first principals of screen acting
this is an article i have written for my research paper and i would like to share it with PFC readers for comments.
FIRST PRINCIPALS These are things that every one who is associated with the medium knows but still there is a need to drive it across again and again. These are guiding principals and common place wisdom by the gurus which I have read across many books and collected in the form of these 14 points , these are not mantras which if you learn by heart will make you better actors but are observation points for an actor to explore throughout and thoroughly during any shooting scenario in which they are actively involved, to understand the mechanics of the medium not only as performers trying to prove your point but as a part of the whole, of the team you work with in the medium to respect the other persons craft and to help him achieve excellence in there work, who in there turn will help you excel in yours.It is the philosophy of so called cine acting. “It isn’t a question of who is right, but who is the director.”[1] Always said but never understood especially by actors, this is the first and the foremost principal commonly referred to in many books and by many teachers in different forums as “Cinema is a director’s medium”. Why do we keep saying this time and again, this is because we do not understand it and still many actors make desperate attempts to prove superiority by trying to carry it off on there own shoulders, but it seldom works. All this is because the director knows his film as a whole as he has worked more on his film than you have and actors selfish creatures that they are only see it in part, as a slice of there own performance, counting lines and not understanding the scenario in which they are placed as a whole in the script.. Trust is the name of the game; the only choice that an actor ever gets to make is choosing his/her director and script after that there is no way but total faith and commitment. Like the very famous lines by Alfred Hitchcock “My film is ready, I just need to shoot it”, it is the director who has seen the film before anyone else. He is the only audience you will get during the shoot, and you have to be on cue, exactly at the same place doing the same thing which the director has on his story board (let us assume for now that the director has a story board). If you ever feel in the deepest of deep that a director is interfering in your work and not letting you act trust me at that very moment you are interfering more in his work than he is in yours. EDITING CAN Create A PERFORMANCE that was never actually given[2]. Not all of you might have had the pleasure and honor of editing a film on a Steinbeck but those who have will surly understand the importance of montage in creating a performance a few frames up or down can give such a superb timing to a moment creating magic on screen that was never actually there in the first place, the sad part being that the credit for such timing goes to the actor and not the editor. Montage is an important part of an actor’s performance what happens in a single shot and what happens after the cut is a collective of the team but the timing and choice of shift is an editor’s realm. An actor might insist on the use of some shot which according to him/her is brilliant (again making the mistake of looking it as a part), but sometimes the use of an NG shot can spell a brilliant touch to whole scene, for all those who beg to differ please try the Steinbeck or else take some rushes in which you feel you have done a brilliant job, edit it as per you satisfaction, now give the same to a pro editor and see the difference. RELAXATION AND PATIENTS ARE AN ACTORS BIGGEST VIRTUE I am looking at your neck or your eyebrows from more than 20ft I cannot see a thing you have mastered bodily relaxation but your mind and ears are waiting for the cue point I cannot see it from 20 ft, now I am so close ( 70mm) the detailing is so clear I can see you wait, I can see you not listening, I can see that you are trying to relax, trying to hide your nervousness. Your neck is stiff you have been forbidden to move.Call time is 6.30, you are on the sets at 5.45 traveling a long way fighting traffic, you reach the set and all you see is a art direction assistant trying to move the furniture. You wear you costume and get your make up by 6.30 and you are ready and roaring, people are moving in slowly and everything is slow your energy level is high, you are going through your lines getting every details right and it so happens time gets you off by 9.30 every one is gearing up and your energy level is dropping first shot at around 10.00 and schedule change gets your scene at before lunch, delays push it to 4.00 in the evening, your costume starts to get dirty you take it off and plan to relax, have a hearty lunch and are sitting when the AD rushes in and tell you that they have to shoot inserts for some other scene and hands you over the script which has been changed and calls you on the set in 10 min, you are caught off guard with low energy. CONCENTRATION AND IMAGINATION HAVE A WHOLE NEW MEANING IN CINEMA ACTING Imagine being alone in a crowed place, doing things which you would do when you are generally alone. Imagine being in heat of a studio simulating cold with the hawk eye looking at you for an inch of behavioral deviation. Before and after a shot there is chaos, with at least 10 people stomping over the sets and during the shot the silence is almost deafening. Concentration is not that of a specific focused kind but dynamic, being in the concentrating mode is to be in the mode of heightened sensitivity which the noise level and chaos level does not permit and