Actors Directing

Hi There,

Stagnation is the death of creativity. So, when I start to feel stale and need to upgrade my thoughts and theories, I often switch to studying a parallel craft. The mental workout from an art form just adjacent to acting helps me make new connections I might otherwise miss. In the past, I’ve examined writers, movement specialists, psychologists, and now most recently: directors.

The study of directing and directors is an information gold mine for actors. To dive in further, I turned to the best source for filmmakers…

Be well,

JC

For thirty-five years Judith has worked closely with directors and writers like David Chase (The Sopranos), Alejandro Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant), Ava Duverney (When They See Us), and many more. With her guidance, these directors have found award-winning and deeply moving collaborations with actors—reimagining script and story using simple tools she’s developed through her work.

In preparing for this study, I came across so many must-share nuggets: a wealth of interviews with TV directors, an iOS/MacOS app that’s great for prepping scripts, and Judith’s updated book Directing Actors.

“The director is the guardian of the story.
The actor is the guardian of the moment.”
—Judith Weston, The Film Director’s Intuition

There are too many interviews to cite, but some of the ideas Daniel Stamm (Them, Prey for the Devil, Fear the Walking Dead) brings up resonated deeply with me. I especially responded to his advice on really forcing yourself to come up with alternative approaches to the “standard way”, and the beauty of working through your own resistance.

This Emmy-Winning App is ideal for filmmakers or actors who want to seamlessly integrate shot lists, notes, set plans, and more. When you get a new pdf script revision, it automatically copies over notations from the old script into the new pdf. Brilliant.

This company is on a mission to help productions go paperless. So, if you’re a multi-hyphenate using iOS or MacOS, this might be the perfect tool for your script notation needs.

Download Scriptation

She also lays out analysis tools she recommends for interpreting the script, offering even simpler explanations for how to put these tools into practice.

For actors, this book is invaluable as she illustrates ineffective direction that can shut down the creative process, and writing that can stifle rather than free an actor’s impulses. Being able to recognize these flubs when they happen can help actors avoid the inherent pitfalls they create.

Some favorite takeaways:

• Adjectives are static, they describe someone else’s impression of the character. The essence of a person is not other people’s descriptions of [them].
• If you are directing drama, and you want the audience to engage with the characters and their predicaments and adventures, it is essential that the actors listen. Without listening a dramatic scene is just “my turn to talk, your turn to talk”; it becomes a scene about two actors’ performances instead of a scene about a relationship and an event in that relationship.
• The words that characters speak to each other are not the scene. The scene is the underlying event to which the words are clues.

Purchase on Amazon:
https://jamiecarroll.me/directing-actors-AMZ

Purchase on Barnes & Noble:
https://jamiecarroll.me/directing-actors-BN

Purchase from an Independent Bookseller:
https://jamiecarroll.me/directing-actors-INDY

Or, check the stacks of your local Public Library.