CHAPTER 23

REHEARSAL AND CAST DEVELOPMENT

Rehearsal for fiction film production is a misunderstood activity, perhaps because the word suggests the aridity of repetition and drilling. A better expression would be cast development. A low-budget production that forgoes this stage prior to shooting is courting a death wish. When all theater production, even improvisatory theater, grows from rigorous rehearsal, you might wonder why bigbudget filmmaking does not do so. The professional cinema argues that because film actors can learn the next day's lines just before shooting, rehearsing the cast as an ensemble is a waste of money.

But even famous screen actors study and rehearse intensively. Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and Gary Sinise—to mention only a few exceptional talents—make extensive preparation and believe, with the late Rod Steiger, that acting is a highly demanding craft. Ingmar Bergman, Robert Altman, and Mike Leigh command unusual loyalty from their actors because they take time to develop the ensemble prior to filming.

If top professional directors and actors need preparation, novices need it even more. Few seem aware of this, and the acting in student or novice directors' films is generally appalling. Expensive cameras and computerized editing are no alchemy, and they won't transform lead into gold. Filming simply magnifies, so good looks bigger and better, and bad looks bigger and worse.

For rehearsals to work, the director must understand the importance of tapping into actors' creativity. If you shape your ensemble to have a history together and a dynamic of relationships before you start filming, the company can absorb dramatic situations into its own reality. Characters' and actors' relationships become indistinguishably authentic, and that is our goal in this developmental work. The stages that follow aim to produce a disciplined, creative team. The results of the quest are channeled through the sensibility of the director, who becomes coordinator, midwife, and first audience.

PLANNING AND SCHEDULING REHEARSALS

As soon as parts are cast, your assistant director (AD) should log everyone's availability and work out rehearsal times. Actors are generally busy people and prefer working on a predetermined schedule. Making a schedule signals your professionalism. Schedule enough time for the film's performances to evolve; a rule of thumb is to invest one hour of rehearsal for every minute of screen time. A demanding 3-minute scene thus needs at least 3 hours of rehearsal. Make sessions brief and frequent rather than long and comprehensive because doing unfamiliar work tires some people and makes them unable to concentrate. The 3 hours' work for the one scene might be most productive as three sessions interspersed with work on other scenes. Use your instincts.

After every rehearsal, remind the actors of the next session and make sure each has a printed schedule. Also be sure everyone has a full list of cast and unit email addresses and phone numbers (especially cell phones).

Lastly, warn actors that all aspects of filming are very slow, and they should bring good books, crossword puzzles, and so on to tide them through down time when shooting begins.

FIRST MEETING

CAST RESEARCH

For the first meeting, ask the cast to develop intensive notes on all aspects of their character and a detailed biography to substantiate their conceptions. Review these collectively and then later with each cast member separately. You don't want to risk publicly bruising someone's confidence so early in the process.

DEALING WITH “NEGATIVE” ASPECTS OF A CHARACTER

Be ready to deal with actors wanting to parlay a negative trait in their character into something more, well, admirable. The Roman poet Terence said, “Nothing human is alien to me.” Use this to help your actors see truth as neither positive nor negative, but as simply human and part of the job.

FIRST READ-THROUGH

After everyone has had time to study the script, the first read-through will show how each actor interprets the piece and how well the nascent characters fit together. Expect to get glimpses of where your biggest problems will lie—in particular scenes, in particular actors, or both.

Depending on the length and complexity of the screenplay, try for a complete reading in one sitting. Give little or no direction; you want to see what ideas and individuality each cast member brings to the role and to the piece. This shows that you respect their ideas and don't want actors to passively depend on minute instructions. Have a list of fundamental questions handy to pose. Most actors are thrilled when their director sees them as partners in problem-solving, which is at the heart and soul of creativity.

Although you have strong ideas of your own, keep quiet and listen to your actors' input. You want them to dig into the piece and thoroughly explore what kind of person each character is. They, not you, have to develop what motivates their characters, and you want each to have a stake in defining what purposes lie behind the script as a whole. Serious actors will love this approach. Keep an eye open for anyone who feels insecure and inadequate at the outset and might need special support.

Urge your cast to develop as much physical movement as they can, even though the primary focus may be on the meaning of words. Holding a script will inhibit this, but the emphasis on movement reminds the cast to act using the whole body, not just the voice and face.

