Cinematography Tutorials 2

The Color Palette Of "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind"

Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a cinematic text that cries out for theory. From bioethics to psychiatry to narrative studies, this film proves loaded for analytical picking and flicking. However, in lieu of these more weighty sensiblities, I would like to offer a few direct observations on Gondry's usage of specific color palettes within the film, and how these visual devices, in turn, generate meaning for the film as a whole.

Colored Narrative

Of course, in the first case -- and most importantly -- the film's color schemes present to the viewer a mnemonic method for arranging the film's non-linear narrative within an intelligible order. The most immediate clue for maintaining this arrangement over the discourse of the film is to note the color of Clementine's hair at any given point. In the chronology of the couple's relationship (given in non-linearity as Joel recounts his rapidly vanishing memories), Clementine's hair color moves from green (her first time meeting Joel on the Montauk beach), to red (happy times with Joel, including the instances of her "leading" Joel around in his memory to attempt to salvage memories of her), to orange (relationship stasis and breakup), and finally, to blue (post-breakup and re-falling in love with Joel).

Accordingly, the "personality" of Joel and Clementine's relationship becomes, in effect, color-coded. Clementine, upon their re-meeting board the train to New York City from Montauk, even declares to Joel--albeit in coded terms--that schizophrenic association of hair color to personality. As they sit on the train together, the couple tries to ascertain where, when, and how they may have previously met each other:

Joel: I would've thought I'd have remembered you.
Clementine: It might be the hair.
Joel: What might?
Clementine: It changes a lot;- the color. That's why you might not recognize me.

Here Clementine hints that hair color changes and personality changes within the film are related occurrences. This conversational exchange also raises the frightening technological import of the whole Lacuna procedure -- that the erasing of one's memories, and hence personal identities, become as casual and simple as the changing of one's hair color.

Secondly, it engages the viewer to take into more precise account what associations (both cultural and cognitive) come with certain color schemes. Additional extensions of meaning follow from the use of hair colors. As heuristic device, one may assign to the stages of a romantic relationship the particular scheme of a deciduous tree's seasonal color changes. In this scheme, the leaves of the spring and summer are green. Autumnal leaves first become red, then orange, as they become increasingly dessicated in cyclical advance to the symbolic "death"; embodied in wintry coldness and barrenness.

In this fittingly seasonal scheme, Joel and Clementine’s relationship progresses/regresses according to the color scheme of Clementine’s hair. At the start of their relationship, Clementine’s hair is green (as shown in the party on the beach at Montauk). Clementine’s hair is later shown as red, during a hiking trip, during which they seem to be enjoying each other’s company. However, by the time Clementine’s hair is orange, relationship troubles are apparent. Any sort of romantic playfulness between the two of them is notably absent as they silently share dinner together at a Chinese restaurant, during which Joel solemnly reflects: “Are we like those bored couples you feel sorry for in restaurants? Are we the dining dead?” By this stage, the “winter” of their romantic relationship is fast approaching.

Clementine, furthermore, assigns highly specific, culturally-loaded modifiers to the hair coloring dyes she uses over the course of her relationship with Joel. As she sits talking with Joel on the train from Montauk to New York City, she lists the names of several hair dyes: Blue Ruin (also the name of a cocktail she serves to Joel later that evening), Red Menace, Green Revolution, Agent Orange, and Yellow Fever. These color descriptions are not of the sort that one would expect to find on a Crayola box, or even upon a package of Manic Panic. Referencing totalitarian Marxism, infectious disease, toxic herbicide, and even Asian fetishism, these modifiers serve to evoke charged responses in the listener-viewer. Love is far from innocent in Gondry's narrative, so neither are the particular colors that modify this love.

Poetic Namesake

It is also necessary to consider the very poem from which the title of the film is taken. Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard” offers additional insight into Gondry’s specific use of color palettes. These very schemes are introduced in the poem itself:

But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves,
Long-sounding aisles, and intermingled graves,
Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws
A death-like silence, and a dread repose:
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene,
Shades ev'ry flow'r, and darkens ev'ry green…

This excerpt from the poem references the film’s use of color on several levels. “Twilight”/“dusk” color schemes feature prominently at the beach scenes during which Joel and Clementine (re)meet each other. Joel’s tearful drive home to receive his memory-erasing procedure, as well as the earlier moment of breakup with Clementine, occurs in the night (a well-depicted visual instance of “Black Melancholy”). The green that colored Clementine’s hair at their first meeting at Montauk, as well, subsequently darkens to blue at the conclusion of their relationship. Moreover, that this “Black Melancholy” sits upon “long-sounding aisles” opens itself to a reading that references a particular case of homophonic association. The “long-sounding aisles” of Pope’s poem, under Gondry’s direction, become the “Long Island” of the film. Certainly, the gloomy gray tones of Montauk, Long Island, would recall the theme of “blackness” so prevalent to Pope’s poem. Black, it must be remembered, is the lack -- the lacunae -- of any color.

