The last few months, I’ve been taking an improv class to trying to get in touch with my inner actor. I wanted to get inside their heads and figure a bit of their process. I think that’s one of the main jobs of a director, understanding what the actor needs to become the character they’re playing. I’ve been having a lot of fun with the class, laughing a lot, learning a bit about myself, and I think I can hold my own when I’m playing somebody not far off from myself.
However, we had a class last week that focused on becoming different characters, and I found myself really struggling. To begin, we all had to become chickens. I couldn’t forget myself, and escape into the moment. My only thought was about was how silly I must look. Towards the end of the class we did an exercise where there were three chairs, and had to create three unique characters for each chair and try to tell the same story from three different perspectives. First of all, I absolutely hated being in front of everyone by myself, so immediately I felt exposed… we’d only played with other actors up to that point. My 1st round, I did okay, when I became what was basically my family, and played a young brother and sister having a fight and the mom trying to mediate it. But my second time around, I tried to tell the story of Star Wars from the perspective of Luke, Han and Darth Vader. These are characters that I know inside and out, I can hear their voices in my heads, I can see their mannerisms, but when I tried to convey that through my voice and my movements, I wasn’t even close. They all sounded pretty much the same, and for some strange reason, I kept giving them mobster style New York accents. (No idea where that came from.) It was funny to watch, but I felt so trapped inside my own body.
A few students before me, a talented actress named Cat Gould told Little Red Riding Hood from Red’s, Grandma’s and the Wolf’s perspective. It was captivating. She created three very distinctive characters, with three very different voices, postures, mannerisms… she became each of those characters. Being able to do that, is something I can picture in my head, but not express through my body. (At least without years and years of training, something that I don’t really desire.) I’m the same way with drawing. I can see a beautiful picture in my mind, how each curve looks, the shading and texture, but when I try to put it on paper, it starts looking like a child’s stick drawing.
See Cat Gould in Vampire Camp – She has the “…about as well endowed as an ant” line.
I was thinking about that after class and realized that’s why I direct. I can see the artistry, but I don’t have the skills or know-how to pull it off. A directors job is to convey those ideas to the talented folks around them, the actors, the director of photography, the costume designer, etc. The directors uses their skills to tell the story. Spielberg didn’t make the E.T. puppet, but he knows how to make an audience fall in love with something that’s not much more than rubber. He didn’t sit down at a computer and design the computer generated raptors, but he knows how to scare you with them.
I’ve always had a great appreciation for all the arts, but never have I excelled at any of them. I’m an okay photographer. If I really sit down and spend a lot of time on some piece of art, I can create something that I’m slightly proud of, but I don’t have that desire to put in the time. I think if given the chance to act, with a script, costume, other actors, time to rehearse, and a character that wasn’t too far off from my comfort zone, than I could probably create a decent performance. But none of those call to me the way that filmmaking does. I really enjoy creating a world in front of the camera, and even more than that, I love crafting the story from that world in the editing room.
So that’s one of the reasons why I direct. Because I can see the vision, I know what I want the actors to do and how the picture should look. And I’m fairly good at conveying those ideas to people that have the skills and tools to help me create that vision. (I’m continuously learning on how to do that better.) Directing is a lot of different things, but this is what it is when you boil it down to its core.
This is part 1 of a series I’ll continue in the future, I’ve got a couple other ideas on why I have the desire to direct.
Probably my best drawing, from 10+ years ago in art school.
XRATS Productions 