The Directing Process.

Stanley Kubrick

Now we come to the directing process and all that goes with it so I am likely to ramble on a little bit here. This is the one where directors will write to me and tell me I don't know what I am talking about and they may be right. As regular readers will know, and there are regular readers, I don't profess to be an expert on anything.
Some of those regular readers, by the way, read this within minutes of publication – how does that happen?
I have directed a few times; the first time was when I was in a film being produced and directed by a fella from the pop music business with plenty of money. He was also starring in it and I was doing a scene with a well known TV actor – I was playing his bank manager and we were talking across a desk.
We did his medium shot, close up and then they started to set up the shots on me; but instead of setting the camera up in front of the other fella they put it behind his head; in other words they crossed the line.
Great directors like John Ford and George Stevens have crossed the line and got away with it but this guy was making his first film.
Now 'the line' comes easier to an actor than it does to most directors and before I go on I'll explain it better – I hope.
If you cross it with the camera you will give the affect that (in our scene) one actor is looking at the other but the other one is looking away.
If you watched a game of tennis from the side or even a football match the camera has to stay on the same side of the field of play all the time, or the audience wouldn't know which person was hitting the ball in tennis or which team was kicking which way in football.
Also when people are moving in films – like someone running after someone else – they should be going the same way from shot to shot. Let's say from left to right; so when they come to a corner and turn it, the camera is always on the other side of the street keeping the subjects moving from left to right.
The audience watching these films are not aware of these rules, which were instilled into film makers by Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, but they would certainly notice it if they weren't followed.
Anyway – I said I'd ramble – we pointed out to our director that he was crossing the line and he changed the shot.
Later, when he had cut the film together, he showed it to the well known TV actor who said that it – the film - didn't make sense. So the well known TV actor wrote some scenes which he wanted me to direct.
Actors learn a lot about directing from working with directors and the best ones are in the theatre – the live theatre. They do proper directing. The crossing of the line and the other technicalities of actually shooting a film through the camera should be sorted out by the Director of Photography (the DP; DoP in Britain) in consultation with the director. The director should be directing the actors.
In early movies – look at the credits – they had dialogue directors. George Cukor was an uncredited dialogue director or a 'fill in' director on early movies; mostly uncredited.
When they asked me to direct the extra scenes in the movie I looked at the formulaic TV dramas at the time – Kojak etc – and copied those shots more or less: establishing shot, medium shots and close ups.
I also asked for a tracking shot and shot one of the scenes – involving a child – in one continuous shot.
It all worked out well and one shot we did with a mirror turned up on the DP's show reel; the mirror, which I had asked for, changed the dynamic of the whole scene.
All that was great fun – the film disappeared in a mountain of dysentery with all the other crapola films of long ago.
But the hardest part of the whole process is directing actors. As I have said actors work with great directors and terrible directors. They all manage to be there in the mix – in the theatre, in movies and in television and we know the difference.
Most directors in TV don't direct at all; they just set up the shots. It's the same in movies!
I was doing a commercial in Dublin once and, whilst we were having lunch in the Shelbourne Hotel, the DP mentioned he had made a film which was directed by a well known writer Wolf Mankowitz; someone asked him if he was any good and the DP said 'he just said action and cut!'
That film, also, disappeared into a mountain of dysentery!
Some terrible directors sometimes make good films; the DP, the sound crew, the actors and not forgetting the Cinderella men and women in Hollywood, the writers, bring the film in to an acceptable standard.
In the fifties the new wave directors came along and made wonderful French movies which have never been bettered. They advocated the auteur theory where the director is the sole author of the whole shooting match – his vision and his vision alone is what we, the audience, see on the screen – well the DP, the sound crew, the actors and not forgetting the Cinderella men and women in Hollywood, the writers, may have something to say about that.
I mentioned in a post before about famous directors of the past, and Woody Allen in the present, expect actors to direct themselves and come along on the day with their lines learned, their motivation and attitude all there. Their choices already to work with another actor who has also directed them self and come along on the day with their lines learned, their motivation and attitude all there hoping that it doesn't clash with the other guy's.
One of the scenes in Eyes Wide Shut, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Tom Cruise went into about 90 takes; yes ninety takes.
Is that good directing? A good director may only say one word to the actor which can fix everything but 90 takes? It is quite obvious that this very successful director who knew everything about lenses, cameras, lighting and only auditioned actors via video tape, didn't know what word to use to get the scene right from Tom Cruise.