Within the poem, Eloisa expresses a desire to forget her romantic past with the (literally) castrated Abelard, who becomes a monk more out of circumstance than calling. Gondry consistently presents Joel Barish as a powerless and wishy-washy (symbolically castrated) male figure (while noticing Clementine on the beach beside him, he thinks aloud: “…I’m incapable of making eye contact with a woman I don’t know!…”). More specifically, during their breakup scene on the street, Clementine calls Joel a “faggot,” not to denote his sexual orientation, but rather, to connote his lack -- his lacuna -- of masculine power. In this sense, Joel of the film becomes the Abelard of the poem: a man emasculated and weak amidst his black (color-less) melancholy.

Reading Red

Notably absent within the film’s general color palette, however, is the color red. This seems a rather pointed omission, for “red” is both cognitively and culturally associated with love, romance, passion, and such qualities of a sensual nature. In what few instances, then, may the viewer notice the use of the color red –- that color so traditionally bound to notions of love and romance? Here, Gondry seems to be playing with the viewer’s expectations, forcing the viewer to search for “red” within a cinematography overwhelmingly dominated by steely blue and gray tones (the sky, the ocean, the trainyard) -- colors typically deemed “cold” and “unemotional.”

Several critical conclusions concerning the color red (and the lack of it) may then be drawn by the viewer. With the exception of Clementine’s hair, Gondry places other instances of red rather subtly within the film. The ostensible under-representation of red is perhaps most conspicuous on Valentine’s Day, as Joel awaits the train to take him to work: Only a few individuals can be seen holding red Valentine’s Day gifts, while the rest of the frame is overwhelmingly dominated, again, by steely gray/blue tones. As Joel sits on the beach with his journal later that day, however, the viewer notices a sign placed in the sand to his side. In red is written the warning, “For Safety, Swim In A Designated Area.” The color red, in addition to matters of romance, is also associated with “danger” and “warning.” Gondry, surely, must appreciate the semiotic play of this actual physical object –- the warning sign itself -- as signifier, insofar as it signifies the “dangerous waters” of love and heartbreak. The beachfront sign, then, remains doubly encoded: In an immediate sense, it states a direct warning against the literal dangers of swimming in unsafe tidal waters; at the same time, however, the posted sign becomes an extension of aquatic associations of love (for example, the adages that “there are plenty more fish in the sea,” or “if you want to learn to swim, you have to jump into the water”), and offers a well-placed caveat against the crossing of an oceanic/romantic bar.

The color red also features in Gondry’s utilization of extreme close-up photography to draw the viewer’s to one of Joel’s particular repositories of romantic sentiment, his snowglobe. As Joel undergoes the preparatory exercises for his memory-erasing procedure, Stan places a snowglobe on the table before Joel. Within the snowglobe, the viewer can discern (via the use of shallow focus and extreme close-up) a little red house. Joel stares at the snowglobe, then remarks that “[t]here’s a good story behind this” before Stan interrupts him from speaking further. In this example of the usage of the color red, the snowglobe -- with its quaint little red house -- holds a particularly fond association for Joel.

Scopophilia against Amnesia

Finally, color use enables the viewer to understand how Joel and Clementine are able to fall back in love after the brainwashing procedures done to each of them. In keeping with this cognitive approach, the use of color may also explain how Joel becomes re-attracted to Clementine. Clementine catches Joel’s eye on the beach while wearing an orange sweatshirt. This stands out starkly against the gray skies and water of the ocean (at both his first meeting with her and also at his re-meeting with her on the Montauk beach). Theoretically, Joel and Clementine could separate any number of times, have the Lacuna procedure redone as needed, and then re-fall in love, ad infinitum. This is because orange sweaters (which Clementine enjoys wearing, regardless of the status of her love life) on women is something that Joel finds attractive (Joel states this himself as he recalls his first encounter with Clementine on the Montauk beach):

