This is the second part of a two part post that was contributed by Jeremiah Daws, co-director of “Dangerous Calling” alongside his brother Josh Daws. Visit their website Adventures in Filmmaking to follow along in their journey to super stardom. This part includes Jeremiah’s review of “Directing Actors” by Judith Weston.
An AD on one of our short films suggested I read a book called Directing Actors by Judith Weston. Initially I took offense at that because “I knew how to direct actors.” So for 3 years, I rejected the idea of reading that book. But after directing my first feature film and learning a lot, I realized I had a lot more to learn.
I’d like to go through just some of the main points and take-aways I got from this book. Please remember this is only my interpretation of the information so if I spin it or embellish the points, don’t get upset. If you want it word for word, go buy it and read it.
The first and main thing the book talks about is the enemy or opposite of good direction - Result-Oriented Direction. And I think all directors are guilty of it. It’s looking at an actor after a take and saying, “Can you be more angry next time?” The problem with directing the result, from what I can tell, is that this makes the actors focus on their performance rather than the life of the scene. They are constantly wondering, “Am I being more angry?” Plus, they don’t know exactly how to be more angry. The good actors can take that result-oriented direction and process it to be more playable, but that makes them have to work a lot harder.
The book outlines 5 tools to shape performances. And let me tell you, these are awesome. How many times have I wanted an easy way to shape a performance, but the words failed me?
1) Verbs - The book points out the importance of using playable action verbs rather than adjectives (like angry.) Instead of asking an actor to play it sexy, ask the actor TO FLIRT with the other actor. This encourages the actor to engage with the other actor, rather than be focused on being sexy.
And the best thing about verbs is you can play with the intensity. If you want more energy or intensity, give a stronger verb. If at first they are playing “to complain” about something and you want more, ask them “to warn.” If that isn’t enough ask them “to punish.”
2) Facts - Don’t explain a character. Give the actor facts about the character. Give creative back-story. Instead of saying, “She’s a bitch,” invent a back-story. Say, “She poured paint on the windshield of her ex-lover’s car.”
This is where the magic “What if” comes into play. If you have a scene where a boss has to fire someone, ask “What if the boss’ father was fired from his job when the boss was a child?” This creates subtext and texture. A result-oriented direction of the same scene could be to say, “Act nervous.” Not nearly as effective.
3) Images - Use images that evoke emotions rather than asking for emotions. You can use an image from the actors past to create an emotion that is needed in the scene. Maybe recalling a time their father yelled at them to create the result of being “hurt” or having their feelings hurt. This gets into the psyche of the actor. (And it seems they love this kind of thing. Go figure.) But it doesn’t have to be so heavy. It can be simple. Just any kind of image that evokes an emotion that can be useful in the scene.
You can use the magic “as if” here. Maybe take an actor aside and tell them to play the scene “as if the other actor has bad breath.” Another example from the book is playing a business meeting “as if” it were a children’s sword fight.
4) Events - “Instead of telling the actors that the scene is supposed to be poignant, tell them that the scene is about a fight between two people who used to love each other (an event.) That helps the actors rally the personal and imaginative resources they need to create the poignancy.”
5) Physical Tasks - The book says, “The simplest thing a director can ask an actor to do would be a physical task.” “A Physical task takes the actor’s concentration off the lines.”
We had one scene in Dangerous Calling that was a pretty tough scene involving 3 actors. It could have been a stand and deliver kind of scene but we ended up giving one actor the physical task of making French toast (as it was written) and giving another actor the task of pouring glasses of orange juice for he and his onscreen wife. The life in that scene is so amazing just because we had that simple bit with the fridge and the orange juice. One of the best and most natural scenes in the movie. They weren’t thinking about it - just living the scene.
This brings me to the next thing I learned from the book - the importance of listening. The book says this is the most important thing an actor can do is just listen to the other actors in the scene rather than focusing on their performance and remembering their lines. It says that listening to others is the opposite of being self-conscious. And this is true in life as well. When I’m worried about what I look like or what I’m saying in public, I’m not listening to others.
The book gives several suggestions to get your actors to listen. It warns not to tell them they aren’t listening because they might take offense to that. Here are a few examples:
“Keep it simple”
“Stay with each other”
“Communicate”
“Let yourself hear what she is saying”
“I like it when you play off each other”
“Just talk and listen”
“Watch her eyes”
“Don’t say the lines until you feel like it”
“Its okay to relax. Let yourselves connect”
The book points out that this is language of permission rather than enforcement. That seems to be the best way of working with actors. Permit them. Don’t order them. (I didn’t like it when I was playing Marty.)
Substitutions - Apparently substitutions are a pretty common thing with actors. And if we can get on board with that idea, we can help them out. It’s basically the idea of substituting real things in the actor’s life for what they are talking about in the script.
If an actress mentions her ex-husband in the script, but this actress doesn’t have an ex-husband, she needs to substitute someone. Maybe the ex-husband in the script is selfish so she finds someone in her own life that is selfish and pictures that person when she says the lines about the ex-husband. Pretty cool. This can work with all sorts of elements in the script.
So if you feel the actor isn’t getting the emotion of a line, maybe ask them who or what they are substituting for that element of the character’s life. If nothing, suggest something. If they have something, ask for a stronger substitution.
Adjustments – “If you feel the need to discuss the character’s emotion with an actor, you make the direction less result-oriented if you connect it to a metaphor-type adjustment. So you might say, ‘It’s not like the rage you would feel if a drunk driver killed your child. It’s more like when the phone company won’t come out to fix your service until next Thursday and insists that you be there all day.”
I just lifted that entirely from the book because it is brilliant. Adjustments seem to be a great way of saying “bring it down” without saying it. Brilliant. I wish I had this tip on our feature.
There are many more lessons in the book and it goes into much more detail than I have here. And as I said, this is how I interpreted it. The book encourages practice in order to master these techniques so I’m planning a time in the near future to get together with some actor friends and experiment. That should be helpful and a lot of fun.
Go out and pick up a copy. Directing Actors by Judith Weston!
