Leading the Celebration at Sinema Hot Sun

Joskey as the main MC? I did not see this coming. I was to be the official social networking person, only to be reshuffled to this new position a day to the event. I did not think I’d make a good MC despite having been a speaker on several occasions.

Just note, being a speaker in any forum is very different from being an MC even in the same forum, an MC should lead the “celebration” read, celebration mood :-)

How did I make it?

·      Arrived to the venue 2 hours early to prepare myself; TIP it always good to arrive early and see the room empty, it gives you courage when the crowd fills in, try it.

·      Had been part of the organizing team, so I understood well the event; Avoid instances of being handed a prepared program and u are told to follow it, ask to be involved in the planning.

·      Good communication with my fellow MCs. We had different abilities, and so we utilized them well.

MC "Loly P" looking on as the raffle tickets are being "mixed" for a draw

·      Prior preparation with the whole team; developing a culture of Preproduction

·      Above all we worked as a team

·      You have to be always thinking 2 steps ahead of your crowd

Best MC team: Max, Joskey and Lolly P

Screenwriting: Rewrites, Rewrites, Rewrites

It always help to have a specific plan, no matter what phase or stage of filmmaking you’re in.



Pre-Write The writing before the writing. There are workbooks that specialize in helping you through this process, but for me, it simply means I write detailed character descriptions and a lengthy synopsis, which is something more akin to a treatment. This process, not to be all spooky and arty, is very spiritual for me. I try to let the characters come into their own, with as little intervention from me as possible. The story naturally takes shape after that.  You should note that I do not write an outline here. That comes later...

First Draft This part is the most fun for me. I lock myself away for a few days and just write. And write and write and write. I churn out ninety pages or so, but at the very least, I make sure I have three complete acts. I don’t worry that much about formatting (though I do use screenwriting software, so a lot of the formatting is done for me), grammar, spelling, or anything else. I just let the story flow.



Break I step away from the script. Leave it and let it simmer for a while in my mind. I might read a book, or maybe write something else. Basically, I do anything to move the script at hand from my conscious mind to my subconscious mind so I can start working things out on autopilot.

Second Draft This phase starts with writing the outline. Yes, I outline the script after I've done the first draft. What this does for me is help me to analyze the story and identify plot holes and weaknesses. It helps me add structure, where I was freeform in the first write.  Then, I go back through the script and add or subtract as needed. I do a dialogue “rinse,” just catching the obvious stuff like radio dialogue and forced exposition. I also may rephrase some of my action to make it a little more interesting.

Break I take another one. You may not need it, but it helps me to frequently step away from writing on a particular project.



Rewrite Yep. The whole thing. I basically revisit the story and make sure that I still love the characters and the various story arcs they go through. I change character names, do a dialogue wash, work on my references, and just make sure the script is...readable. If I'm writing it for someone else, I make sure that it's what they're looking for, or if I'm writing it to sell it, I make sure it's sellable. Thankfully on my current project, I'm only writing for me and my producers, so this step is fairly easy.

Break Okay, so this one serves a specific purpose. I let people read the script. People I trust. People who will be honest with me. They'll tell me if it held their interest or if it didn't, and if the characters are appealing or not. The notes I get back on this break are invaluable to the writing process.



Final Draft And here it is. The end. This is the step that I just finished on my current script. I use the notes that I got on my last break to make the script better, stronger, faster. The main purpose of this writing is trimming the fat. I make the script as lean as possible. If you're an indie director writing your own movie, this step is incredibly valuable, as the leaner your script is, the less you have to shoot.

It's better to leave pages in the trash than film negative on the cutting room floor. And even if you’re shooting digital, the notion that you can just turn the camera on and let it go forever is a sloppy way to shoot. You should always have discipline when you shoot.



So there you have it:  the insanity of my writing process. In the meantime, the fundraising is going so-so. We've been using social media to raise micro-gifts for the initial fundraising phase, and we've had many generous people participate, but we're nowhere near our goal yet.