“I remember being drawn to you even then…I thought, ‘Wow, how odd -- I’m drawn to someone’s back!’ You were wearing that orange sweatshirt…”

This urge occasions a curious “return of the repressed” on Joel’s part, despite his best efforts to destroy all memories of Clementine: Here, Joel can suppress the memories but not eliminate that cognitive trigger (the color orange itself) that initially attracted him, and then re-attracts him, to her. If the Lacuna procedure were actually to succeed for Joel, one would surmise, it would necessarily involve restricting his affinitive apperception of the color orange, or even outrightly colorblinding him (visual castration?). That orange is popularly considered the “color” of sunshine (or, perhaps more scientifically apropos, the sun) is a linkage that is critically seized by Gondry in relating the content of the film to the film’s title; that “sunshine” is Clementine’s personal display of orange, and hence assumes an “eternal” quality in that it recurrently attracts Joel to her. (In fact, can we definitely know that Joel and Clementine -- and even the other characters -- have only had the Lacuna procedure done once?)

Conclusion

The understanding and subsequent interpretation of Gondry’s use of color within Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind remains critical viewer’s appreciation of this cinematic text. To many film critics, this particular film might open up renewed space for the consideration of what makes specific color schemes within a film (un)attractive to the viewer. Gondry, for his part, enjoys playing with such inquiries within the film. This sort of color palette playfulness, indeed, raises questions worth further inquiry: For example, how does the relation of cognition to culture affect the viewer's appreciation of particular colors? How fundamental is the usage of color to convey any emotion? And even -- could a similar screenplay be transformed into a black-and-white film? Here, Gondry seems satisfied with offering to the viewer a more basic, yet nonetheless stimulating task –- the critical engagement of a color palette that is not only enchanting to decipher, but enjoyable, and often startling, to behold.

By Jonathan Doughty

http://www.acidemic.com/id76.html

The Color Palette Of "Slumdog Millionaire"

In my own attempt of compressing this year's Oscar-nominated films to full-length 1.44 MB files as part of my Floppy Films project, I also crunched "Slumdog Millionaire" to a 7x3 pixel/8fps/128 colors animated GIF. In such a stripped-to-the-bones rendering, the dominant color palette of the production design becomes quite visible. In the case of "Slumdog Millionaire", the dominance of red-brown-yellow 'curry' colors aptly reveals the whole exoticism of the film. Here is a zoomed look at the actual information opening frame of the film:

What does "Slumdog Millionaire" look like overall?

A montage of the entire film reveals a dark image dominated by unsaturated light tans, greens, and blues, with a few bright oranges and blues at the beginning and end.

What is the "Slumdog Millionaire" dominant color and composition?

Taking the mean of the entire film produces an olive green image with slightly brighter center-shot.

What is the "Slumdog Millionaire" dominant color palette?

Black and grey are main colors, as in most realistic cinema - this perhaps goes without saying, but maybe it shouldn't go unsaid, as it probably isn't true in things like cartoons, ads, or music videos. Besides black, a quantization of the top 12 colors shows greens, blues, and tan, with a little bit of orange. Reds and browns aren't anywhere near the top, and yellow is a minor note.

This olive-blue "Slumdog Millionaire" revealed above seems very different from the red-brown-yellow one in the artist's tongue-in-cheek description, however we can find that palette in the film. Here is the same process applied only to the opening two minutes of the film:

What does the opening look like overall?

What is the opening's dominant color and composition?

What is the opening's dominant color palette?

Here in the opening we can clearly see the red-brown-yellow 'curry' colors that the artist described, and perhaps begin to guess at how a general aesthetic assessment arose out of this strong opening impression.

This process of exploring "Slumdog Millionaire" suggests several things:

1. We can characterize the palettes of films as a whole, and it can be useful to do so.
2. We can characterize shots and sequences as differing from or typifying the character of a film as a whole.
3. We can examine the individual or group aesthetic impression of what typifies the "essential" character of a film and identifies which shots or scenes best correspond to that assessment.

Cultural analytics approaches to film can be a useful tool for cutting through confirmation or selection bias and seeing the character of the object clearly -- however, it is not simply a method for trumping aesthetic impression with quantified data. Inquiry can flow just a easily in the other direction, beginning with the fact of the impression, and asking what in the film best corresponds to or typifies that perceived essence. For example, if the impression of a critic or a group was that red-brown-yellow typifies the essential look of "Slumdog Millionaire," we could begin with the opening and closing shots and ask how / why / if they serve as an essential representation of the film as a whole. Or we could take the histogram of each frame (or of a rolling average for a short window of frames) and search it.

