Film Acting

Basic principle #1: The camera is a lie detector...

Basic principle #2: Less is more.• Billy Wilder on Jack Lemmon’s first screen performance:

“His first day on a sound stage, with George Cukor directing, he's all revved up. He rattles down half a page of dialogue, rararaaumphrara, and then there's ‘Cut’ and he looks at Cukor. Cukor comes up to him and says, ‘It was just wonderful, you're going to be a big big star. However ... when it comes to that big speech, please, please, a little less, a little bit less. You know, in the theater, we're back in a long shot, and you have to pour it on. But in film, you cut to a close-up and you cannot be that strong.’ So he does it again, less. And again Cukor says, ‘Wonderful! Absolutely marvelous, now let's do it again, a little bit less’ Now after ten or eleven times, Mr. Cukor admonishing him ‘a little less,’ Mr. Lemmon says, ‘Mr. Cukor, for God's sake, you know pretty soon I won't be acting at all.’ Cukor says, ‘Now you're getting the idea.’"

• “Whenever I see myself in Red October, I can’t help but think, ‘Look how hard that guy is working.’ [Laughs] When you’re young, you push too hard. [Director] John [McTiernan] used to say, ‘Just stand there and say the line. Just be in front of the camera.’ Now I look back and he was totally right.”

Basic principle #3: The fundamental things apply...

• James Cagney: “Plant your feet, look the other guy in the eye, and tell the truth.”

• Don’t look at the camera, in the same way you wouldn’t look at the audience (unless directed to…)

Basic principle #4: A performance is made in the editing room...

• Most directors want

actors to give them “options.”

• On film, pauses, for example, are usually defined by an editor and/or a director, rather than an actor

Basic principle #5: Continuity

• Continuity: consistency of the positions, colors, sizes, etc., of objects onscreen; continuity errors break the illusion of watching actual events.

• Care towards continuity must be taken because films are rarely, if ever, filmed in chronological order

• Film shoots have a person dedicated exclusively to minding continuity.

Continuity Polaroid

Basic principle #6

• Emotional continuity: concentration

• Shot sizes: close-up, medium shots/two-shots, long shot/master shot

• Blinking