The Great Acting Blog: “Steps Towards Actor-Filmmaking”
One of the great things about acting (if you’re diligent and willing) is that you can improve your work very, very quickly. Why? Because of it’s simplicity. The only thing you need in order to act is yourself, you don’t need personnel or technology – if, for example, you are working on a speech and you don’t like the way it’s going, then you can make the necessary adjustments immediately, and so enjoy clear-cut improvements. Perhaps it is fear of losing this simplicity which renders so many actors hesitant about producing their own work – suddenly they need to deal with Human Beings, plus all sorts of technological thingumijigs, aswell as the myriad questions even the smallest production may cough-up.
We have shot about 40% of Noirish Project now, doing it in steps, and I have to say, this may be the way to go for the neophyte actor-filmmaker. Afterall, we often hear the recommendation that making a string of short films is the way to learn how to film-make, but why not just carve up a feature film instead? One of the great things about making the film in stages, is that there’s space to continually refine methods, because there is time to reflect and decide what to do differently next time. You can carry lessons learnt from the last stage into the next one, implementing changes immediately, leading to a tremendous feeling of progression.When shooting in a continuous block, the pressure and workload may be relentless, which leaves little room in the headspace for anything other than doing the tasks of the production itself. I’m not, however, suggesting that making a feature in stages has the simplicity of acting, clearly it doesn’t, but it may help actor-filmmakers establish a production formula for themselves, which in turn, may better equip them to deal with the tidal-wave of work which’ll come their way, rather than being massacred by it and never wanting to make another movie again.
Recently, I’ve began to feel I’ve really cracked the switching between mindsets of acting and filmmaking – I really feel as though the acting and filmmaking have merged to create one whole. I don’t know how I did it yet, it just seems to have clicked into place. Perhaps it’s just a question of making films regularly, and the practice and experience gained, breeding confidence. In my previous short films I sensed a clumsy transition from being behind the camera to in front of it, but this seems to have worn away, and there is a new found harmony in the work – this is an especially happy situation, since, for me, I experience all activities (directing, producing, writing etc) as part of my body of work as an actor, I don’t experience the roles separately – so this new harmony means everything is functioning as it should be. Once I understand why this has happened, I will surely share the lessons here.
Production on Noirish Project intensifies over the next few weeks, so I will be able to test further the ideas explored here.
