 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel and it's a given Friday. And we're going to have a very interesting show today about 5.0 and casting. You will be interested. Before we do that though, I just want to say our hearts go out to the people who were killed in their families in the Maryland gun escapade yesterday. And we're listening to other media and we have, you know, sounds of the decedents, stories of the decedents and their families and what happened. But you know what? Until now, we don't have any sound at all about gun control. And the silence is actually deafening. The silence about gun control seems to be the new normal. Okay? That's my only statement on it. Now let's get to work. Sandy Elisi, thank you for coming down. You're from the casting company Sandy Elisi casting company which casts for 5.0. You're now studio. Yes. Thank you for being here. And Magnum PI. And Magnum PI. Thank you so much for having me. I am thrilled to be here. Were you an actress? No, I was not an actress. But got you into this business. You know, I worked in the music industry and I decided that I wanted to get into film. So I started working as an extra and I did it for about a year when I was on set, I would ask everyone, what is your job? How much do you make? And do you have to work all night in the rain? Tell me about your position. Are you lugging cables? All the questions I wanted to know. So it took me a little while to figure that casting was the thing for me because I could do it from my office and I could have a normal semi-normal life. You know, it's like they were talking about the judges that are being appointed in the federal district court around the country. You know, he's appointed like 42 judges. It's huge. More than any other president that we can think of. And the question they put, you know, this morning on NPR is how much influence does that have on our lives? All these conservative judges. Well, how about you? How much influence do you have on the production? 5.0 or the other one? Magnum PI. Magnum PI. How much influence do you have? And it seems to me you have tons of influence. I do. You know, we can create a texture and a flavor. You know, we do add a lot. So, for example, the Pirates of the Caribbean films, on those films I made sure that all of the pirates were very, very short or very, very tall. There were all different heights, varied heights. And then for the sailors, I wanted them to all be the same height. It wasn't a requirement but that's what I wanted. So when they run together and they're marching, they look very uniform, very different than the pirates. And so maybe nobody noticed that. But that's what I had to add. Did the producer, director know you were doing this? I don't think so. With the pirates, we wanted them, you know, definitely to be very varied. But for the sailors, I had my own standards. But I, you know, I think it came out well. So in order to do that, in order to make a decision like that, which impresses me greatly, especially in the thought that they might not know what you would do. It's independence, creative independence. You read the script, do you know the story, do you know enough to know and make these subtle nuanced decisions? Yes, we do. So I read the script and you decide. Just like crewing up ships for Pirates of the Caribbean, where is Jack Sparrow when he's crewing up a ship? Does he have a lot of time? Is he rushing? You know, where is he, you know, are the dregs of the world around? Or does he have able-bodied, hearty men? Or are they, you know, skinny, lettuce-eating scoundrels? This is an essential part of the intellectual property of the movie. This is really right in there. You're shaping, toning it, doing it. Yes, exactly. That's fabulous. And then I try to go as far as I can with sending people who are on the edge of completely not being right, but it's fun. I like to put something new in front of the director. Yeah, well, like Marty. Somebody surprises them. Like Marty, he's a little person, bald little person, he was one of the crew members. I can relate to that. Yeah, I was able to get him in. Maybe there's a job in it for me, okay? I'm too late to move in with this. That one's sorry. There'll be others. For the remake, maybe. Yeah. Or, you know, there were a couple of men that I put on. They ended up being in Davy Jones' crew. And they were probably about 120 pounds at 6'5", maybe with giant noses and just bulbous eyes, very piratey looking. And the director, Gore Verbinski, saw them and he just thought it was so delicious. And he said, let's stick them together, conjoined twins. And I love conjoined twins. So, I was happy to help create a set. So, okay, you're talking about half of it. I mean, half of the sort of the contribution. You know, to know what you want, to decide what you want, to find your role in the creation of this intellect, this content. But the other part is you have to go out and find the people that you envision in your creative, you know, image of them. How do you do that? So there you are sitting at your desk. