Actors with different needs
August 17th 2009 05:06
In a nutshell: different strokes for different folk. Obviously one size don't fit all. Neither one acting school, nor one acting method.
Some actors get it on the first take. Others on the 50th.
Some give their best performance on the first take -- and then lose it. Whilst others are consistent each time.
I love the director's commentary (Steven Soderbergh) on "Sex, Lies and Videotape". Lots of useful film-making info.
At one point Soderbergh speaks of the different ways his actors related when they weren't filming.
James Spader spent a lot of time talking about the movie. Peter Gallagher needed to not talk. Andie MacDowell needed to about anything apart from the movie.
Had our first acting lesson (in this film course) on Saturday, and it was supposed to be more from a directing-actors point of view.
The teacher, Ken, mentioned that it can be useful to speak to actors in metaphors, or to get them to imagine something.
In many acting schools (including the Ensemble Theatre, where Ken first trained), there's lots of bizarre metaphor-based exercises. For example, imagining a chemical element, and then moving as if you were made of that element. Or, you could do it the other way round. You could watch someone's performance, and then have a class discussion about what element they were, or what day of the week, what machine, what genre of music, what type of plant or animal...
It seems to me that this whackiness is essentially about triggering, and about relations between thought, imagination, and action. Perhaps, for a particular person, simply thinking about the colour white will have observable effects on their behaviour.
I don't know who it was who said that the best actors tend to be either highly intelligent, or childlike.
Some actors plan out each beat just as Stanislavsky first envisaged. What is the subtext of this line. What particular action do I play. A lot of acting schools teach this way.
For other actors, such a process would kill the naturalness of it.
When you consciously say to yourself the superobjective of a play, or the objective of a scene, or the action of a beat, or the action of the other actor's beat, the particular words you use can make a big difference.
Some ways of describing things will simply work better for you than others, will trigger things in you.
At the Ensemble theatre, students are told to arm themselves with a thesaurus.
Kazan speaks of the way that Brando listened (Jeff Young, Kazan on Kazan, in the interviews on "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Viva Zapata!").
Brando listened "experientially", and apparently not consciously. Kazan compared it to playing an instrument. Brando didn't say much, but on the next take what you asked for would be there, as well as more than you asked for.
I think what happened could be described thus: -- Among other things, Brando had a wealth of experience to draw on, and the ability to allow impulses to flow through from thought to behaviour. So when you spoke to him, Brando allowed your words to affect him -- allowed metaphors, images, associations to fill him.
***
Some actors get it on the first take. Others on the 50th.
Some give their best performance on the first take -- and then lose it. Whilst others are consistent each time.
***
At one point Soderbergh speaks of the different ways his actors related when they weren't filming.
James Spader spent a lot of time talking about the movie. Peter Gallagher needed to not talk. Andie MacDowell needed to about anything apart from the movie.
***
Had our first acting lesson (in this film course) on Saturday, and it was supposed to be more from a directing-actors point of view.
The teacher, Ken, mentioned that it can be useful to speak to actors in metaphors, or to get them to imagine something.
In many acting schools (including the Ensemble Theatre, where Ken first trained), there's lots of bizarre metaphor-based exercises. For example, imagining a chemical element, and then moving as if you were made of that element. Or, you could do it the other way round. You could watch someone's performance, and then have a class discussion about what element they were, or what day of the week, what machine, what genre of music, what type of plant or animal...
It seems to me that this whackiness is essentially about triggering, and about relations between thought, imagination, and action. Perhaps, for a particular person, simply thinking about the colour white will have observable effects on their behaviour.
***
I don't know who it was who said that the best actors tend to be either highly intelligent, or childlike.
Some actors plan out each beat just as Stanislavsky first envisaged. What is the subtext of this line. What particular action do I play. A lot of acting schools teach this way.
For other actors, such a process would kill the naturalness of it.
***
When you consciously say to yourself the superobjective of a play, or the objective of a scene, or the action of a beat, or the action of the other actor's beat, the particular words you use can make a big difference.
Some ways of describing things will simply work better for you than others, will trigger things in you.
At the Ensemble theatre, students are told to arm themselves with a thesaurus.
***
Kazan speaks of the way that Brando listened (Jeff Young, Kazan on Kazan, in the interviews on "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Viva Zapata!").
I think what happened could be described thus: -- Among other things, Brando had a wealth of experience to draw on, and the ability to allow impulses to flow through from thought to behaviour. So when you spoke to him, Brando allowed your words to affect him -- allowed metaphors, images, associations to fill him.
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