And this is okay. Part of indie art is learning as we go. And you know what? So is this series. So I'm going to share the bad with the good. We'll figure it out, we will raise the money needed, and we will shoot our project.



Danial James is a media & marketing professional who is in early stages of development on his first feature-film. Contact him at   dan@redhouseprod.com

Acting for the Camera: Creating the Character

The biggest challenge every actor will ever face is the ability to create a believable character.

Anyone can memorize lines while others use creative costumes, props or special effects to bring their characters to life. The truly great actors, however, separate themselves from the pack by going the extra yard and creating their characters from the inside out.

Acting, basically, is the ability to become ‘someone else.' If all actors are technically accomplishing this with each role they undertake – what separates the good actors from the great ones?

To simplify things, creating character boils down to 3 basic rules of thumb:

1. COMMITMENT: This is not just about making a commitment to the film you are contracted to making but to also commit to your fellow actors and the subject matter. The best actors take it a step further and challenge themselves with an internal commitment to their own character.

“Most actors don’t think about how to make their portrayals unique and specific to each role they play, but great actors do.” – Sir Laurence Olivier

2. BASE YOUR CHARACTERS ON REAL PEOPLE: Most character actors talk about spending a lot of time observing other people, and either base a character on one particular individual or piece a character together by drawing various aspects from different people.

A recent example of this was actor Daniel Day-Lewis in his Oscar-winning turn for “There Will Be Blood”. The character had already been created as a fictional one originally written by Upton Sinclair in the novel the film was based upon. To make this character his own, Day-Lewis wanted to create a manner of speaking that was unique. To do so, he imitated the speech pattern of late director, John Huston (whom he had never met but had seen interviews of) and thus made the character of Daniel Plainview more than what was written in the script.

3. FINDING ASPECTS OF YOURSELF THAT ARE SIMILAR TO THE CHARACTER:  Create convincing characters by combining a character model and appropriate aspects of yourself. This is not the same for everyone – as each actor brings a different life experience to bear every time they are challenged with finding the common center between themselves and their characters.

You will then find actors like the late, great Marlon Brando who needed his character experiences to be fresh each and every time. After a successful career on the stage, Brando wanted to bring that same freshness to his film personas. Later on in his career, Brando would refuse to memorize lines from a script and actually had crew members hold cue cards just out of camera sight so that he could read his lines in that manner and thereby make his personal response to the character and lines extremely fresh and honest every time.

Not everyone has the luxury of taking Drama classes or witnessing a great actor creating a character before their eyes. The challenge you should undertake the next time you’re at the cinema is to become more engaged and try to take note of those actors who are giving you a ‘real’ experience as opposed to those that look like they are just going through the motions.

Preproduction: How to Make Sure You're Ready Before You Walk on the Set

In the world of independent filmmaking, it’s easy to assume that more money can make any problem go away. But most filmmakers--independent or mainstream—will readily admit that nothing derails a project faster than being unprepared before the production begins.

It’s tempting to think that the $20,000 budget that you’ve scraped together through loans, personal savings and credit cards—and possibly an illegal act here or there—will trump readiness. It’s not true. So many films don’t get made because of poor planning, or just assuming that you can make it up as you go. Granted, it’s much easier to shoot now with digital as opposed to film, but it should be fairly obvious that you can’t just turn on the camera and film until the battery dies. Because the work that you’ve put in during pre-production will help in post, when you’re editing, looping sound, or trying to figure out how the boom ended up in all of those shots.

Who’s Working on Your Film?

Are they dependable? Fellow film students are one thing, but if you’ve got money in a production, you’re going to need to have a reliable crew, a crew schedule, and stick to it. And your shooting script and shot sheet should be accurate and up to date and readily available to those who need it. It's also wise to have people that you can collaborate with and who will give you an honest opinion. Many independent filmmakers have a singular vision when they're writing and getting ready to shoot their movie and they may not readily accept different ideas.