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. You know you've got it. Now you've got it. Now you know what you want. How do you get it? Well, every day is different. And I think that's why I've been able to do it for 20-something years. Because it's a challenge every day. I can't believe you just started when you were 4. I was 4. I was a good beginning. Yes. With divine inspiration. So, you know, you just start looking. If you need somebody who has a certain skill, then you start looking in that area to find who you can bring in. So, you know, there's a lot of ways that we go out there and find people. But one of the ways is to try to get people to come out of their homes and come to our open casting call because we will see people and say, oh, we need you. And people might not realize that they're perfect for us. We need every single type of person. You will realize. Like, is it immediately? Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, as soon as you see this person, you know, this is the one I need. Yeah. Well, at our open casting call, we'll have many, many people. We have the line moving fast. And I get to see everyone. And we make it fun. We make it a lot of fun. Sometimes we, when we have time, we have anyone who wants to show us their talent. Do a little bit of, you know, they'll do tricks or sing or dance or flips or whatever they have. And I've been adding that to my open call for years in all different locations, all different states. So aside from fun, what does that show you? What does that show you if they come up with a little tap dance for you? Then you know that that person can do that. So it's just good to have in your mind. But there's something else too, isn't there? I mean, they're willing to actually perform for you. Yes. And some people come to the open call and they can't wait to show us something. So I want them to get it out. And they want to distinguish themselves. And you want them to distinguish themselves. I want them to. I want them to get it out. I want them to come from all the other people. And you know, how many people show up at these thousands? Yeah, thousands. But I don't want to scare anyone away because everything moves really fast. You're in and out in 20 minutes. It's not waiting in line for hours. It's not like that. We have a good flow. Flip the switch here. Yes. Okay. So I hear you on this show right now. We'll talk about how they can get in touch with you. You're probably going to be besieged when everybody finds out about this. Okay. I hear about you. And I hear the place, the time, the date. And I come down there. Okay? Yes. A lot of people around me. Yes. There's you, maybe a crew of your colleagues there. My crew? Uh-huh. And you're watching and you run them through. Yes. And you only have X seconds for each one, a minute maybe? Yeah. But then we capture their information. So how do you mean? Well, we have everyone read a picture. Well, we do that too. Everyone comes and signs up online. It's very easy. You just go home. We have a database. Yeah. So we've had that since, well, I've been working here in Hawaii for a while. I did Pirates 4 and I did Kong Skull Island here. Okay. So we have lots of files, but we just want more. We just want to see new faces and you know, they come and they can register online. So you don't really have to go to the open casting call as long as you register online. Once you do that, you're in there forever. And then we'll just text you or email you. If you like what's in the database, you may call them. Yes, we will call them. We will, we can search by lots of different criteria and we can just text out and say, would you like to work next week or whatever it is. So it doesn't hurt because you could turn down the job. So you might as well just register to see if we have something. We might have something amazing. Okay. So first, you know, I come and see you and you're sitting in a big room. Yes. There are people there. Everybody sees the action, sees what's going on. So I see all the people who are online before me. I see what they're doing. At least to some extent. What's your advice? Okay. How can I best get this job? What do I have to show you? What should be my mental set when I come and I appear in front of you? Well, you know, it's really pretty easy. Just be nice and just be friendly and nice. There's nothing really you can do. You know, sometimes people really want to go out of their way and you know, kind of get after me. But I don't, there's nothing you have to do. It's just be, just be yourself. We don't need anything. We need everything. We don't need anything so specifically that we're going to say, oh, you're too something, something. We're not doing that. We just want to see people. So most of them are villain. You know, I'm reminded of a Tosca opera and there's a character by the name of Scarpeo. In fact, he was on the Met and saw it on the Met here a week ago. And you know, he is really evil. Guy is really evil, tricky, deceptive, nasty, nasty guy. And at the end of the performance at the Metropolitan, okay, customarily the audience booze him. Even if they like him, they boo him. They want they like his meanness. Okay, you look for meanness. Oh, of course. That's what I thought when I saw you. Oh, nice. No, I do. We're always looking for that. We're looking for extreme characters and bad guys, villains, heroes, all of it. Okay, let me back up just a little bit. Now I'm filling out the database. I'm putting my smithing down and I have to give you a picture of course. Maybe more than one even. One is fine, but two sometimes could help. And