June 16, 2008 by webmaster.

Good morning or good afternoon, welcome to class.

Welcome.

I’m writing today because I want you to know where your strength lies. I’m writing today because I worry about you. I worry that you will miss the truth. I worry that you will let the architecture of your heart remain rigid and, (while looking what is so right in the eye) allow agreements you have signed with a blood oath but never knew you had made, bind you to all that is so but never was and never really will be. We carry, (in a long bag we drag behind us) agreements about who we are, where we are, and what we are destined to do become. Our parents and ancestors slip through the doorway of sleep in the dead of night and plant new ones, or water the old to keep them fresh and alive. Agreements that bind you and blind you to the simple truth, that you are welcome.

Thanks.

You’re welcome.

God, the details can weigh you down can’t they? Life has never moved this fast. Can’t even keep the fucking checkbook balanced. Every time I write one I slash a note in the ledger about who I wrote if to and for what amount, but when am I going to get the time to pull the numbers down and find a total? My agent sucks. I don’t even have one. If I did they would suck. Spiderman fucking III. Toby Maguire doesn’t even look like that, plus you don’t write the number three like that – it’s backwards. Brilliant. Clean your apartment, pick up the kids and wonder what exactly is coming out of his nose? Change in the car and walk into a room full of people who look exactly like I do. Student films. There’s the answer. But the director has pimples, and the camera is impossibly small. I didn’t get into this to have a camera that small pointed at me! I won’t fit in that! I want one of the real camera’s, the one that looks like it’s some ancient God being tended to by a small band of priests who hang all over it with spray cans of compressed air and mysterious metal boxes with long black things I don’t know the name of but will nod agreeing when they tell me the number of the one they have attached to the rolling metal God. That’s a camera for me! But right now, I have to go to work. “Would you like another roll?” (“Cuz I sure as hell would like one, not even another one, just my first one”) “What?” I’m sorry, sourdough or raisin walnut?” Super.

Thanks.

You’re welcome.

I’m writing to you because I was talking to a very serious young actor I have known for years yesterday who wondered what I thought, (and I assume what everyone else thought as well) about him. I stumbled for an answer for a bit, and the truth came out.

“Not trying to be a buzz kill here on the importance of it all my serious young friend, but I think I have lived just long enough to discover that the truth, whether it works for you or not … is that life … is a joke. No shit, a joke. You hear the wind in the trees? That’s God laughing. So is every other sound. Life is a joke. It’s a meaningful joke, but a joke none the less”

Thanks.

You’re welcome.

You are more welcome to this joke than you could ever have imagined. This is a joke that is awake at all hours of the day and night with open arms, just waiting for you to fall into them. Waiting for you to stop trying to change everyone else and rest in its arms. Waiting for you to stop resenting anything and I mean any thing, and curl up in its lap.

I love a good joke. And I have the best one ever: Your life.

Thanks.

You’re welcome.

Jokes are important. Nobody likes a shlem without a sense of humor. Why do you think the Dahli Lama is smiling all the time? Cuz he gets to wear a skirt? Cuz he’s endlessly happy? I doubt it. It’s because God is laughing and he can hear it; and he’s waiting for you to laugh along with him. Laugh through your tears of frustration, guilt, shame, longing, or loss. Laugh when you don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from or even if there will ever be one. Love with unerring ferocity the ones who are near you, and laugh for all the meaning that brings to your day. Laugh on your deathbed, because the end is only the beginning.

When you don’t feel welcome it’s because you rang the wrong bell. The house of frustration and pain will open the door and let you in, but it will never welcome you. You don’t belong there. Do you welcome those ants that have decided in the heat of the summer to march their armies up your sink and into your trash can? No. They don’t belong there.

Listen; you are welcome. God is playing hide and go seek with himself disguised as you and everything else. Don’t be the kid who stands there and balls because he couldn’t find anybody when he never even started to look. He won’t be invited back to the game. And if you are him, then cross the playground and ask nicely if you can play just one more time. Promise you won’t give up too soon and bring the game to a halt with your tears and recriminations. Promise you’ll search under every bench and bed. Promise that when the other kids find the hider first you won’t kick someone’s shin but instead you’ll ready yourself for the next round, keep an open heart, count to ten, and go looking for the gift this life came into being to give you.

Make it matter, even though it’s funny. Engage those around you in the game you have discovered. Ask how you can help to give away what you thought was what you wanted for yourself. And most important of all, the whole point of this message today; why not set God as your highest example of conduct, and just like life does for you every hour of the day and every day of your life … open your arms to the one next to you and let them know …

“You’re welcome.”

Thanks.

Cameron Thor

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January 21, 2008 by webmaster.

As storytellers our first mission is to make the incredible credible. If we want our audience to take the trip we have planned with us, we have to build as much credibility as possible into the tales we weave. As time goes by, many of our lesson plans are going to move in this direction. Sometimes leaning towards esoteric theory, sometimes-playable technique.

In this lesson I’d like to talk about a small but important detail I like to call, Opening Doors. It’s born from this dilemma: How do I create the details that knit together to make a character seem true, without getting bogged down in technical choices? Well … you Open Doors. A typical example that I see all the time of an actor that doesn’t do this is the guest star doing a day or two: The director gets his cast together for a blocking rehearsal and they take a run at the page and a half of dialogue they have to tackle. As so often happens the actors rest on the text; their arms lay limp at their sides, they never break eye contact with their scene partner, and the rhythms and hues of the scenes elude them. The director then has to use valuable time in his day to offer ideas, (usually second rate) to get the scene on its feet all the while making mental notes never to hire that guest actor again. Don’t expect any help from the regular on the show; he’s too busy’ just trying to stay awake. If the actor was trained in Opening Doors all this could be averted. The point of Opening Doors is to find the beats, inside beats, inside beats, without having to think about it. The first thing one does when opening doors is to examine context and circumstances the actor finds himself in. Remember that guest star? When he did the blocking rehearsal he was sitting at a table at a restaurant; our couple just settling down to dinner. Around him there are other diners, lights, music, maybe there are windows, maybe not. These are his environmental circumstances. Closer in he has napkins, silver wear, and glasses. These are his objects. By giving some awareness to his context he’s beginning to open a door. So let’s open the first door… he picks up the napkin as he sits. What often happens is the actor picks up the napkin and then just lays it right in his lap. He’s cracked open the door and left it to slam shut on his fingers. Before he just dumps it in his lap, what I like to say to the actor that picks up the napkin is, “You bought it - now you have to pay for it”. Where does the napkin go from here? What can you tell us about whom you’re playing with that napkin? So the actor can’t just lose the napkin in his lap, he’s got to do something with it. He looks around … ah; his hand is a little dirty. So he wipes it with the napkin. The actor opened a door by picking up the napkin, the door he opened led to a room filled with more doors, he wipes his hand and has opened a new door that leads to a room filled with… you guessed it … doors. Now what’s he going to do with that now soiled napkin? He’s got to crumple it up and throw it away? Or maybe it demands to be neatly folded and tucked on his lap? There are dozens of options, each one now leading to a room filled with doors.

