The Art of Film Acting

A Guide For Actors and Directors

Jeremiah Comey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136047213
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

This guide for actors and directors develops a valid method for training performers to act from their core--whether they are cold reading, auditioning, or performing for film or television. This book teaches actors how to achieve and respond to believable and honest emotions before the camera, and it maintains that the key to a successful performance lies in how the actors relate to one another and to the circumstances. Exercises, including script examples, throughout the book give readers an easy resource for practicing the principles outlined.

The Art of Film Acting applies a classic stage acting method (Stanislavsky) to the more intimate medium of performing before a camera, teaching readers to experience an emotion rather than to indicate it.

1

The Exercise

Jack Nicholson, in Five Easy Pieces, single-handedly ushered in a new style of acting, a brand-new spontaneity that seemed to indicate he was performing without a script.

Shirley MacLaine

My aim is to get you to relate to another actor as a real human being—woman to man, boy to girl, mother to daughter, man to man—and not as a person saying words from a script according to some logical idea as to how they should be said. I’m going to show you how I conduct my film-acting “Relating Exercise” to teach actors how to relate and how to concentrate. I teach more than the Exercise, but in it you learn the essential skill that sets you on your way to learning all the other skills that are fundamental to your becoming a great actor.

Here is a Relating Exercise scene as it was done in my class. A California Highway Patrol Officer, Chip, has stopped a beautiful woman, Mary, for speeding and is writing her a ticket. Mary, though a beginning actor, has no trouble relating to Chip. She is open, finds him attractive, and flirts with him. But the actor playing Chip, although he has been on a few auditions, has a problem: he’s “in his head,” which means that he intellectualizes the role and is acting with the idea that he’s a cop, because the script and his logic have told him he’s a cop. So he “acts” how he thinks a cop should act, which, of course, prevents him from relating honestly to Mary. As a result, he is pretty dull and uninteresting. I work with him to get him “out of his head” and to respond to what Mary is doing. When he finally does get out of his head, both he and the scene become interesting.

The two beginning actors face each other. Earlier, I had asked each to read the scene once silently, without making any judgments. (As in all scenes in this book, the directions in parentheses are descriptions of what the actors actually did.)

CHIP

(formal and official)

May I please see your license and registration?

MARY

No.

CHIP

Excuse me?

MARY

I left in a hurry and forgot my purse.

(flirting)

And it looks like I’m going to miss my hair appointment.

(Chip is unresponsive to the fact that he is talking to a beautiful woman who is flirting with him.)

CHIP

Can I see your registration?

I interrupt the scene.

JEREMIAH: What is she feeling?

CHIP

(to Jeremiah)

She’s angry because she is getting a ticket.

(She is definitely not angry.)

JEREMIAH: That’s an idea you’ve got in your head. Look at her eyes and forget about being a cop. What is she feeling?

(Mary is smiling, seductive.)

CHIP

(to Jeremiah)

She doesn’t like me.

JEREMIAH: Are you kidding? Look at her face. Is she happy, sad, angry, afraid, or loving?

CHIP

(to Jeremiah)

She is afraid.

JEREMIAH: Where do you see any fear?

(Mary is still smiling and very appealing.)

CHIP

(to Jeremiah)

Well, she’s getting a ticket.

JEREMIAH: I’m not talking about what the script says. Look at her eyes. What makes you think she’s afraid?

CHIP

Nothing.

JEREMIAH: All right. Look at her mouth. Is she happy?

CHIP

She’s smiling.

JEREMIAH: Then is she happy? Is she loving? By loving I mean is she warm, caring, flirting, or anything that can be classified as loving?

CHIP

Yeah.

JEREMIAH: Then deal with that. The script says she’s angry, but she’s not. That’s all you have to deal with. Look at her eyes.

CHIP

She seems to be coming on to me.

JEREMIAH: You see it! Great! Then is she happy and loving?

CHIP

Yes.

JEREMIAH: Then deal with those feelings when you say your lines.

(Chip is now concentrating his attention on Mary’s emotions. She is flirting.)

CHIP

(laughs, responding to her flirting)

Is this your name? Mrs. Mary Brenco?

MARY

It’s Miss, not Mrs.

(smiling)

I hate that feminist stuff about women’s liberation.

There’s only one place where a woman should be liberated.

(She laughs suggestively.)

(Chip gives her a coplike disapproving look. He goes back to acting the way he thinks a cop ought to act.)

JEREMIAH: What is she feeling?

CHIP

She’s loving.

JEREMIAH: Are you dealing with that emotion?

CHIP

(to Jeremiah)

No. I’m maintaining my cool because a cop would never get involved. It would be out of character.

JEREMIAH: Forget about how you think a cop should react. Deal with the emotion she is giving you. A movie scene is between people, not between robots.

(Chip has trouble relating to Mary because the idea of being a cop still gets in his way.)

I ask Mary to stroke his face to break his paralyzing concept of being a cop. Touching stimulates intimacy, the exact opposite of Chip’s idea. As we shall see, touching evokes the Art of Giving and Receiving.

(Mary repeats the lines as she strokes his face.)

MARY

Yes it is. But it’s Miss, not Mrs.

(lovingly)

I hate that feminist stuff about women’s liberation.

There’s only one place a woman should be liberated.

(Chip gets turned on by her touching his face, and he reacts lovingly.)

I interrupt the scene and play back this part of the tape for the class. We see that he reacts to Mary instead of trying to act an idea.

JEREMIAH: That works much better. (to the class) See how much more interesting they both are?

(Return to scene)

CHIP

(smiling, because she is stroking his face)

Miss, you were doing 95 in a 65. I’m putting it down at seventy-five.

MARY

(laughing)

I didn’t know I was that fast.

(Now he’s getting into it.)

CHIP

(laughing)

I’m also putting you down for driving without a license.

MARY

(laughing)

You’re not going to take me into custody?

(Flirting, she kisses him.)

CHIP

(ignoring the kiss)

...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. The Exercise
• 2. Stage versus Film Acting
• 3. Becoming a Great Actor
• 4. Sight Reading
• 5. The Art of Concentration
• 6. The Art of Not Knowing
• 7. More on the Art of Not Knowing
• 8. Still More on the Art of Not Knowing
• 9. The Art of Acceptance
• 10. The Art of Giving and Receiving
• 11. The Senses
• 12. Intimacy, Empathy, and Intuition
• 13. The Audition
• 14. More on the Audition
• 15. The Comedy Audition
• 16. Conclusion
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• Videography
• Index