I have to give you my background and I have to give you probably some kind of statement of who I think I am. And maybe my, you know, curriculum fee tie of some kind. All right. How should I approach that? Well, it's not that you have to check boxes. It's going to ask for your skills. You're going to fill in what your skills are and your, your height and height, different things like your sizes. Yeah, and it's because we have a lot of roles that require costumes. Yeah. Yeah. You're, and it's your size from now, not from high school. So your real sizes. Yeah. And I'm sure there are special situations in my life. And I just went to, to see Hunchback of Notre Dame in Seattle. Marvelous, marvelous performance. And the lead character is in fact deaf and dumb. He is in fact deaf and dumb. And they communicate. He communicate by American Sign Language. So he said, well, that's, that's a hard one to cast, isn't it? Yeah. Well, deaf and mute. Deaf and mute. Okay. Okay. No, I have that. We can find that. Yeah. But that's great. I love that, you know, he's an actor. I just did about 23 roles on a film for Gus Van Zamp called Don't Worry He Won't Get Far On Foot with Joaquin Phoenix. And I love this opportunity. They call me for specialty work and this was definitely specialty. It was all, everyone was disabled. So many disabled people to do stunts and so many, so many things. And it's wonderful. And they're there. I mean, the actors are out there. So you don't want to write yourself off here. If you have the slightest interest, go in the database. Yeah, the slightest interest. Put yourself in because you're having a sandy main life. Yeah. For what you are. Exactly, exactly. So there's no, absolutely no experience needed. And every single type is what we're looking for. And you might have the skill. I mean, you might have the one thing that we really, really need. But besides that, we have thousands and thousands of roles to cast because we have two television shows. And then we have more projects coming up here on Wahoo at the end of the year. So we need everyone. We need you and your sister and your mom. Okay. We need everybody. We do. And when we come back from this very short break, we're going to find out what she's looking for now. You know, the specific characters that may be on her desk. And we're also going to find out it'll be a scoop right after this break. You know, she referred to other projects coming up later this year. We're going to ask, we're going to ask her what they are. I'm not telling you. I'm not going to tell you. We'll see if we can do something. We'll be right back. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4pm. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4pm on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Stephanie Mock, and I'm one of three hosts of Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer Series. Our other hosts are Matt Johnson and Pamai Weigert. And we talk to those who are in the fields and behind the scenes of our local food system. We talk to farmers, chefs, restaurateurs and more to learn more about what goes into sustainable agriculture here in Hawaii. We are on at Thursdays at 4pm, and we hope we'll see you next time. We're back with Sandy Alicia. Yes. Okay. And she is a casting director person. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. What do you think of Harvey Weinstein? He did a lot of casting. Oh boy. Yes. That really affected things, didn't it? Change things. Well, it did. And I am happy for everyone who was able to speak up after that. So, you know. Good for the industry actually. Good for the industry. It creates a sort of a new time, a better time for the industry in general. It really does. You know, the days of the 20s when all this kind of thing began, they're over. We're in a new place. They're much more professional now. No tolerance now. So, okay. I was only kidding when I said I was going to ask you about your projects. I know for a moral certainty that you're not going to tell me about your, would you like to? I would like to, but I am not allowed to. Okay. Would you like to a lot? I would like to a lot because then people would be really excited and get into my database in preparation for those projects. Okay. Well, and sometimes when the projects are very, very big, I'm never allowed to talk about them. So, I won't know until we're closer to shooting, but I might not be able to talk about them at all and still try to get people to sign up. So, just believe me. Ever. Ever. Wow. During the whole shoot, we're not allowed to say what film we're on. And everyone, especially here on Oahu, knows what we're shooting, but sometimes I am not allowed to say it at all. This is great. They'll give us a fake name and we'll go with that. Sometimes we just say it's a mayonnaise commercial. Mayonnaise. Yes. Just something as boring as it could be. footage. Some of the thing is, I mean, I believe you and they do. Those people out there, they believe you that these are big projects. Yeah. These are important projects. So, all the more reason to put their names in the database. Do it now and just be in because once you're in your in forever, as long as your phone number and your email works, you will remain in there. Okay. Fabulous. And so, and it's not just for one. No, you put your name in the database. It's