Hollywood Camera Work Directing Actors

This week-long workshop will focus on scene analysis, exercises, and techniques to take directors deeply into the dynamics of directing actors. Throughout the week, students explore and rehearse scenes with a team of actors.

Hollywood Camera Work Directing Actors

Through scene study, character investigation, exercises, rehearsals, improvisation, and review of on-camera work, participants will arrive at a richer understanding of their material and craft, learn to be present in the moment, and communicate constructively. By the end of the week, you will understand the common language that leads to honest and powerful work.

While this workshop is focused on directing, writers and cinematographers wishing to learn powerful tools that will equip them with a more profound way to understand character and performance are also welcome to participate.

GH228 (4 credit hours)Prerequisite: GH125 Introduction to ActingIn acting for the camera, less is often more. Through exercises and scene study, this course will help actors hone their craft for the screen and help directors understand the boundaries the screen requires for the actor.

F308 (4 credit hours)Prerequisite: All Tier 1, All Tier 2, F210 Directing 2Exploration of the challenges of directing sequences involving action and movement for both drama and comedy. Coursework includes hands-on directing projects designed to advance understanding of how camera placement and other tools allow action to speak to the audience in the way the filmmaker intends.

V235 (4 credit hours)Prerequisite: F110 Directing 1Reality TV is one of the hottest genres in entertainment today. Students will work together to create reality series, of both the competition and non-competition stripe, with full understanding of their development and structure. They learn the rigors of ongoing production, capturing moments, encouraging subjects who may be reticent in front of the camera, and combining all elements to create a viable TV program.

V350A (4 credit hours)Prerequisite: V102 Introduction to TV ProductionWith cable networks embracing multi-camera sitcoms and sketch comedy shows along with ongoing broadcast network production, understanding and experiencing multi-camera comedy can lead to increasing opportunities in the business. In this course, students will learn the artistry behind shooting the multi-camera comedy or sitcom. Students learn how to plan a production and break down a script, and use existing sitcom scripts to direct multi-camera sequences.

Alex Ferrari 3:42 I appreciate I truly truly appreciate you coming on the show. Because your book directing actors, it was such a big part of my early directing education because a lot of the things that are in your book, they weren't teaching to me in film school, especially the film school I went to they really didn't focus a lot on the directing aspect of things. So your book was like a treasure trove, and still is a lot. I mean, there's nothing that's gone stale, all these techniques, you know, actors are still actors, directors are still directors, and your book was so instrumental in helping me in my directing career. So first of all, I want to just as a fan, thank you for writing it. Thank you, thank you for writing it and putting it out into the world and and we'll talk more about the book and the new version of it that just came out and other things. But before we get into it, I just want to ask you, how did you get in? How did you start on this journey on helping directors, you know, direct actors?

Judy Weston 4:36 You know, I was thinking about this, I knew you were gonna ask me this because people always start interviews with this and I'd listen to some of your others and, and, and, and I realized when I was thinking about it, and I realized how much I just like talking about myself and talking about my work. What I'd like to do is do the work and you know, help people like you say, but it I mean, the short answer of how I got into it as I was an actor, you know, I was an actor. And I began to see that some directors were good, and some were not. And I began to notice certain things. And I think it was the second I come up from theater. So in theater, you do a lot of rehearsal, and you have a lot of collaboration. And you never view your Will you never argue about changing lines in theater, but you can argue with your director all you want. So that's, you know, that's different about theater than film. And, but I loved I love getting into television and getting into film, I loved it right away. But the second job, I got the first job I got, I had the, like, maybe the best director in the world, and john Cordy. And the second job I got was for an afternoon special. I was living up in San Francisco, and they used to, that's where I'd gotten started acting, and they used to shoot up there was great place to shoot. Right? And, and cast the smaller roles from the local people. So I got this job as Miss Palmer, the, you know, the teacher, right after school special. So, and I, you know, so happy at my second job, that was very exciting to get a second job very soon after my first one. And I bounced up to the director on the first day. And I said to them, Oh, thank you. I'm so happy to be here. What shall we do with Miss Palmer? And, and he looked at me, like, I had two heads. And he said, Well, just do what you did in the audition. You were great. And, and I just thought, okay, okay. There are directors who don't know how to talk to actors, or who aren't interested in talking to actors and aren't interested in hearing ideas, or talking about or even talking about ideas, you know, even expressing their ideas are having ideas. And they're, they're kind of piecing things together. Like, it's a jigsaw puzzle. So, um, so I filed that away. I mean, I was an actor, I, I wasn't interested in teaching at that point, I wanted to, you know, work as an actor. And, but I, but I had been told by my acting teacher, Jeanne Shelton, you know, one of my major mentors, a mother figure, if you will, that I would, we had a special relationship and, and she always told me that someday I would teach. So at a certain point, when I started teaching, I remembered, you know, I remembered this, I'm sure, very wonderful. I'm sure you did a very good job with this after school special. And, you know, Miss Palmer that and I thought, you know, directors really need to know more about what actors do. You really, really need to know more about actors. And so I started out, I was just doing an acting class. For directors, I just said, I'm going to make it you know, once a week for eight weeks, people will, you know, they won't mind signing up for that. And, you know, I'll just teach them some acting. And I had, I had been teaching a class called acting for non actors. So I discovered that I was good at that I was good at getting people to, I was good at getting a performance out of somebody who never acted before. And, and so that and I thought, well, they'll figure it out themselves. If they get in the actors, shoes, they'll figure out for themselves, what's going on with actors, and they'll have more empathy, and they'll be able to communicate better. But people still kept asking me questions they kept asking me and the main questions were always, why do I need to know this? And how can I use it? And, and at first, I always I had the idea. Well, it should be obvious, it should be obvious you I'm teaching you about verbs. So it should be obvious that you should use verbs when you communicate with actors, but it wasn't so. So that was just fantastic. I always learned much more from my students than then I'm sure I ever taught them because they, you know, they, they they kept, they kept at me. Why do I need to know this? How can I use this? And so I thought, well, I got to figure that out. And so and they really pushed me to figure out exactly how, you know, precise ways that the tools that actors use, like, like backstory, emotional, or what I call emotional history, emotional history, verbs, objectives, you know, what the character wants from the other character imageries subtext imagery, the things that are going the memories and the and the ideas that are going On in the characters mind, and how those, you know how those could be directors tools, as well, you know, in addition to actors tools,

