The Science of On-Camera Acting

by Andréa Morris

  The Kuleshov Effect

  An actor collaborates with the camera, with the writer, director, and many other elements of a production, but the actor also collaborates with their audience. In the early 1900’s Russian director Lev Kuleshov conducted a series of film experiments that demonstrate how audiences interpret a screen actor’s performance.8 He filmed actor Ivan Mosjoukine and intercut this footage with footage of a bowl of soup, a young girl in a coffin, and a beautiful woman lying seductively on a divan. Upon watching this footage, viewers described the profound sorrow Mosjoukine felt over the dead girl, his pensiveness over the soup, and his desire for the woman. Yet Kuleshov had used the same footage of Mosjoukine in each context. Watch this experiment in the reference section at www.TheScienceOfOnCameraActing.com. The dubbed Kuleshov Effect demonstrates the cognitive impact of editing as well as how audiences play an active, not passive role in the art of filmmaking. Your job is not to convey the precise details of your inner world, but to convey that you have one. Let your audience actively participate by giving them the freedom and satisfaction of interpretation. Take the guesswork out of it and you’ll bore them.

  Tone and style

  Tone

  Other than the camera, the screen actor’s biggest collaborators are the writer and director. They set the character in a certain place, with a particular mood and mental life manifest in words and actions that reflect the genre and tone of the project. Common genres include comedies, dramas, epics, horrors, fantasies, actions, sci-fi, westerns, and any combination of these. Within each genre are different tones, intensities, and styles. Genres and their tonal subcategories are things that aren’t too frequently addressed with respect to character work and acting techniques, yet actors often run up against the challenge of not grasping and serving the musicality of the piece. Don’t think missing the tone is the same thing as putting your own unique spin on it. You’ll simply stick out as a bad actor, or at best, not a very perceptive one.

  One example of tone is the multicamera, half-hour comedy. These shows are shot on a sound stage with a laugh track (Seinfeld, Big Bang Theory), and differ in style from single-camera, half-hour comedies (Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm). One reason for this difference is that multicams use medium shots almost exclusively. There aren’t any close-ups, so the style is similar to working in theatre. Note: if the project is multicam, the dialogue in your sides will be double spaced. Dialogue is usually only double spaced in multicam scripts.

  Scrubs producers shot an episode called “My Life in Four Cameras”9 where they changed the Scrubs format from single-camera to multicamera. The style change is jarring. You can see contrasting clips of the same show shot in two different formats and the acting style adjustments the cast made in the reference section of:

  www.TheScienceOfOnCameraActing.com.

  Single-camera-serial comedies and dramas have numerous tones and styles. Film tones also differ in style and intensity. Think comedies like Anchorman versus Annie Hall. A large part of tone or style is determined by dialogue. The majority of material requires the actor breathe life into a character to lift the words off the page. An exception to this is if the material is incredibly ambitious and smart, if the ideas and language draw the spotlight. For the most part, these situations call for the actor to serve the words by simply delivering them clearly. Adding almost anything is likely to produce visible waste on-screen. This can frustrate actors wanting to match great writing with equally rich acting. Conceptually dense, clever, rapid-fire material makes it easy for physicality and emotion to become distracting, overwrought, and silly.

  Ratcheting-down and simply delivering the dialogue with no muss or fuss in no way diminishes your contribution or responsibilities. It’s no small task to be in complete service to intelligent dialogue. Great actors compliment great writing by not competing with it. Examples of smart, idea-driven dialogue are writers Aaron Sorkin and David Mamet. In his book True and False,10 Mamet says actors must serve the dialogue and not think or do much else. Many actors were insulted by his edict but the prescription is exactly right when dealing with his style of writing. “Just say it”—the three most important words when experimenting with this type of material. Experiment with the Mamet technique with Mamet-caliber material. If for whatever reason you run into difficulty finding this material online, rent the films and write out the scenes to practice with.

  Reality check

  How many unknown actors do you see starring in Mamet films? Stars get first dibs on good writing. Until you reach a certain level of notoriety, the job is a lot more than simply speaking the words written on the page. It’s mostly about compensating for less compelling writing. Much of your job is spent enhancing what’s on the page—WITHOUT CHANGING ONE WORD. For auditions this cannot be emphasized enough, thus the egregious use of caps. In her article in the Hollywood Journal, “Committing the Ultimate Hollywood Sin,”11 casting director Marci Liroff refers to this offense as…you guessed it. At least one of the people making the decision to hire you is the writer, who won’t be pleased if you decide to take liberties with his or her words. Worse yet, many actors get clever and end up blurting out a line worse than the one on the page. You may be quite clever, particularly if you’re a skilled improviser or comedian, and you may actually come up with a better line, but save it for your own project.

  Making bad writing work with stellar acting skills means you’ll stand out from the majority of actors who shrug off auditions saying, “There just wasn’t much I could do with that material.” Support for the writing usually comes in the form of a strong character. In just a moment we will discuss character in great detail.