to top that up being in a state of physical, physiological and emotional imagination.To concentrate in this medium is to concentrate in a pool of distractions, there is no silence until before the take and when there is you can hear the buzzing in your ears. YOUR NEED TO LEARN SHOULD BE BIGGER THAN YOUR EGO AND YOUR SENSE OF GUILT “I think there has been a general tendency, of many of you, to pretend to understand, when you don’t know what is going on. I don’t mind, you’re not understanding, but you are a fool if you don’t admit it. You see, you are putting you ego above your need to learn”- Sanford Meisner, Master Class - The biggest danger training poses is a psychological one, the student fear being called bad and fear failure and in that fear they always want to be right or better than some other student, who might be called the best based on what criteria no one investigates, the struggle for acceptance or to inch one in on the best is what the student starts to aim, in that he/she forgets that he/she is unique and that one possesses ones own strengths and weaknesses. In this quest for power to be accepted self work and experimentation goes out of the window. The student in order to be right or to get that good remark start to imitate the good parts of the good and develops his/her set of cheat codes which are a sure out come of guilt and shame[3]. Cheat codes are good in certain areas of acting[4]. But using them gives certain staleness to the performance as the codes developed over years of struggle for acceptance are clearly visible to trained eyes. So training is not to develop cheat codes which most people do during training but to explore and experiment be wrong/ miss the mark and to keep trying to keep performances fresh and in real time, moment to moment.“Acting can be good or bad, but never untruthful” CHEAT CODES ARE AN ACTORS BIGGEST ENEMY Cheat codes are visible formulas that an actor develops for dealing with the different imaginary situations on a constant basis as a substitution to a technique, these shortcuts develop through guilt and laziness on the part of the actor, shortcuts to instant results which takes the place of hard work and constant application. They are also a form of technique but on a very surface level mostly being on the verge of “stock company acting” surpassing the “pinch and the ouch”[5] principal.An actor develops these out of fear of being wrong, when you let your ego to overpower your need to learn and experiment[6], to be at a safe distance from the verge of failure forgetting that the most brilliant performances are the one’s that have been very close to that thin line of failure. Cheat codes are ok when used in the context of instant results but it dulls the actors ability to prepare, when an actor has time to do so and it gives a feeling of false confidence to carry along with any scene or situation without hesitation. Till the time you are afraid is the time you learn. AIM SMALL, HIT SMALL How much can an actor achieve in a single shot is not dependent on the actor’s ability to perform but on his/her ability to understand the scenario in which the director has placed the scene and then the shot. It is not important what all you achieve in a shot but the focus has to be how close to the bull’s eyes you are, focus area is precision and precision only comes from understanding of the script and the directors POV. Pure class in the medium of cinema comes from achieving small objectives with precision. THINK DON’T PERFORM Cinema is a medium of physiology and thought, 5 seconds of CU delivered with precision of the craft set in the correct behavioral perspective, supported by timed montage communicates more than a soliloquy.The next question is how does an actor deliver a 5 Sec CU in the correct behavioral perspective, a simple technique is to think about a behaviorally equivalent situation from experience[7], all behavioral expressions have to spring from stimulating the subconscious through art, music etc which is the realm of preparation.“On the stage you can give a performance, but on the camera you better have an experience”[8] TOLERANCES IN ALL ASPECTS ARE VERY LESS more so in acting The binding thing about the medium of cinema is tolerances, that exact position, the exact look, the exact timing any deviation in any of the set tolerances and performance drops the mark. Everybody in the medium is bound to these tolerances, the minimum being the tolerance of a frame but lets not get into these details now, to make acting totally technical is impossible but to drive my point through we talk of the depth of field available in a 70mm lensing, the minimum required to have a perfect lip sync during ADR, to be placed as an object in a frame but still deliver as an actor, to handle emotional continuity all these have to be delivered with the precision of engineering and yet be in the realm of artistic expression as an actor. YOU ARE NOT ALONE OUT THERE Your work is not totally dependent on yours, you need help from other departments and an actor is crippled without that help. The number of ways you can fail is the number of ways the shot can be an NG shot, and it is not always you who is responsible, but an actor you are, you will have to bear the brunt of repeating the shot with precision till it is ok’ for print.What an actor looks is dependent on the camera department including lighting, what he does is dependent of the direction dept, his voice is cleaned and processed by the audiography dept, timing and rhythm is an editors job so what does a films actor do finally he just delivers and links, delivers a shot and links it emotionally to the other as being told, to find ones identity in this process as a precision actor who performs like an artist but helps other’s in there job too. DON’T MAKE LOVE TO THE CAMERA; LET THE CAMERA MAKE LOVE TO YOU.Reaching out can be disastrous in the cinematic environment, it is like the advice given to a wicket keeper in cricket don’t grab the ball as it travels to you let it come into your hands or as was said by Robert Bresson in his notes.