As processed for theatrical exhibition, the image for Slumdog Millionaire is highly desaturated and contrasty, as if shot with a strong curry filter that soaks up detail in the bargain. I took it that Boyle wanted to be careful not to make the slums of Bombay seem in any way colorful, as if to say "This is not Brazil!"

This article is copied from the following link:

http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2009/02/art-of-dominant-color-in-film.html

The Color Palette For "Finding Nemo"

Finding Nemo is a film about a father’s quest to find his son, and how he meets a series of characters along the way who help him overcome his fears. A logline for the film might be:

Logline: Finding Nemo

Marlin, a timid clownfish who has developed an extraordinary fear of adventure and the open sea after his wife (Coral) and nearly all of their children are eaten by a vicious barracuda, is forced to overcome his fears when his remaining son, Nemo, is taken by a scuba diver who is collecting fish to be pets for a dentist in Sydney, Australia. As he frantically goes on a search to find his son, Marlin is joined by a sprightly, memory-challenged tang fish named Dory in an epic adventure—confronting sharks, humans, and old torpedoes on his way to rescuing his son and finding his rightful place as a confident fish and supportive father.

What we learn from this logline is that we are going to be concerned with the father’s arc in this film. The movie isn’t about the son, Nemo, but about the act of finding him. This sets up the overall shape of the film: The ocean is presented as a beautiful, enchanted place that evolves, during the horrifying prologue, into a scary, ominous place for Marlin. It is only his fears that prevent him from seeing the beauty of the reef where he lives with Nemo. In fact, it is the outside world of humans who present the real danger to his way of life.

With this analysis, it was essential to create a world in which the reef is a beautiful, brightly colored environment, in contrast to the world that is going to take Nemo away from Marlin. By showing this change, the filmmakers can help the audience to feel the conflict that Marlin is feeling.

This contrast is perfectly illustrated in the scene in which Nemo, at his first day of school, is captured by a scuba diver collecting fish for pets. Marlin is forced to chase the escaping boat, hopping in and out of the water, until he ventures farther from the reef than he has ever allowed himself to go.

The analysis for this scene is:

Scene Analysis: Nemo Abduction Scene in Finding Nemo

After Nemo and his new classmates and friends have ridden on their teacher’s, Mr. Ray’s, back to a science expedition on his first day of school, Marlin horrifyingly discovers that they are going to visit the Dropoff, the area where Coral was killed. Petrified, he races out to the area to call Nemo back home, but he is so demandingly protective that his son rebels and swims farther out towards a boat, where he is captured by a scuba diver. Marlin, without thinking about his fear of the depths, follows the departing boat on a frantic chase into the darkest, strangest areas of the ocean until he finally loses the boat and his son. There he meets Dory, who at first raises Marlin’s spirits when she promises to help him. Then her short-term memory fails and Marlin is left to start a rescue attempt with nothing but his wits, his fears, and a loyal but useless Dory to help him.

In order to move forward, let’s ask the same questions that we always ask in our search for LEAN FORWARD MOMENTS.

• Whose scene is this?
• How does this character feel at the start of the scene?
• How does he/she feel at the end of the scene?
• Where does that change occur?

It is clear, despite the scene beginning with Nemo on his new adventure, that the scene is about Marlin: He is, after all, the focus of our logline and the sequence ends with his dilemma.

Marlin begins the scene watching his son go off on his first day of school. He has a lot of misgivings and fear about Nemo’s new adventure, even though they are surrounded by their vibrant and happy home on the reef. Marlin ends the scene determined to find his lost son, despite the fact that it will take him away from the reef and into unknown territory. He has moved from safety, even with his fear, into a much scarier world, and the focus on his mission allows him to ignore what should be a far more frightening world. In other words, Marlin has moved from safety into danger, but he has also begun his journey from fear to self-assurance.

That first LEAN FORWARD MOMENT happens when Marlin forbids Nemo from going out to the boat and participating in school. Nemo tells his father that he hates him, shocking his father, and swims out to the boat anyway, directly challenging him. The second LEANFORWARD MOMENT happens after the chase, when Marlin eventually loses sight of the boat (and Nemo) and finds himself in the deep waters.

