What Filmmakers Can Learn from Actors

After almost an entire month of not blogging anything in regard to my Professional Studies module (I had my DAAD scholarship selection interview and a bit of schedule change), it is high time that I take it up again as quickly as possible.

And what could possibly be better than starting off with a real life actress? Namely, Alex Hall from Emmerdale!

Yes, I was baffled as well.

However, professional as she was, we immediately sat down and talked about the intricacies of filmmaking from her point of view as a veteran actress. Thus, a few of her snippets of wisdom were:

1. Be punctual. No, you don't get me. Never be late. NEVER. As time is money, especially in the film and TV industry, being late is considered utterly unprofessional. People do notice when you are late. They might not say it out loud, but you also won't be hired again. Many people are interested and wanting to work in this industry, so you're highly replaceable by whoever comes next who at least possesses the decency to be on time.

2. Treat people like human beings. With respect and all that it entails. Filmmaking is a business that is strongly based on likability. People won't be working with you in follow-up projects if you don't know how to treat them properly. This, naturally, also includes no gossiping and/or badmouthing. No one will work with a gossiper more than necessary. Even less so if you are still the newcomer that is reliant on being liked in order to climb the career ladder.

3. This also includes being mindful of your actors and extras. Take care of them and don't mix them up in terms of their status within your production. Actors don't like being treated like extras and will remember this kind of treatment in the future. Not to your benefit though. Thus, be supportive, comforting, and reassuring. Make compliments and demonstrate that you are, above all, interested and invested in their well-being and safety as an actor.

4. Be upfront about payment and/or expenses covered. With the surge of casting calls out there, no actor or extra will bother taking their time enquiring you about payment or expenses if you are not writing about them in your casting call. Be fair to them and don't rip them off if you can afford them. Actors and their work are what makes your film stand out, so reward that as far as possible within your boundaries.

5. Less is more in scriptwriting. Don't micromanage your actors by requiring them to follow your instructions to the point. After all, acting is a creative profession that is heavily drawing from the creativity and personality of an actor, so give them leeway to interpret a role, a side, or a line as they see fit for the character they are creating.

6. Never EVER lose a script! Depending on the size and notoriety of your project/film/series, losing a script not only means losing contact details of all the relevant cast and crew involved, it also means giving away the secret of how a story or plot line is developing or even resolved. This can cost you your job and reputation to the point of no return, so be mindful of that!

7. Coming to call sheets, these are the backbones of your production. Since they contain all the essential information from schedule to relevant crew members and location, they are massively important. Usually, these call sheets are done well in advance, with an updated version coming the night before the actual shoot to accommodate the latest changes.

8. Filming days are long and arduous, thus make sure to provide a green room with beverages and a good catering and schedule for breakfast and/or lunch or dinner breaks (depending on the length of your production day).

9. Since a lot of aspects need to be organised before every single take (lighting, camera changes, etc.), waiting around is a usual part of the work day for actors and is often used by them to go through their scripts.

10. As the filming rate is extremely high among soap operas, rehearsals are extremely rare and acting is usually done with the flow. But this also means being on the ball straight away. This also means that readings are getting fewer. However, in film, readings are major endeavours, bringing together the relevant people of all departments in order to get to a unified vision of the film and for each department to know what is demanded. Readings thus entail the following crew members:

- producer

- director

- script editor

- script manager

- actor

- props master

- costume designer

- lighting

- camera man

- cinematographer

- sound supervisor, and

-casting director

11. Having a cold is not an option for actors to stay at home. Since the competition is strong within acting, actors will turn up as long as possible for fear of replacement. They need to have their script prepared at all times and demonstrate that. One professional tip Alex gave us was looking out for whether the actor in question carried a pencil to take notes in the script or to ask them if they needed any props for a rehearsal. An actor who knows their script will be prepared. Because if they are not, they can cause another actor a valuable scene.

12. If you are filming a nude or sex scene, you employ what is called a 'closed set'. This is a set only consisting of the skeleton crew that is the absolute minimum and necessary to get the scene done properly.

13. Even after years of professional training, work, and experience, learning your lines by heart is a Sisyphean task. This is not only due to the fact that lines are often changed last-minute, but also mostly by the fact that our culture nowadays is heavily based on the written word and not so much on the spoken words anymore.

14. As a filmmaker, you will experience a lot of stress and time pressure on set. Which is why you need to look out for the makeup department who - apparently - does not care about time management.

What I furthermore found interesting, were the little details and lingo she had to offer from the daily routine of production. Thus, having a 'heavy pencil on someone' after audition means that a casting director liked that actor very much, but has not yet fully decided.

If the 'pencil is taken off you', it means that the decision was made against you even though you had been the favourite choice all along. The latter can happen out of marketing reasons, as certain actors are considered better selling factors for film than others.

Furthermore, 'sides' are the pages within a script that carry an actors lines. Usually, an actor would quickly skim through the script block upon receipt to gauge for any hints for their character and then quickly dismantle the script to obtain the sheets of paper on which their lines are printed.

To sum it up, I can only state that I was grateful to be able to meet Alex and to learn so much from her. She readily answered all our questions, told jokes, and showed interest in our professional aims and wishes. I felt that she was taking our course and us film students seriously and I am looking forward to meeting her again one day.

Maybe even as an actress for one of my films. Who knows?

References:

Alex Hall (2018) Alex Hall. Actress Wordpress [online] Image taken from: https://alexhallactress.wordpress.com [Accessed on 9 February 2018]