  Sometimes the writing is so bad you have to use the exact same technique used for great writing and throw away the line to make it work—that is, squash any weight or meaning, spit it out, move on. Throwing away a bad line, or even swallowing a cringe-worthy line by moving quickly and barely audibly past it, ushers your audience along without getting pulled out of the story, without arresting their attention or offending it. Conversely, throwing away a great line can draw your audience’s attention in via the thought, “Did I just hear that right?” Forcing your audience to double back in their mind offers a rewarding challenge as they risk missing a clever turn of phrase if they don’t keep up. In either extreme, the same technique serves the writing.

  The job of the writer is probably the single hardest job in all of production. To the credit of writers, it seems more and more great writing is making it to the screen. At the time of publication it is considered a golden age of television. We can encourage this trend by paying to see the good stuff, but until we reach an unmitigated utopia of the written word, unestablished actors must make the most of crumbs that fall from the table.

  Once you have a good handle on this method, I urge you, as I do anyone I work with: practice with the worst sides you can find. Bad writing is everywhere and bad scripts are not hard to find. With practice you can pull off great performances with the dregs of the dregs. It’s rewarding when, at last, you unearth the key that saves the piece and it all comes together. Consider it a challenge of making art within narrow creative parameters.

  Stylized writing

  Another type of tone and style as categorical as Shakespearean soliloquies is found in Quentin Tarantino films. Tarantino’s smart dialogue is an exception to the rule, “Just say it.” His writing has a poetry and a distinct rhythm. I like to use some of the bride’s speeches from Kill Bill12 as exercises for actresses. Most women find it daunting. Good actresses want to play the truth of the scene and are inclined to play it simple, to honor the words, but that usually falls flat.

  If you’re an actress, a great way to get a feel for the tone of many Tarantino-style heroines is to place your hands firmly on your hips, feet apart in a grounded stance, chin down, voice resonance lowered out of your head and into your chest. This arouses the powerful tone of so many of Tarantino’s strong female archetypes. Assuming this posture
while reading Tarantino’s dialogue is an effective way of putting the tone of his style of writing in your body. For both Tarantino’s men and women, there’s a physical and tonal ease and swagger to many of his characters. They move and speak with such supreme confidence that a playfulness arises from their poise. Watch his films and experiment with these qualities.

  * * *

  “Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery—it's the sincerest form of learning.”

  George Bernard Shaw13

  * * *

  Experiment with stylized writing, as well as mimicry. Reenact roles exactly as the film’s stars play them. Mimicry is one of our oldest and best-developed forms of learning, so much so that we evolved a class of cells called mirror neurons for just this task. As Michael Caine says, “You must always steal, but only from the best…Steal any trick that looks worthwhile…analyze how he or she did it, then pinch it, because you can be sure that they stole it…”14

  * * *

  “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.”

  Voltaire15

  * * *

  Before auditioning for a television show, go online and watch an episode to get an understanding of the show’s tone. If it’s a film, watch clips from the writer’s and director’s previous work. Genres, tones, and styles are blending more and more, with lots of ambiguity creeping in, so get the nuances in your bones.

  Expositional roles

  There are roles in film and TV that exist merely to impart information to the main characters or to move the story along. When such roles come along it is imperative you do not distract from the function of the role by trying to make it more than it is. Show casting that you recognize a character’s place in a story. I was auditioning for a guest star role of a counselor in a television series, and the audition consisted of long speeches that imparted information to the two lead characters. The information was the crux of the story arc for that season. There was no character information in the script, nor breakdown, and I recognized immediately this was an expositional role. When I finished reading for the casting director, she stood up, clasped her hands and thanked me. I had accomplished nothing special, which was exactly why she was so pleased. She said she had been meeting with actors all day who were trying to make more out of this role and distracting from the story. Of course her praise didn’t mean I got the part. Another actress who also understood expositional roles booked it.

  Chapter Endnotes

  1 Capra, Frank, quote, IMDB.com, n.d., www.imdb.com/name/nm0001008/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes, accessed March 9, 2014.

  2 This trigger is actually “reverse engineering an emotional reaction” which means to work backward, breaking down or manipulating the physical elements of emotional expression in order to recreate expression and stimulate the emotion.

  3 Mankiewicz, Joseph L. (Director), All About Eve, 20th Century Fox, 1950, DVD commentary.

  4 After you shoot the master, you will go in for coverage that includes all your medium shots, close-up (CU) and extreme-close-up (ECU) shots.

  5 Vinter, Phil, “People with Shifty Eyes AREN’T Dishonest…they’re just thinking hard,” Mail Online, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2171330/People-shifty-eyes-ARENT-dishonest--theyre-just-thinking-hard.html, accessed July 7, 2014.

  6 Nakano, Tamami, Makoto Kato, Yusuke Morito, Seishi Itoi, and Shigeru Kitazawa, “Blink-Related Momentary Activation of the Default Mode Network while Viewing Videos,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, August 26, 2012, www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/12/19/1214804110.abstract?sid=9bd3b79a-ffdd-4057-8459-8be8d4a53bd1, accessed March 9, 2014.

