Not giving actors the script until the shoot

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FilmBoy77

Veteran
i was reading this article on Rodriguez and a couple other directors about how they got their features done and it has some good points. here's an excerpt. have any of you ever done this before?

Directing Actors: The film was tightly scripted with very little improvisation. "Before production began, I had one or two read-throughs of the script with the actors. Usually the actors only got a little notice of what scenes we were going to film. They would run through their lines a few times before we'd shoot. I like to have a certain spontaneity, a sense of things happening at the moment."
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rodriguez wasn't the director that did that, but this seems like it could either work really well or fail really bad.

here's the rest of the article in case any of you didn't know this already:
http://www.nextwavefilms.com/moviemaking/abc.html

someone sent it to me so i'll put it out there.
 
Not that it's at all the same thing...but in a somewhat similar vein - Woody Allen is known to only give actors the parts of the script that contain their scenes. His thinking is that in real life people don't know what goes on when they're not around, so he doesn't allow them to read the entire script.

Either that or he just doesn't want to waste paper.
:)
 
Since scenes are usually shot out of sequence -- with later scenes sometimes being shot before earlier ones -- this seems like it would be a problem. The actors need to know what events happened to their characters prior to the scene they're preparing to shoot, don't they? I would think it would help -- but then again, I'm not an actor. (But I play one on TV.) :happy:


Luis Caffesse said:
Not that it's at all the same thing...but in a somewhat similar vein - Woody Allen is known to only give actors the parts of the script that contain their scenes. His thinking is that in real life people don't know what goes on when they're not around, so he doesn't allow them to read the entire script.

Either that or he just doesn't want to waste paper.
:)
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interesting, Rodriguez said this:

Working with Actors: "My actors never saw the script since I didn’t want them to sound rehearsed. I would act out the scene for them, and give them their lines just before we shot the scene. I gave them a few lines at a time". In the case of Marquardt, he had to give him a line at a time phonetically, and sometimes just as part of a line. Because the film was shot MOS, he could feed actors their lines and direct the action while shooting.
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speaking as someone who has acted before, this is a terrible idea. do not do it. rehearse with your actors. as an actor, rehearsal is the most vital thing you have. the acting process is much, much more complicated than just memorizing the lines and then "saying them like you mean them." how are you supposed to get to know a character when you've had two days to look over three pages of script?


maybe robert rodriguez can pull it off, but he's working with some of the best actors in the world. you aren't. actors need time to find their character. don't cheat them out of that time.
 
aidancarr said:
maybe robert rodriguez can pull it off, but he's working with some of the best actors in the world. you aren't. actors need time to find their character. don't cheat them out of that time.
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rodriguez said that when he was working with amateur actors in his first film El Miriache and he got into Sundance and placed with that film and technique. most of the actors weren't even trained.
 
I have issues with doing this. As a director, I believe it should be my job to put the actors in the best position to succeed. When I discuss my vision and rehearse with the actors, I feel that is the best way to prepare them. While not giving them the script until way late in the game may yield a specific result, I kind of feel that I'd be disrespecting the craft.

And while some people will still just say things like, "oh, whatever, it's just talent", I regard talent like it's another department on your crew. You would want the actors to perform their best, just the same way you'd want the DP to get the best shot and Sound Mixer to get the best audio.

Counterpoint to that...if they're not giving you what you want, then it's all fair game. =P
 
As an actor, I'll give my advice. The whole point of giving the script to an actor is:

1) Character development. There's absolutly no way that you can develop a character without knowing what the character says or does. Reading the script is the ONLY way for an actor to really "find" the character.

2) Finding the overall story arc. An actor cannot develop the overall story arc and make choices to support the development of that arc.

3) Analyze each scene. A good actor will know the dialog and will have a set of choices that he / she has made for each scene. It's great when that goes somewhere else based on the interaction between different actors for the scene.

And of course, rehearsal is very important to actors. It gives everyone insight into everything that happens.

Imagine giving a group of musicians sheet music and then having them perform a symphony together. Mass chaos. Not quite the same thing, but similar.

What am I saying? Always give your actors the scripts. Always. Always. There will be exceptions from different directors, but they would have to have been in the directing game for a very long time in order to pull it off - e.g. Woody Allen.
 