When I started spouting this the other day in class someone asked, “Do the actions he plays, the doors he opens, have to be psychologically based on his character”? The answer is simple; they will be. The point of this line of thinking, and the exercises that train the actors intuition to respond by opening doors, is that the actor should never think past the first door. He may stumble and fall the first dozen or so times he tries to incorporate this into his work, but after living with it he’ll think into the first Door and never past it. Actions that illustrate the character perfectly will emerge without effort.
The more the actor can fill out the details without thinking about them the more the actor can free himself from the text and find the root of the relationship in the scene.

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November 26, 2007 by webmaster.

There are in Zen culture and thinking what is called the Four Dignities of Man. They are, “Walking, Standing, Sitting, and lying.” Zah-Zen is the Japanese word for,”Sitting Zen.” Sitting Zen, because it’s easy to understand is generally what the western mind associates with the idea of Zen, or a Zen Lifestyle. But that is an oversimplification that surprisingly enough - has the effect of overcomplicating people’s ideas of a Zen consciousness. Already it’s Zen, “an oversimplification that overcomplicates.” For example, if I think Zen consciousness can be achieved by sitting cross legged on the floor for an hour or two a day I will become frustrated and stiff legged and write off Zen as a bunch of hocus pocus where practical people can’t survive. After all, who can spend their day sitting in a corner when there are things one needs to attend to?

People are often disappointed when they find out that there is more, (or really less) to Zen consciousness then sitting in the lotus position. The most ancient, the most practical Zen includes the four dignities, and is a way of life; “Walking, Standing, Sitting, and Lying.” Imagine sleeping in Zen consciousness. Zen has been described as, “When hungry eat, when tiered sleep.” The Zen student asks the Master, “Well don’t people just do that, walking, standing, sitting, and lying?” and the Master replies, “No they don’t. When hungry they don’t just eat, but think of ten thousand things, when tiered they don’t just sleep, but dream innumerable dreams.”
A lot of people, in the West, would like to be able to sum that Zen up then with simple truisms such as the old saying, “When using a hammer, use it with all your might” or the English school motto, “Auge dum augus” meaning “Act when you act”, or “while you act.” But it’s more than that and escapes reasonable explanation; but perhaps a story will help: Here’s an acting story for you …
Paul Repps who drew a lovely book called, “Zen Telegrams” once asked a Zen master to sum up Buddhism in one phrase, and the master said in heavily accented English, “Don’t act, buuuut act” and this delighted Repps because it seemed to confirm what is the Taoist notion of “Wu-Way” that which is, “action in the spirit of not being separate from the world.”
Realizing so fully that ”you are the universe too” , that your action on it is not an interference, but a rather a reflection of the totality. You see Repps saw it as a Zen Koan where an action is turned on itself to the point of absurdity and is designed to paralyze the student into an awareness of only the moment, “Don’t act, buuuut act.” But you see it turned out later that Repps had simply misunderstood the Master, that what the master had really said was, “Don’t act baaaaad act.” And I suppose if you think that I twist you around sometimes and say one thing and then another or meant one thing and then another – well it all boils down to, “Don’t act baaaad act.” That’s what I’m always saying.
I spoke to you last week about the over use of the word, “Bliss” that is has come to mean in popular culture a sort of generalized glee. I went on to explain that bliss is really only, “The Moment” -The explicit awareness of the now.” And that the study of acting, being the art of the moment, is as sure a path to bliss as any; but not an isolated and extraordinary kind of bliss, rather the most authentic and usable bliss, the bliss described in the four dignities of man, the simple truth that each moment, should it not be wasted in the lulling about in the past or twitching about the future, is a bliss state. Just like that – there is one – and there is one – and there is one – and so on like that. The actor is aware and lives in the Four Dignities.
“Wu-Way” action in the spirit of not being separate from the world. Realizing so fully that,”you are the universe too” that your action on it is not an interference, but a reflection of the totality.
Assiduus usus uni rei deditus et ingenium et artem saepe vincit - Constant practice devoted to one subject often outdoes both intelligence and skill. (Cicero)

Cameron Thor

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August 2, 2007 by webmaster.

Myths are great tools for actors. The stories are always about the hero’s journey and they are filled with archetypes and deep emotional and psychological truths. Understanding myths can help us as actors in analyzing and understanding the character, and give us insights in living a creative life. The Myth of the Handless Maiden is an excellent example.

This myth is from the 12th century, a time when our present attitudes about life and society were being developed. It deals with man’s love affair with technology and the
trade-offs we sometimes make to “get ahead.”