KEEP NOTES

It's tough holding on to the impressions that arise during a rehearsal. Because so much is happening simultaneously, early impressions get erased by later ones, and when you get tired it's easy to face your actors with a mind void of everything except the last impression. Save yourself this embarrassment by carrying a large scratch pad. Without ever taking your eyes off the performance, scribble a key word or two. Glance down momentarily and place your pen at a starting point ready for the next note. Afterward you will have pages of large wobbly prompts. These should trigger the necessary recall.

DIRECT REHEARSALS BY ASKING QUESTIONS

Through probing questions, you can guide the cast into discovery of what you already know. Posing questions also gives you time to think ahead as the actor searches for an answer. Because of the diversity a group brings, your question will flush out a range of aspects and ideas that would not occur to you, and learning becomes a two-way street. Your cast probably reads more like an audience and may catch the omissions or contradictions you were unable to see.

Throughout production, even when everyone feels there can be nothing left to discover, the piece will continue to deepen, growing stronger as you and your cast stumble upon yet more meanings and interconnections. With only a little luck, you will have an exhilarating sense of shared discovery and closeness, something that people will recall nostalgically years later.

Asking challenging questions is always more effective than reeling off instructions. Because of their authoritarian nature, orders can be resisted or misunderstood, especially if modified or superseded. But people never forget what they discovered for themselves. That is the philosophy of learning behind everything in this book.

NO LEARNING OF LINES YET!

At this stage, be absolutely clear that you still want nobody to learn lines. Committing lines to memory transfixes whatever action and interpretation the actor has reached. Making changes subsequently is much harder after initial memorization. At this early stage much is still in flux, so nobody has sufficient knowledge to risk this.

FOCUSING THE THEMATIC PURPOSE

A film's theme is the overall thrust of meaning the piece delivers to an audience, and you arrive at its optimal form by exploring what the text can support. To communicate a theme you will have to get everyone behind it. Stating the thematic purpose will require defining the steps and focus of the whole piece and paraphrasing what these are. It's wise to hold back on doing this while you learn more from the rehearsal process.

A story represents a limited but intense vision that is made coherent by an underlying value system of cause and effect. Most stories are experimental in that telling them is a way to construct a working model of your beliefs. If others are moved to conviction, the principles behind the model are vindicated and may be accepted as having vision. That is the best anyone can do.

Your thematic purpose need not encompass universal truth (“in our Western way of life the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”) or be morally uplifting (“if people would just vent their real feelings, everyone could be free”). Audiences will resent being preached at, especially if the film should fall short of the global nature of its message. Don't forget that something as timeless and elemental as “Frankie and Johnny were lovers, but he done her wrong” still raises goosebumps if it's followed up well.

Limited, specific, and deeply felt aims will have the most impact. Your thematic statement will be all the stronger for focusing on a simple principle with profound consequences (“sometimes marriage between two good people is not practical and everyone suffers” or “because his ideas are held so inflexibly, he is dangerous to those who love him”). By investigating a small truth and deeply investigating it, you can indicate larger truths of wider resonance. Put another way, an absorbing and convincing microcosm will call up the macrocosm.

Now that the cast has had time to study the script:

1. Ask the players to informally discuss the meanings and purposes of the whole story and its characters. This will reveal what spectrum of opinion exists. Encourage all points of view and impose none of your own. You will acquire additional insights because each actor is an advocate for a single character. Your notion of the piece's thematic purpose comes from knowing the text, but there's no guarantee that it's universal. Though you may have to tell players with tiny parts what the piece is about, you can't do this to anyone with a major role, for it suggests that the actor must suppress any original or contrary impressions. A well-founded disagreement may point to problem areas in the script, so you need this dialogue as much as your cast does.
2. A wise approach to leadership is to form your own ideas and then either parlay your cast into accepting them or into forming alternatives that are just as acceptable. Don't tell anyone until later, but their ideas may be superior! Again, reiterate that nobody learns any lines until interpretations, meanings, and characters have been thoroughly explored and agreed on.
3. Ask cast members to formulate their characters' backstories (what seems to have happened before they appear).
4. Ask each actor to profile his or her character and deliver a brief character biography for another meeting. Let the cast debate each other's characters and motivations—it will deepen the texture and integration.
5. Turn the cast's attention to successive key scenes and ask the players to develop the subtextual matter for each.
6. Ask the cast to again review the main themes of the piece and explore their hierarchy. During this process you can be more authoritative as you unify the body of opinion into a coherent thematic purpose for the piece.