Alex Ferrari 10:09 So I'm going to give you I'm gonna tell you a story of when I first directed my first short film in college, please do your stories. So when I first when I got a group, I went to an acting studio, and I went there and befriended a bunch of actors, I said, Hey, guys, we're doing a short film. And it's, it was shooting in an apartment, it was some college, you know, like a bunch of college kids sitting around talking, it was, you know, the experience of that I had at that point in my life. So we got all these actors together, and they came over and, you know, had all my technical stuff, I was shooting with the cameras, and I had like, little crew together and everything. Then the actors started doing, they went outside to they started, like, kind of yelling and going like trying to shake something out of themselves, like bla bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, I had never seen anything like this before. And I'm like, Oh, my God, these people are crazy. And at that point, I realized all these people speak a completely different language than I do. They don't, they don't we are, it's like Earth and Mars and Venus. You know, it's like it literally, it's just speaking another language. And I was able to communicate with them. And I was empathetic, and I was able to get, you know, to a certain extent, there was some result that directing and there, there was some other things, you know, on the nose stuff that you do when you're a young director. But that was the first moment I realized, like, I need to understand how these, these collaborators speak, just like I had to learn cinematography, language, music, composing language, production, design, language, all the other departments. As a director, you need to understand their languages, but actors specifically because they're such an integral part of the storytelling process. And then that's when I picked up your book, and I started learning more about it with other too. But I feel that there's so many directors, so many directors that that run, when they get an actor like that, are actors like that. They're shocked. And they just don't know what to do, let alone with all the pressure of trying to actually make a movie, let alone a bunch of actors yelling and screaming and doing things that they've never seen before. Right, right. Did you ever take an acting class, I did, I took a couple acting classes. In my, in my day, I realized that I do not want to be an actor. Because it is I when I took the acting class, I realized, first of all, I became I became so empathetic to what an actor does, and how they do it. And the exposure that they put themselves out there to do what they do good actors, at least, to do what they do. And from that moment on, I was always very kind to in castings, and things like that, but from what I became your, your kind of person I tried, and that matters, that counts. I try, I try. But I always realized that even in castings, which are brutal, I mean, I've seen casting directors shred, you know, actors, you know, and if I had any sort of power in this situation, I made sure to stop it. But I've seen it, I always made sure to be extremely kind and courteous, and, and just just empathetic to what they do. Because it's, it's so it's such a sad thing, because you as an actor can prepare and do everything. And you might be awesome. And you might know your lines and everything, but you walk into that room, you just not might be you're not what they're looking for. And it's nothing, it's nothing personal. It's not you, it's not a judgment on you, your talent, I'm looking for someone who's six, five, African American, or and you happen to be five, eight, an agent and like it doesn't, it doesn't work, you know, it's your acting is fantastic. But it's not work for the part, or I have something in my head that it's not matching what's walking in. So I became very empathetic. And I think that's one of the keys of a good director is to have empathy for what they're doing. I think that's the starting point, then you build that relationship. Is that a fair statement? 350c69d7ab