The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks

As mentioned on the back of the book, it wouldn’t be surprising if LaPorte struggled getting tables for lunch in Hollywood from here on out after the dirt she dished on the Dreamworks crew. First off I’ll say that I am a huge fan of Hollywood related non-fiction, especially the behind the scenes business stuff, so this was right up my alley. I find it very intriguing to see the politics behind why some projects get greenlit, while other languish in development hell forever.

The Dreamworks founders, Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen, declined to be interviewed for the book so there is no official words from them, but with all of the press coverage, court reports from lawsuits and the like, there was no shortage of information to be shared. LaPorte also says that she interviewed hundreds of people in creating the book, and while second hand accounts can’t always be given the most weight, it did provide for good entertainment.

The ongoing story for Katzenberg was all about his rivalry with Disney after being unfairly fired. He spent the better part of a decade trying to find a way to surpass Disney in animation, and to his credit he turned Dreamworks Animation into a juggernaut, even if it wasn’t free of drama.

The ongoing story for Spielberg was this feeling that this is a man-child of sorts, who was brought into the Hollywood machine young enough, and given everything he ever wanted for so long, that he never really had to learn what it was like not to get things his way. His partners always seemed to be catering to his artistic needs, certainly an unlikely situation for any artist to find themselves in.

Geffen seemed more interested in screwing over his old enemies than in actually achieving anymore success himself. He was already a billionaire when they started the company, so there wasn’t the financial of career motivations as there were for the other two founders.

I really enjoyed this book, and would certainly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the inner workings, and politics of Hollywood. If you’re interested in buying it you can check it out here on Amazon:

The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks

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!

In the book Robert talks about his story of going from a film school student to a Hollywood player. I won’t go into a lengthy summary of the book, but I will tell you that he believes strongly that you DO NOT need to go to film school to make it. He suggests you would be better served spending your tuition on a movie.

When I went to film school it was because I had good support from my parents, who certainly wouldn’t give me my tuition equivalent to make a movie. I wanted to live in NYC for a year, and have a cool life experience. I did really enjoy my time there, but I didn’t think the money was worth it, especially since it wasn’t my money I was spending. It was time to grow up, and make money for myself, instead of mooching from my parents.

I definitely think this book is a worthy read for anyone who aspires to film greatness, and chances are, most people reading this website already own it. If you don’t you should go to your closest bookstore and buy it, or of course you could buy it through my site : )

The book was pretty short, so it was easy to finish fairly quickly, just took me a few hours to read, I wish it was a little longer and had some more meat to it (it was only 100 or so pages long). Nonetheless I enjoyed it, and thought it had some good ideas to learn from.

The key point that Mamet tries very hard to make over and over again is that you should aim to simplify your films. Don’t try to be to overt in the way you film your scenes, rather film them very basically, and only film what is necessary to the shot. For example, if you wanted to make it appear as though you are on a farm, you don’t need to film a sign that says “Farm”, or if you wanted to portray that your character is running late, you don’t need him saying “I’m late”. What Mamet would prefer is for you to avoid narration, and infer that your character is late through a series of shots.

The book is a good read, it’s short, and it’s pretty cheap. Although Mamet seems to contradict some other things I’ve read elsewhere, (unless I’m misunderstanding him, he seems to think establishing shots are sort of stupid) I think it would be a pretty good idea to see what his opinions are (he has won a Pulitzer). From what I’ve read in some interviews with him, he hates where film in America has gone, and really dislikes Hollywood. Anyway, here is his book.