The village miller has a successful flourmill; he and his wife work hard to ensure continued success. They have a beautiful daughter: the maiden. (Maidens are usually symbolic of our undeveloped creative energy - the maiden has not yet developed the full power of womanhood, the creation of life, and therefore she symbolizes untapped or unknown creative potential.) The miller and his wife work their mill by hand for the most part although they also use the family horse. One day the Devil appears, (he always does in one form or another - usually a very charismatic character, pleasing and attractive). He tells the miller that he can make his mill twice as productive with half the work, and the miller doesn’t have to do anything for this miracle to occur. Of course, the miller is very interested; the Devil offers his services in return for “what stands behind the mill.” Knowing that there is nothing behind the mill aside from a stand of old trees, the miller agrees - he makes a deal with the Devil. The Devil proceeds to hook up a water wheel to the mill, utilizing the stream that runs beside the mill. The mill becomes almost immediately more productive, grinding much more flour than before. The miller and his wife are both astonished and delighted - they no longer have the hours of hard work and effort that the mill previously required. They become very rich, thanks to the mechanics (from the Greek root word for “trickery”) of the Devil. They seem to have gotten “something for nothing” and found a “shortcut to success.”

Sometime later the Devil reappears, of course to collect his payment - what stands behind the mill. He and the miller walk out behind the mill and lo and behold, there stands the miller’s beautiful daughter. The miller is now distraught. He doesn’t want to lose his daughter, nor does he want to lose his water wheel and all the benefit that he has now derived. He begs the Devil to let him keep both. But, a deal is a deal. The Devil decides to take only part of the miller’s beautiful daughter: he cuts off her hands and takes them away!

The myth continues, but let’s examine the first part of the handless maiden myth for now. The cutting off of the maiden’s hands is symbolic of cutting off our feelings or our connection to the creative, feminine self. When the maiden loses her hands, she has lost her ability to feel and create. She becomes the symbol of our loss of ability to create. When we make a deal with the Devil in which we agree to a mechanical (trickery) shortcut to success, we lose our maiden’s hands.

As actors we are surrounded by an industry filled with the “deals of the devil,” offering us mechanical shortcuts to stardom without any of the hard work of acting.
“get the “photographer of the stars” to do your headshots.”
“sign up for the scene showcase seen by the industry’s “greatest” casting directors.”
“take this workshop with this soap opera director and be a soap star.”
“let us show you how to succeed at the business of show business.”
“let me show you how to get that great agent.”

All this “success” without having to do Off Off Broadway plays, cattle call auditions, student films, or acting class.

Being a successful actor comes from doing the work of acting EVERYDAY. And all the shortcuts and mechanical “deals with the Devil” will only cut off YOUR maiden’s hands. You will lose your connection to your inner creative self, your wounds and joys, your dreams and hopes, your true self - i.e. what makes you an actor.

If you do happen to become a “star” through trickery, shortcuts, deals with the devil, your acting life, like the maiden’s life, will be frustrating, fearful, and unfulfilling. More than likely you will need to seek out support, comfort, pleasure and reassurance from outside sources (affairs, drugs, booze, eating disorders) since you are unable to provide it for yourself. Witness the ever-present never-ending sagas playing out monotonously on the entertainment news shows! This is a recipe for failure.

Find a copy of The Myth of the Handless Maiden and read it. See how the maiden regains her hands and her power. It’s fascinating and we will talk more about it later. For now, remember … you cannot be a successful actor without your maiden’s hands!

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July 23, 2007 by webmaster.

In any artistic development there are three stages of significant growth.  These stages are important to understand and experience.  Knowing where you are creates context, and with that you can see clearly towards your dream to the future.  But just as important are the gaps between the stages.  Those empty spaces that, because they are the places in between, we assume have little or no value.  In fact, understanding and experiencing the gaps and what it takes to make the leap from one stage of development to another, can be critical to reaching your goals.  So, lets take a moment to examine those stages, the gaps in-between, and what it might mean to your journey …

Inspired Intuition

This is the, “Ah ha!” moment.  Some of you had it early on in life, some had it later, and some few of you may still be waiting for it.  It is the striking sound of your Calling.  Myths and legends abound with stories of the Calling.  A life without it can barely be a life lived, and a life with many becomes enriching both to the one living that life, and those around her.  It is the undeniable sense that you have linked up with part of your destiny.  In our case it’s about the performing arts.  Each one of you heard the Call; something inside of you needed expression, and the stage was the place to find it.  When someone is at this phase they are in a state of Inspired Intuition.  It is very difficult to make a mistake when in this stage.  It is the common experience of squeezing the trigger for the first time and hitting the target dead center.  While from this well much hard work can be fed, it can also be a tripping point. I f the initiate believes that this experience is an end in itself, that this bliss of first encountering the Calling is what the Calling is beckoning you towards, then there will quickly follow heartbreak and disillusionment.  This is only the opening stage, one of great joy and elation, but there is much work to follow.  While everything seems to be humming at this stage, soon the play will begin to look like work and the desire to create a discipline will emerge.

The First Gap

This one is easy, it usually come with almost no effort.  The desire to start creating discipline and building the kind of muscles that only time and hard work can make possible begins now.  We are excited in this Gap.  We admire the others that have gone before us.  We have studied their lives, as we grow positive about our own.  As easy as this Gap can be, we need to take a moment to do just a coupe of things.  Consider first that you need to know that you are leaving your first stage behind.  Too many actors will do good work that needs some improvement and in the note sessions they will be quietly kicking themselves for things not going perfectly.  This is a ridiculous conceit.  In a training environment you are there to fall down and grow up.  Undo self criticism is a sign that the trainee hasn’t cut the cord with the first stage.  They are lost in the fantasy that this all comes naturally.  Maybe the best way to cut the cord with the first stage is to embrace it.  An awareness coupled with genuine expressed gratitude about where you’ve been can be the antidote to staying stuck.  Typically an actor might say to me something like, “I don’t know why I’m not moving forward in my craft, I feel stuck” and I can respond, “Why would you want to move on? You have such a cozy relationship with the past.”  Moving on is a big part of moving forward.