The Audition Process.

I gave a little talk a couple of weeks ago to my Equity Branch; Equity, as a lot of people know, but not everybody does, is the actors union. It used to be called British Actors' Equity Association – the word union is not mentioned just like SAG (Screen Actors' Guild) and other Equitys or is it Equities? Maybe!!

I didn't take much time to prepare as I was learning lines for my play but, even though it was off the top of my head, I think it went well.

My branch, by the way, is The North West London Branch. The talk was about my time in Los Angeles and the difference between working there and in London – and there is a difference!
First of all when you get there you notice that it is a 'company town' in fact some columns in the Los Angeles Times are called that – Company Town.

There is a lot of help available for professional actors and anybody in the film business and from the Samuel French Bookshop on Sunset Blvd there is everything for the beginner to the old sweat of an actor who has been at it for years – like me.

I had to start all over when I got there; for a start off lots of American actors take classes, have acting coaches and are generally ready for work. They never leave the house without a head shot/résume in their bag and some even have sets of clothes in the car ready for any audition.

The British actors when they arrive might think this is pathetic and in fact a friend of mine said that actual word when we walked into Frenches.

At Samuel Frenches they have books of instructions published monthly on how to audition, what the agents are looking for that month, how casting directors are and what they like, what they don't like or how do they like to be approached.

I remember 2 things from the books and the thing all casting directors seemed to hate was actors coming in to meet them and asking if they could borrow their stapler – you are supposed to arrive with your 8'' x 10'' head shot stapled to the back of your résume and not leave it till the last minute.

Another thing I noticed for one casting director was 'do not touch the CD.' Of course I thought this was something to do with the CD player but no; do not touch the casting director (the CD) in case you pass something on – always wait to see if they want to shake hands with you – now, as my father used to say, what would that give you?

Yes, he would say, a pain in the shite!!

Getting back to the audition process; now when I say this I don't mean all British actors but a lot of British actors are a bit precious when it comes to the audition. A friend of mine went for an audition here in London and there were only 2 other actors up for the job; that would never happen in America. When he got there he noticed written next to one of the other actor's names were the words 'will not read under any circumstances.'

Reading is when you read the script to the director to give him an idea how you would play it – an audition in other words.

Needless to say that actor didn't get the role; I know who he is but I won't mention his name, but the guy who got the part - and it was a Disney film made in Britain - was David Jason; he didn't mind reading.

The basic audition is when you stand up in front of a director and perform a monologue; I don't know anybody who has ever been hired doing this. I did it when I got into drama school and I had to do a Shakespeare piece, a modern piece and recite as poem.

The other times I tried it I failed miserably.

There was a book called For the Actor and one called For the Actress which were full of monologues; I don't know if they're still available.

Sometimes a director will call out 'do you need a chair?' Some actors take it and talk to it.

When you do TV or a film you just meet the director and read.

But in America actors still do that monologue; they don't seem to mind. Some of them have been in series and they still do the monologue and/or read.

The actress Barbara Hershey was brilliant in Hannah and Her Sisters for Woody Allen and ten years later she saw they were casting Portrait of a Lady and the director didn't think she was right for it so she inundated her, Jane Campion, with letters and head shots and was eventually given an audition. Not only did she get the role she was nominated for an Academy Award.

I was on my holidays once in Devon and I made the mistake of calling my agent – no mobiles in those days. She asked me if I could come back to London the following day to meet a director at the BBC and of course I said yes.

When I met him I found the role was tiny and I made the mistake if saying 'You called me all the way back from Devon for this little bit.' Of course I didn't get the part.

Another director told me he didn't take much notice of a reading and I wondered why he had asked me to read.

When I net Ned Sherrin for a job in the theatre he wouldn't let anybody see the script till they got inside his office. When I met him I was supposed to sit back and go through it in my head before reading it to him – didn't get that either. To be honest I got the feeling he had already cast the role and was going through the motions.

