My experience preparing scenes
As an acting coach, I have written many scripts including Netflix originals, BBC shows and Hollywood features. It always amazes me how even some of the most experienced actors have no real process of approaching and preparing for any scene. Even after I got into drama school, I didn’t have the tools I needed to help actors prepare for professional work. These tools may seem fun, creative, and sometimes even analytical, but they fail to produce consistently high-quality results in actors’ performances.
Warning about watching screen performances
I want to say something that you may understand but you haven’t thought about it deeply.
Every performance you see on screen is highly mediated. I mean, it’s constructed. When you go to the theatre, you sit in a seat in the theater and watch the actors, you observe them performing live here and now, they are right next to you.
When you go to a movie theater/cinema, you are watching the work of many people. The actor’s performance is only part of it, a contribution. But in addition -The actor’s performance is a construction. You may be watching an actor’s work 5 days after filming. The two minutes you’re watching could have been filmed on a different day.
The establishing shot was probably taken at noon on Tuesday.
And the medium shot was on Thursday night.
The final close-up was probably taken two weeks later at another location.
After six months, the voice may be canceled by ADR. In fact, that voice might not even be the original actor, but someone who sounds like them.
Therefore, the performance you see on screen is combined to produce an overall performance. And you don’t know when each photo was taken. This even means that the actor might do a wide shot on the 8th shot, a medium shot on the 22nd shot, and a close-up on the 99th shot. Therefore, it is impossible to compare the operation of the scene with the final product.
The actor’s performance on the screen is a created thing, a constructed and edited thing. Keep this in mind and don’t compare yourself to the end result.
Reveal the actual situation
You’ve heard Russian acting guru Konstantin Stanislavsky’s “given situation,” the question of “who, what, where, and when.” These questions help actors understand the environment, history, time, and situational conditions of any character.
American actress and acting teacher Uta Hagen created her own version. Regarding the specific situation, she said:
“The plots given by the scriptwriter must be mined from every word he writes. They can determine or mediate our conflicts, they can provide our motivations and specify the essence of our actions. They are rarely adequately treated by actors. Your imagination can only really begin to work after you have found them, filled them in, perfected them, and fully expanded them. outside the garden
She offers 9 useful questions to explore a character’s world and identify important situations.
1.Who am I? Who is your character? Identify all the details: name/age, physical characteristics, relatives, education, personal opinions, likes, dislikes, hobbies, fears, morals and beliefs.
2. what time is it? Year, season, day, minute. What is the meaning of time?
3. Where am I?Identify a country, city/town, neighborhood, building, room, specific area of a room.
4. What is around me? What is happening in the environment around you? Weather, landscapes, people, animate/inanimate objects.
5. What are the specific circumstances? Identify past, present, and future events. What happened, what is happening, what will happen?
6. How are my relationships? It’s not just your relationships with other people. Think about your relationships with objects, people, and events.
7. What do I want? What do you want immediately? What does the character want as a whole?
8. What’s holding me back? What are the barriers to getting what you want?
9. What can I do to get what I want? What actions did you take (physically and verbally)? What tactic?
However, I view given situations slightly differently and I like to think of them as actual given situations. What matters is not the environment, but how the environment affects the actor’s behavior. There is no doubt that if it is cold, you should wear thick clothes/thick clothes and rub your hands together to keep warm.
In class, I would see actors constantly leaving their keys on the floor, not wearing shoes in the living room, or unable to handle a wet umbrella. Having practical things to deal with and interacting with real-world situations will take you into the world of scenarios and awaken your imagination in a powerful way.
Therefore, you can start your analysis of a scenario by looking at all the situations and how they affect your performance in the scenario. You’ll then be able to interact with your environment, props, and situations in a realistic and spontaneous way.
Legendary Acting Teacher: Uta Hagen
Interact with body environment
If the scene is one police officer telling another police officer about the suspect, you will show the photo. Use photos, interact with photos and other actors. Val Kilmer once said on the set of Mamet’s film “Spartan” that “props are for the weak.” But interacting with props puts you into the real world, interacting with the actual, workable environment of the scene. It puts you in the character’s shoes. It will also give you powerful “In-On” moments.
Discover your character’s problems
Each scenario is created based on the problem. There is something wrong with one of the characters in the scene, maybe even more. Maybe each character has a problem that must be solved. Solving a character’s problems in a scene can give you an idea of the character’s focus in the scene.
Is your character trying to get a suspect to agree to spy for them within a criminal organization? Is your character trying to convince their best friend not to commit an act of revenge they’re planning? Is your character trying to get their colleagues to step down and resign? What is their problem? If you can answer this question, you’re really starting to understand the scenario.
Create a scene tour
Every story has a journey. Every movie, play, TV show, novel, computer game has a journey through it. Every journey has the same 7 components: Inciting Incident, Initial Journey, Turning Point or Tipping Point, Ascending Journey, Climax, and Resolution.
You can find each of these seven elements in any well-written scene.
And in many scenes you will find that these seven elements are missing. Missing one of these can often explain why a scene doesn’t work. The presence of these seven elements confirms that the script you are writing is reliable.
Inciting incident: It’s usually the moment something goes wrong in a scene.
timeThe initial journey: After a problem arises, the initial journey is usually the time when the characters try to process the event.
inflection point: Usually the direction of the scene will move in the middle. If your character comes close to getting what they seek, in the moment, it becomes distant again. The Titanic hits an iceberg around this time in the movie. It’s like a second inciting incident, but usually with higher stakes and making things more difficult for the protagonist.
Journey to Rise: Just like the original journey, the scenes now flow to process everything that happened in The Turning Point. The stakes and dramatic tension continue to rise and fall throughout.
climax: The climax is the point of greatest dramatic tension. After that, the tension disappears. It’s a moment of “will they/won’t they?” scenarios. In fact, it always provides useful clues to the scene (more on climax secrets below)
solve: Whatever was instigated in the live inciting incident was going to be resolved in some way. Characters either achieve their goals or they don’t. But this sets a new scene for their next encounter.
The secret of orgasm
To understand the climax is to understand the whole scene. If you’re having a hard time following this scene, the secret is hidden in the climax of the scene. That’s because it’s in the climax that we discover what matters most to the writer. Once you discover what the scene is about, you can easily connect it to the character’s problem, and you’ll see how it fits together throughout the scene’s journey.
