Speaker 1: Film Courage Can you explain how a director can micromanage an actor in their performance?

Speaker 2: Yes, by talking too much. That's the quick answer to that. There are directors who want to delve into the inner life a lot. They want to talk, talk, talk. They want to front load. That's the thing that I think is the most dangerous is when the director has an idea that he or she is very excited about and they want to front load the actor with it before they even do anything and they over talk. The simplest thing is over talking. I finally boiled it down to telling directors listen more than you talk and be percentage about that. Hear your own voice less than 50% of the time when you're talking to actors. Listen to them more than you talk to them and that's a big, big thing that actors complain about is directors that over talk but they still don't understand what the director wants. It's just so easy to happen and that's so very simply circumvented if the director understands the tool of emotional event because that takes much less time to talk about. And then if you can say to the actors wait, this is not a nice people being nice. This is an argument and then let the actors get there however they get there instead of sort of well now you have to get mad and then you have to be disappointed and then you have to get mad back and that's micromanaging is sort of giving the result for each emotional turning point that you want. That's another way to micromanage. Rather than allowing each actor to have a through line, a through line objective, something they want or need from the other actor and an obstacle of course is very useful and then let the ins and outs of how they win the argument or lose the argument, let that happen in the moment if they both want something from each other. Film Courage What if they're not getting the result they want? I encourage directors to want a different result than sometimes they think they do because sometimes they've gotten married in their minds to a certain…that they think the eyebrows are supposed to rise at a certain point or there's supposed to be a certain line reading at a certain point or there's supposed to be a certain pitch of anger at a certain point and I try to get them, this is with script analysis, I try to get them to use their script analysis to get to a different thing to want, to get to the emotional event that they want. Because if they want those particular surface things, I can't tell them how to get it. I really can't. So I spend a lot of my time trying to get them to want something else. Film Courage So maybe the director doesn't know what they want? That's how it feels to the actor. If the director keeps saying well raise your eyebrow just a little bit more, then the director thinks they don't know what they want, they think they want that but they don't really know what they want and that is about what the scene is about. Is it about survival? Is the scene about survival? Only one will survive say. Is the scene about loss of purpose? Is the scene a confession that gets accepted or not? Those are the things and it's not that easy for directors to get to that. They have to do some script analysis, they have to look underneath the surface of the script and underneath the surface of the instructions that the stage directions give them to find it. And it takes practice. And it's useful not just for talking to actors but for talking to anybody, for talking to your cinematographer or talking to a production designer or producers or financial people. It's useful for anything. So it's a different way of looking at what the scene is supposed to be.

Speaker 1: Film Courage What if someone is trying to talk to someone more because they feel like they're not getting the truth of what's going on or there's a disconnect, there's something that's not being said? Wait, can you say more about that? Sure, so if the director is talking too much maybe they're doing it as a way to fill in the lines of something that's not being said or something that's not coming to the surface so they're using it as a tool, their own tool.

Speaker 2: Well actors do the best they can to figure out what the director wants. So if the director is over-talking, they'll listen for little clues to give them something to try on the next take.

Speaker 1: Film Courage What is the language of permission?

Speaker 2: It's a way of engaging the actors with the process. It can be as simple as saying I had this idea that this scene could have higher stakes, do you want to try that? Instead of saying get angrier, okay? So that's an example of the language of permission is offering the actors a way of giving them the opportunity to say no because it's good to find out if an actor doesn't like your direction. It's good to find out because then you can say okay, I'm going to try to make a case for this. Let me tell you why I think this is worth trying. And it's very helpful, a key element of the language of permission is that if the actor has a different idea than yours, than the director's, mine if I'm the director, that I am not, if I discuss it with the actor, I'm not trying to convince them that my idea is better than theirs, but I'm trying to convince them that my idea is worth trying.

Speaker 1: Film Courage So it's being soft with people, it's not being abrupt, it's asking hey, Judith, could we try it maybe this way instead of me dictating to you? Like Judith, no, I need you to do it this way, I'm showing you respect, I'm being soft.

Speaker 2: It's partly but I guess if I use myself as an example, when I'm directing I have a lot of energy. So I wouldn't say that I'm soft, I'm very energetic. So it's not an energy level, it's checking in, it's checking in. I wouldn't say it's an energy level because my energy is very high. And when I really want something I'll say wait, okay, maybe I haven't explained this yet but there's something that I want that we're not getting to and tell me what you think I'm saying to get feedback. And you see how a conversation like that has to be private.

Speaker 1: Film Courage Sure, but you're checking in instead of giving orders and so even if the energy is intense there's still a mutual respect.

Speaker 2: Judith I think so, yeah. They're collaborators, they are artists and they are people and they're smart. So why wouldn't you use all of the brains on the set?