I have met directors who have hired me without asking me to read at all and a few times I didn't meet the director till the first day of rehearsals or shooting.

In America you know what you get – unless you are a really big star, an audition.

I went to lots of seminars in Los Angeles to meet casting directors who would say that directors called actors in to read that they knew very well and who they had worked with; they did this because it was for a different type of role and they wanted to see how they would cope with it. I like that idea it's about as far removed from the John Ford typecasting that you can get.

By the way I like nearly all John Ford's films.

In America they like you to be natural, be yourself and behave – not act.

A tip the coaches give is not to keep looking into the eyes of the person you are reading with; this is not natural. People look around when they are talking to others; sometimes you look at people when they are talking but there is nothing so unnatural as staring at someone.

Another thing they like to hear is your natural voice. Some say when an English actor comes in they ask where the character is from and what does he sound like. They will say 'like you.'

I have heard someone say 'put two English actors together and they will be talking about accents in no time.'

The actor in Hollywood, travelling around in their car with a few changes of clothing and a few different head shots, is ready for an audition at a moments notice. When they get the call they will arrange to get the 'sides' from the Internet (it's a union rule that you have to have the sides – the bit of the script you will be reading from – 24 hours before your audition) and then, if they have one, and many do, they will call their coach and have a private lesson with the script.

It's a full time job in Hollywood – it's a company town.

The Rehearsal Process

Rehearsing Julius Caesar.

I have had many a discussion with my film director/writer friends about the subject of rehearsals in movies. Some of them are for it and some against. This is on filmed TV shows too.

If you've ever wondered about the TV Series Dragnet in the 1950s, and why everybody seemed to speak with that same staccato type of delivery, it was because the producer/star Jack Webb wouldn't let anybody see the script before shooting it. They would pin the lines up, next to the camera, and the actors would read them as the scenes were being shot.

I believe Dragnet originated on radio and when they did it on TV, Webb didn't get the same kind of feeling in the dialogue, so he resorted to that technique.

That is what it sounds like without rehearsing at all.

When actors do movies now, or TV, and there is not a rehearsal period, they run through the lines before doing the scene – over and over again. Whilst they do this they kind of direct themselves – they ask each other questions about the character, the arc of the scene, the motivation (a dirty word to some), what the character wants and where they have just been.

As most movies are shot out of sequence it is a good idea to know where you have just been.

The most important thing is 'what the character wants;' everybody wants something all the time and when you've figured that out you're half way there.

I was working with an actor once who was the Sandy Meisner type of actor; he had studied under someone who followed that kind of technique (Sandy Meisner's) and he would not look at any part of the script that his character wasn't in. I found this ridiculous; what if another character talked about him and mentioned some kind of trait or something that they had done? His book was coloured in with yellow highlighter and those were the only pages he would look at.

It's always interesting to work with American actors who come from many different schools of acting.

I can't remember anything in the bits of Sandy Meisner that I looked at about not reading anybody else's lines.

In Meisner classes students work on a series of progressively complex exercises to develop an ability to improvise, to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to textual work.

Well that's clear isn't it?

Sandy Meisner was educated at the Lee Strasberg Actors' Studio in New York who adapted his own theories from that and Stanislavsky from Moscow; Meisner developed from that theory.

Marlon Brando, one of the greatest actors of the 20 Century, said he (Strasberg) was a phony and studied under Stella Adler – so much for Sandy Meisner.

But it doesn't matter how you do it as long as the whole cast is on the same page when you open on the first night or shoot the movie.

There are some terrible things that happen on stage; some actors from one discipline or another do things that have not been rehearsed.

Sometimes an ad-lib works – an actor thinks of something on the spot and, tries it, and keeps it in if it works.

I have read Strasberg's book A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method and Stanislavsky's An Actor Prepares and they are very interesting.

I also read David Mamet's book True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor and, even though it's been many years since I read it I seem to remember him advising actors not to think – just do it for the audience. I think that's why his films are so neat, clever, tidy and boring. They have no heart; no matter what you might think of Strasberg his acting had heart.

One of the greatest film directors who used rehearsal time was Sydney Lumet; you could tell his films were rehearsed as they had little bits which can only be discovered in rehearsals.

