Acting in Student Films
- Thread starter Nole
- Start date
I'd say it's the editing, cinematography and audio that kills it. Mainly the editing though.
The acting could have been so much more than it is.
Egg Born Son
Veteran
Given enough time and effort on the part of the production it should be possible to make anyone look good. A good director can elicit a good performance (good actors requiring less instruction), more takes will eventually capture the actor nailing it even if accidental, better editing can raise the apparent level of the performance (without flow the performance will seem equally jittery, breaking the illusion of a continuous performance), lighting and makeup alone can sometimes do half the job in many roles, music can either elevate or clash with the action onscreen.
There is a whole team behind their performance, the actor only has their feedback to know whether or not their efforts are working on screen. That requires a lot of trust on the actor's part, good feedback and instruction will engender trust and make them comfortable to extend themselves. Only an actor that refuses to listen their team can be held accountable for a poor performance. The value of a good actor is in the efficiency with which their good performance can elicited.
There is a whole team behind their performance, the actor only has their feedback to know whether or not their efforts are working on screen. That requires a lot of trust on the actor's part, good feedback and instruction will engender trust and make them comfortable to extend themselves. Only an actor that refuses to listen their team can be held accountable for a poor performance. The value of a good actor is in the efficiency with which their good performance can elicited.
Rolf Silber
Veteran
Yes. But acting has nothing to do with looking good - not even in a metaphorical sense. You can try a lot to make a non-swimmer into a swimmer by adding water wings but it will look/appear ridiculous and he wont win the race. And the lousiest acting is always performed by actors who do not even know how lousy they are helped by directors who believe they can somehow work around that.
Why do I know that? Because my first movie as a young director went down and was crushed because wise little me thought I can make an actress - who was a very nice person and I had no relation(ship) to her whatsoever, btw - who could not act the leading lady. Bang! Torpedo midships.
I had a lot of young actors - two of whom became stars in my country later - who tried to help her. I had another actor, who was considered then one if not the leading teacher of acting in my country in a smaller part and he stayed on to coach her. No way, Jose.
If it can't walk like a duck, talk like a duck, doesn't look like a duck and can't swim like one - don't try to convince yourself you can make it play a duck. And much less so a swan. You can glue as much feathers onto it - in the end he/she may only appear like an exploded sofa-cushion. You may find able laymen - look at "Beasts of the Southern Wild" - but that's a different thing.
Able actors - professionals and non-professionals - are hard to find because there are only a few around at any time. And only real good truffle pigs have the nose to find them.
Egg Born Son
Veteran
I did add the proviso of a willing actor with a capable director and given a thousand takes. Not a realistic situation but a theoretical taken to extremes. These provisos cover a lousy actor who doesn't know they're lousy (unwilling to take direction) and you mention you were 'wise little me' hence not meeting the capable director proviso. I don't think water wings is a very good analogy, given that the goal is appearances and you can make someone who can't swim appear to do so on camera via movie magic. Many actors are olympic athletes or astronauts on-screen but very few have a real gold medal or moon rock on their mantle. Perhaps the real problem in your situation was casting, another member of the team.
My assertion is that great director with a great crew with bags of time and money should be able to make anyone look good (in a suitable role). Maybe even great. I wasn't saying easy, I was saying possible. Of course none of these things are realistically available to an early production, not even time because someone if not everyone will have a dayjob to service. And of course a good actor will save that time and money and so ultimately pay for themselves. I'm certainly not suggesting that untrained actors are a desirable quantity. The problem is that those with the experience and talent to manage them are successful and so unlikely to ever need to do so.
In regards to the girl in the sample from the OP I thought the flaws I saw in her performance were small things with a big impact. With good direction and coaching or use of extra coverage in the edit, she could have delivered a performance magnitudes better.
