Hi Guys - this is the last of the acting hints. It covers working on set, line-ups, camera rehearsals and finally a section on fixing performance problems.
On Set – Line ups and solving performance problems
If you’ve done the work during the read-through and rehearsal your actors should arrive with a good knowledge of their character, a high degree of confidence in their abilities and a belief in you as their director. This is a great way to start a movie, because on set you’re going to have to deal with a myriad of practical issues and your primary concerns are going to transfer from the cast to the crew, for much of the time.
However, the trick with this is to remember that the film happens in front of the camera and at the end of the day the actors are the most important piece of kit on the lot. If the camera breaks down half way through a shoot you can replace it. If your lead actor breaks down, the whole film is knackered.
So, on set regardless of how busy you are make time to greet the cast when they arrive in the morning, talk over with them what scenes you’re doing and deal with any questions they have. The first day on set they’ll be lots of questions, many of which are really about pre-performance nerves; so the key is to reassure them, but not get tied down into detailed conversations. The other practical thing to deal with on the first day is to introduce the actors to the 1st AD. Up to now the actors have had complete access to you when ever they wanted, now this has to change and the communications protocol becomes that if they’re not on set and have any questions, they go to the 1st AD and not directly to you. This doesn’t mean that you can’t go and chat to them, but you make the choice of when and where that happens. Most actors respond well to this because they’ve already established a relationship with you, you’re obviously very busy and important during the shoot and it feels more professional for them and strangely enough the more professionally the shoot is run, the more the actors enjoy the process. The other thing that gets covered in the morning briefing is what the set protocols are. By this I mean where the actors will wait when not working, why they have to have their mobile phones switched off, what it means when someone hollers “quiet on set”; this is particularly valuable if you’ve got cast who’ve never been on a film set before. It’s also a good idea to point out any health and safety issues, like watching underfoot for cables and not getting too close to lights. Personally, I don’t like to have performers cluttering up the set when other people are working, but you have to decide for yourself whether you want them to be able to see the film getting made or whether you want to keep people on set to a minimum. Once you’ve finished the briefing get the actors through make-up and wardrobe. You’ll probably want to step in and check people as they go through this process, wardrobe sometimes gives people clothing that is going to get in the way of a particular piece of action and as your actors now have a feel for their character, you may have to work with them to get this part right.
When the set and crew are ready it’s time to do your first line up. This should be a simple process where the actors come in, see the minor differences between the rehearsal space and actual set and make minor adjustments to how the action works. This means that you can concentrate on talking to the DOP, lighting team and sound recordist about how the scene is going to be shot.
In the line up I start by reminding the actors of how we approached the scene in rehearsal and then asking them just to walk through the action. If there are any obvious alterations to the blocking this is when they will show up, but nine times out of ten the actors will adjust it themselves. What you are looking to do is establish the timing of the scene and to establish precise marks for the actors to hit when the action takes place. The marks are important because the DOP will set their camera positions to hit those marks. Once this is established the line up is done and the camera and lighting team can rig for the first set-up. The crew may well need the cast around to make sure that the light is hitting the right points, that the camera is at the right height (this is the primary work of stand-ins for stars on big budget movies). Personally, I like to give a little space to the cast at this point and concentrate on getting the set-up right. Some actors need to go into themselves to prepare at this point, some like to chatter nervously and personally I don’t like to be around either process.
When it’s rigged, bring the cast back in and run your first camera rehearsal. The purpose of the camera rehearsal is primarily to make sure that the camera movements/set up are right. It’s the first time that you get to see the scene as it actually going to exist on tape/film.
With that sorted it’s worth running a few additional runs of the piece where you’re fixing minor performance issues.
To do this some directors like to call their direction in from their chair, which is the fastest way of doing it and the only way if it relates to position (you want to judge the changes in the monitor). However, in my opinion, the only way to give notes is to go over to the actor and talk to them quietly one-to-one. It’s works out faster in the long run than calling instructions in because you get more effective results, which means less takes to get the job done.
When everything is looking the way you want it, it’s time for the first take. By now it should just be a case of rolling the camera and letting it happen, as far as the performances are concerned, but usually there will still be minor alterations during the master take. However, once a good master take is down, the rest of the process is really about quality control. One thing that I always do is if I think a cast member is 90% there, but aren’t quite hitting it I’ll say “That take was perfect, excellent. Look we’ll just take another couple of takes for safety, but from a performance point of view we’ve got it.” What tends to happen then, is that the pressure comes off the cast and slightly more relaxed they give even better performances on the safety takes. (Of course if they don’t you just keep working them and remind them that you need about three good takes to be safe).
At the end of each scene, when it’s in the can make sure that you go up to each actor in the scene and give them some positive praise, and make it about something in particular. “I really liked the relationship between you and Trish in that scene” or “I really liked how you brought out the sulkiness of your character in that scene.” Actors need post performance reassurance and it’s an investment on what they do next.
As you can see, by running proper read throughs and rehearsals the time on set is used more efficiently (all in all this approach can make huge saving on your production, providing you aren’t paying some megastar a fortune for rehearsal time.