Things change, of course, but being as professional as possible will make things go much more smoothly. And if you’re not paying the cast and crew, it’s still a cardinal rule to feed everybody.

One thing that Josh Banville, who completed the documentary "A Life Taken," found out was to only include the names of people who actually participated on his film. In an effort to make his film seem less like a one man production (which it was), Banville gave his father (who did loan him money for a computer) credit as a producer. The film told the story of how a Boston man was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to prison, and eventually the city subpoenaed Banville's rough cut and hard drives because Shawn Drumgold, the subject of the documentary, filed a lawsuit. They also served a subpoena to his father.

"I had to explain to them that he was in fact not a producer," Banville said.

Locations

A lot of independent films suffer because they look like independent films. They use limited locations, and the ones they use always somehow end up being familiar looking apartments or abandoned industrial sites. Guerilla filmmaking can be fun and interesting-- provided that’s the look you’re going for. But you might not want to put that cop that happens to be chasing you in your movie, just because he wound up in the frame.

Rocky Yost, a longtime independent filmmaker, has gotten the most out of limited funds while using multiple locations.

“So many low budget films, are 80%, 90% three rooms,” he said. “If you go out every once in a while and get an exterior…Everybody asked me, ‘how in the hell did you do all that (have multiple locations, and a courthouse for the climactic scene of his film, “Lilly’s Thorn,”) and what did it cost you?’ I made a $200 donation to the courthouse.” The key is, if you have a serious production, many cities or towns will work with you. Contact your state’s film office to get pointed in the right direction.

A key to not wearing out your welcome while on location, Yost says, is to “not run into their house forty times with the crew; do not wear them out with bathroom trips.” He says to always bring your own Porta-John.

Read-throughs

When you’ve finished your script, try and get all the principles together for a read through. Michael Matzdorff, who has worked as an editor in film and television for a decade plus, recently directed his first feature, “Feed the Fish.” And while Matzdorff spent more than a year on his script, when he and the crew were ready to shoot, he felt like more work could still be done on it.

When asked what he would have changed about the process of writing and directing his first independent film, he said, “The main thing is to spend more time with the script, because there were a few things that were a little too cute, gags that worked on paper but did not work on the screen. And have at least three read-throughs of the script with professional actors.”

Storyboarding and Rehearsing

Domenica Scorsese has three short films to her credit, and is looking to eventually direct features. Scorsese has studied the business almost her entire life, both from in front of and behind the camera. In the course of making short films, on tight budgets and with compressed shooting schedules, it is important for her to know as much beforehand as possible.

Even though her first film, “A Little God,” was seven minutes long and had no dialogue, she said, “I storyboarded. I wrote down beats and location scouted. I went through and shot listed so I took all the prep time I could so that we could move and shoot at a better ratio, but also cover the ground that needed to be covered.”

For her latest short, “Roots in Water,” production designer David Stein set up a model of the house Scorsese used in Maine so she could “literally take photo storyboards so I could show the cast what we were dealing with.” This enabled the cast to rehearse at night and be prepared for the next day, as they had only three days on that particular location.

Don’t Assume You Can Fix it in Post

"If you don't put the time in during prep or you cut corners around the necessary equipment, you're going to put the time and money in during post and hope that you come out with maybe a silk purse that may be a really jazzed up sow’s ear,” Scorsese said. “Seeing just how much can be done with Final Cut Pro and then see what happens in (Adobe) After Effects and then to go to have an hour of color correct on the Da Vinci Suite and say, ‘okay, while you can isolate out that particular shade of green in the tree…’ but at the same time, if the raw footage is really not there you can’t build on it.”

It Will Be More Expensive Than You Thought

It’s not rocket science. Filmmaking—even independent filmmaking—is expensive. And as an independent filmmaker, those costs are direct. You can end up eating a big part of the budget if an investor doesn’t come through, or if a piece of equipment breaks, or you try and do something overly ambitious.