How does the production design, along with the other facets of the production, help the audience to feel those LEAN FORWARD MOMENTS?

Pixar Animation, which produced Finding Nemo, has a very specific process for the development of both the script and its animation. They develop a series of color scripts, which are essentially colored drawings that encapsulate the feeling of each scene—the varying color palettes that will help to tell the story.

Production designer William Eggleston explains how the team approached defining the fanciful nature of the reef: “The coral reef is so beautiful but there’s so much there, and we had to find a way of organizing it, or paring it down, and choosing". The color script for the scene depicts the reef area as colorful and joyous.

The color scripts give the enormous production team a sense of the spirit of the film in this reef location. It shows how the colors of the film will help the audience to see how Marlin’s fears are based on something very personal and are somewhat overblown. This is a beautiful, inviting world, the production design is saying. Marlin’s fears must be irrational.

This color script, as Mr. Ray takes Nemo and the class on a field trip, gives a sense of the beauty of the reef area and the bright blue of the water.

In the documentary accompanying the film’s DVD release, there is a video of the crew videotaping a scuba dive for research. It is interesting to see that, as the camera jumps off the side of a boat and submerges, the color palette of the underwater world gets darker and dimmer with fewer colorful details. Yet that was clearly against the feeling that the collaborators needed in order to tell the story—they wanted it to look more detailed and more inviting, as you can see in a frame from the final film. The world that Nemo experiences, as he rides off on his field trip, is vibrant and exciting.

Notice that, although there is an increased amount of detail and brightness in the final image, the spirit of the color script is still there—the world is a bright and beautiful place. The color scripts, which had been created some two years before this final frame, clearly gave the filmmakers a great visual description of what the film really needed at its start.

Eggleston describes how the crew needed to choose a variety of color palettes for the water alone. You can see how the team used a very clear and light blue for the water in this part of the film. And, despite this happy treatment of the water and its surrounding colors, there is the contrasting point being made in that Marlin is still fearful of it. As production designer William Eggleston says:

• "What we decided to do was to establish a range of underwater color to track the characters through the film. So with the reef, we start with crystal clear, very light greenish-turquoise, and as the film progresses it gets darker and turquoise, and then black and then blue. And then as we get closer to Sydney Harbor, it becomes greener."

This means that the color palette needed to change in order to accentuate the LEANFORWARD MOMENTS of the scene.

The first moment occurs at the Dropoff area, after Nemo and his new friends see a boat floating on the top of the water. At that moment, Marlin shows up and wrongly accuses his son of wanting to swim out to the boat. In front of Nemo’s new friends, Marlin orders his son to return home and to give up school for that year. Nemo, for the first time, stands up to his father and tells him “I hate you.” He then swims out to the boat and is quickly captured by the scuba diver. This begins a chase sequence, as Marlin tries to catch up to the boat and rescue Nemo, jumping in and out of the water.

The color palette of the ocean begins to change at this point. Instead of Marlin being a bright orange color in the midst of a large number of other bright colors in the frame, he becomes surrounded by much darker hues. At times he is the only brightness in the frame. As we pass the first Lean Forward Moment, Marlin becomes the only bright color in the middle of the forbidding ocean. Notice the change in the color of the water.

Also, the colors that surround him when Marlin is above the water line are always much more muted than the ones back on the reef. So, as the scared little fish ventures out into the waters, preparing to face his fears, the colors around him will have to change. As Marlin ventures out into the darker unknown ocean, the color palette (as shown in this color script) changes so that he is the brightest spot in the frame.

The color palette changes again later in the film, as Marlin arrives in Sydney and is much closer to saving Nemo. But at this point in the film, when he has just lost his son, the world that he is forced to move into is much more dangerous than the one he has left behind. It is no coincidence that the collaborative team’s choice of color palette here, as Marlin begins his journey towards overcoming his fears, is very different than the one before this LEAN FORWARD MOMENT, when he lived on the reef, consumed by his fears.

The way in which the color palette of the frame changes around Marlin helps to give the audience an underlying emotional sense that things are changing with him. And that happens right around the scene’s LEAN FORWARD MOMENTS.

