Sean Bardgett: On stage you're playing a character, on camera your being a person!
Mark Schoenberg: I dunno, Sean. You have to be what the text dictates in both stage and film. As I said yesterday, I don't like the word "character." You are always a person, aren't you?
Logan Brown: Projection! Both vocal and physical...
Colin Paradine: Size. Big for the stage, small for the camera. And yes Mark, I agree, text always dictates who you are.
Sean Bardgett: But it doesn't dictate how you feel!
Emily G R Martin-Johnson: as colin said - size matters....wait what are we talking about?
Sean Bardgett: Lol!
Mark Schoenberg: Okay. Now we're getting into it, folks. The big difference. In film, your audience is a foot away! You work for that audience. Everything is sized to meet that reality. BUT YOU DO NOT CHANGE WHAT YOU FEEL. You can compress it, redistribute it - but DO NOT as many Canadian actors do and as many bad acting teachers teach - DUMB IT DOWN. An intense emotion is an intense emotion. PERIOD. Ever wonder why we fall asleep watching home grown movies? Inner intensity and commitment and drive must never be compromised - simply rejigged for camera. Look at DiCaprio in "The Departed." Particularly the Psychiatrist scene with Vera Farmiglia.(?) Is that too big, too intense? Bullshit. It's amazing. Sean Penn in "Mystic River" when he finds out his daughter's been murdered. These are iconic examples of emotion ratcheted up, but controlled for the medium. We need to teach that and encourage screen actors to go for it and manage it properly.
Mark Schoenberg: So if you buy into that, what physical tool does the actor have to be aware of and use, perhaps, to greater effect than he might on stage?
Colin Paradine: 100% agreed Mark! Sean, the text should indeed tell you how you feel. After all that text IS who you are when acting.
Mark Schoenberg: You bet!
Tracey Leaver Taylor: Speaking from my own experience on stage if you make a mistake you can't take it back, on tv you can re do it!
Colin Paradine: And Emily, size does indeed matter... Or so I've been told.
Frank Moher: "What physical tool does the actor have to be aware of and use, perhaps, to greater effect than he might on stage?" Eyes.
Mark Schoenberg: Correct, Frank!!
Dave Rossetti: I have to fight through this claustrophobic feeling when in front of a camera, but not on stage. Not sure if that makes sense... just a feeling I get.
Frank Moher: Woo-hoo!
Mark Schoenberg: Maybe, Dave - because there's a ton of equipment around, a bunch of essential folk who aren't in the scene doing essential things - so a myriad of distractions impinge on the reality of the mise en scene. Hard to make love with the sound guy,sipping a Dr. Pepper, swinging a boom over your naked butt. Makes you feel jammed up unless you can drive it out of your consciousness.
Mark Schoenberg: Which, by the way, you need to do. Stage - there's just the environment and the audience - much more actual space.
Mark Schoenberg: Getting back to "the eyes." Clooney Vs Oldman in the best actor thingie. George doesn't use his eyes. Clark Gable without inner drive. His performances are 50 yards wide and 2 inches deep. Oldman, on the other hand, brings everything to an ocular point. The moments are lasered out - even though the performance is so restrained, you might wonder what's going on inside the guy. But he fascinates you because you SEE the subtle ebb and flow of emotion. A beautiful thing to watch. And that's the interior process I'm talking about. What every film actor should aspire to. Use your eyes to channel emotion.
Mark Schoenberg: Stillness, managing inner life, intensity. Eyes. These are techniques that must be learned and assimilated. Payton Manning doesn't have to think about how to throw a football. He spent thousands of hours thinking, doing, thinking, doing. It's all part of his muscle memory now. His body and his instincts respond automatically to the situation on the field. If he forces the ball, thinks about the throw or the process, he's going to be intercepted. It's being in the moment with perfect control of your tools and assets. Listen up, folks..
Jacob Barker: Great thread Mark.
Mike Lummis: I love the story of when Oldman auditioned for Dracula. All these guys had come in dressed in black/goth/period styles of dress. He walks in in jeans and a t-shirt and just stands there and scares the shit out of everyone. They said it was like being in front of a 200 yr. old monster. As Oldman says, do your homework and the rest is easy. I think the biggest differnce between stage and screen is that theatre is live and ALIVE. The energy and the fact that something is happening creates an energy. My biggest challenge in film is finding energy and focus when a lot of it is hurry up and wait.
