Making a Film with Great Performances and Dialogue - Part 2: "How do I prepare as an actor?&quo
So in our last blog post, we talked about finding the screenplay for a scene that you want to make into your short film and this blog post we will be talking what actors need to do to prepare for shooting that film.
But first a story about Matt Damon, the star of Good Will Hunting who was featured in our last blog post. Matt Damon did not come from a family with connections in the business of filmmaking and he fully realized that the odds against his success were very high. So when he received his first break in a film called Courage Under Fire, he knew he had to prepare for this role with a 100% commitment. His character is a U.S. veteran who has suffered from heroin addiction after his service and has a very short scene with the star of the film, Denzel Washington. Matt knew that if he did an incredible job in this scene, it could change his life so he carefully planned what he could do to prepare for this role of a lifetime. In his research, he realized that the character would lose a large amount of his weight if he was suffering from this severe addiction. So he worked with a specialist to bring his body weight down by 40 pounds. (This is extremely dangerous by the way; as you can see, with the images below.)
He did the scene and critics and filmmakers took notice. In fact, Steven Spielberg cast Matt Damon in his World War II classic, Saving Private Ryan because of this scene.
So that brings us to the first of two steps in preparing to shoot your film:
Break your script down into CROW, research and prepare
CROW stands for Character, Relationship, Objective and Where.
Let’s take the Good Will Hunting scene from the last post as an example for analysis.
Each actor with the director’s guidance should break down the scene into CROW from their character’s perspective.
CHARACTER
In order to have a strong understanding of character, I like to break it down into three basic dimensions:
Physical traits
Every character has physical traits such as their hair style, facial expressions, posture, hand gestures, walking style, costume choices, etc. Use the script as a starting point and then begin to write down as much as you can imagine what their physical traits might be. Begin to work this into your own physical habits and dress. Remember you have to convince the audience that these physical traits are yours and so practice is key to make it as convincing as Matt Damon did.
Vocal traits
The voice of the character is also key. Study the script and examine what style of speech your character has. It’s possible that you already have a voice and style of speaking that’s similar and so there is not much work to be done. But if the script demands an accent or another modification, it’s essential that you practice. In a film, there is nothing worse than a bad accent that’s not intentional.
Personality traits
This is a wide category but it’s important to understand what basic type of personality your character has. Another way of putting it is what is their basic attitude or emotional state. When we think of Will Hunting as a character, he clearly has a South Boston tough attitude and he clearly has a high degree of intelligence. Underneath that toughness and intelligence, there is a vulnerability there but that’s revealed over the scene and the movie.
RELATIONSHIP
After digging into the character’s three dimensions, we examine their relationship with the other characters in the scene. In this scene, it’s his relationship with Skylar that's featured. It’s essential that Matt Damon make it believable that Will has a deep love for Skylar even though he’s scared of intimacy. I like to work with my actors using emotional prep to help evoke this. See this earlier blog to go into that.
OBJECTIVE
Not every scene has an objective, but most scenes with conflict has it. In this scene, Will’s objective is to stay in Boston and not go with Skylar to Stanford. We see him fighting for this objective throughout the scene.
Objective is important is because it’s often the engine that drives the scene for the actor. If the actors have their objective clearly in mind in the scene, everything they observe and listen to in the scene is through the lens of that objective. If they see something or hear something that helps them with the objective, then, they feel positive emotions. Conversely, if they hear or observe things that stop them from achieving the objective, they feel negatively. In addition, every action they take in that scene pushes that objective forward; this is what we call tactics.
I like to think of it in the metaphor of a game. If you are playing chess, your objective is to get the other player’s king and protect your own king. When someone takes your king and you lose that objective, you feel sadness and anger. When you make a move that takes their king, you feel triumph and happiness. Without this objective, you don’t feel anything.
WHERE
There are two parts to this section. The physical where of the scene.
In this Good will Hunting scene, we have the Harvard dorm room of Skylar. It’s an intimate scene that is shaped by the fact that they are together on the bed at the beginning of the scene. It’s happening at night and the tone of the scene at the beginning feels like a late night conversation. It’s important for the actors and the directors to know this so they can set their performances for this “where.”
Another aspect of “where” is the genre of the scene. It’s important to know that this scene is of the drama genre and that we are trying to create a scene that will have a deep and authentic emotional impact on the audience. The actors must calibrate for this style of acting.
2. Break your scene into Beats
If you think of your scene as a story, each beat is a chapter of that story. My definition of a beat is:
A character with an objective tries to overcome an obstacle with a tactic and then there is a result of that tactic.
So let’s look at each of these terms:
Obstacle. In most film scenes, there is a conflict. And this conflict is broken down into a lot of little conflicts. Each conflict is created because there is an obstacle blocking the character’s way. There is a wide variety of obstacles but I feel like there are three primary categories: Physical obstacles. The character must over come physical obstacles like another character with a gun or complete darkness. Another type of obstacle is internal psychological obstacle like insecurity or overaggressiveness or fear of snakes. Finally, there are interpersonal obstacles. In a dialogue scene, often, the obstacles are caused by the other person.
Then, when the character with the objective faces an obstacle, she uses a tactic to over come that obstacle. Tactics can be physical tactics (shooting, jumping, signaling, etc) or psychological tactics (to encourage, to discourage, to lie to)
Then, after the character uses the tactics, there is the result of that tactic and usually, the character moves towards her objective or moves away from the objective or it’s kind of a tie. And like in a game, the character feels positive emotion when she gets closer to the objective and negative emotion when she gets farther away from the objective.
Here's the first page of the screenplay from this scene from Good Will Hunting:
So can you guess where the first beat is?
I would argue that the first beat begins when Skylar wakes up Will and goes to Skylar's line, "Yeah, I'm sure."
We know that Will's objective is to stay in Boston and keep the status quo. When Skylar asks him to come with her to California, that's the obstacle. Now, Will uses the tactic to ask questions in order for him to overcome this obstacle. He's questioning her to see if she's really serious. And the result of this questioning is he finds out that she is serious. So his emotion is a negative one: fear.
If you re-watch this section of the scene, you'll see Matt Damon acting in the moment and reacting to the obstacle with these tactics and then when he sees that she's serious, you can see fear creep into his eyes and his voice. This acting is so effective because it's not Matt Damon saying lines, it's Matt Damon really listening and responding in the moment without overthinking it. It's these natural responses that we are aiming for in naturalistic acting.
Final Thoughts
So I hope that was helpful for you as a director of actors or for actors. I find when you do this kind of analysis and preparation, your performances come across as very natural and believable. And if your performances are excellent, your film has a major shot at becoming excellent.
Next week, we move on to how to prepare for your film for the director and the production design. See you next week!