Says Scorsese, “One of the things that I've experienced as an actor, and also I've seen my friends go through, for preproduction and through production, is that we have enough for post and then there'll be two or three other things in post where you'll go, ‘Oh okay, got to go in and fix that,’ and I've now learned to basically go it's probably going to be a third more expensive than I thought it was going to be on the end of post. There is what something looks like on paper and then there are the variables.”

The Director’s Journey with Mark W. Travis

WHY AM I MAKING THIS MOVIE? – This is a vital question that needs to be asked before you decide to make a movie.
Once you know the exact answer to this question, you can get going with pre-production. Otherwise it may be difficult to work at all.







THE NINE BASIC STEPS OF FILM DIRECTING BY MARK W. TRAVIS

Pre-production

1. What is the story really about, FOR YOU? (What can I say? Everyday my story changes. I, as the director, need to maintain a high level of energy going within the crew.)
2. What is the scene about?
3. Why is this scene in the movie? (What would you lose if the scene wasn’t in the film?)
4. What must I, as a director, achieve within this scene so that it will function properly within the movie? (vision: What does the scene bring to the movie?)
5.What are the character objectives, obstacles, arcs, means, actions, activities, adjustments, windows of true nature (What is going on within the character?), risks, stakes, etc?

Production
6. How can I direct and stage the scene in order to clarify and underline the essential dynamics within the scene?
7.How can I capture (record) this scene in  order to enhance the essential dynamics of the scene? (What is the event that is worth shooting)

Post Production
8. How do I rediscover the story that is contained within the material I have created? (Discover the movie you are actually making. It will be the best version of your story.)
9. How do I reassemble this material in order to create the most dynamic version of my story?

The director and the script.
 1. As a director you need to ask yourself once again why you want to turn this particular script into a movie.
 2. Read the script. While reading the script stop your brain working on the shoots or staging and hold yourself back to be able to understand what the script is really about.
 3. Start forming a relationship to the story. (How the story relates to your life? Can you see similarities between the story and your life? How the story effects you? What do you feel reading the story? Etc.)
 4. The script needs to be analyzed scene by scene for the director’s vision to be clarified.
 5. You need to do the script breakdown to be able to analyse the script.
 6. It is important to know what is the protagonists’ journey throughout the script?
 7. The story is in the characters and the characters must be doing something. So the audience can see what journey the characters are going through, how the journey affects them and whether they are going in the direction they wanted to go.
 8. Inciting incident - this is some kind of incident that happens to the protagonist and turns his/her life upside down; to propel the character on a journey. It usually happens at the beginning of the script or just before the script started and we learn about this later on in the script.
 9. In every script each character has flaws and the director’s job is to find each character’s flaws.
The character must fight with his/her flaws during the course of the story.
 10. The Scene Objective is important to be clear to the director in order to achieve everything that it is possible to achieve within the scene.
 Don’t make the assumptions that what happens in the scene is an objective to drive the character. Often the objective is much deeper and hidden.
 11. When the scene doesn’t sit in properly, it doesn’t fulfil the targeted objective. The writer would either have to change the scene or the scene would have to be deleted from the script/film. As a director you see that the scene is just not right and have to make the right decision.
 12. Only actors can deal with the overall objective of the script since only actors know what will happen to the character. The character doesn’t know that.
 13. Characters make adjustments all the time, day and night to make their journey more interesting.
 14. In a script usually one problem ends and another begins to push the plot of the story forward.
 15. Don’t give the audience what they want straight away, give it at the very end. If you give them everything at the beginning they probably will not want to watch the rest of the film.
 16. To be realistic the movie or the script has to be a lot like real life. The characters’ behaviour has to be like in real life too, to be believable to the audience.


Terms for characters and actors.

