Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to write as many blogs as I normally would like to but the reason for that is I am in preproduction on my next short film, YOUR MOVE, and it’s occupying the bulk of my time…

That said, I held auditions last Friday for the two main characters in my short and saw over forty men for both roles. Though all my previous shorts have had female leads, this one is a departure for me in that it is based not on a personal situation but rather a real experience that happened to someone I know and when they told me the story, it mesmerized me and I immediately knew I wanted to use it as the basis for my next short.

As I auditioned one actor after another and narrowed down the choices for callbacks, I started thinking about chemistry and how awesome it is between people. I don’t just mean romantic chemistry but rather the chemical connection between people in which they connect, spark, bounce off each other.

Have you ever been in a room with a stranger and even though you’ve never met before, you can talk perfectly with each other? But then, surely we’ve all been in situations with others where we’re just not feeling it and it’s awkward and uncomfortable and we find ourselves searching for an excuse to get out, right? So, I think a bulk of it comes down to…

Chemistry.

According to my apple dictionary, that means “the emotional or psychological interaction between two people.”

The other day, my friend asked me if she could see my process of narrowing down the casting choices and coming up with the ones I want to see again, and ultimately, the ones I select for the cast. I started to think about it as it’s not something I can easily put into words but realized it has a lot to do with chemistry. My favorite film of all time is YOU CAN COUNT ON ME and had it not been for the chemistry between the two stars, Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, and the director capturing their chemistry in context of his beautiful film, I don’t think I would have cared about it anywhere near as much as I do.

Chemistry. It’s powerful stuff.

When I see a couple, I find myself immediately searching for chemistry because when it’s found, it’s beautiful. Sometimes I see it and the energy of it permeates throughout the room. It’s awesome, but other times I don’t and it is what it is. But isn’t life too short not to have chemistry with those we choose to surround ourselves with? Is that rare to come across though? I think so. But is it worth searching for? Hell ya.

And my auditions reminded me the search is part of the fun…