My assertion is that great director with a great crew with bags of time and money should be able to make anyone look good (in a suitable role). Maybe even great. I wasn't saying easy, I was saying possible. Of course none of these things are realistically available to an early production, not even time because someone if not everyone will have a dayjob to service. And of course a good actor will save that time and money and so ultimately pay for themselves. I'm certainly not suggesting that untrained actors are a desirable quantity. The problem is that those with the experience and talent to manage them are successful and so unlikely to ever need to do so.
In regards to the girl in the sample from the OP I thought the flaws I saw in her performance were small things with a big impact. With good direction and coaching or use of extra coverage in the edit, she could have delivered a performance magnitudes better.
Rolf Silber
Veteran
We can add a lot of provisos here and of course you made yourself clearer in the second post ... but, as I've experienced the hard way you can at every point in your career be in danger to make a dreadful mistake by a wrong casting decision and not be able to overcome this mistake, whatever you do ... so, because I don't want to blame another director, I thought I do the adult thing and present myself as an example for that ..... ;-)
I did not look at the clip because the OP decided to edit his post so I thought he may have had reasons to do so. What you state is indeed a possibility. Still it would be dangerous advice if understood wrong. You can throw as much good lighting and costume onto someone and shoot with the big future-cam - if there is not a certain minimum of talent, you're getting nowhere. Unless you have a movie where to have speaking posers is enough - which is a possibility in certain cases.
As the OP asked why so often acting in student films is, in his view, not very good - it's often the same as it was in my case with my first movie: not enough experience, no time for a real casting, not enough knowledge about how and why actors are the way they are, too much love for the cinematic machinery while underestimating the basic principles of dramatic and scenic work, no money and so no time for intense rehearsals - all of which often is the usual situation for student films.
Film-schools should do at least this: Demand that students work extensively with actors a lot of times on a stage in different situations, with different material from scripts or stage plays and without any technical things interfering - just the plain process of how bring life into a scene. Demand that students go for a certain time into an acting class to understand how actors are trained, how they may think and what their problems may be. Demand that students put themselves before a camera or onto a stage so that they experience the pain, the frustration, the fear and maybe the joy of acting.
And only then start thinking about blocking and lighting and whatever... just my 0,02 €.
I did not look at the clip because the OP decided to edit his post so I thought he may have had reasons to do so. What you state is indeed a possibility. Still it would be dangerous advice if understood wrong. You can throw as much good lighting and costume onto someone and shoot with the big future-cam - if there is not a certain minimum of talent, you're getting nowhere. Unless you have a movie where to have speaking posers is enough - which is a possibility in certain cases.
As the OP asked why so often acting in student films is, in his view, not very good - it's often the same as it was in my case with my first movie: not enough experience, no time for a real casting, not enough knowledge about how and why actors are the way they are, too much love for the cinematic machinery while underestimating the basic principles of dramatic and scenic work, no money and so no time for intense rehearsals - all of which often is the usual situation for student films.
Film-schools should do at least this: Demand that students work extensively with actors a lot of times on a stage in different situations, with different material from scripts or stage plays and without any technical things interfering - just the plain process of how bring life into a scene. Demand that students go for a certain time into an acting class to understand how actors are trained, how they may think and what their problems may be. Demand that students put themselves before a camera or onto a stage so that they experience the pain, the frustration, the fear and maybe the joy of acting.
And only then start thinking about blocking and lighting and whatever... just my 0,02 €.
Egg Born Son
Veteran
Oh it is certainly dangerous advice if taken as such. It is obviously not a situation to seek out. If you have the money to throw at compensating for a bad actor it's a financial gamble, better to just get a good actor. The starting filmmaker does not have access to the means to take the novice actor to the next level unless blessed with a natural affinity for directing, which few have. Naturally the reality of it is more likely to echo your experience.
It was intended as explanation to the OP rather than advice. If there was an underlying message, I guess it was to take the view that the onus is on the filmmaker to make the actor shine. The filmmaker may or may not be able to achieve this but it should be on his/her mind to do so, amongst the many competing obligations (delivering on time, on budget etc). Your film school suggestions would go a long way to addressing this. A bad filmmaker can make a good actor look bad perhaps moreso than a good filmmaker can make a bad actor look good.