Objective - what the character is trying to achieve throughout the movie
-    Public (conscious)
-    Private (unconscious)

Obstacles - getting in the way to achieve what the character really wants
-    Other characters
-    Environment (physical & social)
-    Self

The Gap is Objective = expectation vs result

The actor & the character

Left                            Right
brain                          brain
ACTOR                       CHARACTER
-    Knowledgeable      - Naive
-    Omniscient           - Unaware
-    In control             - Out of control
-    Objective             - Objective
-    Obstacles             - Obstacles


Director & Actor/Character

 1. Direct the character, not the actor.
 2. Try to make the scene work differently each time.
 3. You need to work out the reality and the truth with the character, not the actor.
 4. Each character takes a risk, it’s an internal nature of the character. To make it more interesting the risks need to be more intense.
 5. Window of true nature – it happens during the performance when something intense happens inside the character. It usually lasts for a second or two. However the longer the character stays in the window of true nature the more fake it becomes.
 6. For the director the most important tool is staging so use it well to express your story (Staging is the character’s relation to other characters and camera.)
 7. Look for the core moments with the character and this way you will be able to discover what the scene is really about.
 8. Discover what the main character expects from other characters.
 9. As a director you often shape the performance in post-production. That’s why it’s important to have a lot of material to choose from.
 10. Don’t talk to and direct the actor, talk to and direct the character.
 11. As a director you need to shoot down the actor’s brain.
 12. While rehearsing don’t talk to the actor, talk to the character. Ask the character (not the actor) all the questions you need to ask about the character.
 13. Take the actor into the character’s world, help to coach the actor without a plan for the scene.
 14. While walking onto the set with the actors give them a topic to talk about (this is a concentration exercise). On the word “action” the actors dive into their characters.
 15. Bracketing – it means “slightly different each time”. Before every take you need to send characters back with different attitude, give them different approaches to the scene. This way the actor can give you a range of material and while editing, you can choose which way to go.
 16.  Editing a film is like rehearsal process in the theatre.
 17. Look for small moments and see how a little information can change/trigger the change in the character.
 18. Emotional trigger - happens by taking one element (it might be anything: a word, an image etc.) to create a whole new emotion.
 19. Don’t push the actors outside his/her comfort zone.
 20. Create special boundaries within which you give your actors total freedom to be creative.
 21. Director needs to be, just like an actor, able to improvise with the actor and see where the improvisation is going to take him.



Actor/Character/Rehearsal.

1.    Give the actors (always as characters) tasks to do and observe what is happening between them.
2.    Use an element of surprise - physical action to surprise the character.
3.    While you work with the actors, throw them little tasks.
4.    If something doesn’t work, reframe your idea.
5.    Don’t care what the actor thinks about the character.
6.   The deeper you get into feelings, the more complex everything that happens on the screen becomes.
7.    Never talk about the scene just send actors as characters into the scene. The scene will happen on its own.
8.    The characters don’t know they are in a movie.
9.    The director is the committee and has to judge whether the rehearsal is going in the right direction or if it’s getting off track. If it’s getting off track, change the information you have been giving to the characters.
10.    If for some reason the scene or exercise is not working, change the information you gave and see what happens.
11.    You can be brutal on the characters and the actors will feel safe. You can tell anything you want to the character and the actor will not feel upset or offended.

EXERCICES

 1. Ask the character general questions, anything you want. These questions are designed for general knowledge (ex. I want to know if you are a vegetarian or not.)
 2. After the first initial “getting to know you” try to get deeper into the characters. Ask more personal questions.
 3. After few first exercises try to send the characters into the scene and see what happens, how the energy shifts and how different the scene looks from the initial reading.
 4. While rehearsing or shooting a scene use bracketing - (It means to giving the actors a topic to talk about before sending the characters back to the scene to trigger relevant emotions. Each topic will trigger a different emotion.)
5. Behind the characters’ actions and words are all the desires they want to say but don’t know how.
6. The easiest way to get the history of the characters out is to ask questions during the rehearsals.
7. Get the characters to talk at the same time or one talk at a time depending on what you want to achieve. Try a variety of approaches.