It all depends on your directing style AND competence.
Bergman's rehearsals for his early films were modeled after his theater rehearsals, long and intensive. By the middle of his body of work he stopped rehearsing completely. He thought the rehearsal process took away the spontaneity necessary for film. I believe his actors always had a full script before production began though I'm not certain of this. Bergman got great results this way.
Tarkovsky barely let his actors know anything. "To the actor, film must be like life itself: a riddle, a secret, a mystery" He goes into detail on his thoughts on this here: www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/On_Acting.html
Kazan rehearsed his films very similarly to his theater productions. He would even rehearse his actors while the shots were being set up. Some of the best performances in American films are in Kazan's films. Brando in 'Street Car' & 'On the Waterfront', Dean in 'East of Eden', Jo Van Fleet in 'Wild River' even Andy Griffith in his first film role in 'A Face in the Crowd' is terrific.
You gotta find what works for you, your actors and the style of film you want to create.
 
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I would say there are probably some rare situations in which it might be appropriate to keep the actors in the dark regarding the whole or exact script. I imagine such projects would be experimental and/or short films. Your typical narrative short or feature would NOT be such a situation, although maybe some incidental scenes might warrant that approach. This might also depend on the particular actor(s) involved, as well.
 
Great, another thread about: "Hey, here's what Rodriguez did!"

But to the point of the thread, actors who are really trained, they are trained to rehearse and make it spontaneous every time, 8 times a week or on film, whatever. That is what their training should do for them.

But working with some recently "trained" actors, I'm finding that many are not very capable of this now. I look back on the training I received and am baffled at what a lot of young actors I work with don't know. So I can see how that leads some directors to think that no rehearsal is a good thing.

I am trying this on my new short right now. I am only giving each actor notes on their characters and then letting them improv the scenes to find the lines. But this can only really be done when the actors have enough skill to improv correctly and actually find a scene and not go off the rails. This requires a lot of listening.

Anyway, try stuff. It's going to be different with every director and every group of actors. Try stuff, experiment.
 
Mark Harris said:
I am trying this on my new short right now. I am only giving each actor notes on their characters and then letting them improv the scenes to find the lines. But this can only really be done when the actors have enough skill to improv correctly and actually find a scene and not go off the rails. This requires a lot of listening.
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yup, and guidance. my feature, Heart of Now, will be shot using this method. we have a script. with dialogue. but that dialogue is only there for the actor to develop an understanding of their character. during production, I plan to sh*tcan the words, keep the objectives and intentions, and guide the actors' through the scene. it's a bit of an experiment, but not without precendent.
 
Zak Forsman said:
yup, and guidance. my feature, Heart of Now, will be shot using this method. we have a script. with dialogue. but that dialogue is only there for the actor to develop an understanding of their character. during production, I plan to sh*tcan the words, keep the objectives and intentions, and guide the actors' through the scene. it's a bit of an experiment, but not without precendent.
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We just did this with a comedy and got good results, so now I want to try it with a dramatic short. But I am working with two actors I've worked with for years now and I know they will put in the work on it. Pretty excited to see how it comes out.
 
Blaine said:
Haha! Yeah, we all know what Oscar winning performances he gets out of his actors...:grin::grin::grin:
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Word. I think Sin City is a great movie, but it's not full of examples of great film acting, except perhaps from the old pros who don't need much directorial guidance to turn in a performance. Madsen, in particular, is all at sea and looks (not surprisingly, as it turns out) like an actor who can't remember his lines.

Actors, like the rest of the crew, are craftspeople as much as they are artists. You wouldn't dream of denying the DoP or the Sound Dept. their preparation, would you?

Unfortunately the film world seems to be stuffed full of directors who consider actors to be idiot savants who need tricking into a good performance through all sorts of weird approaches. They don't. Directors just need to know how to direct. Cast actors who are good at their jobs and they will turn in a spontaneous and exciting performance take after take, even if they've read the screenplay 100 times and you've run out of ideas. It's what they're paid for.
 
I've never met a good actor who believes that they can be spontaneous everytime. Never have and never will.
 
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"How to direct actors the Rodriguez way!"

Great! Now all I need is "How to keep your car running by feeding it Skittles!" and I'll be on the path to endless success.
 
I shot my recent short with a script with detailed scenes and dialogues. However, on the set, I practically "trew" the script away and asked them to interpret the words and the scene written.

The Actors gave me an excelent performance. It allowed them to actually listen to each other, beyond the words of the script. One actor was better than the other in improvisation, but it actually made the other listen and give me a better performance, even tough she stayed mostly true to the original dialogue.

I'm very happy with the results. Will continue to use this approach.
 
In the movie Alien, I read that the actors weren't given full scripts beforehand and were given their pages on the day of in case it was a scene where they were killed. Them not knowing beforehand that this was the scene they die in was supposed to add to spontaneity.

I always make sure my actors have a full script and READ IT, but don't really push for rehearsals. We just go through it a few times and I tweak things before we shoot, otherwise I let them interpret it.But if the scene calls for the actors to not know in advance, then I'd go with that as the situation arises.
 
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