Technical Excellence

This is the one of the Three Stages that an actor can most likely get stuck in.  It is an essential part of the growth curve, you can’t skip it, and it is the hardest to part with.  So the young actor is all a blush with the joy of what they do and the more they learn about it the more they want to know.  Reading books, watching the stars work that they admire.  They have decided to leap into the technique.  This is the beginning of a life’s work.  I’m always saddened by outsiders that look at the art world and say,  `Oh … an actors life, that’s a tough one.”  Poppycock.  Most everybody sets out to just get by.  The artist sets out to be the best at what they do and change the world with it.  When your task is so strong you’ll meet with disappointment and loss.  The outsiders look at that as painful and so live lives of, “wishing they had”.  The artist sees those things as inspirational and a driving force in their lives.  The artist has turned disappointment into discontent and made it a fire that stokes their every action, and armed with that energy they begin to train.   They set out to learn everything they can about what they do, the tools, the history, and the personalities that made it great.  They write, act, direct, design, and most of all they dream.  They fall on their ass a lot and each time they get up and brush off they are a little bit stronger than they were before.  The road to Technical Excellence is a long and hard one fraught with peril, but the artist quickly turns it into a game where learning from losing is as exciting as any wins.  But, with as many bumps and bruises as there are along the way of Technical Excellence, it is still the hardest of the three stages to move on from.

The Second Gap

There are a lot of bodies at this threshold.  As a director, or when I’m helping a director put together a cast, the number one drawback that we see in actor is their unwillingness to let go of their work.  It is never more important than in the art of film acting.  Unlike stage acting, the actor for film has to work at a much more collaborative level.  The disciplines that make up telling stories with film are each critical; directorial, editorial, writing, cinematography, composition, producing, score, and of course, acting.  The goal is to tell stories, not to let any one of the disciplines linger in the spotlight.  When we’re looking for great actors, we’re looking for great actors who will turn in their work completed but with enough room for us to do our work with the rest of our disciplines.  The actor that is stuck in technique is showing the seams of his work, and if you think you like that idea, try wearing your shirt inside out for a day or two.  Why is this gap particularly difficult to move over?  It is because to achieve Technical Excellence one must dedicate oneself completely to it.  That complete commitment is difficult to leave behind.  The very thing, your commitment, that made it possible for you to call yourself a master, is the thing that makes moving on so scary.  Who are you if you’re not your technique?  I don’t have a lot of solutions for the artist about how to move on.  This stage is intuitive and tricky.  To teach you a technique to move on is to keep you in technique and so self-defeating.  I do know this; expect to try to give up your work and rely in your intuition and get your ass kicked back across the line into technique more than once.  That line out of Technical Excellence is one you’ll cross dozens of times as you mature.  If you hold out for one big leap where you’re forever free you’ll spend your life waiting.  Try, fall down, get up, try again, etc.

Intuitive Mastery

There comes a point in any artist’s life where they feel like they are falling without a net only to discover that joy of the freefall never ends with a landing; there is only the fall.  Your trip up the mastery curve tops out at Intuitive Mastery.  It doesn’t end there, as this is a life’s work and therein lies its joy, but once the artist has hit Intuitive Mastery she can really begin to make some bold strokes with her work.  It is the place when you have had the courage to leave your work behind and see what gifts await you.  It is the combination of your natural Intuitive gifts and the Mastery that only strong technique can provide.  This work falls into the realm discussed by Goethe when he suggests that, “the best things cannot be put into words, the second best things are misunderstood, and the third best things are what we talk about.”  While there are very little details about what this work feels like, you’ll know it when you see it.  It can be alarmingly simple.  So much so that the artist must be on guard for a desire to do more just so that you can visit with your old friend, “Hard Work” from technique class.  The idea that when the story begins the work ends and we start the play is powerful, but a rarified air that only the actor who as achieved Technical Excellence can breath.  It feels effortless only because of the effort you expended to get there, it is simple only because you have eliminated all the complexities by mastering them, and it is freeing only because you have worked so hard to become free.

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July 16, 2007 by webmaster.

Three Parts of a Screenplay

1- Subject- Where or who. Often indicated in the title. Not the actors domain.
2- Plot - What happens. Not the actors domain.
3- Story - The human heart changing. The actors domain
Five Concerns of the Actor
I -HERO - Central character. The hero strives or aspires to a quest. Makes improbable choices look necessary. Make your character the hero no matter how small the part.

2 - GOAL - Power or Love. Love = There is a person in the story more important than what you want. Power = Nothing more important.

3 - ACTION- What you do to get what you want. Demonstrable choices that yield behavior.

4 - OBSTACLE- What gets in your way. Always outside the hero. Usually in the other person.

5 - PROBLEM- Inherent in the character. What the character arrives to the story with.
Tidbits
-CIRCUMSTANCE »»»»[CONFLICT]««««DESIRE
-Unexpressed hurt (or fear) = anger
Unexpressed anger = rage
Unexpressed rage = depression
-Characters with low self esteem = Threats to their esteem are huge.
-BASIS OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE = People who’s arrangement is ending -­Relationships = fluid, flexible, can withstand change
Arrangements = have a plan in place. Have it figured out. Brittle. Fall apart during change.
***Find the arrangement that is falling apart***
-Love scenes = fear of loss
-Make huge physical and emotional choices, then step back into the character.
-LOOK AT THE ARC OF THE STORY - For each scene - am I closer or further away from my goal. Risk increases. Trouble increases. Time is running out. Arrangement is falling apart. Cover is cracking. The emotion which is in place at the beginning breaks through.

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July 12, 2007 by webmaster.

I’ve been working a lot lately back and forth on a couple of sets; “Smallville” in Vancouver, B.C. and “Bullet Proof Monk” in Toronto.  One, of course, is the highly successful WB Network Television series based on the young life of Clark Kent as he struggles with his newfound super powers.  The other is a big budget action adventure feature film produced by John Woo and starring my client Jaime King.  Working on set allows me the chance to focus on some of the practical and critically important parts of the acting craft unique to the television and film medium: the script, production design, camera, editing, and directing.  I want you to take this lesson and begin to consider some of these parts and where they fit into the storytelling puzzle.

The Method, with its duel level technique of both psychological and physical choices in creating character, was a system developed specifically for the stage actor.  The modem film actor must own and continue to grow a strong use and understanding of the Method.  It’s most useful power: the ability to bring a character to life is not nearly as important in the collaborative art of film as it is on the stage.  The Method was created by stage actors to be used a survival backpack.  While that backpack becomes your life raft on a stormy night, it can break and drown you on a sound stage.

