Be warned - Love Story Auditions
Fri, 4 Feb 2005, 02:23 pmWalter Plinge15 posts in thread
Be warned - Love Story Auditions
Fri, 4 Feb 2005, 02:23 pmAs we all know, the auditions for the "film" Love Story have been haunting this site (and other areas) for some time. I know many actors who sent the "director" their details nearly 6 months ago and have not heard a thing. I emailed Serge (the director) about the project and he could not give me ANY details. I find this a worry as the questions were quite simple - i.e. what is this film for (festivals? competition?), what sort of characters are you looking for and estimated hours. I thought these basic details could be given to actors - what's the big secret? Whenever student films advertise for actors we are always given simple character information and basic details.
When I questioned his reponse the only answer he could give me was that Natalie Portman did not know what role she was auditioning for in "The Phantom Menace"!!! I am sorry but who does this guy think he is? George Lucas? AND Natalie Portman's audition would have been set up by a top-notch agent - she didn't have to send photographs and personal information to some unknown director.
Just be warned. This sounds really suss to me.
Any one else heard anything?
When I questioned his reponse the only answer he could give me was that Natalie Portman did not know what role she was auditioning for in "The Phantom Menace"!!! I am sorry but who does this guy think he is? George Lucas? AND Natalie Portman's audition would have been set up by a top-notch agent - she didn't have to send photographs and personal information to some unknown director.
Just be warned. This sounds really suss to me.
Any one else heard anything?
Re: Be warned - Love Story Auditions
Wed, 9 Feb 2005, 04:46 pmHopefully I can help people out here with some third party info. I do not wish to slander anyone involved here, this is simply some factual info as I have it as there seems to be a lack of it from Mr Sharrinovsky himself (Serge please follow this up and correct any mistakes, errors, bad assumptions etc I may be making, It sounds like everyone wants to hear more about this!!)
I was involved in a play with Mr Sharrinovsky in late 2004: (he was called in at the last minute as an unknown because a critical role needed filling). One of our cast members knew of him through attending the PAC screen workshops in Perth. (He is also apparently a newsreader for Channel31).
Serge attempted to evangilise his upcoming feature film to the cast of the play, emphasising that he needed an 'enthusiastic cast of around 30 actors' and much to everyones astonishment, he was unable to get "dedicated, committed people'. He also made it known he was in the process of canvassing potential financiers/producers, aiming for a budget of around $3.5 MILLION to produce his film.
Everyone seemed astonished he had such a big project in the works and was still unable to get serious actors involved - My first thought was that people would be lining up at the door for a chance like this. He said that the casting agencies were no good and didnt return his calls.
I had the opportunity to discuss the project with him at some length, during which I gained the distinct impression that he was being rather unrealistic about it: read on for why.
He said he had approached Rove McMannis and Nick Gianoppolis but Roves people had told him there was no time on his schedule. I cannot recall what he said about NG: it was a no-go however. He also said he had the interest of a guy who had worked with ILM (Lucasfilm) and on Jurassic Park.
He had no storyboards / locations scouted / rudimentary post-production work in place, I suggested this would probably have been good to have everything prepared before approaching people asking for millions of dollars to produce. He also said he wanted to have his distribution channels secured at the outset: before any filming (or indeed pre-production?) was in place.
I suggested he may find it to his advantage to film digital considering the likely limited budget, but he seemed determined to use film, despite the expense (shrug: if you have the money, why not...)
I am no director or production guru, but he was impressed enough with what technical jargon I was familiar with (big words like 'steadicam' ! ) to offer me the job of AD (!!). At this point I started pushing to see the script: He skirted around this: the best I could get out of him was that someone had stolen or otherwise somehow ripped off an earlier script of his and he was consequently fairly paranoid as a result.
At the time of discussion he planned to produce the music himself. (This may seem more relevant after checking out the links at the bottom)
He suggested he would 'even be happy to act in it' , there may have been mention of the lead role but I do not recall correctly. In any case in my opinion Serges talent, whatever it is, is NOT as an actor. This became clear very quickly during our play rehearsals.
After some urging he agreed to send out a 'synopsis' to the play crew. This consisted of about half a paragraph which was very brief and uninformative. The final conclusion was a suggestion that he get back to me/us when there was a working script to be looked over. I have not heard from him since.
Hopefully this clears a few things up. On a *personal note*: after having worked with Serge I was left with a poor opinion of his professionalism, to the extent I would probably actively avoid participating in any future productions he may be involved in. Although a sentiment shared amongst several people I have discussed it with, this IS an opinion only and should not be taken on its own or as a direct reflection on 'The Love Show' production.
*FURTHER INFO ON SERGE SHARRINOVSKY*
I did some quick web research (At Serges suggestion - 'Look me up on Google') and found the following items of interest:
http://www.loveshow.com.au/ - "The Love Show" Official Site. (No real info here, links to 'cast, crew, bios' go nowhere). Page headers indicate the Authors are "David Valentin & Serge Sharrinovsky". Mr Valentin could be the person referred to earlier in the post as affiliated with ILM: There is an IMDB profile of a David Valentin which is consistent with this here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0884159/
http://www.mp3.com.au/artist.asp?id=405 - Serge Sharrinovsky the MP3 artist! It seems Serge has an interest in a musical career.
http://www.macidol.com/jamroom/bands/421/music.php - More Serge the artist
http://www.bandace.com.au/displayArtist.php?id=16 - Serge Sharrinovsky the Multimedia Artist and Producer!
http://www.perthbands.com/index.php?act=bands&feat=display&bandid=473 - More of the above. There is more of this kind of fare on google if you can be bothered searching.
