One of the festival’s requirements is that the films be character driven, meaning the filmmakers focus on the actor and their skills, Franken said.
The actor is a major part of director Brennan Howard’s film, “Low.”
“This is a festival that embraces actors and I hope the selling point is the actors,” he said.
This is the Glendale native’s debut at Method Fest. Howard, who trained as an actor with Jeff Goldblum, got into directing in 1991.
“Low” is based loosely on the parallels of the lives of heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston and jazz musician Chet Baker, Howard said.
“There is a lot of loose spontaneity throughout the film,” Howard said. “There is a lot of open parameters for the actors to be loose. The acting is very honest.”
“Low” was shot over a weekend in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
Howard, who teaches acting, plans on working on his next film — a comedy.
Like Howard who focuses on telling a story with his characters, the actor also has to prepare to tell the story with his or her character.
To get into character for her role, actress Courtney Robinson of Glendale, the youngest star of “Repressions,” imagines she is that character in real life, she said.
“Repressions,” a film written and directed by former Burbank resident Adam Kargman is about a young woman who represses a negative childhood memory but is troubled by it as an adult.
With 17 student films and four commercials under her belt, the 10-year-old plays the younger child version of the troubled woman in the film.
“I really just was so excited to get the part and I started thinking what I would do when I got into that character,” Courtney said.