Now what do I mean by that?

Well you discover things in rehearsals; not on the first day but you might come in with a different pair of shoes one day, you may come in scruffy and any of those things will affect the way you move. You may get told to sit behind a desk and that give you and awful lot of authority.

These little things the audience might not be conscious of but they work.

The problem with some directors is that they don't know how to direct.

Some directors will try and tell you how to play the lines – they will literally say 'shouldn't you say it this way' – like a teacher might say to you. Such a director is Roman Polanski and I know an actor who thumped him for it.

It's a wonderfully satisfying period when you rehearse.

Some time ago I worked at the Royal College of Art, London, as a visiting lecturer; sounds very posh but that's how I was categorised – in actual fact I had to be directed by about 12 different student directors. They were more interested in how things should be shot; what angle should the camera take and where would it be.

As an actor I wanted direction. The directors were given a choice of two scenes and I had to play both of them ten different ways.

One of them said, in a scene from Mona Lisa 'I think you should be chewing gum; why?

Another, in a scene from Educating Rita, said 'You're drunk.' Maybe he should have said I had drunk a bottle of whiskey and maybe then I would decide how drunk I should be.

A lot of directors who work with stars, and are a big deal and who do the hiring, cast certain actors because they know their limit and know that they will stay within that limit so they don't have to direct. They have heard that John Ford or Howard Hawkes did this - well phooey!

The Wimbledon Tennis Final.

Roger Federer - tennis player supreme.

The whole of Britain stopped on Sunday to watch the Wimbledon tennis final; I had to nip to the shop to pick something up half way through and there was nobody about; they were all glued to the TV sets.

The reason?

There was a British man in the final for the first time since about 1936 or so. The fact that this British man was a Scot was no matter – it didn't matter a jot, to use the vernacular.

Andy Murray his name is and unfortunately he played, who is arguably, the best player tennis has ever seen; a man from Switzerland call Roger Federer.

The man from Switzerland didn't start too well so the hope of the locals went up; he played a few unforced errors, sending the ball skywards on a few occasions and Murray won the first set but gradually Federer's skill and flair paid off.

There was a slight break for rain and they put the roof over the playing area, filled it with air conditioning and suddenly it was an indoor match.

Murray was winning outdoors but Federer is an indoor specialist – no excuses he was brilliant.

The problem here is that so much pressure is put on to British players at Wimbledon; it is the make up of Britain. There are kind of local capitals but they're more like regional centres. The counties have county towns – York in Yorkshire, Lancaster in Lancashire etc but those places are not the biggest towns or cities in those counties.

Britain is more parochial than America – if Switzerland held the biggest of the grand slam tennis tournaments how would Federer manage?

We nearly didn't watch it as an announcer came on to the BBC and announced, as his job description is described, that the men's final would be at 3:30 pm; I thought this might have been for the west coast American audience but no – it was a mistake.

Then on the day the two-o-clock news on the BBC said - Andy Murray is now on the Centre Court; so the sandwich we were about to eat was scoffed in front of the set.

In American terms the national figures for watching the event was okay at seventeen million which is nearly one third of the total population here but it's like one hundred million compared to America so you can imagine the impact it had.

There were certain omens working – when it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee Virginia Wade, an English girl, won the women's singles at Wimbledon and it seemed that the luck was with Murray in the year of the jubilee this year; but no – Federer won three sets to one.

I am getting my play ready for this Saturday so I will have to cut this short; if you're in London come and see it; the details are below.

Does America Care?

Barack Obama on the hustings.

The answer to the title, in my opinion is. . ..

Well let me put it to you: after all these years of having no national health care the United States have a very intelligent President who is trying to form a National Health Service and at every turning he is stopped.

Maybe he is going about it the wrong way and maybe he should get the actual states to start their own NHS and oversee the whole process but he has tried another way.

He wants to make it mandatory for everybody to have health insurance. Now that is a different kettle of fish. I can't remember all of the details but I believe if you can't afford it the government will subsidise you. 

Obviously this would have to be means tested but that's a whole other discussion.

