i m working on becoming a better writer, director and overall filmmaker. story is king.

Acting is all about finding the emotional truth in a scene and conveying it as simply and as powerfully as possible. If you can learn this language and communicate with your actors successfully, it really doesn’t matter what you shoot on or how high the production value is. If the material is truthful and connects with the audience emotionally they’ll be invested.

Subtext or the intent of a scene really is where the magic and the power is. I remember years ago seeing an interview with Jack Lemmon where he talked about it in regard to love. He said that it’s one of those things that many actors get wrong. For example, when a character asks “Do you love me?” what they are really saying is “I love you” and when a character says “I love you” what they are really asking is “Do you love me?” This example really helped me understand how to look beneath the external layer of the text and dig deeper.

Great articles the last little while guys. It’s such a refreshing change from the usual camera tech stuff.

Your response really gets to the crux of the matter, which is that in the end the actors have to perform in order for the film to work. The more we understand as directors, the better our chances at helping them to pull it off without getting in the way.
I think that at a certain point all science yields to magic (or something unnameable). As useful as any process is, it is important not to mistake the raft for the shore.

Thanks again for these, Randolph!

I have read it, it is a great little book. “A Practical Handbook for the Actor” is another short little book written by a group of actors who trained with David Mamet and W.H. Macy early on in their careers, which basically states that all an actor can do is play actions.

I don’t think that Mamet’s book opposes what is being said. What I get from the book is that the character is defined by his actions and that those actions are defined by the script or play (if it is well written) and outlined by the director. To me this article is about how a director communicates his outline to the actor. The more an actor understands the story and his character’s objectives, the more apparent his actions become. David Mamet is a writer first, and he cuts the fat out of everything he touches. I think that it can be easy to misconstrue what he says and end up “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

It is the job of the director to outline the actor’s actions. This process begins in casting, which is often where the director finds the actors that are able to best play the parts in line with the directors vision. I always take some time to see if an actor can follow direction, it is a huge consideration, and one of many during an audition.

I remember an interview with Anthony Hopkins (more than twenty years ago) in which he was asked about his ‘process’. His reply was that he read the script over and over, often over a hundred times and that was all. Any other ‘process’ was “mental gymnastics”. I think that this is true for most actor’s who have years of experience. They develop intuition. . . or an ability to go in-to-it with all of their senses, so the mental process becomes merged and perhaps more quiet and unnoticeable.

Most systems begin with deconstruction, followed by reconstruction, and with enough experience, embodiment, which seems a lot like abandonment.

It came to me highly recommended…and he puts up a compelling and interesting argument.

He argues that all of which you outlined is not the job of the actor. Any sort of characterization by an actor is bullshit and impossible. All of this is done in the screenplay, the directors choice of shots and in the editing.

Actors job is to do the actions outlined by the director as simply and as quickly as possible.

Has anyone read this book? What are your opinions on this?

ML,
Great points. Listening is a crucial part of creating spontaneity and dynamic in a scene. When actors are really in the zone, listening for the stimulus becomes almost innate, and they are capable of responding or reacting to it as if it is the first time they have received it.

Sometimes conflict arrises when characters want different things. Sometimes characters want the same thing but are taking opposing measures to get what they want. Often in “romantic” scenes the characters just can’t say what they want, so they keep saying little things trying to open a door (often in opposing ways), trying to drop a hint or, trying to figure out if it is safe to say how they really feel.

Another major tool for the actor is the awareness and use of beats. A beat is a point in a scene when some new idea, argument, tack, realization, etc. occurs. There are usually numerous beats within a scene. Finding beats is a technique that can help actors navigate through the music of a scene. Often beats support an overall scene objective, but sometimes they can serve to heighten or change a characters objective. Beats are in the story and are to be discovered like the notes in a musical score, so the more one looks at a scene musically the easier it becomes to see the beats and play them.

It is always helpful to include beat work early, but I also find that it can be a great way to work while in production. Some actor’s get stuck playing objectives at one pitch and often turn “trite”. The introduction of a new beat in a scene offers variations (subtle or not so subtle) which often help to keep them moving toward there objective on more than one note.

The more a director works with objectives, beats and other foundational techniques, the easier it becomes to artfully communicate with actor’s in a non-technical, down-to-earth, human way, which, in my experience, garners the best results.