Hey all,
Some of you may have seen some of my stuff I've posted over in the screen room, and as I've been making films for the past couple years now, I feel like I've begun to hit a plateau. I'm reaching a point where I feel like the weakest link in my films is the acting, whereas it used to be more the technical side. The acting was always passable enough, but now I'm really reaching a point where I want to take things to the "next level", which has me asking the same question after every shoot: "am I a terrible director?"
I often times find myself having to direct on a per-line basis with my actors. Is this normal? I have a hard time believing that when I watch Lost that the directors would have to come up to Matthew Fox for each line and get him to deliver it well by coming up with every possible synonym for what they want, then eventually devolving into line readings. I understand in that case we're talking about professional actors. I guess the question I have is how do I draw the line between what my responsibility is as a director and what the actors responsibility is? I find myself often demoralized because I have to try and get every line delivery to be good, and it still never comes out right. Does this make me a bad director because I can't teach my actors more ways to empathize with their characters? Or does it mean I have incapable actors?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a director who "phones it in", but at the same time, I feel a director's job is to collaborate with an actor to try and create the best atmosphere possible for the film, not to teach an actor how to act. This is where my frustration comes in. As someone who has never worked "professionally", it's really hard for me to tell when I'm not doing my job well, or when it's the actors, or if it's both. Thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
- Tommy
Some of you may have seen some of my stuff I've posted over in the screen room, and as I've been making films for the past couple years now, I feel like I've begun to hit a plateau. I'm reaching a point where I feel like the weakest link in my films is the acting, whereas it used to be more the technical side. The acting was always passable enough, but now I'm really reaching a point where I want to take things to the "next level", which has me asking the same question after every shoot: "am I a terrible director?"
I often times find myself having to direct on a per-line basis with my actors. Is this normal? I have a hard time believing that when I watch Lost that the directors would have to come up to Matthew Fox for each line and get him to deliver it well by coming up with every possible synonym for what they want, then eventually devolving into line readings. I understand in that case we're talking about professional actors. I guess the question I have is how do I draw the line between what my responsibility is as a director and what the actors responsibility is? I find myself often demoralized because I have to try and get every line delivery to be good, and it still never comes out right. Does this make me a bad director because I can't teach my actors more ways to empathize with their characters? Or does it mean I have incapable actors?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a director who "phones it in", but at the same time, I feel a director's job is to collaborate with an actor to try and create the best atmosphere possible for the film, not to teach an actor how to act. This is where my frustration comes in. As someone who has never worked "professionally", it's really hard for me to tell when I'm not doing my job well, or when it's the actors, or if it's both. Thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
- Tommy