This article is copied from the following link:

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1317546&seqNum=3

Choosing a Color Palette/Scheme for Your Film

Choosing the color palette for your film will make it look much more professional. The color palette or color scheme is the collection of colors which are used in your video to add interest to it and can set a film’s mood or feeling. Color, next to music, is probably the thing that affects the audience the most, and the choices of dark, light, bright, or pastel color schemes create an indelible feeling in them. It is important, therefore, that we as filmmakers be in control of how that feeling is created.

This is one of the biggest differences between professional and amateur films. By choosing the color palette carefully, it will be much easier to make sure that your film looks as good as it possibly can.

There is a temptation to think of the design of a film as fixed, but that is far from the truth. We may have been inside a character’s room early in a film, for instance, but the look and feel of the room doesn’t need to stay the same when we return at the end. The overall feel at the start of a movie, as a character struggles towards a goal, should feel much different than at the end, when he or she achieves the goal.

Learning about color palettes can be very complicated because it's more of an art than an exact science. If you are not sure which colors work well together, then you need to read this article. Throughout this guide, you will learn how to choose the best colors.

Step 1: Understanding the Color Scheme

The color scheme is very important for your video as it combines the colors included in the scene. The colors are used in the background, clothing, props, scenery and the makeup. Everything in your scene will have a color, and it's important that these work together well.

Step 2: Deciding on the Color Scheme

It is important to decide on the color scheme that you want to use for your video before you even pick up a camera. This is important because it will make producing the video much easier. You must also stick to the color schemes you have decided on when you produce your video.

By sticking to the chosen color scheme, it will be much easier to create a seamless and professional looking film.

Step 3: Choosing the Background

The first thing that you need to do is choose the background and scene colors. This is important because everything else will be based around this. Try to choose one dominant color that you want to use. Try to avoid filming against a flat white wall because this will cast strange shadows which will interfere with the quality of the video. If you really must use a white wall as the backdrop, then you shouldn't use harsh lighting. Use a diffused light to try and minimize the shadows as much as possible.

Step 4: Choosing the Prop Colors

Next, you need to choose the colors of props. Choose a complementary color with the background. This is exactly the same as when decorating a room. Try to make everything fit and work together well.

Step 5: Choosing the Costume Colors

If you are able to control the clothing that you use in your film, then these should also complement other colors used in other parts of the film. This will make it much easier to create a professional looking film.

Step 6: Choosing Makeup Colors

Costumes also include makeup. You should choose the makeup colors so that they also complement the costume, scenery and props. This can be a difficult feat to master, which is why you might want to hire an art director to handle this for you. If you can do it yourself, though, you will find it very rewarding.

Directing the Actor 2 - Judith Weston

Directing the Actor

Little has been written on the pivotal relationship between the actor and the director. We regularly hear about combative rehearsal periods where actors feels disenfranchised while the director feels frustrated at being incapable of making the actor understand. There has been nothing written on the actual experience of actor and director when they are in conflict.

Many rehearsal periods have been hijacked due to an assumption of understanding when none existed? At this point, the actors start talking among themselves and the creative process usually unravels. There is a prevalent opinion that a negative hierarchy exists between actor and director. Actors feel that the director has the upper hand, because (s)he apparently knows what (s)he “wants” and the actor doesn't. There is also a presumption that the one who “doesn't know” is in a weaker position.

The creative process begins as a vision in the mind of the Director. Then it moves and is taken into the mind of the Actor. To let the Actor take that vision and create the images on the screen that once only existed in the mind of the Director. That creative freedom. Always allows the Actor to do so much more than what ever was ever expected or anticipated of them in advance. We whp make films know this creativity as "magic moments." They have been in every film I've made and they always will be. The freedom to put that bit of "magic" that couldn't possibly be there prior to shooting. Except, for the fact of the Actor's abilities to have all that creative freedom and all that creative force to work openly and feel totally unrestricted so that anything is possible.

Character Personality Traits

The first time a director works with an actor is usually during the casting session, and the thing I do to prepare for this session, is to make a note of each character's personality traits - the inner patterns and workings of their psyche.

Because all individuals have personality traits, knowing what type of person you are dealing with is an important first step to understanding the inner world of a character - and the actor!

There are four main functions of the psyche and each approaches reality from a different point of view and with a different question - each holds onto a different part of reality.

The four functions of the psyche are:

1) Intuition

2) Thinking

3) Feeling

4) Sensation

How to Determine a Good Performance in Casting

A good performance means you believe the actor. But how do you determine that in 10 minutes in a casting session?

Start with this statement "A good actor..." and then go through the following list.