The stage actor is necessarily self-reliant, when the curtain rises it’s all on their shoulders.  Film acting, on the other band, is far more collaborative medium.  The film actor has to be aware of their relationship to the screenwriter’s story by forcing the audiences assumptions with transitions, commit to the production designer’s environment, understand the camera lens and it’s focus of the story, assist the editor in creating movement of the story, and finally aid the director in combining all these elements into a singular vision.

I always found it puzzling that so many highly trained actors couldn’t make it in film.  It’s a common notion that too much training leads to broad, stagy acting.  But that’s an over-simplification.  It’s not, “too much training” it’s simply non-specific training.  The trained stage actor working in film and television rarely prepares for these equally important disciplines.  The over simplification of the problem of stage acting on film leads the actor to under react.  The most common reaction of the stage actor to being told that they are “stagy” is to stop doing anything, get dull, and go numb.  That reaction will not get the story told or be satisfying for the artist or the audience.  The trick is to understand how film is a different medium, with different rules, and a different set of tools used to get the job done.

While it is a life study to master and understand all the elements that make film acting work, let’s take a moment to look at just one of those relationships so that we can start to think and take action on this distinct and disciplined craft.

The Editor

The Editor is without a doubt the most important person in the posses.  Film is the editor’s medium.  When you watch something take place, let’s say you glance across the restaurant and look at a couple having dinner, your eyes tell your mind that you’re seeing it all.  This isn’t entirely true … in fact what is happening is your eye is picking out thousands of tiny particulars in the overall picture and collating them in a fashion that lets your mind comprehend what it’s seeing.  A common mistake of the young filmmaker when they run short on time is to grab a whole scene in a master with no coverage.  They figure when they look at the scene it makes sense, the actors are good, no problem.  Coverage is for wussies.  When they get into the editing room they sadly realize that while they were looking at the scene with their naked eye their brain was doing a fantastic job editing, picking up many details to allow for that comprehension.  But now, with no coverage, the scene looks flat and lacks rhythm.  It’s the editor’s hand that makes us believe that what we are seeing is real.  It’s the editor’s hand that tricks our brain into comprehending the scene.

The film actor has to contribute to the editor’s works.  The more time you spend on film sets, or more importantly making your own little movies, the more you will understand the relationship between the actor and the editor.  But, in the meantime, here are a couple of things to think about.

First and foremost editors cut on action.  When an editor is looking to make cuts from one camera position to another in a scene they are looking for some action to do it on.  It may be grand like the sweep of the arms, or it may be subtle like a glance cast down, but action is the axle that the editor pivots on.  Becoming aware of this the actor can begin to lead the editors knife.

Let’s say the editor has got a scene with two people talking and is looking for his cut points.  You can help him with these points by choosing to cast a glance, a slight nod of your head, a tight smile, or a raised brow.  Let’s say at the end of the scene you hold stock-still.  You do that, and that poor editor is going to have to go to the other guy and hope he moves in some small way to cut out of the scene.  But if you give him some small move he can go out on you.  Not only have you helped him find his elusive cut point, but you have played a part in where the editor makes his moves.  You’ve moved out of the realm of the actor who falls victim to the editor’s knife, and into the world of being a contributing partner in the editing posses.

Secondly an actor needs to help the editor by maintaining tension from scene to scene.  The filmmaker wants to carry an emotion from one scene to the next, from one cut to the next.  And while they call on the editor to do that, the editor calls on the actor to create the emotion that can be sustained to the next scene or cut.  For example let’s say you’re filming a mystery.  In this scene you and your partner think you know who did it, and that they’re hiding out at the warehouse.  A typical transition is to have you say something like … “But the warehouse is locked down tight, it’s impossible to get in there!”  And on your partners raised eyebrow make a quick cut to … you guessed it … the warehouse!  Where you stand, flashlight in hand, and say something like … “This is crazy … “  Well, in order for that transition from your declaration of impossibility to the flashlight to work the editor needs tension.  It’s his job to cut on tension and your contribution to his process is to be keenly aware of how your behavior and energy you leave the scene with helps establish the audience’s connection to the next scene.  A film actor’s awareness of this helps the editor move the story forward from scene to scene and maintain the critical tension.
And finally the actor’s attentiveness that the editor needs clean dialogue on close-ups to cut from person to person within a scene.  When new film actors discover this it usually leads to some incredibly clumsy work.  They’re told, (usually without any grace at all) to, “Not overlap or we can’t cut into you”.  Terrified, the young actor then puts artificial beats before and after their lines in the close coverage.  This problem is diminishing slowly as more and more cameras are produced and fewer taken off the market thereby driving down the cost of camera packages and allowing more two camera coverage on the average production.  With two cameras running, overlap ceases to be a problem.  But still the great majority of productions, and especially television, work with one camera and require the no overlap rule in close-up overage.  The end result is that the young actor looks like a deer caught in the headlights in their close-up.  Here again there is an art to what might at first glance seem like a problem.  The experienced, (or in your case well educated) film actor knows that rhythm and fluidity in a scene doesn’t come from dialogue dropping out of your mouth but instead comes from your intention and your energetic.  Knowing that, the actor won’t worry about becoming stiff as they hold to not overlap.  Not overlapping is a real issue; the actor has to give the editor clean stock to cut into.  But the actor that knows that the intention of the character they are playing, and the energetic that comes from that character are the real spine that holds a scene together, will never look like that deer in the headlights.  They will give the editor clean stock, while still maintaining the flow of the scene.

Are you starting to see the important relationship between the film actor and the editor?  Are you beginning to see how the film actor is a contributing artist in the editor’s process?  Once again the actor can move out of the victim identity and into the partnership role.  The only reason actors, “lose it on the cutting room floor” is because those actors didn’t use their skill to give the editor the, “loving” he needs to do his job.  Sustaining emotion and tension from scene to scene, guiding the editor to his cut points within a scene, and maintaining flow and open space for the editor are just a few of the important tools the actor uses in their relationship with the editor.

