due to the actors themselves. But a couple people nicely said that I couldn’t have screwed up the […]
by Dan Mirvish on Oct 21, 2013 -
8 Rules on Being a Locavore Filmmaker
Plenty of us independent filmmakers claim to be as environmentally friendly as can be, but beyond a few minor lifestyle tweaks (like claiming we just watched Gasland 2 while bemoaning Hollywood’s reliance on sequels), are we really as green as we’d like to think we are? Sadly, probably not. But one way we can help make a small difference to our planet is to take a page from the food movement and become locavore filmmakers — making movies close to home, in order to reduce our carbon footprints. I tried this strategy on my new film (Between Us, starring Julia […]
by Dan Mirvish on Jul 31, 2013 -
13 Ways to Cast A-List Actors in Microbudget Films
My film Between Us is about to come out in theaters and one of the questions I’ve been asked at some of the 22 festivals in seven countries I’ve been to (and yes, that sound you hear is my feet splashing on the beach when I won the Grand Jury Prize in the Bahamas) is how the hell I got a cast like Julia Stiles, Taye Diggs, Melissa George and David Harbour in a movie that according to Kickstarter only cost $10,000? So let me explain… 1. Choose Castable Material. One reason I chose to adapt an Off-Broadway play in […]
by Dan Mirvish on Jun 20, 2013
