Major Production Unit: Research - Directing Actors

Directing actors: on paper it sounds straightforward enough - tell them what you want but it's this level of thinking that raises some questions; such as 'what to say specifically' and 'how to describe it'. Questions that I needed the answers to.

I have only ever directed one actor prior to this unit: and that was my lead in my Fiction Adaptation film 'The Death Bed'. That experience was pivotal as it was a lesson in communication to someone I'd known for about 10 minutes. But it was to be the set up for this unit, and this time I wanted to be prepared.

As someone who is strongly introverted, communicating to friends and family can be a tough challenge in itself. So to prepare myself for the process of directing I initially targeted the topic of speaking to actors first.

I started out a simple search online: "how to direct". Quite vague, but this allowed the widest possible amount of sources and articles to be discovered, but it did return an interesting result.

http://nofilmschool.com/2012/01/director-objectives

This is a guest article from D.O.P and Filmmaker Randolph Sellars, whom which provides detailed information and advice on Directing in one part of a series of articles on the website.

Sellars provides a scenario as an example of the advice he gives. This concept of establishing an objective for the character is something I will implement into my Directing of the cast as it gives the actor a motive to form their performance around.

He also recommended a book called Directing Actors by Judith Weston, which I found and browsed through. She provides some very useful information:

I found this book very helpful in understanding how to communicate and direct an actor and will definitely be trying out the advice given.

Randolph Sellars wrote another article in the Directing series: Learning How TO Talk To Actors.

http://nofilmschool.com/2012/01/director-learning-talk-actors

In the article, Sellars recommends attending an acting class, something I had been advised to do in the past and I have considered it but never carried through. Although I never got round to attending a class, I will make sure I do at some point in the near future. To learn what an actor does and to be on the receiving end of direction would be very useful information and a great experience.

Additional parts to the series:

http://nofilmschool.com/2012/01/director-power-collaboration

http://nofilmschool.com/2012/02/directing-gaining-trust


An article that states the six questions a Director should be able to answer if asked by an actor:

http://www.filmunderground.com/98/Article/NWFS/Working-with-Actors.htm

1. Who am I?
2. Where am I coming from?
3. Where am I?
4. Whom am I with and how do I feel about him/her?
5. What do I want from this person?
6. What am I doing to get what I want?

Some more articles and sources that I found:

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/10/character-performance-what-is-your-focus-as-director

http://spaciousacting.com/2014/02/06/directors-use-adjectives-actors-use-verbs/

http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/verbs/action-verbs/

http://www.gregpak.com/entries/001275.shtml