Take a moment to see if you can discover of a few more.  Watch films closely to look for the places the actors contribute to the editor’s work. Take a look at the films of Scorsese ; he started as an editor and studying his work can be a teaching tool.  Better yet, get a cheap editing program for your home computer, grab your digital video camera, shoot a scene with some actor friends and cut it together.  You’ll learn more from doing that than anything else.
We started with the editor because his work is most critical, but in the coming weeks we’ll look in detail at the actors contribution to the screenwriter, the production designer, the camera, and the director.  In the meantime, get your brain going about this subject - how does your work reach out into other professional relationships?  The more your work gets off of you, and into your service to others, the greater it will become.

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July 12, 2007 by webmaster.

The art and craft of acting changed dramatically with the introduction of the motion picture camera . Yet, even with that sea change in the art, the craft is still steeped in the rituals and techniques of stage training.  My goal in these series of papers is to begin in the actor a habit of investigation, a need to look deeper into the new art of acting with the camera.  The words, “acting with” are an important distinction from the Conmen phrase, “acting  for”.  “Acting for” sets the artist up in a relationship where he is doing what he is doing to serve an over-lording master.  “Acting with” sets the actor up in a relationship of peers, where he is searching step by step to find the dance that exists between the actor and the lens.  We could spend a couple of semesters discussing the history of the motion picture camera and its greater historical impact, but the goal is to begin a habit of investigation, not finish one.  So, I’ll stay away from history for the most part and instead concentrate on the practical application of how we think in terms of the camera, leaving the history up to you and your relationship with your local library.

The camera as character

In the early days of filmed entertainment the motion picture camera was a huge, noisy, unreliable monster.  It was used only to film what were essentially stage plays.  The actors had to stand about in little half circles pretending to have natural conversations.  Needless to say, the conversations didn’t appear too natural, and while movies were a new and wonderful form of entertainment they lacked any sense of urgency.  In the ensuing decades visionary directors like John Ford and George Stevens began to move the camera where they could.  Hollywood has always embraced new technology and the gadget guys raced to accommodate the director’s desire for a moving camera.  Technology has raced ahead, sometimes faster than our ability to use it, and the director has now a full arsenal of moving cameras at his disposal, from the omnipresent Steady Cam to the brand spanking new technology of Bullet Time where the lens is no longer dedicated to a single subject (The details of that are for a later discussion, it gets a little weird.).

The ultimate value of these leaps in technology is to turn the camera into a character.  Moving the audience from a voyeur peeking through a crack in the forth wall, to a participant dancing along with the actors as they tell the story.  Your self study course in the technical aspects of the camera will come to you much easier if you know why it is important to learn. . It is as important to learn about the camera, as it is to learn about your scene partner.  And you can approach the camera the same way you would your partner.

What does the camera want from you?

Well, nothing less than your immortal soul.  Don’t worry; the camera doesn’t want your soul all the time.  You don’t have to live on screen ripping your heart out every second.  It only wants some glimpse of that, some small taste in each scene to keep it interested in your story.  Just like in a marriage, you don’t keep it alive by keeping the floors vacuumed; you keep it alive by opening your heart wherever you can.  The floors will come later.  I remember directing a picture once where I thought I would be a hotshot actors director by leaving the monitor and sitting right at the lens with the actors.  We shot the scene and needless to say I was very pleased with myself - very old school.  But when I looked at the footage some days later it was dreadful.  Later, on that same picture, I had two actors playing a quiet conversation on a bed.  The small space in the bedroom we shot in made it impossible for me to get to the monitor.  I had to watch the scene from close to the lens and as it played out I was deeply disappointed.  The actors seemed flat and lifeless.  But when I looked at it in dailies the scene jumped off the screen and became one of my favorites in the film.  By sitting close to the lens and not watching the monitor, not seeing what the camera was seeing, I had inadvertently learned a valuable lesson.  The lens sees things the naked eye does not.  It looks closer.  It looks for who you are and it responds to that.  It has very little interest in your talent.  The only value your talent has is that it functions as a vessel; it can deliver who you are to the lens.  If who you are isn’t there, all your talent and a quarter will buy you a cup of coffee.  The first lesson in the camera as a character; give it what you would give your scene partner - who you are, not what you do.
What can the camera do for you?

For any discipline to really succeed it must have a fairly narrow path.  The motion picture camera is that narrow path to the actor.  Most actors complain bitterly about the limitations placed on them by the camera.  They cannot move freely because of focus points, they have to repeat the same actions over and over with each passing piece of coverage, or to satisfy some focus pullers requirements the actor has to move in an unnatural way forcing a rack focus.  There are as many complaints as there are actors, actors who fail to understand that all those limitations are really a rail that the actor can ride to a clear and moving performance.  For an actor to really come across on film his work must be focused.  He must know what he wants, how to get it, why it matters, and what gets in his way.  If he is living all this in the moment he will seem focused.  Often on a set the camera team member responsible for keeping you in focus, the focus puller, will need a certain type of stillness from the actor to keep you from going soft.  The stage trained actor thinks this is a limiting thing.  The new actor knows that those limits really let him narrow his own focus and in turn serve his team member working the focus ring on the camera.  It is a win-win situation; the focus pullers need for focus, forces the actor to focus his work, and the story becomes much clearer to the audience.
Another thing that camera can do for the actor is to give him frame lines.  The understanding of where your body fits in the frame lines helps you to paint the portrait you envisioned.  Art is an arrangement of forms to evoke a common experience.  The actor without an understanding of his lens edge is like a painting without a frame.  It becomes much harder to understand composition and the message it is trying to deliver if we don’t understand the borders that frame it.  Look if you will at Marlon Brando’s work inside the frame in, “Last Tango in Paris”.  Here is an actor who understands clearly the edges of the frame and is using them to paint a picture inside that frame that moves the story forward.  Ask your camera team what lens they are using, ask where your borders are.  When you know this you can begin to start looking for how your movements inside the frame help to tell the story.  This work with the frame lines is advanced work, but don’t wait for a couple of years of experience to teach you.  With the digital video cameras flooding the market you’re bound to know someone who has one.  Beg, borrow, or steal that camera and start playing with movement in the frame.  I want you to walk on to that sound stage with enough knowledge from your homework to set you up for real learning with the Big Boys.

