Film Courage: Can you explain how a director can micromanage an actor in their performance?
Judith Weston, Coach, Teacher and Author: Yes, by talking too much.
That's the quick answer to that. There are directors who
want to delve into the inner life a lot. They want to talk, talk, talk. They want to front load.
That's the thing that I think is the most dangerous is when the director has an
idea that he or she is very excited about and they want to front load the actor with it before
they even do anything and they overtalk. The simplest thing is overtalking. I finally boiled
it down to telling directors Listen more than you talk and be percentage about that. Hear your own
voice less than 50 percent of the time when you're talking to actors. Listen to them more than you
talk to them and that's a big thing that actors complain about is directors that overtalk but they
still don't understand what the director wants. That's just so easy to happen and that's so very
simply under circumvented if the director knows understands the tool of emotional event because
that's much takes much less time to talk about and then if you if you can say to the actors
wait this is this is not a this is this is not a family nice people being nice this is an argument
and and then let the actors get there however they get there instead of sort of micro well now you
have to you have to get mad and then you have to be disappointed and then you have to get mad back
and now you have to and that's micromanaging is is is sort of giving the result for each
each emotional turning point that you want that's another way to to micromanage rather than allowing
each actor to have a through line through on an objective something they want or need from the
other actor and an obstacle of course very useful and and then let them let let's say
ins and outs of how they win the argument or lose the argument let that happen in a moment
if they both want something from each other what if they're not getting the result they want
I encourage directors to want a different result than sometimes they think they do
because sometimes they've gotten married in their minds to a certain
that they think their eyebrows are supposed to rise at a certain point or they're supposed to
be a certain line reading at a certain point or they're supposed to be a certain pitch of anger or
at a certain point and and I try to get them this is with script analysis I try to get them to use
their script analysis to get to a different thing to want to get to the the emotional event that
they want because if they want if they want those those particular surface things I can't tell them
how to get it I really can't so I spend a lot of my time trying to get them to want something else
so maybe the director doesn't know what they want that's how it feels to the actor
that that if the if the director keeps saying well raise your eyebrow just a little bit more
then the director think they don't know what they want they think they want that but they
don't really know what they want and and that is about the what the scene is about is it is it a
is it about oh survival is a scene about survival only one will survive say is the scene about
loss of purpose is the scene about existing a confession that gets accepted or or not those are
the things and it it it's it's not that easy for for directors to get to that they have to do some
script analysis they have to look underneath the surface of the script and underneath the surface
of the instructions that the stage directions give them to to find it and it takes practice and
and it's useful not just for talking to actors but for talking to anybody for talking to your
cinematographer or talking to production designer or producers or financial people it's useful for
for anything so it's a different way of looking at what the scene is supposed to be
what if someone's trying to talk to someone more because they feel like they're not
getting the truth of what's going on or there's a disconnect there's something
that's not being said wait can you say more about that sure so if if the director is talking too
much maybe they're doing it as a way to fill in the lines of something that's not being said or
something that's not coming to the surface so they're using it as a tool their own tool
well actors do the best they can to figure out what what the director wants so if the director
is overtalking now they'll listen for little clues to give them something to to try on the next take
what is the language of permission it's a way of in engaging the the actors
with the process it can be as simple as saying I had this idea that this could be that this
scene could have higher stakes do you want to try that instead of saying get angrier
okay and so it's that's the language an example of the language of permission is offering
offering the actors a way to away just giving them giving them the opportunity to say no
and then if and then because it's good to find out if an actor doesn't like your direction
it's good to find out because then you can say okay well I'm going to try to make a case for
this let me tell you why I think this is worth trying and it's it's very helpful a key element of
the language of permission is that when you when if if the actor has a different idea than yours
than the director's mind if I'm the director that I am not if I discuss it with the actor
I'm not trying to convince them that my idea is better than theirs but I'm trying to convince
them that my idea is worth trying so it's being soft with people it's not being abrupt
it's asking hey Judith, could we try it maybe this way instead of me dictating to you like Judith,
no I need you to do it this way I'm showing you respect I'm being soft it's partly but I guess
if I use myself as an example when I'm directing I have a lot of energy so I don't I wouldn't say
that I'm soft I'm very energetic so it's not an energy level it's it's it's checking in
it's checking in I wouldn't say it's an energy level because I my energy is very high and when
I really want something I’ll say wait okay I maybe I haven't explained this yet but there's
something that I want that we're not getting to and let and tell me what you think I'm saying
to get feedback tell me what you and you see how a conversation like that has to be private
sure but you're checking in instead of checking in and giving orders and so even if the energy
is intense there's still a mutual respect
I think so yeah they're collaborators they're collaborators they're artists
and they are people and and and they're smart so why wouldn't you use all of the brains on the set.