(intermediate draft)
On Film Acting
I am a no-budget film writer/producer/director/editor who has made many short films and 1 live-action feature film.
This is a primer on the kinds of information that I am most likely to discuss with an actor. This will cover a variety of experience and skill levels, and some of the information may not apply to every situation, but this will create a common language,
increasing the ease with which we can communicate about these ideas further.
Contents
SELF AWARENESS MAKES FOR A BETTER ACTOR
GETTING THE BEST OUT OF EACH PERFORMANCE
OVERACTING
YOUR PERFORMANCE
ARTISTIC LICENSE VS. UNPROFESSIONAL BULLSHIT
YOUR PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION
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SELF AWARENESS MAKES FOR A BETTER ACTOR
Self-and social- awareness make a good actor. And a good look. Bad and good features, especially bad ones, are amplified on screen.
If you grew up popular, you're less likely to be a good actor. Self-awareness, how others perceive you, is not easy to figure out, and people usually don't put forth that effort unnecessarily. You're much better equipped to explore yourself in the process of developing a character if you grew up asking, "Why am I different?" Why don't I fit in? What do I need to do to not be weird?"
If you grew up asking those questions, you spent a lot of your time ACTING anyway, every day--the idea that how you are naturally will be rejected socially leads to the need to pretend, even in small ways that vary from the true you.
That may be a reason I've not personally met a lot of super attractive people who come across as good actors - developing self-awareness requires a focused effort which seem easier to avoid when one is accepted socially. Yes, all kinds of environmental factors affect this, but physical attractiveness-or rather being largely perceived as being attractive, whether you look like a fairy princess or like Shrek- affects how a person's self-awareness develops.
Body language, verbal intonation, facial expressions. More than the words that are spoken, these shape the feelings you invoke in others. There's an episode of the show 30 Rock that dealt with the idea of the "pretty bubble" that I've found somewhat accurate. Or maybe that's just me, an okay-looking person, projecting and trying to justify some personal bullshit of "well, I don't look like a supermodel, but at least I'm self-aware!" Maybe it's all bullshit, so take this with a grain of salt. But, man, I've noticed this lack of self-awareness from super attractive actors many times.
GETTING THE BEST OUT OF EACH PERFORMANCE
I've directed a lot of actors, and acting skill falls on a big gradient- from people you need only to cast and leave alone to get the performance you want, to people you need to manually puppeteer, often down to the eyebrow movement, to elicit the desired effect onscreen. I have more experience working with less experienced, less confident, or less aware actors, so my specialty is in the mimicry and puppeteering area. I spend a lot of
energy on each actor that, with more experienced actors, would free me up to increase the film's quality in other ways. On the other hand, this means I can get pretty decent-- at least non-cringeworthy performances from really poor or inexperienced actors if they are able to follow direction.
Robert Rodriguez said: don't make the movie you want to make, make the movie you can make. With my first film, I Love Ashley Bailey, I changed lines, outfits, scenes, even character arcs to make the available actors better able to come across as good actors. For that movie, it was better to adjust the story than for the acting to look synthetic. As a director or editor, you can do a lot to turn a bad performance into an okay performance, or to turn a good performance into a great performance.
For instance, one actor delivered lines very stiffly, Finding out this guy delivered lines stiffly once we arrived on set, and being without the opportunity to discuss each acting choice at length , I changed the character, adding a few details to make the character nervous and uptight-thereby making the line delivery stiffness appear to be an acting choice.
The most effective way you can explore you acting choices on your own is to film yourself hanging out with friends, talking about something, or doing something. Then find a scene somewhere, or write one, that deals with similar subject matter-or transcribe and memorize the real interaction verbatim, and film that with yourself in it, delivering lines and acting. And then compare the scenes. Compare how you naturally come across to how you THINK are you are when you "act" natural on-screen. You may discover a lot of acting choices you didn't know you were making, choices that come across as trying too hard. Choices that might dilute the potency of your performance. And you may notice habits you have in your everyday behavior that pollute your message. Awareness means conveying only what you wish to convey without noise diluting your message.
OVERACTING
Over-acting - using almost theatrical intonation, facial expressions, and body movements, is the big thing I usually have to rein actors in on. The best way to see this, if you can't already detect it in your performance, is to do what I suggested - to film yourself in real life and compare it to the performance to discern the differences in believability. Closeups will amplify any problems more than wide shots will.