His old homepage is now gone, replaced with the love show page, (http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/adsll3sp/ ) but when I first looked at it it was full of downloadable samples of clips of Serge the Video clip artist (These immediately reminded me of certain Australian Idol contestants who were probably eliminated early in the running: possibly not the best advertisment for Mr Sharrinovskys industry credibility).
As suggested in an earlier post it seems he has been aggressivley advertising for cast/crew across a number of different sites: including this one:
Theatre.asn.au (of course)
Film & Television Institute: http://www.fti.asn.au/forum/index.php?forumLevel=453
PerthAuditions Mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/perthauditions/ (members only can search posts but hes posted the same thing here about six times)
The Conversation Room (Down for the moment so I've posted the google cached version)
http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:W9X6WAAPEsMJ:forums.geoffrey.com.au/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D932+%22Serge+Sharrinovsky%22&hl=en
I was involved in a play with Mr Sharrinovsky in late 2004: (he was called in at the last minute as an unknown because a critical role needed filling). One of our cast members knew of him through attending the PAC screen workshops in Perth. (He is also apparently a newsreader for Channel31).
Serge attempted to evangilise his upcoming feature film to the cast of the play, emphasising that he needed an 'enthusiastic cast of around 30 actors' and much to everyones astonishment, he was unable to get "dedicated, committed people'. He also made it known he was in the process of canvassing potential financiers/producers, aiming for a budget of around $3.5 MILLION to produce his film.
Everyone seemed astonished he had such a big project in the works and was still unable to get serious actors involved - My first thought was that people would be lining up at the door for a chance like this. He said that the casting agencies were no good and didnt return his calls.
I had the opportunity to discuss the project with him at some length, during which I gained the distinct impression that he was being rather unrealistic about it: read on for why.
He said he had approached Rove McMannis and Nick Gianoppolis but Roves people had told him there was no time on his schedule. I cannot recall what he said about NG: it was a no-go however. He also said he had the interest of a guy who had worked with ILM (Lucasfilm) and on Jurassic Park.
He had no storyboards / locations scouted / rudimentary post-production work in place, I suggested this would probably have been good to have everything prepared before approaching people asking for millions of dollars to produce. He also said he wanted to have his distribution channels secured at the outset: before any filming (or indeed pre-production?) was in place.
I suggested he may find it to his advantage to film digital considering the likely limited budget, but he seemed determined to use film, despite the expense (shrug: if you have the money, why not...)
I am no director or production guru, but he was impressed enough with what technical jargon I was familiar with (big words like 'steadicam' ! ) to offer me the job of AD (!!). At this point I started pushing to see the script: He skirted around this: the best I could get out of him was that someone had stolen or otherwise somehow ripped off an earlier script of his and he was consequently fairly paranoid as a result.
At the time of discussion he planned to produce the music himself. (This may seem more relevant after checking out the links at the bottom)
He suggested he would 'even be happy to act in it' , there may have been mention of the lead role but I do not recall correctly. In any case in my opinion Serges talent, whatever it is, is NOT as an actor. This became clear very quickly during our play rehearsals.
After some urging he agreed to send out a 'synopsis' to the play crew. This consisted of about half a paragraph which was very brief and uninformative. The final conclusion was a suggestion that he get back to me/us when there was a working script to be looked over. I have not heard from him since.
Hopefully this clears a few things up. On a *personal note*: after having worked with Serge I was left with a poor opinion of his professionalism, to the extent I would probably actively avoid participating in any future productions he may be involved in. Although a sentiment shared amongst several people I have discussed it with, this IS an opinion only and should not be taken on its own or as a direct reflection on 'The Love Show' production.
*FURTHER INFO ON SERGE SHARRINOVSKY*
I did some quick web research (At Serges suggestion - 'Look me up on Google') and found the following items of interest:
http://www.loveshow.com.au/ - "The Love Show" Official Site. (No real info here, links to 'cast, crew, bios' go nowhere). Page headers indicate the Authors are "David Valentin & Serge Sharrinovsky". Mr Valentin could be the person referred to earlier in the post as affiliated with ILM: There is an IMDB profile of a David Valentin which is consistent with this here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0884159/
http://www.mp3.com.au/artist.asp?id=405 - Serge Sharrinovsky the MP3 artist! It seems Serge has an interest in a musical career.
http://www.macidol.com/jamroom/bands/421/music.php - More Serge the artist
http://www.bandace.com.au/displayArtist.php?id=16 - Serge Sharrinovsky the Multimedia Artist and Producer!
http://www.perthbands.com/index.php?act=bands&feat=display&bandid=473 - More of the above. There is more of this kind of fare on google if you can be bothered searching.
His old homepage is now gone, replaced with the love show page, (http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/adsll3sp/ ) but when I first looked at it it was full of downloadable samples of clips of Serge the Video clip artist (These immediately reminded me of certain Australian Idol contestants who were probably eliminated early in the running: possibly not the best advertisment for Mr Sharrinovskys industry credibility).
As suggested in an earlier post it seems he has been aggressivley advertising for cast/crew across a number of different sites: including this one:
Theatre.asn.au (of course)
Film & Television Institute: http://www.fti.asn.au/forum/index.php?forumLevel=453
PerthAuditions Mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/perthauditions/ (members only can search posts but hes posted the same thing here about six times)
The Conversation Room (Down for the moment so I've posted the google cached version)
http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:W9X6WAAPEsMJ:forums.geoffrey.com.au/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D932+%22Serge+Sharrinovsky%22&hl=en