It was intended as explanation to the OP rather than advice. If there was an underlying message, I guess it was to take the view that the onus is on the filmmaker to make the actor shine. The filmmaker may or may not be able to achieve this but it should be on his/her mind to do so, amongst the many competing obligations (delivering on time, on budget etc). Your film school suggestions would go a long way to addressing this. A bad filmmaker can make a good actor look bad perhaps moreso than a good filmmaker can make a bad actor look good.
Rolf Silber
Veteran
Don't know how it is in the U.S. and even less in Australia - but for instance the film academy in Lodz/Poland (Roman Polanski's former school) worked closely together with the acting school that was, if I remember it right, even on the same campus a lot of years back. So there was constant contact and communication between the students of both faculties. My film academy in Berlin then was the opposite - we did not learn a lot about actors and I had to go to an actors school on my own initiative for a short time to get at least a glimpse of how things could work. But: That was some days back... ;-)
So for any student my advice would be: Learn how to read and analyse and transpose into moving pictures a script - but try even harder to learn how an actor's mind may work. Or not. And find out if and how you can ignite something in somebody.
jghenderson
Well-known member
I do think a lot of the blame for bad acting in student films lays with the director. I am of the opinion that anyone that is open can give a good performance, if they have a talented director. To prove my point I would point towards Italian Neorealism, which would regularly take non-actors and find a way to get real performances from them. At the same time, however, some actors are just not open to direction, and not even someone like David O. Russell would be able to squeeze any real connection out of them. Part of the reason why casting is so important.
Directing actors is actually probably the most difficult part of filmmaking, in my opinion. Cinematography, editing, all the "technical" aspects of filmmaking; in the end it's just math. If you know what you want, and you know the formulas for how to get there, you can do it (given the right equipment). But working with an actor is instinctual, there are no surefire formula. Something might not be working, and you know what you want, but there's no obvious way of getting to it. There's a reason great actors clammer to work with specific directors, because there are few directors that know how to get genuinely great performances.
Directing actors is actually probably the most difficult part of filmmaking, in my opinion. Cinematography, editing, all the "technical" aspects of filmmaking; in the end it's just math. If you know what you want, and you know the formulas for how to get there, you can do it (given the right equipment). But working with an actor is instinctual, there are no surefire formula. Something might not be working, and you know what you want, but there's no obvious way of getting to it. There's a reason great actors clammer to work with specific directors, because there are few directors that know how to get genuinely great performances.
Ted Spencer
Veteran
Have you ever taken an open admission (no audition required) acting class? If you have, you've seen that there are lots of people who simply have all but no ability at it, and virtually no ability to learn it, in spite of competent professional training. Acting is a talent requiring developed skill to deliver a quality performance, just like in music, athletics, math, or any number of other pursuits. The mistaken notion that 'anyone can act with proper direction' is what's behind one hell of a lot of really bad acting IMO. That, and the bad directing itself... And it's almost always bad directors who believe in the first mistake...
FWIW, YMMV, etc., etc....
I'm afraid I'm with Rolf on this one. You can't make a pig fly. A bad actor is going to be bad - there is just no way on earth to get a good performance out of them. Heck, a friend of mine was shooting a short, and had a bad actor in it - the actor was a really nice guy who helped the production in every way he could (grip, driver etc.), and as a favor, my friend put him in. It was heartbreaking. No amount of couching helped. It was astounding - the guy could spoil the simplest of simple things. For example, in one scene, all he had to do was walk out of an airport and stand right outside the door and wait for a taxi. The camera was tracking him from behind, so you didn't even see his face. Well, he managed to destroy that - the way he walked self-consciously as if a parody of "walk", and then he stopped in front of the door and assumed a position of a gunslinger as he looked out for a cab like he was gonna shoot it down. Insane. A bad actor can't even stand mutely well-enough. It's enough to train the camera at him/her, and disaster ensues - uneasy look, furtive glances or dead-zombie expression, it's simply impossible. Let alone more complex work. Now, marginal actor, there you have your room to argue - sometimes you can get a good performance out of a hack; I've seen all sorts of methods, from sleep deprivation to drugs, to screaming to emotional violence... what a chore. Best to get at least a reasonable actor - then it's up to the director to get a performance that is not mediocre.