"A good actor..."

- adapts quickly

- incorporates changes

- can concentrate and focus easily

- listens and sees

- gives and takes with other performers

- has a clear sense of character

- knows how to visualize

- acts on impulse, not on cues

- reacts well to problems

- is a good ensemble actor

How to Rehearse with Actors on the Set

During your first full rehearsal, watch the camera movement and the placement of the actors in the frame. Are you getting what you had imagined? Should you tighten up the lens? Should you delay the dolly in? Should you change the actor's positions slightly?

Once you are happy with this rehearsal and the crew have made their adjustments, begin another rehearsal - and watch the performances. If this is a TV Series, this will probably be your last rehearsal, so concentrate on the actors and make your notes.

Unless there is a technical problem, some like to shoot after the second rehearsal. They usually don't give notes to actors during the rehearsal stage unless it is about movement because cast and crew will only give 100% once the camera starts rolling - and that is the only time you will see if the shot really works.

Causes of miscommunication

1. Assumptions that are treated as realities:

“Directors don’t know how to talk with actors”.

Well, which director and which actor are we talking about, since they are all different? This is a sweeping statement. If it is true in some cases, we can address the question, “how can the director learn to communicate constructively? Interestingly, we didn’t hear from directors that actors don’t know how to talk with them. That is not part of the framework for the directors we asked.

“I have to protect myself from directors.”

What are they protecting themselves from? Do they know it’s true with the director they are in communication with? Directors have not volunteered that they need to protect themselves from actors.

2. Generalised Directing:

Here are some generalised notes from a director to an actor:

“You need more edge.” “Could you play higher stakes in the second act?” “You need to be louder.” These generalised directions often cause an actor to seize up. An actor in this state needs to sort out the specifics on his own. This becomes a problem when there are two different ideas of what “edge, higher stakes, or louder” mean. The actor does one thing but it is not what the director thought they were asking for. There is a leap of assumption that the actor had understood, but the director does not enquire as to how the actor understood the direction. Confusion inevitably arises. “I thought that’s what I was doing.”

3. Directors’ questions that are often voiced yet rarely fully explored

“How can I make the actor do what I want?”

This is a common question. It is posed without the input of the actor. To be able to explore this question right in the middle of rehearsal gives an insight into intentions, communication and collaboration. Two people are involved with the intention as related to the text, instead of the actor “doing” the director’s vision.

“How can I be sure to have a happy and comfortable rehearsal atmosphere?”

Can one be sure? Is it even possible that every show will have this ideal? If there are tools to meet incompatibilities constructively, does it matter?

“What are the conditions that allow for an in depth exploration of the text, unfettered by unspoken questions, fears and judgments?”

This is an invaluable question and is the underpinning of our research. It requires each director to ask the question and take the time to find out for themselves out of their actual experience.

4. Assumptions Based on Hierarchy:

The following are fixed ideas that sustain the impression of the negative hierarchy in the theatre:

“I won’t be hired again if I’m not good.” “I can’t ask question in case he thinks I’m stupid or being difficult.” “It’s the director's show.”

When caught in these thoughts, the actor is not free to ask questions or explore his ideas about the text. He finds himself with less information than he needs, and does his best to satisfy his director under these less than ideal conditions.

5. Struggles:

“I need to be director proof.”

Many actors express the need to be “director proof” yet they are still having struggles working with directors. But how many variations of “director proof” are out there? And how does this affect a director?

“I don’t get to explore my idea. I have no chance to show the director what I mean.”

When a new idea is introduced, it can take a bit of time for it to integrate. When a director gives little time for an actor to integrate the idea it can cause the actor unnecessary and frustrating reactions.

Often the excuse is given that there is not enough time. However, if the time is taken to understand how quickly an idea can be integrated (usually three or four times), then a director can use his own informed criteria for how long he will allow something to be explored. Here’s one director’s approach to exploring the actor/director relationship:

“I've thought about it a lot over the years, but mostly not very constructively, as most of the thinking was from within the context of trying to win some sort of struggle that had developed between me and whoever.”

6. Unfinished sentences:

“The key is trust.”

Trust in what, trust in whom? What do you mean by trust? Are the director’s criteria and the actor’s criteria for trust the same? Each person has their own criteria for what “trusting someone” means. A director trying to gain the trust of an actor is battling on delicate ground if he doesn’t know what the actor’s criteria are for trusting his director.