On Set – Line ups and solving performance problems
If you’ve done the work during the read-through and rehearsal your actors should arrive with a good knowledge of their character, a high degree of confidence in their abilities and a belief in you as their director. This is a great way to start a movie, because on set you’re going to have to deal with a myriad of practical issues and your primary concerns are going to transfer from the cast to the crew, for much of the time.
However, the trick with this is to remember that the film happens in front of the camera and at the end of the day the actors are the most important piece of kit on the lot. If the camera breaks down half way through a shoot you can replace it. If your lead actor breaks down, the whole film is knackered.
So, on set regardless of how busy you are make time to greet the cast when they arrive in the morning, talk over with them what scenes you’re doing and deal with any questions they have. The first day on set they’ll be lots of questions, many of which are really about pre-performance nerves; so the key is to reassure them, but not get tied down into detailed conversations. The other practical thing to deal with on the first day is to introduce the actors to the 1st AD. Up to now the actors have had complete access to you when ever they wanted, now this has to change and the communications protocol becomes that if they’re not on set and have any questions, they go to the 1st AD and not directly to you. This doesn’t mean that you can’t go and chat to them, but you make the choice of when and where that happens. Most actors respond well to this because they’ve already established a relationship with you, you’re obviously very busy and important during the shoot and it feels more professional for them and strangely enough the more professionally the shoot is run, the more the actors enjoy the process. The other thing that gets covered in the morning briefing is what the set protocols are. By this I mean where the actors will wait when not working, why they have to have their mobile phones switched off, what it means when someone hollers “quiet on set”; this is particularly valuable if you’ve got cast who’ve never been on a film set before. It’s also a good idea to point out any health and safety issues, like watching underfoot for cables and not getting too close to lights. Personally, I don’t like to have performers cluttering up the set when other people are working, but you have to decide for yourself whether you want them to be able to see the film getting made or whether you want to keep people on set to a minimum. Once you’ve finished the briefing get the actors through make-up and wardrobe. You’ll probably want to step in and check people as they go through this process, wardrobe sometimes gives people clothing that is going to get in the way of a particular piece of action and as your actors now have a feel for their character, you may have to work with them to get this part right.
When the set and crew are ready it’s time to do your first line up. This should be a simple process where the actors come in, see the minor differences between the rehearsal space and actual set and make minor adjustments to how the action works. This means that you can concentrate on talking to the DOP, lighting team and sound recordist about how the scene is going to be shot.
In the line up I start by reminding the actors of how we approached the scene in rehearsal and then asking them just to walk through the action. If there are any obvious alterations to the blocking this is when they will show up, but nine times out of ten the actors will adjust it themselves. What you are looking to do is establish the timing of the scene and to establish precise marks for the actors to hit when the action takes place. The marks are important because the DOP will set their camera positions to hit those marks. Once this is established the line up is done and the camera and lighting team can rig for the first set-up. The crew may well need the cast around to make sure that the light is hitting the right points, that the camera is at the right height (this is the primary work of stand-ins for stars on big budget movies). Personally, I like to give a little space to the cast at this point and concentrate on getting the set-up right. Some actors need to go into themselves to prepare at this point, some like to chatter nervously and personally I don’t like to be around either process.
When it’s rigged, bring the cast back in and run your first camera rehearsal. The purpose of the camera rehearsal is primarily to make sure that the camera movements/set up are right. It’s the first time that you get to see the scene as it actually going to exist on tape/film.
With that sorted it’s worth running a few additional runs of the piece where you’re fixing minor performance issues.
To do this some directors like to call their direction in from their chair, which is the fastest way of doing it and the only way if it relates to position (you want to judge the changes in the monitor). However, in my opinion, the only way to give notes is to go over to the actor and talk to them quietly one-to-one. It’s works out faster in the long run than calling instructions in because you get more effective results, which means less takes to get the job done.
When everything is looking the way you want it, it’s time for the first take. By now it should just be a case of rolling the camera and letting it happen, as far as the performances are concerned, but usually there will still be minor alterations during the master take. However, once a good master take is down, the rest of the process is really about quality control. One thing that I always do is if I think a cast member is 90% there, but aren’t quite hitting it I’ll say “That take was perfect, excellent. Look we’ll just take another couple of takes for safety, but from a performance point of view we’ve got it.” What tends to happen then, is that the pressure comes off the cast and slightly more relaxed they give even better performances on the safety takes. (Of course if they don’t you just keep working them and remind them that you need about three good takes to be safe).
At the end of each scene, when it’s in the can make sure that you go up to each actor in the scene and give them some positive praise, and make it about something in particular. “I really liked the relationship between you and Trish in that scene” or “I really liked how you brought out the sulkiness of your character in that scene.” Actors need post performance reassurance and it’s an investment on what they do next.
As you can see, by running proper read throughs and rehearsals the time on set is used more efficiently (all in all this approach can make huge saving on your production, providing you aren’t paying some megastar a fortune for rehearsal time.
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