How does the camera get in your way?

The obstacle question can be applied to the relationship with the camera just like it can be applied to the relationship with the scene partner.  The lens will become an obstacle to your good work only if you make it what it is not.  It is not your parents; it won’t love you or hate you.  It won’t tuck you in at night.  It doesn’t have the power to turn lead into gold.  It won’t make you happy or satisfied.  It won’t make the loneliness go away.  It won’t make you thin, it won’t make you young.  And it won’t make your life any less confusing than it already is.  When you attach your ego to the camera it becomes an obstacle to your good work.  But don’t underestimate its power.  When that camera comes rolling towards you it’s going to be very difficult to avoid those dark thoughts.  Your will power won’t do you a lot of good when it comes to thinking sensibly about the camera.  The only thing that will give you any power over those ego centered thoughts that will turn the camera into an obstacle is … how much you know about the part the camera plays in your work.  If you want to be set free from the ego burden the camera puts you under, learn as much as you can about how the frame lines and the need for focus can set you free.

These are some starting points for your thinking about the camera and your relationship with it.  Take these and discuss them, debate them, trash them if you like.  Come up with your own theories and make me look like an asshole.  The goal is to get you thinking about this young and daring art.  The rules are just forming, you have a chance to make your own.  Start now, and change the world with your work.

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June 14, 2007 by webmaster.

Every feeling an artist has is good.  The artist lives in the realm of feelings, impulse, and poetic action.  We routinely play, paint, write, sculpt, dance, and sing about the experience of fear and hope.  If you want to get a good sense of what art looks like in denial of fear and longing, I invite you to spend an evening listening to the songs of the Cultural Revolution in Communist China, or the Positivist writings of the Bolshevik Revolution.  Both state sponsored art designed to have a galvanizing positive effect on the population, totally in denial of the human heart, and both miserable failures.  Art, what Joyce calls, “Real Art”, asks the viewer to examine their own longing and fear, connect to the hero who is the inevitable subject of the art, and push out to a new understanding of themselves and their human experience.  This can be subtle and nearly subconscious in the paintings of Picasso, or it can hit the message on the head in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Fear is strong: fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of being found out, fear of losing control … and the list goes on.  There are as many specific fears as there are people to have them. To one degree or another we all live in haunted houses, the ghosts that live there rattle chains that we have forged with our own actions. Fear is strong. So what do you do about it?  It seems the most common reaction is to resist it.  Los Angeles is peppered with on-camera classes, networking groups, and the dreaded showcase.  All designed to help you feel that you’ve got your arms around the way of working that will help you feel certain of success.  People look at me like I have horns growing out of my head when they audit the class for the first time and I tell them that I don’t care a wit if they get work in movies or television.  “Bu … bu … but why take a class?”  Because a good class is about growing with no focus on the end result - booking a job, getting an agent etc.  Growth and daring are what the camera survives on, it runs screaming from security.  I teach because I’m addicted to human growth.   I find the arts, and acting in particular, to be the most enjoyable path to growth.  Don’t wait for the universe to come to you.  Dress up like someone else, kiss people you hardly know, have a sword fight, and find through the arts that life itself is one big play, one big pulse.  Self-realization is a dance … so get out on the floor!  Actors don’t wait for self-realization; they go after it with the blood lust of a warrior.  So as ass backward as it may seem to say welcome to an acting class that doesn’t care if you succeed in a town where success is king, it’s the only path that works - Both professionally, and personally.

There is a lot of fear in the air right now.  Don’t turn from it.  Find its value.  Suck it up.  Ask it how it will help you be more creative.  You are an artist.  You eat feelings and turn them into something people can use. Chaos  has great, positive power . Use the art to find the way that waits for you.  Stop telling it what to do, it’s not listening.  Run screaming with joy into the breech.  Give up the illusion of control and the path that has been laid out since time began will emerge for, and from you . In your art, in your acting, feel longing, lust, love, play, abandon, search, discover, and find that all your feelings, including fear … have value.

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May 8, 2007 by webmaster.

Reorganize chance. That is the basis of your work.

by Randy Thom, C.A.S.

When an artist does work that seems innovative, we say that he or she has
created something. The more I think about the process we call “creating,” the
more I’m convinced we use the wrong word to describe it.

Articles on film sound usually stay clear of questions as basic as “What is
creativity?” and “Is it possible for an artist to become more creative?”

Questions like these are usually considered too messy, or too abstract and
subjective. I appreciate those arguments, and don’t discount them. On the other
hand, I think we do know a few things about being creative. One theory is that
each of us is given a bag of creativity at birth, and that the bag doesn’t grow
or shrink much for the rest of our lives. But even if our bag of creativity
doesn’t change in size, our ability to dip into it varies constantly. Ask any
artist or performer.

*- Inspiration, insight, and luck are difficult entities to describe, and all but impossible to quantify -*
We can interview an artist and chart the sequence of events by which a given set
of raw materials was fashioned into to a specific art product. But most of what
we get from that kind of examination will be information about craft (technology
and technique). We know intuitively that a great artist is more than a great
technician. In fact, it might be argued that a great artist doesn’t even have to
be a very good technician. So what is it that guides the technique?

*- The Tyranny Of Competence -*
In the movie industry a high value is justifiably placed on technical
competence. It is assumed that every craftsperson should know how to use the
tools of the trade and be able to perform on cue, under pressure. The trouble
with paying so much attention to skill and technical prowess is this: The frame
of mind in which interesting things germinate is often more confused and
desperate than organized and confident.

Being creative is balancing precariously between, or shifting back and forth
between, these two extremes. It is not surprising that a high percentage of very
creative people have manic-depressive personalities.

When you begin a project, the surest way to guarantee nothing interesting will
happen is to go into it with the assumption that you know exactly how to do it.
The best you can hope to do within that frame of mind is to duplicate work that
you or someone else has already done. Of course, the first step in mastering a
craft is to learn the traditions and conventions, the tools and techniques that
have historically produced good work and bad. Having acquired those skills, the
challenge is to look freshly at each new project, making as few assumptions as
possible about how to proceed.