Director & the production & crew

PRODUCTION DAY

1.    7 am - 7 pm
2.    Daily news (what is going to happen during the day)
3.    First rehearsal mostly done for staging.
4.    Everyone is on the set to shoot.
5.    Bracketing


1. Crew has to be focused.

2. Divide the shots into three categories A,B & C to be clear what you need and what you might get if there is still time.

A.    List of shoots – If you don’t have this scene, you won’t be able to complete the film. This list is a must.
B.    List of shoots - The shoots I would like to get. If we get this, I (the director) would be very happy.
C.    List of shoots - If we have time left over.(Which almost never happens however the crew will work towards this aim), it would be fantastic to get these shots.

3. Get the crew involved as much as possible. This will make the crew happy and willing to work with you.
4. Remember that all the planning is done in  pre-production so do it well. This way you save loads of time and money during the production.
5. Be transparent with your crew so they know what you are doing all the time.
6. Keep everyone working all of the time. Make sure that nobody waits for you (the director) or the actors.
7. The take doesn’t have to be perfect; in fact it means nothing since you will cut it in post-production any way. So don’t try to achieve the impossible.
8. You need to decide and be certain what you are going for in the set up. So you are clear about this with your crew.


TIP for PRE_PRODUCTION
Try to storyboard with still cameras.

How to rehearse with your actors? Part 2.

How to choose OBJECTIVES?

• Objectives should be active.
• Objective is not the final result of the actor’s action.
• Objective should be more of the inner actor’s adjustment.
• Try to find the sense of intention behind the objective.
• Avoid saying “he is trying to get her to…”; use “he wants her to…” instead.
• Don’t get stuck trying to come up with the word to describe the objective. If you can’t find it, maybe it’s not necessary. Move on.

ACTION VERBS are the verbs that describe action and are playable and imaginative.
VERBS are a great way of communicating with actors. Instead of using emotions, use verbs. Try not to say things like “take it down” or “give more energy” because these statements are very confusing to actors and they don’t know what to do, give them ACTION VERBS.
My favourite way of working with the actors is using IMAGES to describe everything that is happening in the scene. This way you can describe dialogues, places, and subtext. The best way to use IMAGES is to work with the actors and share IMAGES and experience together. Instead of asking for emotions, use IMAGES.
Sometimes a very good way to get an actor’s imagination going is to talk about problems and the characters experiences. If you concentrate on an OBSTACLE it creates a sense of task and keeps the actor’s attention to the role.
Get all the FACTS regarding the character you can get from the script. Compare your notes with the actor’s notes.
Use questions WHAT IF? or AS IF? to adjust and interpret facts you are given. This is a very good way to talk about the character’s behaviour without using adjectives.
What is not being said in the script is called SUBTEXT. It is a very useful tool to figure out what is really being said and what the intentions of the scene are.
Without PHYSICAL LIFE there is no performance. PHYSICAL LIFE is a reflection of a character’s inner life.

The Man With The Spying
Glass - short film

Your directions have to be clear enough to relate to the character’s situation and relationships.
What you need from your actors is connotations, engagement with one another and ability to affect each other and to be affected.
You need to create such a safe environment for an actor that he/she will not want to be a character but A PERSON.
When you give directions to actors, they have to be simple. Don’t make anything complicated especially before you shoot a scene. Always make sure that the actors listen to one another and play off one another.
List of things to remember:

1. Keep it simple.
2. Communicate.
3. Listen.
4. Use your own experience.
5. Keep attention on the actors.
6. Don’t let the actors wander off.
7. Make sure one actor doesn’t feel superior to the other.
8. Make sure they don’t give direction to one another.

Try not to use adjectives, adverbs or indication. These are not stage direction tools and are not playable.
The best way to direct actors is to ask questions.

