Hey Bonnie,

Best regards,
Roger A. Stoneburner

Hi Roger. Great questions. Okay, so for those who aren’t aware of the Ulmer Scale or the Forbes List, let me do a quick overview. I was actually talking about this with a friend of mine who casts studio features and she said she had never heard of these lists, nor had anyone for whom she’d ever cast asked her to consult these lists. Of course not. At the studio level, there are all sorts of in-house lists already running around that indicate who is bankable and who is approved for what level project as well as who will trigger overseas sales before a single frame is shot. I mean, we don’t need any sort of guide to tell us that Tom Cruise is, in fact, a bankable movie star. But his name is on a list in every office.

What we do need, in the world of low-budget independent film, however, is something we can point at when approaching investors who don’t want to part with their money without some sort of guarantee that they will make back their investment. Now, no one can guarantee such a thing, so even by using that word, I know I’m off-base. What we can do, though, is predict with some measure of certainty based on previous experience, which names will most likely yield overseas sales, DVD commitments, even domestic release simply by the actor’s name being attached to the project, at three specific budget ranges.

James Ulmer interviewed studio heads, execs at production companies, buyers at major film market events, and packaging agents for distribution worldwide. He added to that data things like an actor’s interest in doing junkets for projects (or how likely they are to show up at the premiere of a small-budget film and help it get the buzz it needs to open even wider after a festival screening or an art-house release) and how predictable their ongoing press appearances may be, long after the shoot.

Here’s a perfect example. I cast Ernest Borgnine, Doris Roberts, Anne Meara, Piper Laurie, Richard Schiff, Cybill Shepherd, and Amber Benson in Another Harvest Moon. These actors (plus, bonus! Jerry Stiller, Anne’s famous husband) have been dynamos of press for our little movie. Nearly every interview they’ve had in the past two years has included something about the low-budget indie and how much they loved being a part of it, how important they feel its message is. That sort of thing makes a huge difference in the ability to get what would’ve been “just a festival film” into theaters, as well as cable and DVD and in-flight distribution deals worldwide. So, for the smaller-budget projects, the predictors of the Ulmer Scale are very handy.

I use Ulmer for a global overview. I use Forbes for a domestic skew. Forbes includes musicians, sports stars, hot directors, reality show personalities, etc., and is therefore less about box office or overseas sales (the latter of which is where most movies make their money back) and more about star power in the US. So, if we’re looking for something that will open wide in the United States, and we’re looking at an actor who has a huge Ulmer number but a small Forbes number, I’ll perhaps try and steer our next offer toward an actor with a higher Forbes but lower Ulmer (ideally, both numbers will be huge, but let’s face it, sometimes you just can’t get the namiest actors’ teams to even look at microbudget indies — especially ones that aren’t yet fully financed).

Finally, especially for younger actors, I also consult the IMDb-Pro StarMeter. While that index is entirely manipulatable and wholly driven by popularity, it helps me track trends and fill in the gaps that Ulmer and Forbes may miss, due to publication turnaround. For example, someone like Robert Pattinson was nowhere to be seen on either index for years, but his StarMeter (due to Twilight, of course) was outrageous, lending a bit of predictability to where he might land on the other indices, once they got their next updates published. While you may not impress investors with a name like that, early on, it sure is a nice ace in the hole for your reputation when trying to convince investors on your next project that you do have the ability to predict which actors are going to help them earn back their money, somewhat, even without such scales to back you up.

Finally, you mentioned having LOIs for your supporting actors in this project for which you are seeking marquee name attachments. That’s awesome. You called the supporting players “name actors,” but I’ll warn you, unless they are actors whose names appear on Forbes or Ulmer, you run the risk of actually scaring off investors by having too many of those commitments at the beginning of your financing stage. They may see the project as bottom-heavy. Or worse, they may want to have some say in how you cast some of the supporting roles (as a thank you for having written you a check for $1M) and you’re showing them there’s not a lot of wiggle room, when you get too many EARLY actor attachments that don’t cause investors to spring open their wallets.

I hope this is helpful. I could talk about this stuff all day. I’m a big fan of applying as much statistical analysis as possible to a business that does not operate on a statistical reality whatsoever. It’s fun for me to crunch the numbers and suggest probability while also trying to balance the creative needs of any particular project. It’s why casting (and at the low-budget indie level) is such fun for me. It’s the true balance of art and business, which is just how my brain works. It ain’t for everybody, though, which is why the little guide books are starting to pop up to help out, somewhat.

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!

Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001227.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.