how to get inexperienced actors to project their voice

C

c.g._eads

Veteran
I was watching Step Up 2 (do not ask - seriously, do not ask!) and they made the decision to go with dancers first, actors second. Therefore a lot of the acting was sub-par.

The main thing I found was that when these non-actors spoke, they did a combination of mumbling and just not saying their lines with any punch. Like they were afraid of what was going to happen if they really went for it. It wasn't they struggled through the lines like bad actors do. It was more that there wasn't any punctuality to what they said. Do you understand what I mean?

As a director, you deal with this kind of actor quite a bit. How do you solve this problem?
 
You cast the right people in the first place.

Seriously, there are plenty of people in Hollywood who can act AND dance. Producers and directors have simply GOT to stop casting the wrong people. It's sort of like asking "I bought a car with a 4-cylinder engine. Now how do I get it to have the same power as a V8?"


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Quality acting is much harder than most people realize. Behavior that comes naturally, without a moment's thought, in our real lives, is extremely difficult for most people to simulate. Extremely...

So the previous answers to the effect of "hire a real actor" are the only correct ones. You can't coax a non-actor into a good performance any better than you can coax a non-golfer into a good round of 18 holes.

The exception to this is with certain children, who in spite of having little or no training, still have one foot so firmly planted in the world of fantasy that they're freed from the inhibitions that would otherwise take them out of the imagined reality.

The lifeless, flat speaking performances you're decribing are a symptom, not a cause. The cause is a lack of acting ability, and there's no quick fix for that.
 
Okay but let's try a real world situation here. You don't always get to cast who you want. Sometimes these people are forced on you (especially the higher up you go in Hollywood). In that case, you don't get to go to every theater running your movie and then after the lights come on and everybody looks pissed, say, "Hey! I just want you know to know that if I had my choice, I wouldn't have cast those actors!"

You're stuck in this situation. How do you make the best of it?
 
Ted Spencer said:
Quality acting is much harder than most people realize. Behavior that comes naturally, without a moment's thought, in our real lives, is extremely difficult for most people to simulate. Extremely...

So the previous answers to the effect of "hire a real actor" are the only correct ones. You can't coax a non-actor into a good performance any better than you can coax a non-golfer into a good round of 18 holes.

The exception to this is with certain children, who in spite of having little or no training, still have one foot so firmly planted in the world of fantasy that they're freed from the inhibitions that would otherwise take them out of the imagined reality.

The lifeless, flat speaking performances you're decribing are a symptom, not a cause. The cause is a lack of acting ability, and there's no quick fix for that.
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I'm sorry but I refuse to believe this is true. If you're telling me that given the same non-actor and ten different directors, that every single performance would be exactly the same, that's hard to believe. I beleive some directors would get better performances out of the actor than others. Which proves that there are things you can do.

Eminem, for example, did a pretty damn good job in 8 Mile for a non-actor. I heard he was *terrible* however, in the beginning and that they worked with him and worked with him. Sure, they had some time to get things right. But the point is you can give a person direction that will inspire a different performance. So which directions should you give?
 
c.g._eads said:
I'm sorry but I refuse to believe this is true. If you're telling me that given the same non-actor and ten different directors, that every single performance would be exactly the same, that's hard to believe. I beleive some directors would get better performances out of the actor than others. Which proves that there are things you can do.

Eminem, for example, did a pretty damn good job in 8 Mile for a non-actor. I heard he was *terrible* however, in the beginning and that they worked with him and worked with him. Sure, they had some time to get things right. But the point is you can give a person direction that will inspire a different performance. So which directions should you give?
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You're right, you'd get 10 different performances. But given the kind of actor you described in your original post, not a single one of those 10 different performances would come close to being 'good'.

Eminem and others like him belong to a small group of people who are 'naturals'. It's a VERY small group -- unfortunately, there are a lot of lazy 'actors' who believe they belong to that group, but are sadly mistaken.

The point is, if you have a bad actor, no amount of direction in the world is going to make them a good actor. In rare cases you might have a 'natural' who just needs some tweaking to get it right, but that's almost never the case.

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c.g._eads said:
But the point is you can give a person direction that will inspire a different performance. So which directions should you give?
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Since this is the core of your question, let me respond with a question of my own -- Which direction do I turn the steering wheel on my car to get to Pittsburgh?