Oh, and Rolf - you are 100% correct about the Lodz film school - I visited it in 1989 when I was traveling through Eastern Europe and a friend arranged a tour for me - indeed, the Lodz film school dorms had students who were studying directing/dp/production and actors in the same building - so that they all had contact with each other 24/7. Btw. Roman Polanski who was a student at that school was also a child actor and always emphasized the primacy of actors and working with them, and he was willing to stretch to a degree, for example he'd often cast more for the look, but never a complete hack - so if an actor was slightly less talented but had the right look, Polanski would work with him to get a good performance - however, he always tried to get the best talent he could (up to and including The Tenant, because after that Polanski completely lost it, turning out turds). And one way in which he was able to hone his skills is because he had access to scads and scads of actors at school.
Bottom line: sadly, there is no substitute for talent. And as talented directors are rare, and DPs, and composers and so on, so too with actors - great ones are rare... and sadly even competent ones are rare compared to how many people try to be actors; and bad acting, more than a bad DP can do much more to destroy a film. You can have bad/mediocre camera work and bad lighting, but bad acting is fatal to a film.
Why is there bad acting in student films? Because talent is rare - and hollywood pays a lot for it, so they get to select out only the best. You are left with the dregs and the wannabees.
Oh, and Rolf - you are 100% correct about the Lodz film school - I visited it in 1989 when I was traveling through Eastern Europe and a friend arranged a tour for me - indeed, the Lodz film school dorms had students who were studying directing/dp/production and actors in the same building - so that they all had contact with each other 24/7. Btw. Roman Polanski who was a student at that school was also a child actor and always emphasized the primacy of actors and working with them, and he was willing to stretch to a degree, for example he'd often cast more for the look, but never a complete hack - so if an actor was slightly less talented but had the right look, Polanski would work with him to get a good performance - however, he always tried to get the best talent he could (up to and including The Tenant, because after that Polanski completely lost it, turning out turds). And one way in which he was able to hone his skills is because he had access to scads and scads of actors at school.
Bottom line: sadly, there is no substitute for talent. And as talented directors are rare, and DPs, and composers and so on, so too with actors - great ones are rare... and sadly even competent ones are rare compared to how many people try to be actors; and bad acting, more than a bad DP can do much more to destroy a film. You can have bad/mediocre camera work and bad lighting, but bad acting is fatal to a film.
Why is there bad acting in student films? Because talent is rare - and hollywood pays a lot for it, so they get to select out only the best. You are left with the dregs and the wannabees.
nycineaste
Well-known member
also the average beginning filmmaker has 10-50 books on his shelf about screenwriting, cinematography, lighting, etc and none on acting.
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Han...8-1&keywords=practical+handbook+for+the+actor
most starting-out filmkaers dont give a care about learning this stuff , it simply doesnt interest them, what interests them is "cool shots"....
like being a painter and having no interest in paint
"if whats in front of the camera is interesting and believable, it doesnt matter how its shot"
-Stanley Kubrick
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Han...8-1&keywords=practical+handbook+for+the+actor
most starting-out filmkaers dont give a care about learning this stuff , it simply doesnt interest them, what interests them is "cool shots"....
like being a painter and having no interest in paint
"if whats in front of the camera is interesting and believable, it doesnt matter how its shot"
-Stanley Kubrick
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jghenderson
Well-known member
I said anyone that is "open". Trust me i've worked with some people that simply were not going to give a good performance, no matter what I said to them, and that is because their minds were filled with silly theatrical ideas, not to mention the awkwardness they felt in front of a camera.
