Experiencing Interruptions?

The Audition

Interview/documentary of an actor speaking about auditioning for acting roles as a major part of an actor's life. This video is a movie in a movie-shooting a self tape, conducting an interview about shooting an audition, and shooting a video about the shooting of the self tape. Actors do so many auditions in relation to the small percentage of castings-and this became part of the soul of the short doc/interview. Given that more than 90% of auditions do not bear getting the work this is very honest and also inspirational.

HD video © 2018
Actor: Ron Nakahara
Interviewed by Frances Barth
Editor, Frances Barth
Cameras, Frances Barth and Erick Arce

  • Frances Barth
    Director
    "Jonnie in the Lake," "Regina B," "End of the Day, End of the Day."
  • Frances Barth
    Producer
  • Ron Nakahara
    Key Cast
    "Actor"
    https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0619996/#actor
  • Frances Barth
    cameras
    "Regina B"
  • Erick Arce
    cameras
  • Paul Goodrich, Merlin Studios NYC
    Post Audio Mix
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, biography, documentary
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 9 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 22, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    2,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    HD video
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Ethnografilm Paris 2019
    Paris
    France
    April 18, 2019
    French Premiere
    Official Selection
  • The Sunrise Film Festival, Nova Scotia
    Pictou
    Canada
    September 5, 2019
    Canada
    Official Selection
Distribution Information
  • Frances Barth
    Country: United States
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Frances Barth

Born in the Bronx, having received her degrees from Hunter College, CUNY, Frances Barth has been working and showing her painting in New York and internationally since the 1960's.
While an art student she also studied modern dance, and began performing with Yvonne Rainer at Lincoln Center and the Billy Rose Theater in 1968-9, and with Joan Jonas in performance and video in 1970.
Video:
During the past 15 years she has created two animations, a documentary, and a short b&w film set in 1947 after the Japanese internment.

Her most recent animation, "Jonnie in the Lake" won Best Animated Short in November 2016 at the New York Short Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the Sunrise Film Festival in Nova Scotia. It now has Spanish subtitles as well and has been shown in Venezuela, Ecuador and Uruguay.

The animation "End of the Day, End of the Day" completed in 2007 was shown at the Atlanta Festival of the Moving Image in the Marcia Wood Gallery, and in New York at Sundaram Tagore Gallery in 2010.

Her video documentary/portrait on the painter Regina Bogat, "Regina B" premiered at the New Renaissance Film Festival in Amsterdam in 2018, and was nominated for 'best short International documentary." An earlier different short was shown at The Marfa Film Festial in 2014.
Last year she published her first graphic novel "Ginger Smith and Billy Gee" with settings derived from her paintings, and this year Silas Von Morisse Gallery in NY held a theatrical reading of the graphic novel with 7 actors.

Her awards include two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, an Adolphe and Esther Gottlieb Individual Support Grant, two American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase awards, the Anonymous Was a Woman grant and a Pollock-Krasner grant.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

"The Audition" started as I was shooting another self tape audition for the actor Ron Nakahara. This last shoot gave me the idea to expand on this usually hectic and short noticed event and to set up another camera to record the shoot, with its humor and process. After getting this early footage I decided to go back into it with an interview about auditioning, and add a third hand held camera to introduce more movement.
Actors do so many auditions in relation to the small percentage of castings-and this became part of the soul of the short doc/interview.