  7 Wujec, Tom, “3 Ways the Brain Creates Meaning,” www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_on_3_ways_the_brain_creates_meaning#t-345306, accessed May 30, 2014.

  8 Kuleshov, Lev, “Kuleshov Effect” YouTube video, 0:45, posted by esteticaCC, March 10, 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGl3LJ7vHc, accessed July 6, 2014.

  9 Bernstein, Adam (Director), “My Life in Four Cameras” Scrubs, YouTube, 22:40, posted by ABCTVONDEMAND, Jun 23, 2012 www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aNFrI7jpZI, accessed July 6, 2014.

  10 Mamet, David, True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor. (New York: Vintage Books, 1999).

  11 Liroff, Marci, "Committing the Ultimate Hollywood Sin." Hollywood Journal. December 9, 2013, accessed August 8, 2014.

  12 Tarantino, Quentin (Director), Kill Bill. 2004. (New York, N.Y.: Miramax Home Entertainment, 2004).

  13 Shaw, George Bernard, Good Reads Inc., 2014 www.goodreads.com/quotes/185935-imitation-is-not-just-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery--, accessed August 1st 2014.

  14 Caine, Michael (Director) Acting in Film, Tmw Media Group, 2007, DVD.

  15 Pagel, Mark, "Creativity, Like Evolution, Is Merely a Series of Thefts." Wired UK. March, 2014. www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/ideas-bank/mark-pagel, accessed August 6, 2014.

  Character and Comedy

  Many actors face two pervasive challenges: mastery of comedy as well as character work. As a screen actor, you will be called upon to create roles for dramas that are multilayered and often quite different from who you are in real life. You will also be asked to tackle comedy. In this section we will examine how a single technique addresses both of these challenges. With only slight variation on the “be yourself” approach, you will also master comedy and complex character work.

  Character work

  * * *

  “If the actor is truly to play a role, character must not be given as an intellectual exercise.”

  Viola Spolin1

  * * *

  The be yourself approach works an awful lot, and it’s great advice most of the time. The exception to this rule surfaces in instances where playing yourself just doesn’t cut it. Certain roles require the embodiment of a character different in almost every respect from who you are—Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine or Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. These characters have heightened perspectives, distinct personalities, and in portraying these roles, the actor’s physical appearance often changes dramatically. You may also hear many acting teachers, casting directors, and acclaimed actors talk about how everything boils down to simplicity, truth, and emotional honesty, while audiences and critics laud actors for transformative roles. Many actors find themselves caught between two seemingly conflicting philosophies: do you play yourself and just be, or do you morph into a character completely different from yourself? And if a completely different character is called for, what’s a reliable way to succeed at an extreme transformation and keep it rooted in truth?

  Comedy

  * * *

  “A tragedy is a tragedy… Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.”

  Stephen King2

  * * *

  Memorable comedic characters have unusual worldviews, written with sharp specificity—Dianne Wiest in Bullets Over Broadway or John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. Some consider comedy a genre for naturals. Others claim that if you were born missing the comedic gene, comedy can be learned as a series of broken down and masterfully executed rules. You may be wondering how comedic skill can be acquired without analytic scrutiny, without dragging it through the gears of working memory.

  Early in my acting training I made a few observations about character work and comedy:

  The only schools that seem to focus on comedy and character work are improv academies, and these schools seem to cater to sketch comedy.

  Actors who are naturals at character work and comedy often don’t reveal much about their process; either out of a need to protect the mysterious pipeline of inspiration, or because a nonverbal process can’t be explored in the language-based format of an interview.

  Until you reach a certain level in your career, the bulk of comedic auditions are for fairly clumsy comedies. These projects require a distinct character perspective to leaven the humor.

  To gain m
astery of the full spectrum of roles, and to be able to work with any kind of writing, an actor must master both character work and comedy.

  Strewn across a chewed-up hardwood floor of a studio apartment in old Hollywood were eighty fortune-cookie-sized slips of paper, each one emblazoned with a single emotion written in Sharpie. These emotions were primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions.3 The primary emotions—such as fear, happiness, and anger—are thought to be universal and inborn. The secondary and tertiary emotions—like ambition and indignation—are more cultural. After graduating university I began working as an actor again, but still lacked important skills. I was in need of a reliable means of staying centered and unshaken in auditions. I was also unaware of a technique for creating dynamic characters completely different from myself, and how to handle comedy. If you put a comedic scene in my hands I couldn’t trust myself with it. Sometimes I’d be funny, but more often it fell flat, and I didn’t understand what brought about either of these outcomes. What felt fraudulent to boot, was that I’d learned rules to make the material sound like the genre of comedy without it necessarily being funny. So I returned to acting class, because it was the only thing that even vaguely promised a solution. I had decided to film all my acting homework and see if anything stuck out. In the midst of the 2006 heat wave I was sipping actor Kool-Aid laced with the quixotic advice of one of my acting teachers to work on emotions, feel them, express them, etc. After writing out a bunch of emotions, I turned on the camera and concentrated on one emotion at a time, revving up their intensity like the engine of a car and noting where the emotion resonated in my body.