“The nearer they[9] approach on the screen with there expressions, the further away they go. Houses, trees come nearer, the actors go away.” CRAFT COMES LAST The average duration of a shot is around 2 min, while the average waiting time for a shot can be around an hour so an actor will be expected to deliver in short bursts after a lot of waiting and that waiting is not just for the shot but also the shoot or the role that one is looking for[10]. The conditions that one is put through it becomes very difficult to apply craft or technique unless it is second nature, and unless you have sufficient experience craft cannot be second nature so this becomes a vicious loop. PESSIMISTICALLY SPEAKING NO ONE OUT THERE LETS YOU WORK In other words no one in any department wants to have the axe falling on there head, or in some rare cases they want a good job done and the actor happens to be the only human centre of attraction (you cannot blame it on the mantle piece) so each department guy will sneak up to him to lay some special conditions, to cover up anything which will be caught in the rushes. The other way around is not permitted unless you are a star and it takes the distance of many light years to be a star till then all you will collide against are rocks floating in space. YOUR TALENT LIES IN YOUR CHOICES[11]. When Stella Adler Said the following in her acting class she was referring to creative choices with special reference of justification, but her words have a deeper meaning when contemplated in a much wider scope of application. “choices” are every where one just needs to take the decision, it can be a craft decision or a career decision but in this medium and in this profession one cannot afford to be neutral one needs to have a Point of View one needs to have direction, putting it in another sense it can also be said that “Your talent lies in your compromises”
[1] Lee Strasberg (session 72, 6 march 1959)
[2] Essay on Acting, Lee Strasberg. Encyclopedia Britannica, vol- 1
[3] please read “introduction form a practical handbook for the actor”, David Mamet’s book “a whore’s profession”.
[4] Mostly in what ever medium you do not get time to prepare or for directors who don’t care
[5] DVD-1, Sanford Meisner Master Class.
[6] DVD-1, Sanford Meisner Master Class.
[7] essay “ Lee Strasberg’s paradox of the Actor” by Sharon Marie Carnicke
[8] Tony Barr ( 1997 : 7 )
[9] “the actor”
[10] Getting the role, part – I and II by ?????????
[11] Stella Adler.
Tags: Acting, Teaching Film-making
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megh, amazing read.. thank you so much for this! would only suggest that you break up your paper into paragraphs to make it easier to read. it’d be sad to see such a great essay go unnoticed by many because it just looks like one big running paragraph.
on a different note, where are/have you studying/studied acting in bombay? my hunt for an agent in new york will start in a couple of months once i shift there, but until i’m able to secure one i plan to take up some twice-a-week classes or workshops. so far i’ve taken the self-taught route which had been working out well for me with enough film assignments to keep me busy, but i want to re-evaluate myself, and i feel that classes will help me do just that.
i think you may also enjoy this read
thanks again for this awesome post!
Megh,
Please do a spell check. Not the word processor ones which ignores the misspelled words if they have a different meaning. Gor example, i think you mean “Principles” and not “principals”. There are several cases of that. Another example was “surly” for “surely”. There’s more.
i have done PG diploma in acting from FTII am now doing on fellowship in acting research at FTII .
my spellings are bad it seems i have a problem with identifying structured of letters pardon me.
spellings don’t matter to me megh as long as the communication is clear….and i guess it is….all the best
Megh – great article. All actors should read this…
Please ignore dabba’s comments.
Nicely written essay.
You can become an actor/filmmaker and dabba will become a proof reader or a English teacher.
I am not saying we shouldn’t point out any mistakes, but in this case the concept is important that a couple of typo mistakes.
Maybe dabba needs to spell-check his own comments first. “Gor example”.
Vijay and Raj,
There are a gazillion typos in this forum including mine which I noticed after I hit send. The only reason I pointed it out in this case was because it was a ” research paper” that Megh was writing and asking for feedback. I thought someone writing a paper needs to be especially mindful of spellings, grammar etc.
In general, this site would greatly benefit if authors took a few extra minutes to spell check. Myself included. Why is everyone else so defensive?
friends..
i know i should not have made spelling mistakes but that is because i guess i have some problem with forms ..forget that
let us discuss tha article if we can i think it will make us bigger
i am sorry for teh spelling mistakes once and for all..
peace.
chill.
and by teh way i just made a film in a record time ( at least i call it a record because i thought i could not do it )of 5 days
will put it on you tube soon
all taken from sources i have raed..
nice read megh pant i call it brilliant
tonny barr is brilliant and simple isnt he..