not just for one that we know you're doing like 5-0. Or Magnum PI. That's two. Okay. It's two. Right. But it's for all kinds of other stuff. And it can be for multiple stuff. Multiple stuff, absolutely. And for years to come. As long as your phone number works you'll be in there. Well, can you sort of draw a person as he gets older? In other words, say, well, we know what he looked like in 2018. Now, we're looking at the database in 2025. Yes. Well, we do have to add me. Yeah. Because not everyone updates their photos. So, we can see the day that they registered or updated. So, we can, you know, use our own mental age progression to determine. Yeah. Okay. So, let's talk about 5-0 for a minute. And we, you know, talk about all of them. But for 5-0, what are you looking for? Well, on both shows, we're looking for basically the same not really, you know, this is the thing. I have to tell you, we're not starting for a few weeks and we don't have scripts and breakdowns yet. So, I don't have exactly what we're looking for. But based on our experience with this type of show we know that we're looking for so many different types. We're looking for surfers and military types and people with great beach bodies and beautiful women and people with real world skills. And, you know, we need people in cars. We need people at restaurants. We need, you know, maybe some bad guys. We need some first responder types. You know, bartenders, nurses. We can go on and on. There's so many things. We love to put real in a real slot. We love to have the real thing. Different between 5-0 and Magnum PI. Or is it looking the same character types? You know, if I had a breakdown of the shows, I could tell you, but I don't have it yet. We can't wait to get it, but we just haven't seen it yet. Yeah, so we know broadly what we're looking for and that's why we need everyone to show up. So, if it shows up on my breakdown, then I'll already have it. I've been through a program with the retirement of one of the, in fact, the lady who ran OC-16, which is one of the cable shows, the top local cable show. And the thing was, they asked, how many people in this room, you know, there's like 300 people in a room instead of her retirement line, how many people in this room got their break from Mitzi? And like, you know, three quarters of the room raised their hands. They got their break from Mitzi. That's really something. Yeah. Down the street, all these people behind you saying, hey, Mitzi, you gave me my big break. Yeah. What about you? Do you give big breaks to people? Well, I've given millions of jobs. So, I know some of them really, you know, took off and yeah, I could say. Speaking roles. Yeah. Speaking roles. Yeah. But not lead roles. Those are handled at the top of the pyramid, right? Right, but, you know, plenty of great roles. And I have someone who is a Lego that I cast and now he's a Lego. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. This goes in your book. I mean, I've been doing it a long time. So, people have, I get to see people, you know, make their way through the business and then never take a job from me again because they're doing the big roles. But that's great. Yeah. I love to see it. And when I first started practicing law here, and that was 50, almost 50 years ago, one of my, one of the partners in my firm got a role in Hawaii 50. And it was the old version. It was, you know, the previous one. Yes. And his job was to be a victim. And they were going to shoot him or something and then run him over. He had no speaking role at all. So, the car came and the shots were fired and he fell down in front of a hotel in Waikiki somewhere and played dead. And he was on screen for maybe 30 seconds. Okay? It defined him. Really? He talked about that for the rest of his life. Right? You know? Yes. This kind of thing affects people to their core. It does. It really does. It absolutely does. I see it all the time. People get really excited. It depends on where we are. You know, when you're in a smaller town and you make that call, I'd like to see if you want to be in our film. And the whole family is screaming. And it's very exciting. It is. And sometimes you make the call and people are like, what time? So, it just depends. But yeah, you can have that one life-defining extra role. It happens a lot. You know, I was an extra when I was coming up in the movie. You don't select yourself. No, I can't do that. No. It's a concept of interest. Yes. No. And I make sure that I'm not selected if asked. But I worked as a waitress on Seinfeld. So I was a waitress in the gold uniform in the coffee shop. And I was a very bad extra because I would try to get on camera as much as I could. I'm not an actress at all. But I would, you know, George was speaking so I would lean down and like pretend I was getting napkins just to get in the shot. Yeah. You got the footage. I'd like to see it. Yeah, well, I was on for many years. So I'm in lots of episodes. Like the soup Nazi, I'm in that one. But then I think about the girl. Everybody knows the soup Nazi. Yeah. I think about the girl who was his assistant who takes the soup and gives the money back. And she, I'm pretty sure she's signing autographs somewhere. I'm telling you. Okay, now there's, of course, the opportunity is always there to screw it up. In other words, you call me I