The opposition say this is unconstitutional and is rather like making the population eat broccoli. Well they have to eat broccoli when they drive a car by buying car insurance, they have to eat broccoli when they go to work as they have to be deducted at source a load of taxes and insurance so if they are existing in the country they have to be available for treatment if they collapse in the street or if they are involved and injured in a road accident.

Last week Obamacare went before the Supreme Court and the court found in favour of Obama and you would think people would be celebrating – but no.

Some are, of course; he has his supporters, but many are chanting 'NO!' in the streets.

Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for President, has said that 'when' he becomes president he will reverse the law, people are being interviewed in the street and saying they will not vote for Obama because of this, and I ask the question does America care?

Romney, by the way, was the Governor of Massachusetts and introduced a kind of National Health Service – a State Health Service – in 2006 to the state and now he is kind of keeping quiet about it; he is finding it hard to attack Obama on this particular subject.

There are over forty five million people in America without insurance; if they are injured in a bad road accident they could be $45,000 in debt and will probably have to go bankrupt; appendicitis $15,000 - $20,000. Medical bankruptcy is at an all time high in America.

I knew an old lady who died about eight years ago owing Cedars Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills over $95,000. 

Up to the time of her death she was called many times a day by debt collectors demanding she pay up; asking her if she had any relations she could get the money from and things like that. 

When she died, her daughter was harassed by the same debt collectors and she became ill and needed treatment; her husband was a stroke victim and needed treatment from time to time. Every time the ambulance took him to hospital he was billed for the ambulance ride and then the treatment.

I used to take him to hospital some of the times if I was available but the hospital bills mounted and he eventually died. This didn't stop the calls.

The daughter eventually reached an age when she qualified for Medicare; this was like a national health service for hospital treatment for senior citizens but she had to pay around $110 per month to cover her for the lowest of the low care from a doctor. She had a pain in her chest and went to the doctor; he gave her pain killers, recommended aspirin and sent her away.

I used to call the doctors and was given prescriptions over the phone; the doctor didn't have the time to see me.

My friend went to the doctors many times with the pain in the chest and was sent away each time with pain killer recommendations but she badgered the doctor and eventually after a year he sent her for an x-ray. It was found she had a big mass on her lung so she was sent off for a bronchoscopy; lung cancer was diagnosed and she was given months to live and has since died.

All my friends in Los Angeles were caring empathetic people; they all want a national health service, even though a lot of them don't even know what it is; so who are these people who don't care?

The ignorant!

I have heard people say they don't need another tax – you pay more tax in the USA than here, by the way; not necessarily income tax – and those people seem to think they're going to live forever.

When I came back to London last week I got to the immigration desk; I was in the queue and could see the little notice 'please stand behind the line until you are called.'

When the person in front of me was finished I just sauntered up and showed them my passport.

Going into the USA is different: there are people putting you in to various lines and when the girl who was putting us into one of the three lines available went off somewhere the first person in the queue – the line as they say there – wouldn't move forward and waited till the woman came back before walking forward. And the little notice there said 'wait behind the yellow line until you are summoned by an officer.' Summoned by an officer!!!! No please or thank you, kiss my arse - nothing. Then the said officer summonses you to him with two flicks of his fingers; two flicks, not one or three, but two.

Yes all my friends in Los Angeles are caring but America as a country; does it care?

It gives aid to other countries – it used to be to stop communism spreading so what do they do it now for? Are they that charitable?

I think it was H.L. Menkin who said 'never overestimate the intelligence of the American Public' and it's true in a way.

If they vote Obama out of office in November they will get the president they deserve so let's hope they don't.

I found this little tit-bit from the last election on the Internet from the early stages of the last presidential election which about sums things up:

Likely Republican voters were asked how familiar they were the healthcare plans of all their candidates, even including non-candidate Fred Thompson. The results? In Nevada 29 percent said they were familiar with Thompson’s healthcare plan. In New Hampshire it was 15 percent, in Iowa 18 percent, in Florida it was 22 percent and in South Carolina had 24 percent with some idea about his plan.

Huh?

Thompson makes no reference to healthcare in his short stump speeches and has yet to even enter the race much less offer a healthcare plan. Nonetheless voters in these states told the pollsters at Woelfel Research, Inc that they were more familiar with Fred Thompson’s healthcare plan than they were of Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback.