PART 5
PREPRODUCTION
Part 5 (Chapters 17 through 27) covers the vast amount of work that goes into a movie after a script has been accepted and up to the moment when shooting must begin. It covers digging deeply into the script to find all the life below the surface—all the structures and meanings without which the movie would be just a hollow facade. There is the process of casting, which alone can cause a film to succeed or fail definitively, and how to work with actors, whose performances are the key to your audience's accepting the world the film depicts.
The relationship between actors and their director will likewise make or break your film. Actors, being all too human, have human problems, and the director must deal with these constructively. If that fails, the director must risk unpopularity and deal with them with the best interests of the project in mind.
To help the novice director learn from doing, there are many improvisation exercises. Any director afraid to improvise will be badly handicapped at directing actors who are using improvisation. The improvisation exercises for student directors will free you and empower you to use your cast's powers of improvisation, so often a lifesaver when you face an impasse. There are also exercises with a text. Whether you happen, at any given moment, to be directing or acting, these exercises will reveal the world the actor lives in and make acting both familiar and fascinating.
Then comes the vital process of rehearsal and development so often omitted by professionals and novices alike. It is strongly recommended that you videotape all rehearsals that are “off book” (the actors have learned their lines). A methodology is given to make this an exciting prospect. There are guidelines for actor and director preparing a scene and then guidance on planning coverage. The last roundup comes in the all-important preproduction meeting.
If you are in preproduction, do remember to use the checklist at the end of Part 5: Pre-production. It will remind you of many things, not least that a little time taken to survey your work can sometimes reveal embarrassing oversights.
CHAPTER 17
Interpreting the Script
Plan to Tell the Story through Action
Establishing Characters and Motives
Ambivalence or Behavioral Contradictions
Break the Screenplay into Acts
Define a Premise or Thematic Purpose
Graphics to Help Reveal Dramatic Dynamics
Fatal Flaw: The Generalized Interpretation
Crossplot or Script Breakdown in Preparation for Rehearsal
Developing Character Descriptions
Decisions After First Round of Auditions
The Demanding Part of the Character Who Develops
Theater and Film Acting Compared
Directing Is Removing Obstacles
Using the Actor's Emotions as the Character's
Limiting an Actor's Sphere of Attention
Tackling Serious Artificiality
Clinging to the Letter of the Script
Unpunctuality and Commitment Problems
CHAPTER 21
Learning about Acting
What an Actor Learns from Improv Work
What a Director Learns When Actors Improvise
Analyzing Beats and Dramatic Units
Actors, Make Your Audience See
Exercise 21-2: Domestic Appliance
Exercise 21-6: Who, What, When, and Where?
Exercise 21-10: Solo, with Words
Exercise 21-11: Duo, with Words
Exercise 21-12: Make Your Own Character
Exercise 21-13: Ensemble Situations
Exercise 21-14: Developing an Emotion
Exercise 21-15: Bridging Emotions
Exercise 21-16: Surfing the Channels
Exercise 21-17: Video Convention
Exercise 21-19: Inner Conflict
Exercise 21-20: Thrown Together
CHAPTER 22
Exercises with a Text
Exercise 22-1: What the Actors Bring
Exercise 22-2: Marking Beats in a Text
Exercise 22-3: Improvising an Interior Monologue
Exercise 22-4: Characterizing the Beats
Exercise 22-5: Actions at Beat Points
Exercise 22-6: Give Me Too Much!
Exercise 22-7: Let's Be British
Exercise 22-9: Switching Characters
Exercise 22-10: Translating a Scene into an Improvisation
CHAPTER 23
Rehearsal and Cast Development
Planning and Scheduling Rehearsals
Dealing with “Negative” Aspects of a Character
Direct Rehearsals by Asking Questions
Encourage Actors to Develop Their Characters' Backgrounds
Values and Hazards of Working One-on-One with Actors
Rehearsing One Scene at a Time
Deal Only with Top-Level Problems
From Beat to Beat, the Dramatic Unit
The Advantages of Videotaping Rehearsals
When Not to Show Actors Their Performances
Please Don't Copy the Film Industry
CHAPTER 24
Director and Actor Prepare a Scene
Nature of Characters: What Each Wants
Communicating the Nature of Acts
Dramatic Tension and Finding Beats
Changes in a Character's Rhythm
Naming the Function of Each Scene
Thematic Purpose of Whole Work
Your Character's Given Circumstances
Be Able to Justify Everything Your Character Says and Does
Define Each Action with an Active Verb
What Is My Character Trying to Get or Do?
What Are Other Characters Trying to Do to Me or Get from Me?
How and Where Does My Character Adapt?
Keep Your Character's Interior Voice and Mind's Eye Going
Know Your Character's Function
Know the Thematic Purpose of the Whole Work
Turning Thought and Will into Action
When a Character Lacks an Inner Life
CHAPTER 25
Final Rehearsals and Planning Coverage
The Director as Active Observer
Form: Seeing in an Unfamiliar Way
Benefits of Rehearsing at Actual Location
Onscreen Length, Rehearsals, and Maintaining Timing
Walls, Furniture, Practical Lamps
Production Design Questionnaire
CHAPTER 27
The Production Meeting
Drawing Up an Equipment Want List
Key Scenes and Scheduling for Performances
Weather or Other Contingency Coverage
Allocation of Shooting Time Per Scene
Agreement on Budget and Schedule