It depends on where my car is, which direction it's facing, what road I'm taking, where the curves and turns are -- lots of stuff. There's no one answer that can be applied to anyone's car, no matter where they are, and get us all to Pittsburgh.

I wish it was that easy...

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these are silly answers. Guys, I get all that. I understand where you're coming from.

If you are directing a non-actor (and believe me - if you do any extensive directing, you will. Even if it's just an athlete that you're directing in a commercial), and the moment comes to shoot - under your guy's logic, you should just throw up your hands and yell, "Sorry! Nothing I can do here!" Well, good luck with your career then. And have fun getting fired from that job by the way.

Everybody's watching. The producers, the people who put up their money. They're expecting *you* to get the best performance out of this guy you can. So what do you say? What do you do? Run away? Go whisper to the actor, "I'm just pretending like I'm directing you for the people watching. We both know you can't act so why try?" Well, I'm sorry I don't give up as easily but I'm going to try to get a good performance out of them (god forbid - ridiculous right?)

So for those with some real experience in these situations, what have you done?
 
Doing the best with what one has to work with is surely a great quality in any profession, and I don't think anyone would argue the opposite nor advocate that being a prima donna is a desirable trait. Good casting is definitely a fine way to start. To answer the original question I'd work on shattering their inhibitions. In acting school there's all kinds of exercises to help actors deal with inhibitions that come naturally in a performance situation. Fresh off the boat newbie actors are experiencing performance anxiety. The next level in the progression is unfortunately going overboard which just results in loud, blandly affected behavior common to Disney shows with lots of pretty but inexperienced child actors. I just make this stuff up as I go but it sounds almost plausible.
 
c.g._eads said:
Eminem, for example, did a pretty damn good job in 8 Mile for a non-actor.
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Rapping is very close to acting. Arguably, it *is* acting. Compared to pop stars who are just singers, the number of rappers who have become successful actors, and even huge movie stars, just in the last decade or so, is staggeringly high:

Will Smith
Queen Latifah
Ice-T
Ice Cube
Eminem
Tupac Shakur
LL Cool J
P Diddy
DMX
Mos Def
Ludacris

And I'm sure there are others I missed.

If you want to talk about celebrity non-actors, try Brett Favre in "Something About Mary". I'm sure that no expense was spared for his "performance" - he probably had the best acting coaches money could buy training him for weeks before the shoot (at least one would imagine so). The result? Possibly the worst acting prerformance ever filmed, at least in my humble opinion...
 
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c.g._eads said:
If you are directing a non-actor (and believe me - if you do any extensive directing, you will. Even if it's just an athlete that you're directing in a commercial), and the moment comes to shoot - under your guy's logic, you should just throw up your hands and yell, "Sorry! Nothing I can do here!" Well, good luck with your career then. And have fun getting fired from that job by the way.

Everybody's watching. The producers, the people who put up their money. They're expecting *you* to get the best performance out of this guy you can. So what do you say? What do you do? Run away? Go whisper to the actor, "I'm just pretending like I'm directing you for the people watching. We both know you can't act so why try?" Well, I'm sorry I don't give up as easily but I'm going to try to get a good performance out of them (god forbid - ridiculous right?)

So for those with some real experience in these situations, what have you done?
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It's a valid question. I don't think there's much of a "one size fits all" answer though. Acting works when the actor successfully gets him or herself fully into "the pretended circumstances" as Jack Nicholson has been known to call it. That type of imagination involves a kind talent that most people don't have, so your best bet might be to find a way to sort of "trick" them into that headspace.

I remember hearing a story about how the novelist Jerzy Kozinsky was tricked into performing a scene playing an angry military officer; I believe it was in "Reds". The director evidently took him aside and told him a bunch of malicious lies - things that would deliberately get him really pissed off - then he plopped him into the scene. It still wasn't a great performance, but it was passable because Kozinski was tricked out of his inhibitions and into some genuine anger. As soon as the scene was shot the director confessed to the deception and all was forgiven.

Other tricks that can help involve improvising lines (if permissible) and lying about the camera not rolling (tell the amateur actor it's just a rehearsal while you're actually filming). You might also roll camera secretly while you film him answering questions or conversing in a scenario that is covertly similar to the scene as himself. If you're clever in how you manage it, you might get a take or two you could use.