The Man With The
Spying Glass - short

Notes from my director’s notebook you might find interesting

1. Associations.
2. Make your action concrete to relate to your memory.
3. Contact is to see what is going on around.
4. Change motivations behind actions.
5. One actor has the same motivation as before and the other has changed motivation.
6.  Don’t follow the easiest way.
7.  The actor always has to be active even if he is static.
8.  You need to give actors concrete actions.
9.  We are to tell the truth.
10.  Always try to show the unknown side of things to the audience.
11.  Aim always for authenticity.
12.  Always seek for the real truth and not the popular conception of truth.
13.  Use your own real, specific and intimate experiences.
14.  Proceed step by step but without falseness, without imitating actions, always with all your personality and all your body.
15.  Remember about the silence of the mind.
16.  Our first obligation to art is to express ourselves through our own personal motives.
17.  Take risk of a failure in order to create.
18.  Use stimulation to give actors a chance to be creative.
19.  Emotion observed is no longer emotion.
20.  Act is to react.
21.  The goal is to find a relationship between the text and the actor.
22.  Give everyone a few minutes silence before shooting.
23.  Don’t let an actor show the audience the character’s inner life but live it.
24.  The actor needs insight into the character life experiences.
25.  Trust the moment.
26.  If an actor can’t concentrate, give she/he a simple task to relax.
27.  Give direction that doesn’t damage the actors’ confidence.
28.  Make sure an actor concentrates on an object.
29.  Before you start work, you have to know what it is you want.
30.  Motivate actors, let them make choices.
31.  It’s all about behaviour.
32.  Stay focused on the characters.
33.  Use single action to stimulate actor’s behaviour.

34. As a director you need to know the story, the characters, the environment and the back-story.

How to rehearse with your actors? Part 1.

Rehearsal is an important and integral part of any film production. I, personally, like to give myself as much time to work with the actors as possible so once in a production I can concentrate on shooting the film. Below is the list of rehearsal techniques you may find useful.

1. Stay loose.
2. This is the time to have ideas and try them out. Even if you don’t try them all, just keep working on the ideas.
3. What the character wants for the whole movie.
4. When you are looking/analyzing the character, pay special attention to what seems to be the most important that has happened to him/her.
5. Concentrate on the relationship between the characters, not the stage direction.
6. Replace adjectives with action verbs, images, facts, events and physical life.
7. Know what the movie is about.
8. Know who the characters are and try to back up your ideas with evidence.
9. Have alternatives in case your favourite ideas don’t work.
10. Keep re-reading and re-thinking the script, and deepen your ideas.
11. The directions that I think most actors respond to best are the ones that show insight.
12. The proper purpose of rehearsal is to stimulate the actor’s emotions and imaginative side so on the set the actors can work well.
13. It doesn’t matter whether you have half an hour to rehearse, set a schedule for it and plan tasks.
14. Decide which scenes you are going to rehearse. Locate scenes that are continuous and can rely on one another.

PLAN FOR THE REHEARSAL

1. Introduce people.
2. Tell actors how you work.
3. Make sure actors listen to one another and work honestly.
4. Introduce the group of actors to work together.
5. Let everyone talk about each other’s character.
6. As a director ask questions while the actors are talking.
7. Analyze the scenes with the actors.

THE GOALS OF REHEARSAL

• Make sure the actors are listening and work honestly, use themselves and find some authentic connection to the material.
• Investigate the text: explore questions, problems and possible meanings of individual lines and solve the structure of the scene.
• Block the scene and find the physical life.
• Establish the actor – director relationship, set up your system of communication, hear and try the actors’ ideas and smoke out their resistances.
• Before each scene take 5 minutes to talk about the scene and ask the actors if they have any questions or ideas. Take their concerns into considerations. Most of the time these are ideas to explore in rehearsal.
• Always set up the framework and goal of the rehearsal (This is to connect with the characters and relationships or to get at what is unspoken in the scene or it’s to work out physical activities).
• Discuss with the actors your policy regarding the stage direction.
• If you only have few minutes to rehearse, make sure the actors are listening to each other. This includes eye contact unless there is a reason not to and add some simple physical life.
• Ask as many questions as you can, this is one of the best directing techniques.
• We want the actors to feel they are making the direction because the director doesn’t know if the idea is working or not until the actor tries it out.
• Never tell the actors how and what to feel. Use facts and images, events, verbs and physical action to communicate with the actors.
• Decide what the character wants and stick to it, don’t change it.
• Don’t expect the actors to use their full emotional investment in rehearsal. In rehearsal we are looking for a choice that brings to life the scene’s structure and engages the actor’s interest. We aren’t looking for performance but the road that takes the actors to create the performance on the actual shooting day