go down there. I start, you know, getting into the frame. Yeah, making a nuisance. Right. I said, well, I didn't show up in time or who knows what. It's not good to do. No. So is there a little place in, you know, in the internet in the database where you don't call this. Oh, yeah. Well, we send our information out in a very, in a way that you get a lot, you get a lot of information. So we make sure that, you know, don't approach the actors. They're working. Don't bring your children. Plan on working a long day. You can't leave early to go to class and that type thing. Don't look into the camera. That's one. Yeah. Oh, looking into the camera would be gross. Yeah, I think so. Just show to show you what I mean. Sandy and I are both going to look in camera one now and you can see how nerve wracking it is when we look directly at you. See. Okay, but you're still in my database. Oh, okay. Okay, so let's talk about where and when and how you're going to do this and how can I get in on it. And I hope the staff here in Sing Tech is not listening because we don't want to lose them to, you know, any of your shows. Yes. Okay. So if you go to our website, it's www.sandyaleasy. It says here below, sandyaleasycasting.com. And then you click on the button that says register and just have a selfie ready to upload. That's all you need. I don't need a professional picture. You don't have to go get your hair and makeup done. Just make sure you don't have sunglasses on and hat on and just let us see what you look like. We love it when you take it in front of a white background just because then when we present pictures to the director, they look really nice and then if we have to print them out, it doesn't take as much ink. So we like that white background. We like to save ink. Yes. So if you do that, if you go through those steps and make sure you put in your cell phone and whatever information you have, then that's all we really need. If you want to, the next option is this, come down and see us, then we would love that too. But we still want you to get into the database. When you come to see us, it gives us another hard copy that we work with. And this is another way that we like to save ink is by using those hard copies to show pictures. So we're pulling from those before we start printing. So that's why we have the two options. And the third thing that you would need to do is go to our Facebook page at Sandy Alisi Casting Hawaii and just like us. And from there, you'll see all of our casting notices. So we'll post on there because we have a big team working on these shows. So all of us will be accessing and posting what we need. Sometimes we'll post a picture of an actor and we'll say, because we don't like to mention names, it starts to get into a Google publicity type thing. So we'll just put the picture up and we'll say we need someone who looks like this fine actor. Smart. Really smart. And we'll give a height and a size and we'll say, do you know someone that looks like this? Or we'll say we need people with bicycles to ride at the beach. We need people with surfboards. We need upscale people to come to a restaurant. Or we need children. Whatever it is, we post that on our Facebook page. And we make it really easy for you to respond. You can just click, respond, and then we'll see that you're interested and we'll know that you're available. And then we reach out and get you a job. Thousands of jobs. Okay, I got a couple of three questions. One is, you said you had a big team. How big is the team? We have a big team. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, six-ish. And then, you know, if we need more, we bring them in. So after you have this line of people past. Seven. Seven. Yes. Oh, no, our team tomorrow is going to be giant. We're going to have probably 20 or more. Plus our team. So maybe 27 we'll have. And the location one more time. I didn't tell you the location, but I'd like to tell you now. Okay. Okay. Saturday, June 30th. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. And when I say that, I mean that's when we'll be there. So don't come at 9 because it's busy. Everyone thinks that they should be there first. It's great to come at lunchtime. There's no line, you know, come in the afternoon. So anyway, don't come at 9. So, but we'll be there from 9 to 5. And it's at the Word Center shops at, it's a restaurant that used to be Ryan's Grill, but now it's empty. So we're going to be inside there. And there's parking in the garage and surrounding areas. So Ryan's Grill tomorrow around lunchtime. Wow, Sandy, I know you'll have a good day. Yeah, I think it'll be a good day. It'll be great. Because people in Hawaii love at least, they love both of those shows. And they want to come down and they want to participate and they want to have all their friends see them on a national level. And my wife, you can't pull her away from the tube when 5 o'clock is on, you know. Oh, that's so good. It doesn't matter what's happening. She just needs to, it's like an infusion thing. Anyway, I'm so happy that you came down today. Thank you. I am so happy. And you know, as far as our casting is concerned, with you, it was perfect. Oh, that's nice. And I have a role for you. We'll see you after. We're going to have a conversation. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Thank you.