As an actor, you need to wash away everything you do until you are a statue, then design every movement and gesture consciously. This is especially hard if you have a theatre acting background since you are used to consciously exaggerating your choices so even the audience in the back of the theatre can detect your motivations. Each movement, down to even autonomic functions like breathing, will already be exaggerated on screen, making every offhanded look or lip curl a character trait. A short breath can be completely missed on the proscenium stage, but on screen will make your character
seem anxious or even caught off guard. A sideways glance can take your character from being stone-cold to aloof. Each motion on screen is powerful. And the fewer motions an actor makes, the more powerful each on is.
Voice, face, body, movement. Those are the four things you need to be aware of at all times -- without seeming like you are consciously piloting your own body. Some roles will require more control in this regard than others. Playing a character like Forrest Gump or Dracula, for instance, might require more conscious control over your body than if you were playing a character in a teen comedy. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the person in charge of the final product, like the director and then the editor (often under the director's supervision), but this awareness can start with the actor and saves a lot of work later on. The last thing an actor should want to give is a performance that has to be edited around. For instance, Megan Fox. You know how I know she is a terrible actor? Because you never see a shot of her that lasts longer than like three seconds because her performance had to be heavily manipulated to come across as watchable. Having edited a lot of actors, one thing I've learned is this: the longer the shot stays on the actor before cutting away to something else in the final film, the better the performance the actor has given. Consider this when watching movies.
YOUR PERFORMANCE
I spend more time telling actors NOT to do things than I do directing their motivations. An actor will perform the scene the way they want, and then I make adjustments. I don't make suggestions. Beforehand (or after-hand) I am glad to help actors become better actors, but on the day of filming I don't care about helping an actor grow and learn but about the scene-not about the actor BEING good, but about the actor SEEMING like a good actor. Ultimately all that matters is the image on the screen, the final product being as high quality as possible.
COMMON PHYSICAL PROBLEMS I HAVE WITH ACTORS WHEN FILMING:
• Don't turn your neck or wobble your head.
• Don't blink.
• Choose one of your partner's eyes, the one closest to the camera, and look only
into that one.
• Keep your mouth closed unless you are delivering a line.
• Don't lick your lips.
• Don't smile so big.
• Be mindful of your breathing and laughing.
Control and awareness. All of these things I've just listed are useful mannerisms to incorporate-when CHOSEN, and when appropriate, but they should never be accidental since uncontrolled body language is more akin to the sound produced by a construction site than a symphony, and you must build a symphony.
If you make yourself aware of these things in how you perform beforehand--which is much easier these days since everybody owns a video camera in some form, whether it is a web cam or a cell phone--then filming will go much smoother.
ARTISTIC LICENSE VS. UNPROFESSIONAL BULLSHIT
As far as actors go, there is a difference between having a detailed vision and being stubborn and unprofessional. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what your idea of the character is if it clashes with the idea the director has for the character, which is why it is important in any professional relationship to iron out all those details well in advance to make sure sensibilities align, and that it is understood who is in charge of any particular scene.
Egos suck, and so do actors you have to manage or who put forth effort to make the set uncomfortable. I'd rather work with less experienced actors I have to direct more intensely than really good actors who spend all day name- and title-dropping, elaborating on all the projects they've been in before, playing power games, and thinking they know my characters better than I do.
The exception is if the actor wrote the scene, in which case the actor might know better than the director what the goal is, but while the actor might know how they WANT to come across, the director must know how to get the actor there, even if the performance direction at the time might seem unintuitive to the actor, who might be less aware of how things come across on screen.
YOUR PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION
When it comes to selecting actors, being able to click on a hyperlink and watch an acting reel is very useful. So are having Facebook and some $20 business cards. Get a webcam and make your own reel if you have to. I've worked with actors before to design high quality acting reels, and these really matter, saving a lot of audition time Make yourself a YouTube account and a Facebook. Get some business cards, and don't put your phone number on them but your email instead - unless you love talking to strangers. Get a webcam, learn how to use Windows Movie Maker, find or write some 20 second scenes showing a range of emotions, get some friends to play the other parts, and make yourself an acting reel. That is the first step to getting taken seriously, to getting roles outside of the ones in the neighbors' home videos. A reel with people acting against you is ideal. Remember that cinema is about people interacting, not about monologues. Monologues are for theatre, where flowery language is needed to make up for the lack of environmental visuals and close-ups.
These are the basics of acting for film, or at least for my films. Engineer yourself as one would sharpen a knife.