Directing, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 19

DIRECTING ACTORS

 

Apart from a knowledge of filmmaking, the most useful understanding any director can acquire is of acting. You can and should read about it, but more important is to take classes and actually do it. Acting is a well-documented craft, so what follows is a brief digest of useful ideas and practices.

IN SEARCH OF NATURALNESS

While an animator creates a complete world according to an esoteric vision, live action cinema must fashion its tales from people and objects captured by photography. The theater uses the same means but boldly forces the spectator to accept something patently untrue. Go to Hamlet and you must suspend disbelief and accept that you can see through invisible walls what's happening in a medieval Danish ...