The Great Acting Blog: "The Performance In Your Head Doesn't Count"

 

It's always a surprise when I first see my own performance on screen, because I had the image in my mind of what I thought it was, and then, upon seeing the film, I see what the performance actually is. That is not to say that the actual performance is any better or worse than my imagined performance, it's just that it's different. When I first work on the script, of course I am trying to work-out what is happening in the scene and therefore how I might play it, certainly I will give myself some creative choices, raw materials, something to aim at. So, I have this sense in my mind of what the performance might be, and this sense is hard to shake off. When first seeing the actual performance on the screen then, there is a feeling of shock, because it does not conform to this imaginary performance. Of course, the imaginary performance is bunkum, the only performance that actually exists, is the one on the screen. 

Anyway, the film is now complete and I am delighted to be sharing it with you here. It's a strange, ironic thriller, about Roger and Beryl, whose illicit love affair is ruined by Beryl's amiable husband, Maurice, who, oblivious to his wife's affair, co-incidentally turns up whenever the lovers meet. 

Our next film is shaping up to be a mysterious, film-noir-thriller, about a writer who receives an unusual proposition from somebody who claims to have been his school friend, but of whom the writer has no recollection. I will be posting updates on that here.

I hope you enjoy the film. James.

 

BLOGPOSTS ABOUT WILL IT STOP RAINING IN SUMMER:

Stills Gallery for Will It Stop Raining In Summer

The Joy Of Acting

22 Principles For Better Acting

Acting Weird

The Great Acting Blog: "The Performance In Your Head Doesn't Count"

Will It Stop Raining In Summer is now complete

 

 

It's always a surprise when I first see my own performance on screen, because I had the image in my mind of what I thought it was, and then, upon seeing the film, I see what the performance actually is. That is not to say that the actual performance is any better or worse than my imagined performance, it's just that it's different. When I first work on the script, of course I am trying to work-out what is happening in the scene and therefore how I might play it, certainly I will give myself some creative choices, raw materials, something to aim at. So, I have this sense in my mind of what the performance might be, and this sense is hard to shake off. When first seeing the actual performance on the screen then, there is a feeling of shock, because it does not conform to this imaginary performance. Of course, the imaginary performance is bunkum, the only performance that actually exists, is the one on the screen. 

Anyway, the film is now complete and I am delighted to be sharing it with you here. It's a strange, ironic thriller, about Roger and Beryl, whose illicit love affair is ruined by Beryl's amiable husband, Maurice, who, oblivious to his wife's affair, co-incidentally turns up whenever the lovers meet. 

Our next film is shaping up to be a mysterious, film-noir-thriller, about a writer who receives an unusual proposition from somebody who claims to have been his school friend, but of whom the writer has no recollection. I will be posting updates on that here.

I hope you enjoy the film. James.

 

BLOGPOSTS ABOUT WILL IT STOP RAINING IN SUMMER:

Stills Gallery for Will It Stop Raining In Summer

The Joy Of Acting

22 Principles For Better Acting

Acting Weird

Will It Stop Raining In Summer - Teaser Trailer Now Up!

 

 

"Roger" In "Will It Stop Raining In Summer"

We've finished editing the film, and hopefully the sound will be finished over the next few weeks, and then .... voila!

Will It Stop Raining In Summer (short film, 2012)

The Great Acting Blog: "The Joy Of Acting"

 

The characters in my latest short film, Will It Stop Raining In Summer (currently in post-production), are all written “in the style of”, or at least the male characters, Maurice and Roger, are. Roger is having an affair with Maurice's wife, and the syle of the character is that of “The Lover” - impetuous, selfish, passionate, and a little bit dashing. While Maurice is “The Cuckold”; amiable, eager to please, uncool, slightly bumbling. There is no attempt to pretend that the characters aren't their roles. Of course, one of the reasons this is done, is because it is fun to play archetypes – the actor certainly plays the actions in the script, but the pronounced layer of characterization in this situation enables the actor to be larger than life, not simply living the role, but commenting on the role, commenting on acting from the past, and commenting of life itself. The actor enters into a playful discourse with the audience who revel in recognising the archetypal traits of the characters and seeing them at work. It's similar to that experience the audience feels when they see a moment on screen which is true to life, but this time it's true to other films and stories they have seen.

However, for this approach to have an effect, the context within which the artist works needs to be considered – we in the UK have certain expectations about what content films contain, we have those shared cultural experiences from the past which enables certain characters to be archetypal in the first place, and therefore, creative choices can be made with that expectation in mind (and subverted, as the case may be). Creating characters “in the style of”, also acknowledges the artificial nature of proceedings, it acknowledges that what is unfolding before us is a performance, as oppose to entering into a phoney contract with the audience, pretending that the content of the film is “real”. Once that layer of guff has been removed, then whatever artistic richness lays within the material, can be mined and expressed freely, without shame or embarassment. In some way then, employing archetypal traits in a character is an expression of joy about acting itself, and about cinema itself.

 

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So we finished shooting the film over the last couple of days, and I have to say it was one of the most creative and pleasurable experiences I've ever had as an actor. 