Mark Schoenberg" He was a monster in "The Professional." Great film. Didn't get overwhelmed by him in the Batman movies. Also great in the Joe Orton biopic, "Prick Up Your Ears."
Mark Schoenberg: As for the hurry up and wait problem, Mike. I suggest actors practice what I call the "Moment Before" protocol. Example. Day one you shoot scene 180 where you're banging on the door of the Church trying to escape two bad guys. The night before the shoot, you have to find scene 180, make sure you know ir upside down and backwards (forget the rewrites in the morning :) ) and most important - place it in the arc of the screenplay - so that you know exactly what's happened to you, physically, emotionally etc -. Just before the scene is shot next day, you go to the moment before - get it cooking internally (NO THOUGHT) and let it rocket you into the scene when you hear "Action." Where you start the moment before depends a lot on your own personal process. I suggest you get it going when you hear "Actors, First Positions."
Mark Schoenberg: " . . .so that you know exactly what's happened to you prior to the action in scene 180." You provide an emotional and physical context for what you have to do as scene 180 begins. Clear as mud.
Mike Lummis: Perfectly put,Mark. You're absolutely right. Oldman is unbelievably good in State Of Grace,as well. Wow!
Mike Lummis: I must say that one advantage film offers is the actual locations and set pieces. I played a bank robber and we shot in a real bank and ran out and dove into our getaway car and peeled off. Not hard to get into it with all that stimuli.
Mark Schoenberg: Right. What stage can never do. But film can never give the actor the experience of contiguous performance - where every scene builds, without breaking the momentum, through to the end. And the feedback you get from the living audience. Well . . . most of them are living.
Mike Lummis: That's the thing. Theatre is the actor's medium because you get to go through the play sequentially and take the journey uninterrupted. As a director, I used to take offense at this notion. "Wait, what about the director?!!" The director is Crucial in preparing the actors.
Mike Lummis: In film, you're at the mercy of the cutting room floor. But,like you said,Mark, the buzz of live theatre cannot be duplicated.
Mark Schoenberg: The old Warner Bros stock company used to make movies in sequence. Maltese Falcon and the like. Those were the days.
Mike Lummis I think Carnage by Polanski was filmed in sequence.
Mike Lummis: Like you said,if you know the script inside out,you can plug in regardless of the sequence. But the waiting just drains me sometimes. I love showing up at a theatre,getting ready in the dressing room and getting out onstage. Much more exciting.
Mike Lummis: Gotta run. Great discussion,yet again.
Angela Froese: What I love is the whole rehearsal process in theatre, it's so creative -- not much rehearsing in film.
Mark Schoenberg: Unless you're doing "Lord of the Rings." :)
Angela Froese: lol! :)
Tony Fletcher: Great thread..'The Moment Before' an acting essential..esp useful in film/TV & critical in auditions. Laurence Olivier was once asked how he judged his on camera performances. 'It's all about the eyes'..he said..'if I get those right..I'm happy'. Gary Oldman easily one of the best actors of his generation....he'll eventually get that damn Oscar. And every young actor should study & analyse Anthony Hopkins' work in 'Silence of the Lambs' - a masterclass in how it's done. The moment we first see him onscreen still sends shivers down my spine..!
Gilda Farrell: My biggest difference is continuity. In a play you experience the growth of the character the way the playwright intended him or her to grow. In film the priority is location and you experience the growth of the character in bits and pieces out of sync. I find that less satisfying than stage. Also an audience is more satisfying to relate to than a hand, or a crew.
Jeff Topping: I'm retired now, but if I remember correctly, the actor's eyes. The back row of a theatre can not read them, while the camera is pushed right up into them. Camera work is also much more physically restraining, depending on what is the angle. the closer it is, the less you can move.
Jeff Topping: the non rehearsal process of camera work as well is a huge difference. and finally the paychecks.
Gilda Farrell: Also, in plays, I like the words. In movies you get to grunt a lot and look soulful. But in plays you can have the most magnificent words, illuminating the human condition, coming out of your mouth.
Luciana: Carro Money.
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