12 Acting Words and Phrases For Directors – Part Two
(c) Peter D. Marshall
- Magic If (As If)
The Magic “As If” is another acting technique created by Constantin Stanislavski. Rather than attempting to believe they really are the character, actors can play “as if” they (the actor) were in the same situation as the character in the scene.
In other words, when actors are performing on a film set, they ask themselves “If this “story” environment were real, how would I (the actor) react? What would I (the actor) do?” which creates a real inner activity and helps to make their performances more realistic.
- On the Nose
When you see an actor “acting the character” instead of “being the character,” it usually means they are performing “from their head” and not reacting in the moment. In other words, they fail to connect believably with their character because they don’t understand the subtext of the scene.
When this happens to inexperienced or nervous actors, they are usually just trying to remember their lines, which causes the actor to “literally recite the text” without feeling or emotion making their performance “too on the nose.”
- Pacing
From an actor’s point of view, the pacing of a scene is the speed at which actors pick up their cues and deliver their next line. Every script will have slow-paced and fast-paced dialogue scenes and it’s , to match the actor pacing of those scenes with the editing tempo and rhythm of the film itself. (i.e. the director’s visual concept for the film.)
In all my years of teaching and critiquing literally hundreds of short film “director cuts”, I consistently found that most new directors allowed their actors to speak at a slower pace even if the scene was written as a fast-paced scene. Only rarely did I witness actors picking up their cues and overlapping their dialogue, mainly because they were experienced film actors.
In my opinion the main reason these student directors did not interfere with the pacing of the actors was simple – they did not have enough set experience directing actors to understand how “actor dialogue pacing” affects the overall rhythm and tempo of a scene. It’s only when they got to the editing room that they saw the problem and if they were smart enough to shoot good coverage, they could usually fix the actor pacing in the scene.
- Permission
Permission is a powerful performance tool because when you give the actor permission to “take risks and not be perfect” (without being judged) you will both have an opportunity to find new insights into the character and discover unexpected “magic performance moments.”
If actors have a problem remembering their lines, connecting with their characters or have difficulty finding the subtext of the scene, take a few minutes and give them permission to freely explore their characters by trying crazy ideas or improvising dialogue and actions. But you must never make any judgments! Just allow them the freedom to play and create in a safe place. (This is also a good way for a director to gain the trust of the actors!)
- Result Directing
If I asked you right now “to be very angry” what would you do? How would you behave? How would you show your anger? How would you act angry?
This type of direction is called “Directing for Results” and it means telling the actor what to feel, how to move and how to react – without giving them any clues as to why or how. Result directing takes the actor’s concentration off his acting partner as he “goes into his head” (he is no longer in-the-moment) and starts thinking if he is as “angry” as you want him to be.
Examples of result directing are: “I want you to shout… to cry now… to laugh louder… to be sad… to be happy…to pick up your pen on this line…”
The main reason result direction doesn’t work very well, is that “all emotions have a different way of being expressed.” So if you give the same result direction (be sad) to 5 different actors, they will all express that emotion a little differently.
Remember, all emotions are the result of an actor’s needs and wants and these emotional responses come as a consequence of the actor trying to achieve their scene objective. Good directing is searching for the right words (action verbs, facts, anecdotes, images) to find more powerful ways to help actors identify their scene objective, create motivated actions and naturally feel the emotions you are after.
TIP: When you use a lot of result direction on experienced actors, some of them may eventually decide you don’t know how to direct, and they will slowly lose faith in you. (Remember: Trust!) However, there are some actors who only want you to give them result-based direction. These actors will always be able to laugh, get angry or cry right on cue, but be careful because some of those performances may not have the most subtle acting you will see!
- Spine (Throughline/Super-Objective)
The Spine of a script is basically the reason, or main purpose of the character’s journey. It’s what the hero wants more than anything and the main character’s spine is usually linked to the central theme of the script.
For example: In the first Jason Bourne film, what was the spine of the movie? In other words, what was the story really about (Story Spine/Theme) and what did Jason Bourne want (Character Spine/Super-Objective)? Answer: To discover his identity. To find out who he really was – and that was what the audience wanted to find out as well.
In any film, a character should have only one spine for the whole story and to find a specific character’s spine you need to look for the main character’s transforming event and its end result.
When thinking of the film’s spine, it’s helpful to think of the spine in the body and its purpose. Quite simply, the spine “links or holds” the story together. And what happens when one of the links are out of place? You get a disjointed story – and a pain the back!
Copyright (c) 2019 Peter D. Marshall / All Rights Reserved
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