We will edit the film over the next week, and Jay will work on the sound effects, so  we hope to complete post-production within the next month or so.

James

The Great Acting Blog: "21 Principles For Better Acting"

"Learn your lines, find your mark, look `em in the eye and tell `em the truth." - James Cagney

 

As I come to produce my next short film, my mind is a-clutter with dozens of small details which can pre-occupy to the exent that my own performance in the film may suffer. So, in a bid to ensure the standard of my performance doesn't drop, I've decided to renew, refresh and re-state my acting principles, and in so doing, ensure clarity, simplicity and a laser-like focus. The list is not exhaustive, but contains those issues which are uppermost in my mind at the moment.

 

 

(in no particular order)

 

1. Everyone tries to do the best they can.

2. Total commitment to my action.

3. Total commitment to my acion requires will, disicipline, and courage.

4. Tell the truth.

5. Be simple.

6. Practice my action til it's habitual.

7. Have the strength of mind to analyse the script correctly.

8. Ensure every line of dialogue is encompassed by my action.

9. Only concern myself with action.

10. Be generous.

11. Trust my preparation.

12. Preparation is a point of departure, not the destination.

13. Don' try and force the moment to conform to my preparation, improvise in the moment in response to what is actually happening in the moment.

14. Memorize the lines until they are habitual.

15. Your performance is a presentation before an audience.

16. Character is created in the mind of the viewer by the juxtaposition of the actions of the actor with the fiction of the script.

17. Relax.

18. Give everything.

19. Use your imagination.

20. Any emotion which is not organically created by my attempts to do my action, is a lie.

21. The outcome is no concern of mine.

The Great Acting Blog: "Acting Weird"

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The actor should always allow the context within which the scene takes place to do it's work.

Below is an extract from the script for our new short film, Will It Stop Raining In Summer. Beryl is married to Maurice, but having a secret affair with Roger. In the scene below, Roger and Beryl have met up for a drink but Maurice has co-incidentally turned-up at the same cafe, and so the three of them sit together, and chat. The surface action in the extract below is pretty innocuous, but it is the context which gives the scene it's strangeness and complexity.

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Maurice is driving the conversation and Roger is going along with whatever Maurice does in order to keep the peace, and maintain  a sense of normality. The point is, the actor playing Roger need never indicate further that what is taking place in the scene is weird or complex – because the context already infers this. The more powerful acting choice, is to play Roger stoically, showing as little as possible, being disciplined – this allows the audience to project their own imagination onto the scene, and their own strangeness and complexity on to it, which leads to an infinitely richer experience than explaining what is happening in the scene through indication or characterization (eg – Roger flicking a moody, “I-can't-believe-this”-look over to Beryl*, which basically amounts to trying to control what the audience think. Much better to infer than to show.

 

* This is also true for the cinematography – to use it in such a way as to point to the meaning of the scene, say cutting to close-ups - I intend to shoot the scene as one master shot.

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The Great Acting Blog: "Will It Stop Raining In Summer"

Possile location for Will It Stop Raining In Summer

 

 

Will It Stop Raining In Summer will be our next short film. It's a love triangle thriller, about Roger, who is having an affair with Beryl, but every-time they meet-up, Beryl's husband, Maurice, shows up co-incidentally, apparently oblivious to his wife's illicit trysts. The film came about when a jumble of images popped into my mind and I tried to make sense of them. The film owes something to those suburban British films from the '50s and '60s which would be on telly on those days when you were home sick from school. This is not an homage or even a reference however, I couldn't tell you the names of these films, I can't remember their plots or who was in them, it's more a feeling that the images of these films absorbed themselves into my sub-conscious and now they have filtered back through my imagination to create something new. I could also hear the feint sound of another echo in Will It Stop Raining In Summer, and that is of benign middle class sitcoms, which were prevalent in the 1980s (I unknowingly lifted the name of Beryl from No Place Like Home, a sitcom which starred William Gaunt). I have no specific affection for such sitcoms or any real interest in the sitcom as a form, but again, they created images which have been locked in my sub-conscious for years, but which are now rattling their chains. So, Will It Stop Raining In Summer is my imagination's regurgitation of these films and shows, giving them a new darkly ironic form.

 

And what of the acting then? Again, I will play opposite John Giles, and we are currently working on finding an actress to play Beryl. The script is full of characterization (ie - how the character does something, rather than what he does), for example; the character of Maurice, is a cuckold written in the style of a cuckold, bluff and amiable, and this, coupled with the context of the scenes, means that the actor never needs to show us that his character is a cuckold (which is how most modern acting is done: “hi, I'm a serial killer”), the script has already done that work, so the actor need only concentrate on doing the actions called forth in the scene. We will again be aiming for performances which are direct, simple, forceful, and truthful. Filming will begin over the next month, and I will post regularly about the film on here and on the Drifting Clouds Cinema blog. Finally, for me, I will once again be directing and acting in the film, and I will strive once again to perfect the process of switching between those two roles – I'm still too reliant on will power, but want to get it down to a science, and I will of course share my findings on this blog, in the form of a repeatable and transferable technique.