It’s generally acknowledged that a good film begins with a good script. On the
other hand, even a very good script is nothing more than a vague blueprint for
the eventual film. The locations, actors, and other collaborators will add depth
to the story that the writer is not in a position to anticipate. The serendipity
that allows it all to come together will only happen if each collaborator is
open to it, and clever about making the necessary adjustments. One thing seems
clear: the best creative ideas
usually arise in the process of doing the work itself. They don’t usually form
in our minds while we stare at a blank piece of paper.

*- Complexity - *
People often say that “truth is stranger than fiction,” as if we should be
surprised. Why wouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? A few moments of human
activity in any ordinary supermarket, if fully examined, would no doubt be
hilarious and horrific beyond belief. On the other hand, given a supermarket as
a location, a very good writer might be able to invent a few amusing and
trenchant scenes.

We operate in two worlds:

(1) reality, which contains profundities and comedy unimaginably wild and deep,
but on the surface is mostly deadly boring and

(2) fiction, which isn’t too hard to make superficially appealing, but is
difficult as hell to make profound or deeply funny.

*- One thing that distinguishes fiction from reality is the level of complexity - *
Any real-world situation is infinitely complex. We usually only perceive the
microscopic tip of the iceberg of what is happening in our supermarket at 7 p.m.

As writers we go to the supermarket and examine it on as many levels as
possible. We don’t just watch what happens, we participate in it. We get a job
working in the fresh produce section. We go home with the store manager and the
bag boy. By living through these situations (and by watching ourselves live
through them) we begin to find threads overlapping in amazing ways. Other
threads we assumed were connected turn out not to be connected at all.

The script needs to be shaped by real world experience. Shooting and editing the
film involves a trip through more unanticipated reality which will frustrate,
but can also improve what you thought you had.

Designing your sound (bet you thought we’d never get to sound) should be no less
experimental and no less influenced by process. When we begin to imagine a
scene, the first few sounds that come to mind will usually be “appropriate” in a
general way, but not very deeply connected to what is really happening
dramatically.

Let’s say we have a scene around a kitchen table where two guys are arguing. One
eventually jumps up, pulls a gun, cocks it, and points it at the other’s head.
The most obvious sound effect to feature is the cocking of the gun. Ironically,
the other prop I mentioned (the table) could supply a more powerful sound. As
our guy stands, maybe he shoves the table toward the other guy. The scrape of
the table legs on the floor could be fashioned to evoke danger more effectively
because it comes from a place we don’t expect. Knowing we may want to use the
sound of the table in this way will influence everything about the way we set up
and block the shots.

The best way to find unexpected storytelling elements is to experiment. If I am
designing the sound for the scene around the table, I will want to simulate the
set as closely as possible. Then I will move and play with every object and
surface in the place, listening for sounds that have the dramatic values I can
use to enhance the scene. On the other hand, unless I can do this experimenting
before shooting starts, there is no way I can influence the way the scene is to
be shot. If the Director and Actors
are really sharp, they will discover ways to use sound in the scene as they’re
rehearsing. Similarly, they’ll find ways to use the table itself and the space
between the two characters in the scene.

If I am directing the scene, I will want to experiment with sound in this way
before the scene is shot, so that I will be able to block and shoot, and even
construct the set in ways that take advantage of sound.

*- A Craftsman knows how to avoid accidents — an Artist knows how to use them -*
Nothing paralyzes an artist more than fear of screwing up. The first step toward
curing writer’s block is to begin writing, even if the most you can manage is to
type random words. Writer’s block is not the inability to type. It is the
inability to type something of value. So you begin to cure it by typing
anything. If nothing else, you copy the phone book, or the Bible, adding a word
or two of your own now and then. Another approach might be to tear a page out of
a book or newspaper, cut the page into
pieces, rearrange the pieces and see if any interesting juxtapositions occur
that might beg for elaboration. Sound editing and design can use the same sort
of trick. I often begin working on a movie by listening, more-or-less at random,
to lots of sounds. Many of these sounds may have nothing to do (superficially)
with the movie. Eventually I hear a sound that makes an interesting connection
between two moments, characters, or places in the film. Out of this kind of
technique you try to form a style for the sound in the movie, and you try, when
appropriate, to get other collaborators (including the Director) to help you by
modifying the cut, the dialog, the music, etc. in order for all the elements to
play off each other. That is what sound design is about. Most people think sound
design is making alien vocals, ray guns, and space ship sounds. The same people
probably think that film editing is about cutting stuff out of the movie that’s
boring.

Mistakes, accidents, and the unexpected often provide the spark that leads to
great work. The trick is to plan and execute your creative process in a way that
makes room for lots of experimenting and lots of mistakes early. Rehearsing is
not mainly for the purpose of “memorizing” what needs to be done. Actually the
best reason to rehearse is to discover what needs to be done.

*- We may not create or invent — we always discover - *
I don’t think the word “create” describes very well the process of trying to do
fresh work. Creating implies making something out of nothing. For me, the
creative process is about reorganizing things which are already there. The sound
artist John Cage often used what he called “chance operations” to decide what to
do at each step of his process of composing music. Sometimes he would use the I
Ching. Sometimes he would write instructions on a sheet of paper, then cut up
the paper, toss the pieces into the air, then try to follow the instructions that randomly formed as the pieces landed. I don’t think Cage’s techniques always produced wonderful work, but they can be a good way to begin. My approach is to use chance only as a starting point, not as the sole mediator of the work.

So, Uncle Randy’s simple rules for being more creative are:

1. Learn your craft thoroughly, reading everything you can about the traditions
and conventions of the craft, as well as experiments on the modern cutting edge.

2. Begin each project with few assumptions about the methods you will use. Let
the needs of the project, most of which you won’t know until after you’ve
gotten your feet wet, determine your approach.

3. Experiment as early and as often and as inexpensively as possible. Make lots
of mistakes when mistakes are cheap.

Original URL: http://www.ideabuzz.com/cas/archive/journal/creative.html

Articles by Randy Thom

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