If you cannot achieve agreement about everything at this stage, agree to differ and let it go. Goodwill disagreements provide a creative tension that spurs closer examination during the next phases of work. Actors will probably be too busy with more immediate concerns to make it a running fight, and everyone will eventually arrive at a tacit agreement through shared problem-solving or, failing all else, simple fatigue.

You are now ready to begin developing the piece and testing your ideas through rehearsals. You have designed your plane, and now you want to see how it flies.

ENCOURAGE ACTORS TO DEVELOP THEIR CHARACTERS' BACKGROUNDS

An essential resource for any conscientious actor is the character's biography, which he or she prepares. Without an explicit request, some may not make the effort, especially if they have yet to understand its benefit. Others do the job inadequately or go off on a tangent through misreading the piece. This is a good time to meet alone with each actor to check his or her ideas and to encourage, develop, or redirect. It is also a good time to discuss how the actor's character sees the other characters.

VALUES AND HAZARDS OF WORKING ONE-ON-ONE WITH ACTORS

Much of a part's future direction will develop from one-on-one exploratory sessions. Inevitably, the larger the cast, the less the director's undivided attention is available to all cast members. Because feedback is so vital to actors, most feel inadequately recognized most of the time. If one actor sees another actor alone with the director, he or she may resent the special attention unless there is an awareness that the session is remedial. Because of these pressures, the beginning director should work with a small cast and capitalize on relationships with good actors by using them again in subsequent productions.

A good solution to the demand for individual attention is to see everyone alone, even minor parts, at the outset. You will want to check the actor's ideas and approach and establish a personal and supportive relationship. From then on, try to rehearse collectively, reserving private discussion for special support and the exchange of ideas or suggestions about problem areas. You should develop something personal and supportive to tell each actor just before shooting begins.

During shooting you can inject new tensions into a scene by briefing an individual and leaving the others in ignorance of what is to come.

REHEARSING ONE SCENE AT A TIME

Initially, try to rehearse scenes in script order. Later, when the piece is thoroughly familiar, adopt a plan of convenience and work around people's schedules. You will need to give priority to key scenes and those presenting special problems.

At this stage the cast is still working with “the book.” Actors are searching for their characters' full range of motivations and developing a knowledge of how each scene functions in the piece as a whole. Film scenes often seem very fragmentary, especially to actors used to theater. It may allay fears to show them clips from analogous productions.

DEAL ONLY WITH TOP-LEVEL PROBLEMS

At each run-through, deal only with a scene's most major problems, or you risk burdening actors with too much information and blurring the priorities. A rehearsal spirals backward and forward, oscillating between particular details and the more abstract areas of meaning and philosophy. As major problems get solved, others of secondary significance, such as lines or actions that lack credibility, will move to the top of the heap and claim everyone's attention. The rehearsal process is thus one of continuous discovery and refinement.

FROM BEAT TO BEAT, THE DRAMATIC UNIT

Once a scene's major difficulties are brought under control, you should go over everything within each beat, one unit at a time. You can only do this effectively if the major players understand the text in terms of beats. Make tactful inquiries to find out if anyone needs a little coaching. Inevitably there will be debate about beats and units. Much of the value of working on each separate unit lies in preventing the actors' growing and embracing knowledge from pervading everything they do. This is happening when the scene becomes muddy and lacking in dynamics. Characters should live keenly and restrictedly within their immediate present, experiencing one discovery after another and reacting to what they do discover. They should develop one emotion after another and one action after another, never a blend or soup.

THE ADVANTAGES OF VIDEOTAPING REHEARSALS

Once your cast is off book and becoming reasonably confident, cover rehearsals with a video camera using the documentary style called direct cinema. This is a continuous take with a handheld camera, moving close for close ups, and backing away, panning, or tracking as the action requires. This treats the rehearsal as a happening to be recorded without intervention on behalf of the camera. Because the camera tries to be in the right place at the right time, this coverage needs no editing. Taping produces quite a range of advantages:

From the director's point of view:

• A dramatically complete version is viewable within moments of calling “Cut!”
• You can judge what works on the screen from seeing what works on the screen.
• You can privately run and rerun rehearsals.
• You get early sight of mannerisms, clichés, trends, as well as subtleties that would otherwise only make themselves known in rushes or (God help us) postproduction.
• You can expect the cast not to regress when you start shooting and to give natural and unstrained performances from the first day.

