Working With Actors, Notes

Having just completed the shoot wherein I had actors performing dialogue for the first time I thought I'd best write a few notes on the collaborative process involved and some techniques I used and discovered while filming.

Prior to this shoot I had no experience working with actors in dialogue, so the actors performed the scene before the cameras started rolling so the crew could see what was going to happen, the scene lasted 40 - 60 seconds, my storyboards went out the window. It took far less time than I had anticipated and threw a little spanner into the works because I needed to drastically cut down my shot list. That was the first lesson I learned, when story boarding allow the actors to breath, don't keep moving the camera or cutting, follow the action. Each shot follows the 3 act structure. If I implement this into my next storyboard I can imagine it will become a little more fluid. I've realized that by keep looking for new angles when story boarding I over complicate things, turning a simple scene into a jarring mess.  

Before the shoot I did a little prep work by going over some notes from Digital Film-Making by Mike Figgis and reading a few chapters in the book Directing Actors by Judith Weston and suddenly it dawned on me that as a director directly telling the actors what to do and how to act is probably the worst thing I can do. But by talking to the actors before filming begins I can go through the script and discuss who the characters are, the actor builds up inside of them their character so when they go out onto the set they are the character. And when on the set it's best to give the actor options or in turn let the actor give you options then with the camera I can follow them.

So what I did was a few things, some worked some didn't. Firstly I did not want to do any rehearsals with my actors, in class we'd already discussed who the characters were and what their motives were so I just told them to read the script. I did this because I hoped it would lock some emotion or expression inside of them that would only be released when they performed, I didn't want them running out of juice before filming. I think this worked, once on set we started trying things out, the actors started finding their feet and in each take they offered a little bit more.

What I also wanted to do was give the actors some freedom to move, I hate the idea of telling the actor to walk towards something, stop, then do something, then walk away or whatever. I like saying 'this is the dialogue, your character wants this, show me your interpretation.' Right away I got good feedback from both my actors, I felt a sigh of relief come from them both, they felt liberated. What I explained as well was the lighting, I took one of my actors around the small set and said 'the light is dark on you here, its bright here and if you stand like this it creates an interesting dimension across your body... work with it.' By doing this my actor knew where the lighting was and he used it to enhance his performance. It was pointless telling him where to stand and how to behave in this situation because it restricts his ability to act.

My main tool when speaking to the actors was motivation, I tried to install into each actor the characters motives, to give them a reason, an understanding of what the character was doing. They then interpreted this into a performance. I think in each take the actors did something slightly different, maybe the tone of voice was different or a movement was different which was great because I could give feedback straight away and move on. That wouldn't happen if I kept saying to them 'no, this is what i want, your not doing it.'

Now onto the things that didn't work so well. On the day of shooting I did two things, one was to tell the actors to stay away from each other at every possible opportunity because in the story the characters don't know each other and or don't like each other so I hoped that it would create something, I didn't know what I just hope something would present itself. The second thing I did was sit the actors down in the set, alone and try to pull a veil over their eyes, to try and take them into the land of make believe. I wanted them to feel like this set was now their home, that this was it, that the only people they had was one another, that they had to spend the next few months in a flee pit of a room with nothing but each other for company. I did this because I wanted them to generate inside themselves a sense of reality which would in turn come out in their performances. Neither of these things worked, primarily because it was a work shop day. Everyone had to be on set to observe the film making process. It was chaos and the actors where in the middle of it. Any sense of reality was broken. Perhaps these techniques may come of some use in the future when the students have become more familiar with the film process and the sets are a little more controlled. I gave up trying to install these two techniques quite soon into the shoot.

What I've learned is the importance of collaboration, everyone on set needs to feel appreciated and comfortable because without that there is tension and creative juices do not flow when tension is in the air. I know that first hand. I just cant wait to get stuck into another project and keep developing techniques and trying things out.