And I disagree that acting always requires developing your craft. Look at the girl in Beasts of a Southern Wild. She was 6 years old when they filmed the movie, she had zero training, and now she's nominated for an oscar. There are people that given no training and good direction can put out great performances. They might be a rarity perhaps, but they exist. Acting is not like cinematography, where there are specific, technical ideas you must understand before you can even begin to achieve what you want. Acting is mostly intuition, and that is something that is usually innate in a person. You can nurture it, train methods to bring it out, but that is not a necessary path. Emphasis on necessary. It might still be advisable.
Rolf Silber
Veteran
Yes. That's mostly because they somehow are acting a lot even while standing mutely. While wearing an invisible actor's costume. They try so very much to be good - that they forget to be it. That's why at times relaxed laymen can be so good - they do not need to act. They are just there. I stopped acting because I felt I was just a stroke away from outright terrible. And I learned that to have the will is not enough and to have the urge can be dangerous and to have the knowledge can be futile.
The good, old, terrible, heart-wrenching Mozart/Salieri equation. You either have it or .... not really. My personal conclusion after some odd years in the business: The basic ability to act seems to live in the area of the brain where two things are managed - the emotional intelligence and the ability to identify with others (a character of a script in that case). If somebody is not very capable in both of this fields at the same time he/she may - while being otherwise a perfectly nice, healthy, highly intelligent human being - just not be able to produce any believable result in front of a camera or on stage apart from some posing.
I was in Lodz ten years earlier as a young student, watching the "real existing socialism" start crackling and crumbling already - two years before "Solidarnosc" started. What a sight. The city looked like something out of a very nightmarish black-and-white Terry Gilliam movie with surreality-splinters by Tim Burton and Tarkovsky sprinkeld on top. Still I liked the people a lot and we had a great week at the film-academy. Discussing, shouting and singing and Zubrowka vodka and vodka Wyborowa in 100 gramm doses. And pharmacies out of headache pills.... ouch!
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Yes, it is definitely a case of either you have it or not - though "having" can be a matter of degree... which is why some "have" huge talent, and some "have" mediocre talent... and of course, there are those who don't "have". There is also something else at play, I believe. It's how the person "reads" on camera. For some reason, some people just don't come across through the lens. It's similar to a different phenomenon - how models look. I've seen models in real life who look beautiful on camera and in real life - but I've seen models who look freakish in real life, but who photograph great, somehow the facial bone structure and odd proportions in real life just work great on photos (and with makeup!). More rare is the opposite phenomenon, and that's more what I'm thinking about in this case. Back in high school, there was this girl at our school who was generally considered the most beautiful and attractive - she was really quite remarkable. Here's the super bizarre thing: in photos, she came across as quite plain - not ugly, mind you, just "plain"; she didn't look super attractive at all, as she did in real life. The camera just has its own distortion - and it doesn't notice things we notice in real life, like for example in that beautiful girl, her skin was just radiant and perfect, but the camera doesn't care about that! I believe it's the same for acting - there are some people who just read great on camera, and some who don't. So it might not even be about any objective "talent", but about how that talent interacts with the camera; it's like with some theater actors who work great on stage, but not on film, even forgetting about different acting technique for stage vs film... simply, they read differently in real life vs celluloid - the actor may have talent, but it doesn't register for the camera.
Anyhow one can talk endlessly about it, but the bottom line is that the reason you try to get good actors, is because it's such a huge job to try to get a performance out of someone who has nothing in him/her to give. And sadly, it is rare to have any talent, hence bad acting in student films. And by the time the actor is older, all the good ones were taken. I worked on quite a number of no-budget films, and so we used free or low-cost actors - and whenever the script called for an actor older than about 30 or so, I knew we were in trouble, because the older the actor is required, the harder to find a GOOD one for free, because if you were any good, you usually turned professional and so were out of reach of "free" or "low pay" - if you didn't make it as an actor by the age of 40, well, that was most likely because you had no talent at all. Sad but true.