From the actors' point of view:

• A mobile and unobtrusive camera encourages them to move as they wish.
• The camera is choreographed into the process, rather than appearing later as a dominant and inhibiting newcomer.
• They work alongside key crewmembers and get to know and trust them.

From the crew's point of view:

• Camera and sound principals can be integrated early, seeking each scene's optimal form in terms of camera angles, movement, lenses, lighting, and sound coverage.
• The crew learns the imperceptible indications each actor gives when about to move or speak and what sightlines and movements can be expected.
• The crew learns during rehearsals (along with the director) how to cover more action with fewer angles and longer takes.
• The crew gets advance warning of what compromises an actor must make in speed or destination to overcome a camera or microphone problem.

By the time formal shooting begins,

• Everyone is an old hand at shooting and being shot.
• Camera placements and movements that show the scene to advantage are known, not theoretical.
• First shooting is from a living reality, instead of something based on the static, heroic concepts of the storyboard approach.
• Dealing with the unexpected is easy when everybody thoroughly knows the foundations.

Especially when a group intends to function as a repertory company (as in Fassbinder's early films), the cycle of performance and critical viewing can be a superb way of helping people get beyond shock and fascination of seeing with their own image and to begin working instead on the places where their resistances lie.

WHEN NOT TO SHOW ACTORS THEIR PERFORMANCES

Taping rehearsals is not without risks, and if there is any insecurity in the cast, it may not be a good idea to let them see themselves acting until you have finished shooting:

• Cast members clamor for a showing, but are usually appalled on first seeing themselves onscreen.
• Actors who depended on your judgment may lean the other way and attempt to apply their own corrective action, giving you new problems.
• Inexperienced or untrusting actors can begin to direct not only themselves but, worse, other actors.
• Knowing they will be seen on the screen by other cast members may make staying inside their characters' thoughts and experiences more difficult.

If you show rehearsal tapes, you must persuade everybody well before the shoot to relinquish monitoring and judging their own performance and pass that responsibility to you. You are the director, and you represent the first audience. The actor who fails to do this, locked in defensiveness and mistrust, is a liability. Often this person has, or imagines she has, star status and is terrified of losing her reputation. But this you won't face for a while!

Taping, showing rehearsals to actors, and debating the outcome is an evolutionary process that works well with a dedicated ensemble, but it takes time. If you are taping rehearsals, but your schedule won't allow this degree of development, use the following procedure:

• Warn that it is normal to hate the way you look on the screen.
• Make a little footage available early in rehearsals for the curious.
• Be clear that you will show no tape footage later and no rushes during the shoot.
• If there is protest, remind the cast that actors in feature films are normally barred from seeing rushes because it is too unsettling.

PLEASE DON'T COPY THE FILM INDUSTRY

As we have said, the professional film industry usually does without rehearsals to save costs and preserve spontaneity. Don't be influenced by this practice unless you have a top-level cast and crew whose professionalism makes up for a lack of fundamental development. In all other situations you should undertake development with your cast and videotape what you do or risk having amateurish, inconsistent theatrical performances that look terrible on the screen.

Here's why: A director formerly a cameraperson or assistant director has spent years observing actors and setups. That person, having also seen how each take looked afterward on the screen, has the experience to make good judgments about performances as he or she first directs. But the new director who never apprenticed in the industry and who didn't tape rehearsals or even rehearse, will inevitably judge performances in front of the camera by live-performance criteria. The resulting artificiality cannot be changed in the cutting room.

Another pitfall you can avoid: New directors often delay evolving a mise en scène (camera treatment) until the last moment. This makes for a late and highly theoretical fragmentation of the material and coverage that may err on the side of caution or be thin and unbalanced. Any production filmed under these conditions will probably overshoot, have a choppy look, and lack an integrated point of view. Extended coverage is also expensive, takes longer, uses more film stock, and exhausts crew and cast. The editor tries to compensate for uneven performances and the film emerges over-cut.

Now tell me honestly, can you afford not to tape rehearsals?

If you doubt that this is professional, remember that many directors use a video assist at film shoots. This is a picture feed from the camera's viewfinder that lets the director see the action on a video monitor instead of watching the take live from alongside the camera. If they need to see what is actually going on film, can you afford to do otherwise?