The enemies of the amateur actor are self-consciousness and insecurity. Do whatever you can to relax and encourage them. That plus a few of the tricks above are about all I can suggest.
 
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Ted Spencer said:
So the previous answers to the effect of "hire a real actor" are the only correct ones. You can't coax a non-actor into a good performance any better than you can coax a non-golfer into a good round of 18 holes.
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Well... of course... and many actors couldn't swing a golf club, until after a few months of work outs with a pro... or any other phyiscal activity, sword play, sex play, whatever play... ok may be the sex play is a 'natural'... not really but I digress...

The point is, for many films the actor has to prepare, and budget is made available for that preparation.

The problem with 'this' level of filmmaking is that the filmmaker is not able to afford the talent, nor the training. So in a 'karate' film, someone may have a buddy, friend, cousin twice removed, who's willing to step in front of the camera, but has a delivery that is more leadened than Schwatzenecke on a good day...

I personally think the 'advice' should be to do 'theater games', 'rehearsals', may be even some 'tricks', look-ma-no-film... etc. Or just be prepared to do 50 takes... Heck if Billy Wilder had to take Marilyn 50 times for a shot... with digital 'film' one should be able to do an 'amateur' for 10 takes...

The point there being if 'time is free'... budget plenty of time for plenty of takes.
 
Ted Spencer said:
The enemies of the amateur actor are self-consciousness and insecurity. Do whatever you can to relax and encourage them.
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one of the most profound statements i have ever read on this forum...

i also recommend spending a rehearsal session or two getting to know your leads and forget about their lines. talk to them. have them open up to you. relate moments of the script to moments the actor can relate to in their own life. have them explicitly discuss these moments even if its one-on-one, it awakens that emotion and feeling.

in terms of projecting their voice...i think that comes from lack of confidence. so do all you can to get them to feel comfortable. you obviously can't get an untrained actor to spend weeks delving into the psyche of the character they are about to portray but don't underestimate the ability of emotional connections. we've all been mad, hurt, upset, pissed, it's just about guiding them into finding that place they've been before.

but again like has been reiterated over and over again, no actor is going to respond the same way to the same course of action. its something you learn from a) acting and b) directing actors. not something a message board can treat you. i would imagine step it up 2 had such horrible acting because most likely the director was as inexperienced at getting performances as the actors were at getting them. if the director is not self-confident on set and sure of his decisions you will see it in the performances...and in the total end result of the film.
 
I've worked primarily only with amateur actors.

There are some who just aren't cut out for acting. I mean, CG - I see where you are going and understand the answer you want. But there are many different things to do to get a performance. Everyone is different. Different methods work better with different people.

I was ADing a student short and our director thought making a phone call to the girl friend was more important than directing. So I stepped up as he left the room.

We had three problem areas in the scene. One guy was self-concious, couldn't remember lines, was scared out of his mind. Another actress was the same way, though not as bad. Her issue was that she was 'reading' the lines. The third couldn't stop laughing in the scene.

I went over to our non-actor and told him that "I believe in you, you can do this. We cast you for a reason." A lot of positive support, ran the lines with him. Told him what to do and where his mark was.

The laughing lead I asked if she had a boyfriend. She did, and I told her "what if I was to tell you he was cheating on you with him (pointed to the non-actor), who she needed to be angry at.

The other one who was reading I told her to attempt to seduce our boom op, who was sitting opposite the table of here, where she should be talking to.

And the scene worked. Everything fell into place 2nd take.

Would this work with trained actors, dunno. Worked in that situation though.
 
My 2 cents. Having confidence with the voice is paramount, anytime anywhere.

As a kid I was taught to get a newspaper, open it and on each page randomly circle news items of about 100 words each. Do about 10. Then start trying to sight read these items starting from page 1.

Do this 3 times a day, like medicine and that's what we kidded it was. When I could get through the paper reasonably well, I'd start over with another. After some weeks my dear departed mother cancelled the paper but by then I could read pretty, well I could read.

With non actors they/you need prep time and this is a cheap way to start them, after a while maybe substitute their script. Best of all is you don't have to be there. Good luck.
 
I thought Eminem did a good job in 8mile. I wonder why he has never jumped back into it. Well..I guess if I were worth 100 million or so I might take it easy to.
 
At the risk of being called 'silly' again, I have a suggestion....

Maybe you can get one of your better actors to coach the neophyte.

Just a thought.

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