Anyhow one can talk endlessly about it, but the bottom line is that the reason you try to get good actors, is because it's such a huge job to try to get a performance out of someone who has nothing in him/her to give. And sadly, it is rare to have any talent, hence bad acting in student films. And by the time the actor is older, all the good ones were taken. I worked on quite a number of no-budget films, and so we used free or low-cost actors - and whenever the script called for an actor older than about 30 or so, I knew we were in trouble, because the older the actor is required, the harder to find a GOOD one for free, because if you were any good, you usually turned professional and so were out of reach of "free" or "low pay" - if you didn't make it as an actor by the age of 40, well, that was most likely because you had no talent at all. Sad but true.
Ted Spencer
Veteran
Fully agree with everything Rolf and OldCorpse have said here.
And regarding what I said before, yes there are 'natural' actors, as there are natural baseball players, mathematicians etc. But the real ones are exceedingly rare. And almost none of them accomplish at a seriously high level without *extensive* training on top of it. Many a 'natural' who has tried to skip that step has failed...uh...dramatically... : )
And regarding what I said before, yes there are 'natural' actors, as there are natural baseball players, mathematicians etc. But the real ones are exceedingly rare. And almost none of them accomplish at a seriously high level without *extensive* training on top of it. Many a 'natural' who has tried to skip that step has failed...uh...dramatically... : )
Rolf Silber
Veteran
Yet - apart from visual appearance in front of camera we have voice in all it's colours and rhythm, power and elegance of movements. Still for me the most fascinating thing is that at times really good ones can be not so extremely bright human beings - but have this incredible emotional intelligence and an almost spooky adaptability. Worked with one in a movie about a man struck by an aneurysm in the brain - after only one and a half day research he understood the complexities how movements, behaviour and voice can change dramatically through this illness. And had not just copied it - but changed it into a tool he could work with. It became his own very individual aneurysm in a way. We had a former head-nurse of a neurological ward as our expert on the set and she was shocked how precisely and believable this actor performed one of the most complex changes in next to all aspects of human condition.
The good ones, I think at times, read from your voice immediately if they have the part or not after you just said "good morning" to them on the phone.... ;-)
Enter acting school - get a part in a movie in first year - movie is success - leave acting school immediately - have another three parts - out of work and, worse, seen as failed item. It's also what happens so often with kids in movies. Hope that girl from "Beasts" will survive her success or decide that she will become a neuro surgeon instead of an actor later on.....
Ted Spencer
Veteran
This is true, but decidedly the exception in my experience. My other gig is in the music business, where untrained and/or "street smart" types can go a long, long, big-time way. The Beatles are the probably the all-time poster-children for this. No musical training, and...you and everyone else on Earth knows how that story played out...
And regarding 'street-smarts' - one can possess it in great measure while not being particularly intelligent at all. Downright dumb in most other ways sometimes. Quite amazing, that...
Actors, by contrast, at least the successful ones (and almost all the semi-successful ones), tend to be highly trained - the vast majority have college/university degrees (usually but not always in acting), and almost all have worked extensively with numerous private coaches, acting schools, etc. I've seen hundreds of pro actor resumes here in NYC and they *all* looked like this...
PS: Not to be unfairly knocking my music business friends and associates...many of the not-formally-trained ones I know are nonetheless extraordinarily able; downright gifted in many cases, and totally committed, top notch professionals. It's just a different culture, training-wise. That's pop musicians though - classical-ready players and composers are all very highly trained...
And back to your point, there are some very good actors who are surprisingly dim. Not too many though, I find. Thankfully... : )
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KrickProductions
Member
WOW! Thanks to the OP for that link! I had no idea about this channel on YouTube. I love being able to watch other videos and see exactly what went wrong or right. My videos, the two I have made, haven't turned out as well as I originally planned. I am hoping to correct these mistakes for future videos. It amazes me how many people use that horrible camera mic...