Archives for the 'Directing' Category
The role of Assistant Directors
The main person on a set is the director. He/she is responsible for all the creative aspects of a shoot. But the director can’t do everything on his own. For all the other work, there are Assistant Directors.
1st Assistant Director
The 1st AD pretty much runs the set. Duties include setting the shooting schedule, tracking progress against the production schedule, preparing daily call sheets, checking on cast and crew, rehearsing cast, and directing extras.
2nd Assistant Director
The 2nd AD deals with actors, putting the cast through make-up and wardrobe. They’ll usually take over the call sheet duties, among other duties, from the 1st AD.
Second 2nd Assistant Director
The Second 2nd AD deals with helping the 2nd AD and making his/her job easier by helping with the workload. Not all productions have a Second 2nd AD. Usually the large productions will have one.
Let your actors improv
When shooting something, you have a screenplay written and ready to go. The dialogue is set and all that’s left is for you actors to deliver the lines to the best of their potential. But something happens when good actors get going. They’ll begin to improv if they forget their lines and the wonderful thing is that sometimes those lines are better than what is in the screenplay. Actors play off each other and their environments… when they’re feeling something, they go with it and you as a director should keep the camera rolling and let them do their thing.
Of course you should watch the improv if you are shooting on film — which is expensive. If you’re shooting video then keep recording. Tapes are cheap. Don’t worry about filling up a tape. Simply reload and keep going. Even though you should embrace improv, you should also have the actors deliver their lines as written in the screenplay.
Once you get into the editing room and start logging your shots you will be able to decide if the written or impromptu performance was best. Sometimes you can even mix written and improv takes. The viewer will never be able to tell.
Save time and money by writing an outline
Chances are your indie films have little to no budget and must be shot in only days, sometimes only one day. The last thing you want to do is show up at the specified location and not know what you’re going to shoot. First of all, it is very unprofessional to show up at a shoot and try to wing it. Second of all, you waste valuable time that could be used to shoot extra scenes or alternate angles. You are also wasting the time of your actors who are either volunteering their time or charging you. In that case, you’re also losing money.
Getting the best from non-actors
User HCoremark over at the HV20.com forums started a very helpful thread titled “Getting the best from non actors” in which various members have shared their tips/suggestions on how to get the best performance from non professional actors. The comments are very valuable such as:
“…keep encouraging them even if they’re really bad. I mean, they kind of know they’re not very good to begin with, but it would make things a whole lot worse if you keep saying things like “No, no, no…what was that?” I always just try to say “That was good, but let’s try it this way now.” And even if it’s going terribly bad while filming and you know it will be unusable, try not to cut them in the middle of it. You don’t want to annoy them or give them the idea they’re not doing well enough.”
Definitely head over to the thread and read two pages worth of really good tips!