At the rehearsal the actor should experiment with different ways of getting to what they will need on the set. Try as much as you want at the rehearsal and the most important thing is to establish the relationship between the actors.

The Man With The Spying
Glass - short film

You can always ask actors how they would like to work.
Good directoring often comes indirectly. if the director gets way too excited about an idea, the actor will most probably feel pressure to do it right at the first time.
Never let the actors direct each other. You have to establish that you are the director and it’s only you they can take direction from. The Director of Photography may of course talk to the actors but only when he/she needs the actor to move in a certain direction, not to tell them what to do in a scene.
Try to improvise emotional life, words and movement a lot in rehearsal. This technique gives the actor the permission to try out many ideas before finding the right one, which will be used on the set.
You, as a director, still need to prepare for the improvisation. The more you are prepared, the more you will get out of your actors.
John Cassavetes used to write scenes that he wasn’t planning on shooting and had the actors improvise around those scenes.
It’s good to improvise what might have just happened before the scene began. This way we give the impression that whatever happens in our scene is in the middle of something.
Don’t use up high emotions at the beginning of the scene, start with less dramatic events and build it up.
Use a metaphor as a tool. It is easier for an actor to connect to the scene events. (I very often use my own life as an example of something that is happening in the scene).
Try to let the actors come up with the blocking themselves. Something that comes natural to them in certain situations.
When an actor is emotionally stuck in the scene, it is very often because somehow the physical action doesn’t go with the character or the scene.
Violence and sex have to be always choreographed and marked. When physical action is set, the emotional life can be invested in the scene.
As a director use your instinct when it comes to work on the scenes with the actors. If something doesn’t feel right, stop. If it does, let it run.
If actors are resistant in certain scenes, don’t go into discussing their private life with them. Just reassure them that you believe in their ability to work it through. But at the same time let them know, if they need your help, you are there for them.
A good director works differently with each actor. When you develop your intuition, you’ll be able to tell whether you should push someone or leave them alone. Each actor works with different tools and you need to find what suits them best.
It is very important that you learn how to listen. If you ask a question, listen to the answer the actors give you.
An actor’s job is to find honest behaviour, not to control the effect. Reassure them but in an honest feedback-direction way. The actors will really appreciate that.
Try not to argue with an actor. This way he/she will shut down which is not going to help you direct the film or to get as much as you could from the actor. Of course you can challenge actors and confront them if what they do, doesn’t seem to be real or it’s not what you wanted.
Love your actors. If they feel you care, they can do a lot for you.

The Man With The Spying
Glass - short film

TOOLS YOU CAN USE WITH THE ACTORS TO WORK ON THE ROLE
Before you begin to improvise, you have to decide what the scene is about. You can still change your choice before the shooting of your scene. When you find the right choice, it will create the right behaviour and physical action of the character.
Ask QUESTIONS about the script and the character. It is also very important to know what the actor is thinking about the script. If he/she doesn’t like it, there is no point working with them.
If you get the feeling that the scene is not really working, choose the OPPOSITE/S to what the scene is about.
The character always NEEDS something from the other character or NEEDS to accomplish something within the scene or the whole film. Find what your character NEEDS and stick to it throughout the whole film.
SPINE is who a character is. Look for the real meaning of the character/person.
Usually each scene has a particular OBJECTIVE, which should be very simple and specific. Find playable objectives that will have both physical and emotional element.